Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a very silly movie, I have to say.
But that’s just by the way. It’s time for This Week in Mentalists.
Seaneen compares her relative experiences of psychiatrists and mental health nurses.
I much prefer dealing with nurses than I do with psychiatrists. Part of this is due to one of my own prejudices- I am uncomfortable with wealth. I don’t like sitting opposite someone who is judging me and who will drive to his or her own nice home when I will shuffle back to my existence on benefits. I feel deeply ashamed sitting in my ill-fitting clothes as their designer watch glints in the morning light. It is a prejudice, I’m aware of it.
I have never met a psychiatrist who has even attempted to show a shred of humanity to me. Nurses do, because you establish a rapport with them. Occasionally, you’ll see a slice of their own life. In my CPN’s car, I saw her baby seat so then knew she had a young son who she sometimes mentioned afterwards. I know she used to smoke and is jealous when I roll my cigarettes at the end of our meetings. Psychiatrists, though, are all business, and it’s difficult to speak to someone like that, especially when you are already guarded and paranoid.
There’s quite an interesting debate that follows. Some people agree with Seaneen. Others say the opposite – that they’ve had far more positive experiences from psychiatrists than from RMNs. There’s probably an element of anecdote and luck-of-the-draw experience to it. I may make a longer post pondering this subject at some point, if I can marshall my thoughts together.
Teen blogger Dumped By a Hallucination is frustrated by trying to discuss mental illness with her friends.
So the other day, I was with a bunch of friends sitting around in some chairs and they were talking. I was slumping in the corner staring at a glass cabinet and wishing that the window would open and that I could climb out of it, because I am a social butterfly that way: some days it is my friends that win my favour, some days it is the roof. Then Danny, Bipolar Expert of 2008 because she watched a documentary a few years ago, said in excited tones that:
“Hey, we know this man, and sometimes he feels really high and sometimes he feels really low, and they think he’s going to turn into… a manic depressive!”
Aethelred the Unread is preoccupied by thoughts of death.
What actually do I contribute to the planet? I’m basically nothing but a carbon footprint with no lifestyle attached. I don’t work. I don’t play. To my family and friends I’m basically just a burden. They’re too kind to put it like that of course, but still, all I am is something to worry vaguely about – “I wonder how Aethelread is – I really should send him an email/ make plans to go and visit him.”
If I was dead, they’d be spared that, at least. Of course they’d be upset for a while, some of them quite badly. For a few weeks they’d find themselves crying at odd moments, for a few months they’d feel a mixture of sadness and guilt when they thought about me, for a few years they’d feel vaguely wistful when they remembered to think about me. But then it would be over. Pretty soon they would have forgotten all about me, and that would be one less thing for them all to worry about.
As you might have gathered, I’m in one of those states of mind where I find myself wishing I was dead. I’m not actively suicidal, but I am longing for death.
Meanwhile Serotonin is plagued by feelings of guilt.
You know I get guilt quite a lot & I know it’s part of the depression .This time it’s to do with asking ASW if I could do CBT for depression/anxiety with him rather than the Therapist.He did ask me reasons for wanting to do this because I had told the Therapist that CBT hadn’t worked before – well I told him a lot.I told him in paticular that when I did CBT with previous CPN I was pushed into seeking a divorce from hubby, also by the Bastard Shrink.Obviously he was surprised at this, but did say that it might have been them trying to look at reasons for my depression.As it turned out I was in such a bad way those 6 years ago that I ended up being hospitalised because I couldn’t handle a split & didn’t want one anyway.
The Shrink is getting tied up in paperwork.
I used to write on blank paper. Life was simple.
Now we’ve care pathways for oodles of things. Each has its own booklet to fill in with squillions of boxes. Have you documented that you’ve assessed capacity in the Capacity box? Have you signed and dated this? Have you initialled and dated the “discussed managed choice” bit and listed what options were proffered? Have you recorded biochemical indices before initiating an antipsychiotic? Have you commented on the ECG you then invariably undertook, since the patient’s on an antipsychotic?
Cockroach Catcher considers the role of psychotherapy.
A good therapist is hard to come by, and should be like a wise aunt or uncle to whom one turns to for advice that one may or may not accept or act on. A good therapist needs to be intelligent and broad-minded, and mature with rich life experience. A bad therapist, on the other hand, takes over and does not allow for any leeway on how one should continue with life.
We may forget too that good therapy is for life, and may be more useful for the mentally healthy than for the mentally sick. What government or insurer would allow for that?
Useless CPN dislikes NHS politics. (So do I, incidentally)
What I hate most about my job sometimes is all the politics. I really don’t want to know. I’m not a Manager, I don’t want to be a Manager. What I want to know is that my patients are getting the best care.
I have been copied into emails flying around today regarding one of my patients who has spent some time in a Private Hospital as the Trust had no beds. Now I will leave my thoughts on Private Hospitals for another post, but basically I was berated by the Bed Manager yesterday for suggesting that he should stay in another few days (there was a valid clinical reason). He was adamant that he had to be discharged today. Clinically it was reasonable, so I had no problem with it, but it then turns into some game-playing between the Private Hospital and the Trust, with me stuck in the middle like a muppet.
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