Mental health from both sides
I have referred to the diagnosis of personality disorder in a few of my previous posts. It’s something I have thought about a lot, both in my own dealings with psychiatry as a patient, and also as a psychiatrist, and I can never feel comfortable with it. I’ve tried to justify it as a response…
Continue reading ➞ The difficult diagnosis of personality disorder
I try not to think about ECT too much, but I have been quite open about having had it, and, given that I work as a psychiatrist, there are inevitable reminders. I don’t think that I will ever be able to dwell on it without a degree of inquietude, and there are various reasons for…
A few weeks ago I wrote something about moral injury. This was in the context of reduced alcohol and drug services during the covid pandemic, but I hesitated to post it, as I was concerned that it might seem critical of the organisation where I work, which was not my intent. I have continued to…
Lockdown continues, and my hair carries on growing. Trivial, yet trying, and it does make you think, given that there’s plenty of time to do so. In my youth, I was relatively low maintenance - I was one of those girls who had long hair when it wasn’t fashionable, and I rarely went to the…
The last couple of weeks have been trying for all of us, wherever we live. Fear of covid-19, fear of illness, fear for loved ones, fear for livelihood, fear of isolation. All of these are massive stressors in their own right, so thrown all together their impact is grim. But it is the usual lot…
I’ve already written about psychiatric drugs, but this is a new post, and perhaps more personal than the last. For me, and I suspect others, taking psychiatric medication is a problem every day of my life. It’s like I have two people in me, one saying – ‘Yes, you know you need to take them,…
As patients, we often ponder whether our doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals are caring enough. As a psychiatrist myself, I assume that I am caring. But how do you measure caringness, what exactly is it? How do we know if we have it, and how can we train others to acquire it? Even…
Mental illness is very personal, and also very immediate. When it happens to you, it is all that there is, surrounding you, bending your thinking, affecting what you say to others. But those people that are listening to you are not always in the same place as you, even those who have experienced similar illnesses…
Dead toad on the roadWhere were you going?Who did you hope to meetWhen everything stopped? Toad you are forgottenNo-one mourns youWhat spawn you have begottenThink not of you.
Frog, your legs were long, symmetrical and braveAnd also deadYour arms were crossed across your breastYou looked at rest. What creature killed you, Frog,And left you there?A sacrificed amphibianOn a cold, stone stair.
My mind is souredLike pickles caught in teethLingering past the tasteAnd spreading doubt.I hate the cloak I wearOf clinging knowledgeI hate the doubts I feelAnd they are me and youAnd you.No longer do I taste of milkFresh and sweet and pureMy thoughts are long fermented.I will never know quite whereBut the road to deathIs paved…
So many moments make up a life. Some are forgotten almost instantly, some fade with time, and some are written hard on memory. Some of these are happy, some painful and humiliating. Do we really remember them, or do they curl into something else, worn by memory itself? Do we talk about them, look at…
My second child was due to be born when my daughter was four years old. Psychotic depression, before and after her birth had meant that we thought we would not have another, and it was a joy to think that we might have a different experience. I had been on lithium when the baby was conceived,…
A poem warning of the dangers of ancestry testing & the consequent risk of ill-founded doubt (with thanks to Sylvia Plath) Daddy give me a break Won't you? Daddy what will it take For you To see That I am a part of you? What do you see when you see me Daddy? Is there…
Soundless you ceased to be, Oh my daughter. Unliving A shell of a life A sigh with no start. Is it better To live, twenty years and more, To long and to yearn, To lose the distance That will never come? Or did the pulling darkness, The lack of time, Beguile you more? I never…