Why do you think that the GP didn’t refer him for counselling straight away?

I don’t know. Whether it’s, whether it’s just an easy option to write out; she gave him a print out from the Internet to say about depression and panic attacks and all that for him to read.  But obviously he’d already been on the Internet and looked at stuff and that hadn’t helped him, which is why he went for outside help. He needed to talk to someone.

Hmm.

I suppose the next option would have been for him to go and pay for a professional counselling but he wasn’t a person to go to a, a doctor’s …

Hmm.

If he’d gone, you know that it was something serious that was worrying him that he couldn’t cope with because he wasn’t one to go to the doctor’s.

Hmm.

But she didn’t link onto that.  When he first went to the doctor’s she didn’t want me in the room.  She said, “This is a confidential thing between patient and doctor”, and he had to persuade her to let me in, to sit in on the interview.

Hmm.

Or the, the consultation. Because he was worried that he might forget something that might be of help to make him better. But she was insistent on him taking these tablets and the counselling thing, although we asked and asked, it was, “Let’s try this first.” 

Did he ask more than once for some counselling?   

Yeah, he said that, “I don’t want to take tablets; I do need to talk to someone.  Is there someone I can go and talk to?” And she said, “No, we’ll, it’s normal for us to try tablets first, this is what I’ll give you.” 

Hmm. 

And she explained what they were and I mean I can’t even remember the name of them now, but he never cashed in the prescriptions, there was no way he was going to take them. Knowing him, knowing that he wouldn’t even take paracetamol for a headache, he’s not going to take anti-depressants.

Do you think he told the doctor he wasn’t going to take them or did he not want to? 

Well he, he told her that she was wasting the paper printing out a prescription. So, but, that was what she was going to do and that was what she did.

Hmm.

But I mean, every patient’s different. I mean, it’s difficult for the doctor’s to know whether people are just saying it or how the situation is.  But for Darrell, he was never going to take them.

Hmm. 

Sometimes it helps them to take it and then they can work past it and …

Hmm.

… everyone’s different.