I don’t care for arguments about what I write, nor do I wish anyone to try and outsmart me and prove me wrong, which wouldn’t be hard to be honest. I just want to post about my experiences and hopefully have a bit of a discussion with others about the same in a friendly and non-threatening manner.

My intention is not to rubbish anyone elses points, as they do add to the mix on here, but the mix recently has been a bit too intellectual and at times, vicious, for me recently.

I don’t see myself as not very bright, but nor am I incredibly well read on mental health, or on any subject really. I just know what is important to me. I am getting the feeling that this post may be a little too fluffy for some, but I think we need some serious fluff at this time.

I had an interview for my first post as a RMN recently. Woo! I was asked similar questions (and lots more on top I have to add) as I had at my initial interview. Why did you go into nursing?

It may be tired and a bit of a cliche, nevertheless it’s still true. I went into nursing to care, for some job satisfaction. To feel that I can make a positive change in someones everyday life. Even if it is as simple as the older lady with continence issues that I helped to clean up, to regularly speaking to (and listening to) the man who thinks everything in his life is negative with no hope who eventually leaves feeling that there actually might just be something worth looking forward to.

I was asked if I have any regrets about starting my course. Absolutely not. Never. I love enjoying my work and actually being interested enough to find out more about subjects I need to learn more of at the end of a challenging shift.

I don’t think I have to be excessively book smart, although I know I have to have a pretty good knowledge base before I can confidently aim to work with someone with complex issues. Person centred care may be the in thing, but in my opinion, is pretty accurate to effectively work with our patients. Listing symptoms is not enough to treat a mental health problem. Each individual has their own history, issues, problems, highs and lows, each affecting their current situation.

People are fascinating.

I have now lost my point entirely, if there ever was one.

(I haven’t heard about the job yet, in case you wondered)

IMPORTANT NOTE - the letter that is between u and w in the alphabet doesn’t work on my keyboard! So it has been substituted for y. Why? Yes thats right, y. But why? Because it is physically similar to the untypable letter (etc…).

I don’t think I’m a real person you know. Maybe thats a bit harsh. Maybe I mean I’m just not a singular identity. More of a mishmash of ideas, thoughts, emotions, reflections and actions, that if you took a freeze frame shot of at any giyen time, would allegedly constitute a person.

But why the sudden existential malaise I hear you cry (in the barren wilderness)?

Because…

I haye a new beau (it doesn’t look right) (she does though (sighs)).
We got drunk, exposed our darkest secrets and surprise surprise, we both haye mental health issues.

I haye intense feelings for this girl, and when she finally opened up to me I felt an overwhelming desire to be strong, to be whatever she needed, to be her rock.
But I didn’t manage it.
She enquired after me, encouraged me to relax and be honest. So I did, went insecure and needed as many cuddles as she did.

Wait! No problem so far.
Twas a beautiful eyening and we haye moved on one step further (although I’m convinced she is gonna dump me ‘cos I’m weird!).

But.

I engaged in a process of unstructured, mental reflection and realised that this doesn’t happen when I am Nurse.
I can sit with people, build up relationships, care for them, empathise, see their life, see how bad it is, see how much mental health services are responsible for this negative state yet never break down and confess my feelings of guilt at being part of a system that I despise for its practical failings, yet adore for the potential it holds, if only in my own mind.
I never let the other person in, because my profession is incongruous with my ideals.
But how can you truly build a relationship with someone, who you are asking to trust you with their deepest, darkest secrets, if you can’t be honest about your position?

I feel I shine when I am true to myself and am honest with others. Hence that is when SuperNurse appears.
But what poor individual really needs an enlightened nurse assigned to them, who happily informs them that mental health nursing is morally corrupt, but don’t worry, ‘cos I’m alright, Jack?

Who are we going to be when we go into work today?

Conscientious person?
Conscientious nurse?
Honest person?
Honest nurse?

At the moment, when I engage with patients, I feel like I’m holding back a terrible secret. That I haye precious little faith in the system I hae chosen to be a cog in

Plan B looms eyer larger on the horizon…

…driving trains all day for a better wage!

I could give you pages worth, & start at the beginning & all that, but lets face it, one rambling ‘woe is meeee!’ story is much like another, so we’ll skip to the vaguely relevant points, and if anyone wants me to fill in the gaps, I’ll talk your ears off then.

