This high-end clinic takes seriously the consideration of a patient's family. To that end, every clinical 'team' to which any patient is assigned, includes a fully certified social worker. Even I have a social worker here. This is a new experience for me, as I have avoided living with others since I left my family of origin, and I don't have significant others, or dependents, or in-laws, or what have you.

Part of the initial six-week evaluation includes a detailed family history for each patient. The new patient goes over their family history with the social worker in particular. This is going to result in the social worker drawing up something I have never seen before, they call it a geno-gram. Still in preparation, I think I have supplied all of my information but I have yet to see this diagram.

The other thing the social worker does, has two parts to it, and that is the social worker advocating on behalf of the patient to the patient's family.
Firstly, the patient and the social worker decide whether any family member is to have information disclosed to them about the patient's status and treatment, and whatever is decided, a formal agreement is drawn up, signed, and dated, to that end.
Secondly, the social worker contacts the patient's relatives to interview them about the patient's history from the relatives' point of view.

This month, my assigned social worker received my permission to talk by phone with one of my blood relatives, not saying which one. It would have to be, wouldn't you know, one of the relatives who is most disruptive. In the end, it had to be so: it is the family that decides which relatives will manage affairs and monitor communications on the family's behalf, so even though this relative is one of the unbalanced ones, communicating through this person conforms to family expectations -- and is more satisfactory to the family. The thing is, I now have an advocate in this social worker, doing the communicating on my behalf, and this clinician is the one who takes the heat, not me.

I can't even put into words how huge this is for me.
This kind of advocacy is something even my attorney, financially oriented as my attorney is, has not provided for me.
I suppose I ought to be really emotional about this, and pleased about it.
Instead I feel worn out and exhausted. Having turned this corner, so to speak, I'm just so tired and weary -- okay, depressed -- from years of putting a brave face on and keeping the stiff upper lip, and not giving anybody the satisfaction of seeing me show any signs of vulnerability. More than anything, I feel like rest and quiet is what I need.

For these reasons, the coronavirus restrictions pose no hardship for me at all: the clinic campus is my home, the care is excellent, and I can actually rest and relax as I have not done in years. I feel too weary even to weep, although someday the tears will come -- I know there is at least one good cry inside of me, I'm just too weary to let it out.