Up until now I have written about my life in excerpts, usually to illustrate some point or other, or to share something that I hope will speak to, or help, others. My memoir, An Improbable Psychiatrist, which is published this week, does this too, but is rather more. It is no necklace of events, polished and strung together; it includes the back story, the sad, boring and difficult bits that exist behind most personal stories of mental illness.
I don’t think that I mind so much the idea of people I don’t know reading it – I hope they find it interesting, maybe even insightful at times. It’s more when I think of people I know doing so – the closer they are, the more terrifying – that I break out in a cold sweat. Friends, family, acquaintances all have an idea of what we are like. I see a friend that I have known for years, and, rightly or wrongly, I have a whole concept of her life – of what she is, might like, even the kind of things that have probably happened to her. I probably don’t even think about this, but it’s there. If something alters this, I am uncomfortable. It’s even physical – a very different haircut, or style of dressing, can make me feel uneasy.
So I fear, perhaps most of all, that what I have written may clash with other peoples’ version of me, particularly those who are close to me. As a result, they may then either not believe what I have written, or, worse, not like it – or me. It’s true that I have already written a lot about my life and mental illness, but probably not as much about myself and my family and friends. This uses not just my own memories of events, but my memories of them – and sometimes their memories, what they have told me. Combined with the sensitive subject matter, I have rather laid myself bare.
Memories themselves can be elusive. I may recall an event and be quite sure that I remember it clearly and accurately. But someone else, present at the same time, may say. ‘no, that’s not exactly what happened, I remember, I was there.’ Which memory is correct, and how can we ever know? Because the feeling of remembering something correctly is compelling; I’ve always thought that what I can remember of my life, including early years, is correct, just because I can remember it. More recently I’ve concluded that probably a lot of it is right because it seems to match with others’ recollections, but I no longer pride myself on being so certain. After all, any memory is just that – a memory.
But a memoir is a tale of memories, and perhaps the whole idea is that they may not be what others took for granted. They are memories of how I felt, as well as what happened. Even that may be altered by the passage of time, but it doesn’t necessarily matter. In fact, I mostly wrote this memoir nearly seven years ago, and I might write it differently now. My father recently wrote of his early years, growing up with his brother and sisters on a farm, and although I knew the rough history of his early life, I didn’t know how he’d seen it; still less did I know how he saw it now.
On a positive note, I think my memoir has done something to dispel some of the shame I feel about having a mental illness, as non-one has actually shunned me so far – and a few people have read it. I know it’s ridiculous and stigmatising to others to feel shame, but it’s also important for me to admit that I do feel it. The view of mentally ill people when I was growing up wasn’t very positive; neither did the view of many health professionals when I was a medical student and young doctor particularly dispel this. Being mentally ill is not easy to describe, either, which can make it hard to truly believe, for oneself and others.
I hope that my book gives my perspective of experiencing some of this, as a patient with mental illness, and as a psychiatrist. This is complicated by the fact that having a mental illness and being a patient are probably two slightly different things, albeit overlapping. The former is being ill, which is often very painful. The latter can include being involved in the mental health services, which has a great many challenges of its own. There are also the treatments, which may help, but often have many side effects, also contributing to the stigmatization of patients.
Like any author, I hope people read my book, and I hope they like it. But I really hope that those who know me see in it something of what happened to me and my family, something that seems familiar to them. I hope no-one thinks worse of me for writing about things that that are personal and difficult – or, indeed, for writing about the happier times. It was never supposed to be a misery memoir, and I hope that it might give others hope. I suppose life is a process, and this has just been a part of it for me. I look back to the times before I was ill, and they’re not as idyllic as all that, which, in a way, is reassuring. But there were, and are, some very happy times.