So, near the beginning. Early Summer 2000, I was 14, with a BMI at the time of about 14.5-15.5. After being taken to the doctors by my mother, who was understandably less than impressed at my refusal to eat anything, I was referred to Dr K of a Child & Adolescent Mental Health Unit (I intend to send her a very, very rude letter someday). I was initially open to this. If I’m honest, the eating disorder was a calculated, fully deliberate attempt at gaining psychiatric help, for the (respectively) less believable and socially acceptable problems of depression & self injury.

Dr K was awful. She reduced every member of my family to tears at one point or another – and again we let her. All we had was the Hollywood view of shrinks – that the more they touch nerves, the more they’re helping. And eventually it’ll ‘click’, there’ll be tears & hugs & you’ll be all fixed & ride off into the sunset. Ha!

For factual evidence, her appointments were generally about 2 weeks apart with nothing in-between – she spoke of organising weekly weigh ins & a nutritionist, but these never materialised. She’d set me homework – food diaries, pros & cons of seeing your dad – and never ask to see it. She argued with my answers to open questions like ‘you realise you’ll get too thin, right?’.
And here comes rant

#1 – you simply cannot BE that goddamn slack with a young teenager, initially presenting ED symptoms!

They’re thoroughly moody & hormonal, prone to shooting themselves in the foot just to mildly piss you off, they can go downhill fast, and most of all – you have the chance to nip this in the bud. Essentially save a life. You can save them or screw them, and there’s no margin for error.

I eventually refused to see her, and ‘got better’ (i.e., ate) on my own. Obviously all parents like to believe this magical transformation is real, it’s ‘just a phase’ and now over, but this certainly wasn’t true in my case.

Scroll forward 3 years. I’ve since dropped out of college, moved in with my boyfriend (including exciting incidents such as painting the entire conservatory in my own blood after downing 1/3 bottle of vodka – I was one of the under 18s prescribed seroxat, and yeah, it makes with the crazy. Amusingly I wasn’t even sad at the time, I was having great fun. Now that is disturbing), refused to get a job & moved back home again. Cue more fun with anorexia. By now I’d started purging too, and this was my final ‘tool’ to allow for extreme weight loss. That year I got down to a BMI of 11.1, with the photos to prove it.

I was fairly convinced that I ‘wasn’t designed for life’, but just the same I got the ball rolling with Getting Help – one should always have a back up plan.

I had to give my GP the address of a specialist ED unit in Birmingham, he’d never even heard of it. After the first referral got lost and we chased things up, we were told we were outside of their catchment area. I would go to a man named M, who covered the local area. Who was the only person to cover the whole local area. Riiiight.

After much failure at finding this M geezer, we book a (privately paid for) assessment with Dr R of the QE. He comes to my house, speaks to parents & myself, and with a BMI of 12.4 at the time, labels me ‘high risk’. He tells me I must go through the normal system, but that if this doesn’t work out, to phone him, and I can see him. Excellent – a safety net. He seems a really nice guy.

Push forward a while later, and M is the invisible man – people have never heard of him. People at places where he WORKS have never heard of him. Eventually I get up the courage (and/or desperation) to phone up Dr R. Who takes out my safety net with a fucking Uzi, Arnie style. Apparently I must Go Through The System. His hands are tied by The System. I must see M first, dislike him, and from there be referred to Dr R. No queue jumping. Which is kinda hard when M is a ghost.

I make a new diet plan. 55lbs, followed by death. Deliberate suicide in May, if still lingering. Fortunately, once death is a real prospect, I notice everyone else. Being Happy. Having Lives. And decide to give it a shot (short version – I gained weight, got a job, got a horse, promptly relapsed for another year, but in the long term, the ED is no longer a huge factor in my now much improved life. The process largely sucked though).

I eventually saw M, after my mum pulled the ‘we will complain, and my husband is a local councillor’ card. Most people wouldn’t be so fortunate. The specialist nutritionist was awesome; I forget her name, but kudos to her. M was odd. He talked a lot about my poo, was very skinny himself, and mostly triggered me. Cheers dude.

On which subject, I’ve since seen a General Shrink at the same place – he wouldn’t ask me questions, and I wouldn’t volunteer information, I was so used to squashing it down. We spent 3 or 4 hour sessions in silence, with him reading a book. I fucking give up on these people, honestly.

