Mental health from both sides
When I call myself a patient and a doctor, they seem like two opposites, two sides of the same table. In mental illness they are often perceived very differently – one with knowledge and power, one suffering and in need of help. They don’t join together well. They make a whole with an empty centre,…
Psychiatry and psychiatrist are powerful words. They stop conversations, and create awkward gaps. I try not to say I am a psychiatrist in social settings, sometimes muttering something about being a doctor, and usually wriggling out of anything further. Conversely, in a clinical setting, I always tell patients that I am a psychiatrist, probably because…
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…
My brain has been somewhat exercised of late, both by my own internal wrangles about psychiatric treatments and by various online debates, particularly about ECT. These debates often seem to be moral and emotional in nature, making it particularly hard to contribute or indeed come to any conclusions. I am someone with a very precarious…
It’s come round again, and so have all those feelings which made me feel so ashamed last year. Ashamed, but also slightly uneasy (a bad combination); and it may just be that the cape acquired at grumpyoldwomen.com is fitting me rather better. But crazy socks for docs has this effect on me, and I’m not…
This is pure self-indulgence – I know there are many tall people who would like to be shorter, fat who would like to be thinner, old who would like to be younger, and perhaps the vice versas. And what about those who are shunned for race, sexuality, illness? That is far more grave. But we…
I’m never too sure what I think about stigma. If you asked me now, my immediate response would be that it has had no adverse effect on my life, and of course that has to be rubbish. Things affect us insidiously, such that we discount them, or don’t even notice them. Sometimes it’s only when…
What am I most ashamed of? Not of my diagnosis of bipolar disorder, that’s actually reasonably respectable - which is probably why I don’t find it easy to believe. But shame wraps a tight cloak around us all, one that feeds itself and whispers that no-one must know. What is it that fosters shame? Is…