One discreet futz with the modem later and I have internets! Ha!

So. A couple of brief explanatory phone calls made at nine this morning, fielded by a very nice receptionist who was no doubt terrified she was dealing with a maniac, and I have managed to go from this:

Dear [quietladybirman's powerword],

I am sorry that you were unable to attend your appointment for Cognitive Analytic Therapy on Friday, 26 October 2007 at 2pm.

I am happy to offer you another appointment if you still wish to receive therapy. Could you please let me know on the above telephone number as soon as possible if you wish to be seen? If I don't hear from you by Friday, the 02 November 2007 I will assume that you no longer require therapy and I will discharge you from the psychotherapy department.

(Which letter, for those of you spared from Saturday's hysterical and not entirely sane-sounding babble - trust me, guys, you didn't miss anything I'd care to admit to in mixed company - was received on Saturday, 3 November. Namely one day after the date I was supposed to get back in contact with St Thomas' hospital about rescheduling a psychotherapy session I didn't even know I'd been given, let alone missed, leading to a weekend full of paranoid fears and fancies...)

to something which looks rather more like this:

Dear [quietladybirman's powerword],

Further to our telephone conversations this morning, I confirm that your psychotherapy sessions will begin with [name of therapist], at 10.00 am this Friday, the 9th November.

The address of the Department is:

Psychotherapy Department
Adamson Centre
Lower Ground Floor
Block D, South Wing
St Thomas' Hospital
London SE1

We look forward to seeing you on Friday.

I guess sometimes leaving tearful messages on people's answerphones does work after all, though God knows it's not a strategy I resorted to intentionally. It just kind of happened.

The plan, it being Saturday, was to phone the department with the intention of leaving a reasoned explanation of the situation and a calm request that things be Looked Into. For some reason this turned into me crying at the answerphone and talking disjointedly about how I still needed help and I didn't know I had been given an appointment and please don't discharge me and my sick head. In fact, I had to call back once I calmed down due to the sure knowledge that the first message I left had made absolutely no fucking sense.

Guess I definitely do still require therapy if I can't handle something as easily rectified as that without auditioning for a nervous breakdown.

Really, I like to think my reaction was understandable. I've been waiting for a letter about this psychotherapy appointment for the last three months. Technically, if you include the fact I knew there was a six-month waiting list, I've been waiting twice as long as that again. To then be kicked off the list after missing an appointment I didn't know I was given would have been too much.

The irony of this happening a couple of days after my complaining that nothing nice usually comes in the mail and all I normally get are bank statements and the occasional doctor's letter bitching about missed appointments, is not lost on me. Though I was thinking about appointments for smear tests which are, for various reasons, utterly pointless for a sweet little nun like me.

(Yeah, a sex life would be nice.)

ANYWAY. I have an appointment with a psychotherapist on Friday. We'll see what happens. If nothing else, I'll call it research.