So the overall result? Well, I’ve got A Life, and I am a Real Person. I have friends & a personality, a job and a fairly reasonable career plan, I’m doing Learn Direct courses, hoping to move out next year. The ED is pretty much in the background. That said, I’m also an on/off intravenous stimulant abuser (mostly ‘on’, if we’re honest, given the resultant lumpy nails, glandular fever & IBS) with a BMI of about 15 (and I put my current status of ‘more happy and sane than I’ve been since I was a kid’ down 100% to abusing ecstasy & hallucinogens. No word of a lie. I believe that shrinks are good for some people, but for me – what’s the point wallowing? Who gives a good god damn if daddy was mean & mommy wasn’t loving enough – how old are you, five?! You’re grown up, and that excuse is weak. You can go over it ‘til your blue in the face, ain’t no answers in the past. Suck it up & move on. Pills’ll force you to know what happiness is, and shrooms’ll put you through hell, but they’ll teach you a lot. Incidentally, I rarely touch either these days, although will always hold great affection for both. When you get the message, put down the phone) & I last cut myself about 2 months ago.

I’m definitely not ‘fixed’, and my bumbling & crazy path of ‘self help’ has definitely screwed over a good few years of my life, but I’m positive/optimistic these days, I can see myself having a normal, happy life someday, with any luck.

Gotta say though – no thanks to the NHS. I’m kinda proud that it’s ‘all me’, and that I was taught there’s no safety net – look after yourself or die, but there’s a part of me that’s still goddamn bitter as hell.

The NHS is an awesome thing, America baffles me – you fall down, break your leg, and first you gotta go through your pockets, make sure you can afford to NOT die of gangrene in the gutter?! Crazy.. But yeah, on the mental health side – they’re doing more damage than good. If my younger brother ever shows any sign of Nuttiness, I’ll be pretty scared from him.

Anyone with mentally ill children – do not fear over-reacting.. Get out some savings & go private. You want ME being your kid in a few years time? No, I thought not.

I have an eating disorder. Not Bulimia or Anorexia but EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). This means that I alternate between puking and starving. I also have rules. Bread has to be eaten in even numbers. Cake is evil. Carbohydrates are secretly plotting against me. Diet Coke is the elixir of youth and beauty.

My EDNOS is 19 years old. It started with Anorexia when I was fifteen. Then I progressed to Bulimia, otherwise known to some as a failed anorexic. You do the maths. I’m too ashamed to get my calculator out.

My weight fluctuates between slightly overweight, slightly underweight and somewhere in between. Which proves that my methods of losing weight aren’t that efficient, but this is not about logic. This is not about doing the right things like eating less or exercising more. This is not about being sensible or healthy or a shining example of mental health. This is not Jamie Oliver and his organic pig testicles.

This is not about looking good on the beach or wanting to be a supermodel. This is not about wanting the cute guy in the coffee shop to beg for your telephone number. This is not about sliding a pair of skinny jeans over your hipbones and laughing all the way to the check out till.

This is not about wanting attention until complete strangers force feed you Black Forest Gateau and siphon double cream into your skinny latte. It is not about deliberately pissing off the nurses by hiding your peas under your fork and stashing butter in the bed pans. It is not about starving for all the children in Africa. It is not about reading the magazines and pining for the Body Mass Index of Paris Hilton’s pet Chihuahua. This is not a conspiracy created by the Patriarchal system to oppress women.

This is about having the self-esteem of a gnat’s arse. This is the polite way of committing suicide. This is about having no life because it’s impossible to order a bowl of dry cereal in a restaurant and ask them to hold the raisins. This is about weighing pasta, cereal, raisins and anything that passes your lips, including toothpaste. This is about secrets and lies and shame. This is about not wanting to admit that you need to eat. That you deserve to live.

This is about being scared. This is about being terrified. Of everything.

This is about control. This is about sex. This is about putting relationships on hold until your thighs don’t meet in the middle and by then you have no libido anyway. This is about hiding under layers of clothing that are mostly black. This is about “Please don’t look at me and cover all the mirrors with black crepe.” This is about avoiding the camera, even at your sister’s wedding. This is about intense self hatred.

