It was an intervention for me, in essence. I knew there was something wrong with me. I was not alien to it, but I was again hoping it would go away. But as I got worse my family became more and more concerned, particularly my wife and my sister. It took somebody to shake me and say that I needed to do something about this, that I needed to seek help, that there was something wrong with me, and that it was okay. I basically broke down and explained that I just couldn't escape these images that I was seeing. They were omnipresent. Walking down the street, on the subway, in a business meeting, I was bombarded by things that I just couldn't get out of my head. I was no longer going out with friends or socializing. Life just got incredibly complicated.
Unfortunately in my case, the first place I called was the courthouse to seek help, and of course, those calls went unanswered because at the time, there was court-appointed counselling, but it had to be issued by a judge. I had to phone. You're almost repeating your story over and over again because every health professional you call, you're explaining yourself, saying, “Here's my story.” You're spending 15 minutes on the phone with somebody trying to get access to some sort of service, to explain your situation, and then they say that actually they can't help you. In the end I went to my GP who just threw up her hands and said she would try to get me in contact with what was then CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, but that was a year-long waiting list.
Then I was given a list of counsellors, and again, I was interviewing counsellors. I was calling them up and saying this is what I went through. I was baffled that I was even doing this. Again, at the end of the line...“No, I really can't help you. I deal with mood disorders, and I think you might have one, but it's not the mood disorder that I know of and can help you with. I'm not really trained in that. Let me give you the name of somebody.” Then I was phoning them.
It just boggled my mind that I was doing this.