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Doctor & Patient

Mental health from both sides

Tag: psychiatric patient

Modern life and expectations

8th May 20228th May 2022Leave a Comment on Modern life and expectations

When I am lying in my comfortable bed at night, I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had been born, one hundred, five hundred, even one thousand years ago. And usually I breathe a sigh of relief that this is not the case, and turn over and go to sleep.…

Continue reading ➞ Modern life and expectations

Psychiatric beds

26th April 202227th April 20223 Comments on Psychiatric beds

These wards contain so many people’s individual horrors, and there needs to be enough beds and enough people to carry all this and care for them. Otherwise we lose our humanity.

Being a psychiatrist – any regrets?

17th April 202217th April 20221 Comment on Being a psychiatrist – any regrets?

Becoming a psychiatrist was very important to me as a young doctor. As a patient, who had been in and out of a psychiatric hospital, it felt like a lost dream, something I could never hope to achieve. It is true that I had wanted to train as a psychiatrist before I became ill, but…

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My family, my illness and me

20th March 202220th March 20222 Comments on My family, my illness and me

My family never ask about my mental illness. They never ask how I am, whether I take medication, whether it works. I’ve no idea why, because I don’t ask them why they don’t, either. We’re not that kind of family. By family, I mean my birth family, the one in which I grew up. Of…

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Normal lives in difficult times

27th February 202227th February 2022Leave a Comment on Normal lives in difficult times

There’s something about leading a normal life when terrible things are happening in the world that is very odd. We wake up, and we eat, and we go about our business. We feel horror at what is happening, and fear of what might be to come, but, for most of us, our lives simply continue.…

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Petrol station flowers

14th February 202214th February 20221 Comment on Petrol station flowers

Is Valentine’s Day a good thing? Or can it be harmful? Does it make people happy, or is it a celebration that we should consign to the past? I can only draw on my own experiences, which are sadly minimal, but I can and will extrapolate. When I think of Valentine’s Day, I immediately picture…

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Birthday musings

4th February 202214th February 2022Leave a Comment on Birthday musings

Today is my birthday. I am a day older than I was yesterday, that’s all, certainly not a whole year older. So it’s odd that we worry so much about the increasing numbers that pop up every birthday to remind us of time passing. I never wanted to be older than I was – when…

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Disempowerment in mental illness

24th January 202224th January 20223 Comments on Disempowerment in mental illness

The idea that a psychiatrist could feel disempowered by mental illness may well seem ridiculous. Even when that psychiatrist is also a psychiatric patient, the notion may raise an eyebrow or two, although I am well aware that my professional position can put me in a position of power. Perhaps this knowledge is what also…

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Boredom and depression

13th December 202113th December 20213 Comments on Boredom and depression

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,…

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Preparing for mental illness

6th December 20216th December 20213 Comments on Preparing for mental illness

How do you prepare for mental illness? I think it is exceedingly hard, and can often require the kind of confidence that is, by definition, missing in such circumstances. I have never managed to prepare well, by which I mean that I have no written plan as to what care I would prefer. The saddest…

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Self-care or self-spare

26th October 202126th October 20213 Comments on Self-care or self-spare

I realised last week that I might need to take a bit of time off work. I’m not very ill – I wouldn’t be writing this if I were – but neither am I completely well, if well is as good as it gets, or ought to get. I have had a diagnosis of a…

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Being good and staying alive

16th October 202116th October 20211 Comment on Being good and staying alive

When I was young and hopeful and sixteen, striving for dreams and ideas, I learnt German at school. I must have learnt quite a lot, because I read Bertolt Brecht and listened to Lieder, and was probably quite a pain in the arse. I’ve forgotten most of it since, but there is a phrase that…

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Risk and fear

18th September 202118th September 20211 Comment on Risk and fear

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,…

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Depression – a lack of energy

10th August 202110th August 20213 Comments on Depression – a lack of energy

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…

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Stories of illness

1st February 20211st February 20211 Comment on Stories of illness

I’ve wondered recently why we, as doctors and other health professionals, choose to tell our own stories of illness. You would think that we would want to swerve away from all such things, faced as we are with illness and suffering, often on a daily basis. But not only do these stories continue to be…

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