This is about needing so much that you can’t stand it. This is about having emotions that bubble up and spill out all over the carpet and stink up the whole house. This is about having too many choices and too much pressure and isn’t it easier just to keep it simple and obsess about the amount of calories in a small cantaloupe? Instead of making big scary choices that might crush you to a pulp?

This is about wanting to be safe. This is about wanting to curl up in a nutshell like Thumbelina and ignore the big bad world that’s too noisy and dangerous and can’t be trusted. This is about not trusting anyone and relying on food (or lack of) to give you an all enveloping comfort blanket when the medication bloats you up like a corpse in a river.

This is about really crappy coping methods. This is about making a choice that will quite possibly kill you. This is about failed relationships, waiting lists, devastated families, waiting lists, becoming vegetarian, becoming vegan, becoming lactose intolerant, developing a wheat allergy and more waiting lists. This is about infertility, rotten teeth, and hollow bones. This is about cardiac arrest in a shopping centre. This is about being sick. This is about not being sick enough. This is about finally being sick enough for a bed in a unit until you drop down dead and you get a mention in the local paper for being such a model student.

This is not about food.

I am Bloo, a 2nd year Mental Health Student Nurse. I will start my final year in September ‘07. I have been visiting Mental Nurse for some time now, having not so recently changed my name. I fancied something different.

I often have trouble remaining (or even starting to be) serious, so expect some utter nonsense from me from time to time. I will hold back when posting here to try to keep up the excellent standard.

Now all we need is Mo to start posting regularly and this site will be fantastic instead of brilliant!

Oh, and you can see a photo of me here. Unfortunately I did not have on by Bloo uniform that day.

The “departure lounge” was not just an elephant’s graveyard for patients, it also performed the same function for staff. It was staffed mainly by elderly “burnt-out” nurses who had been dumped there by a new regime and left to get on with it. Perhaps the nursing admin of the day viewed them as embarrassing mistresses from previous sordid affairs, to be hidden away, while, like the patients, they withered, awaiting their final release. Some of the patients and staff had known each other for decades and had fell into fixed ways of coping with each other. I’m wandering away off topic here so will try and get back on line.

Looking back now, it seems crazy that a healthy young man was frightened of these frail elderly patients but frightened I was, after all they were officially “mad”, they might attack me at any moment. I was seriously impressed by the confidence of the older nurses, they showed no fear of the homicidal maniacs. I wanted to be confident and competent like them. Having no benchmarks for caring for the mentally ill, all I could do was follow the example of the professionals (if ever a line sounded like a defence plea from the guilty then that was it!). I’m not going to say it was all bad because it wasn’t. In fact, what went on was perhaps outdated but it was all well meant and for the most part quite touching and kind.

The ward was run as a therapeutic community (interpret that with a similar pinch of salt used with the word rehab) and I was told the patients had to be encouraged to participate in this community or they would withdraw into their own little disconnected worlds. All very admirable you might think. I guess it all depends on how you define “encourage” and where you draw the line between encouraging and bullying. Following examples set by staff, I’m pretty sure I sometimes bullied patients, occasionally shouting at them to “encourage” them to participate. I’m sure my behaviour was akin to that of some dreadful old style school PE teacher. I was told that if “they” didn’t respond when you spoke to them, you had to shout or they would just ignore whippersnappers like me. Similar encouragement was used to get patients up in the mornings. Worst of all was “seeing to their personal hygiene”. Fortunately/Unfortunately, most of these folks were very subservient but I remember one guy (an informal patient) in particular who absolutely hated having a bath. Once a week he was carried kicking and screaming, dunked in a bath and washed, totally against his will. The only questions asked by nurses (including myself) was “top and tail” or “a leg and a wing”. One of the saddest things in retrospect was that very few patients had any personal belongings. There were no personal clothes, just ward stock. Although you soon got familiar with the ward clothes and remembered that the green tweed trousers fitted Big Jimmy, most of the morning was often spent trying to find clothes to fit the patients. Quite apart from the lack of dignity, identity, etc, imagine not even having your own pants and everybody wearing the same ones, absolute yeuch! I still find it hard to believe that I didn’t find this appalling at the time and just merrily accepted it as the way it was. Was that really me?

The model of care could probably best be described as patriarchal containment. Patients’ rights and their ability to consent and make decisions was regarded as extremely limited. They could pick whether they wanted beef or chicken for dinner but that was about it. They were cared for on a daily basis whether they liked it or not. And I participated fully in this.

