Mental health from both sides
Writing about ECT, as a patient, comes round for me, again and again. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that I’m not entirely sure what I’ve said and written already – indeed, perhaps that’s the whole point. I don’t know how many treatments I’ve had. I know I had quite a lot (?20) last winter, and…
I am very happy to finally feel that I am shedding the last horrible remnants of my recent depression. I feel much better, possibly slightly on the high side, which I find hard to admit, much harder, actually, than saying I’m depressed. And it’s not too bad, so why worry? Nothing that can’t be managed with…
Not very long ago I was quite ill, in fact probably very ill indeed. Throughout my decades of illness, I have found it difficult to understand and recognise my illness; more recently I seem to have become more aware of my mood swings, and that they don’t necessarily align with what is happening or what…
The experience of having ECT has always been frightening for me, though – going through that door - repeatedly - to a place I can never really remember.
There are many unbearable aspects to depression, and sometimes it seems that the words available just won’t do – awful, terrible, crushing. There are many more. This can be particularly hard with recurrent depression, as each time it is freshly grim, something you had previously forgotten, and it never helps when people say – You,…
I sometimes wonder why we talk differently about risk in psychiatry than we do in other medical specialties. The risk of harm or death is high in many illnesses, yet in psychiatry we manage risk in a way that seems much more personally attributable. There are balances of risk in diagnosing and managing heart disease,…
What is energy, as we experience it? It is a word with a positive force behind it, that glows and lives, and is the opposite of all that one usually experiences when depressed. Personally I find it quite difficult to recognise the feeling of low mood when I’m depressed, but reduced energy is actually more…
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…
I think I have always experienced anxiety. Not all the time, in that I’m not always anxious, but it has always lurked in the background, waiting to spoil things. I don’t know how much anxiety is normal though, and perhaps mine is a sensible and healthy amount. No anxiety at all would be quite a…
We all have a personality, but, when you move into the realms of psychiatry and mental health, this term can take on a rather different meaning. It is often also very difficult to discuss, something which is hardly surprising, given the fact that personality disorder can be seen as a punitive diagnosis, one of exclusion…
I used to think that being present in any particular situation ensured accuracy. By this I mean accuracy of observation and also of recall; that standing witness to events was always reliable. As a child, I thought of the years as a climbing staircase, with different events, schools and holidays marking out the way. In…
When we drink alcohol, or use other recreational drugs, there is usually a rapid effect. Scarcely has the glass been placed back down, than a feeling of well-being – or whatever your drug of choice promotes – radiates through the limbs and settles happily in the cranial control unit. Obviously, more may be taken, and…
Continue reading ➞ Psychiatric drugs – mainly antidepressants
Depression is not about feeling sad. It is really difficult to describe, and even to remember, between episodes. When gone, it dissolves and weakens, the same way that dreams disappear, becoming just a pallid description that in no way evokes the experience. But for me it is does not conjure sadness or tears; in some…
It would be daft to think that stress plays no role in mental illness – it is, after all, a normal human reaction in difficult and challenging situations, and I doubt that I’m alone in finding the experience of mental illness really quite stressful. I get stressed when I am ill, and often worry about…