I had been honing my skills as a junior SS officer for a couple of months when a student nurse came to the ward on placement. I was immediately bowled over by her different approach, she displayed profound kindness and sensitivity towards all the patients. She had a quiet, caring, supportive manner and although she didn’t always manage to get them to wash, she certainly made them smile. I immediately knew she was doing the right thing and that I had found a role model to emulate. I wanted to learn more about doing the right thing so applied to do my RMN training. I was accepted on the condition that I survived three months in “the bowels”, a notorious psychogeriatric ward.

It was called “the bowels” for two reasons. Firstly and most obviously because of the smell which hit you once you had contorted and gained entry by mastering the three door handles that kept the unit officially “unlocked”. The second reason it was called “the bowels” was because it was on the lower floor/basement of a wing situated on a very steep hillside. The “dormitory” which was a huge mixed sex bedroom had open views (hidden behind closed curtains of course), one room looked onto a 10 foot brick wall, while the rest of the unit was underground! It felt like being in a nuclear submarine. “The bowels” was the land of the geriatric (or Buxton) chair where restless people with dementia were tipped back to almost the horizontal and then spent all day banging the table, shouting and trying to escape from underneath their dining (read that as restraining) table. Tables (screws long since worn out through constant pulling and twisting) were secured by tying them on with crepe bandages. Patients slid down until only their chin held them in place. Nurses prevented daily asphyxiations by lifting them back up using the old leg and a wing technique (wet patients usually slid easier). Incontinence was a huge, never-ending and unbeatable foe in those days before the invention of Tena pads and slips. Subsequently there was very frequent toileting, often accompanied by terrified screaming, spitting and violence as clothes were hurriedly removed from confused and anxious patients. It must have been a dreadful existence for people with dementia and it was certainly a very stressful, thankless task of hard labour for the nurses (most of whom also looked very old for their years). It was rumoured that the night staff used the tails of the split back nighties to tie patients onto commodes when seeing to them during the night so that they could safely look after all 36 without any fractures being sustained.

Despite these awful conditions nobody got upset, nobody complained, nobody protested. This was not in the Victorian era, nor in war torn Nazi Germany or in the third world. This was here in the UK only twenty odd years ago. It may all sound terrible today but hey… “we were only following orders”.

I am really enjoying my break from my secret identity for a while. The current plan is for me to become more involved again at some point in the early New Year, possibly in a somewhat reduced capacity as malcolmroff and oldschool are doing such sterling work. I find their posts to be as interesting and thought provoking as anything I have read elsewhere.

Come the New Year I intend to change the style and theme to another minimalist look. I may change the logo, I may keep it, I may get rid of it all together. Suggestions are welcome. Anyone wants to send in a logo … feel free

Of course if I get rid of the logo this may well be your last chance to get a very limited (only one sold so far) Mental Nurse Mug. All limited profits go to paying my hosting bills

Please discuss this is the forum.

Mental Nurse

For real life reasons, unrelated to the site, I will be taking a complete break. For at least 3 months, at which point I will review my life and see what I intend to do next.

Stepping into my glittery dancing shoes will be oldschoolbaby and malcolmroff. Who can be reached via the following mail addresses:

remove the spaces etc. Any mail that gets to me will be directed to one of them, especially the offers to buy Viagara, of which I get many.

After the fold some gushy stuff.

I would like to thank everyone who has made the site such a joy to run for the last year and a half. Particularly those who were there in the early days (elliecat and survivorworker leap to mind) and gave me much needed support and let me know that at least someone out there could be wound up by anything I had to say.

I would also like to thank the Nursing Standard for entertaining me by the complete lack of increased traffic after appearing in their fine tabloid magazine.

It’s given me huge amounts of pleasure to think that the site has helped and encouraged people to become mental health nurses, all of whom seem to have had something … special … to contribute to the profession. Do let us know how you are getting on duck.

I’ve also seeing the welcome service users have had when commenting on the site. Especially when offering constructive criticism. If the site has ever had anything approximating a point it could be allowing people to open up a dialogue with mental health nurses outside the normal channel of shouting very loudly

I suppose the other point to the site is allowing communication the other way. Letting nurses share some of the strains & stresses of the job that you will not see in University Prospectuses ( Prospectii ?) or on the NHS Careers web site.

Hopefully over the next few months the site will develop into much more of a community site allowing and encouraging more nurses, students and service users to express themselves. After all without communication we have nothing. Well nothing apart from medications …

Ta Ra.

Have a lovely time without me.

Mental Nurse

I was thinking about labeling people and terms like the ‘happy demented’. I was mentally composing a post about nurses use of verbal shorthand (shorthand ? hand, verbal ?) when I noticed something.

I had just been shopping for facial wipes and was standing around clutching my Body Shop carrier bag to my chest. I was nervous as I was in a somewhat … bad part of the city. I was looking around trying to look really tough and not like a mugging waiting to happen. The rain was pouring down and water was dripping down the back of my neck.

I saw a man. He was pulling on the door of a small car. He stared in through the driver’s side window. Tried the handle again. Took a few steps back. Tried the handle again.

This is odd, I thought.

I stood there trying to watch him unobtrusively; in the middle of a car park, with only a skeletal tree for company.

He walked round the car looking in windows. Went back to the driver’s side door and tried exactly the same action again. Pulling on the handle, rocking backwards and forwards. I could see the car wobbling from side to side. The man did not look annoyed when this failed to have the presumed desired effect. He glanced around, somehow not noticing me, and walked away from the car.

What an incompetent car thief, I thought. Ignoring any potential other explanations for the actions. I had labeled him. Man, car, poor part of town, no keys; plainly a thief, and a stupid one. Happily feeling superior to this cretin I felt a someone punch my right ear.

I realised I had punched myself in the side of the head.

While I had been watching the entertainment a bee, or some sort of buzzing insect, had been trying to lay some eggs in my brain via my ear hole. Part of my brain had noticed this and decided swift decisive action needed to be taken.

Just at the moment of feeling most superior to the ‘Stupid Thief’ my brain took action against the buzzy bee beast.

*slap*

I punched myself in the side of the head !

I share this to show the dangerous karmic effects of labelling; they never warned us of this at college.

Mental

I did manage to get rid of the Buzzy Bee Beast though Every cloud … silver lining.

Hey, Anti-Psychiatry Activist!

I’d always thought that democracy was being abandoned for an orgy of consumerism and war. How wrong I was! According to the APC [Anti Psychiatry Coalition], it’s actually dying because of the injustices done to a small number of people abused by psychiatry.

Mental

Captain: … in event of a water landing reach under your …

Ho hum I thought.

Then it clicked. Water landing … there is no such thing … a water landing must be pilot speak for a damp crash ! I spent the entire flight preparing for a sudden water landing.

This had me thinking about communication.

Recent conversation.

Old Man: Hello Mental.

Mental: Hello Old Man. How are you doing.

Old Man: So so. I have a high cholesterol level.

Mental: That sounds good, can’t have enough cholesterol I say !

Old Man: Shut up you prat ! The Doctor has put me on tablets for it.

Not doing too well so far.

Mental: Go on old man, tell me more.

Old Man: The doctor told me that I was going to have to take one of these tablets every day for the rest of my life.

This was probably a fine opportunity to investigate the old man’s feelings about death and dying. I could hear Roper, Logan and Tierney screaming at me. He had broached the subject; here was my chance to make a difference.

So what did I say.

Mental: How many tablets did he give you ?

Old Man: *looks at box* 28 in here.

Mental: Goodness you don’t have much time left then !

In my head I could hear a small voice screaming at me.

Old Man: *laughs*

Luckily the old man was not actually one of my clients.

My mind continues to wander for the rest of the flight. Why do you call a water landing a water landing. Why not call a landing a land landing. Should we call a water landing a watering, then I eventually fell asleep and dreamed I was chasing rabbits.

Then I saw a short … advert ? … about self harm on the TV.

Turns out it was not an advert for self ham. Thankfully. It was part of an anti-stigma campaign.

See Me Scotland

You can read the comic here.

Just Like Me - Comic

I thought it was quite interesting to see a mental health campaign aimed at the mainstream. I applaud it, especially with such a taboo subject as self harm. I do have one problem though.

I don’t think it is going to help much, maybe help individuals who self harm; probably not reduce stigma though. I can imagine a young person seeing the ‘advert’ realising he or she is not alone and looking to the site for further help.

I can not imagine it reducing stigma. The practice of cutting oneself affects people deeply. I’ve seen this when discussing it with other staff, with no experience of self harm, the sheer confusion and distaste is difficult to shift: unless they have personal experience of dealing with it.

I don’t see a TV slot doing much to shift the stigma. Unless it is back up by people going round schools speaking about their experiences of self harm ?

Maybe I am just cynical.

Does anyone have ideas on stigma reduction ? Do you think TV slots and a bit of Internet information is enough ?

To end the evening I had a conversation with my partner about the theory and practice of body tagging.

That makes my career to date :

1. 3 Years as a project 2000 student

2. 19 Months working in acute mental health nursing

3. About four and a half years working in a community residential project. Which could be described as very slow rehab.

4. About six months in hospital ward based dementia care.

I find it a little strange that I lasted longer in acute, as a young innocent new nurse, than I lasted in elderly hospital care.

I will post about my most recent job at some point in the next few days. Then some months down the line I will probably post again in a more balanced way

Let’s put it this way I will probably never be able to laugh at another dementia joke again and I never ever want to be a patient on the ward I have just left. Which is quite sad I think.

I enjoyed working with the clients, the staff were a fairly average staff team. I just think my time working in the community , in a fairly independent project, has made me fairly intolerant of the failing of the hospital system for the less ’sexy’ clients. The demented elderly are about as ‘unsexy’ as it gets.

I’m quite nervous about starting in a nursing home though. The last time I worked in one was when I was a student. I had two placements and I used to do bank work for a home just down the road from where I lived.

The place I banked at was lovely. It had a specialist EMI unit, was well staff with an experienced and committed team. Everybody got training and the budget was generous. Apparently though it cost about six hundred pounds
a month to stay there.

The places I worked at as a student were Hell Pits. Really. They were staffed by the minimum number of trained staff possible. The numbers were made up by using inexperienced unsupported cheap sixteen year olds that were too stupid to get a nice easy job in a factory somewhere. Residents were crammed in, barbaric methods of restraint were used on any resident who was a) problematic b) unable to talk back . These place were funded by the council . Apparently the places run directly by the council were very good though. The Hell Holes charged about 360 pounds a month.

This was about eight or nine years ago.

The place I am moving to charges just over four hundred pounds a month. Looked very impressive when I went to visit and did not display any obvious warning signs of being a Scum Pit. But what if I have been blinded by my desire to flee an NHS I have lost all respect for ?

I’m sure going and doing some shopping will help soothe my nerves.

That’s what I am off to do now.

What else was I going to mention ? Oh yes, the mugs.

The plan with the mugs was to use them as prizes for the best submission to the site. Then when I had given enough of them away I could by one for myself, without giving away my secret identity to any visitors. But I do feel they would make an excellent gift for the Mental Nurse in your life.

Mental

Mental (inside brain): Oh look at that ! A field of tiny sheep !

I mentally listed what I had got up to on holiday.

1.

Conversation where I avoided mentioning just what kind of nurse I am.

Check.

Because every year I have this conversation; then the following statement is made:

Conversee: I don’t know how you can work with those kind of people.

That gives me a headache.

2.

Accident where I almost fell into a watery grave.

Check.

At least once a year I almost die from my own stupidity.

3.

Conversation where I have to say I am not moving up to look after elderly relatives.

Check.

4.

Frightening experience with farm animals.

Nope. Not this year for a change.

I had a lovely time.

On my return I discover that i have been offered a new job. Lovely. Sadly I will be moving away from mental health towards a more general care of the elderly area.

I’ll enjoy it. I’m not sure if there will be any kind of wider interest. This means the next couple of months will be devoted to finally finishing of my ‘Why I Became A Nurse‘ series of pages. Also I’ll wait till and I can get some emotional distance and blog about the job I am just about to leave. I’m tempted to title it ‘My Six Months In A Living Hell‘.

It turn out that it was a field of normal sized sheep quite a distance away.

My poor kitten ( about five years old ) has been stuffed in a box and given to a cat hotel to look after.

Will have very limited Internet access for next while.

Job hunting seems to be going well. Downside is I am having to look outside the NHS

If I make it back alive will be back in about a week and a half.

Much love to Cat.

Mental