Psychiatrist vs human being

Following my 'honesty is the best policy?' post I had an interesting comment which set me thinking. Now I know this is over-generalising a lot, but blogs on here relating to mental health in some way are often either:-

a) mental health workers talking mainly about work/patients/service users (delete as appropriate) but not about their lives outside work
or
b) people with mental health issues/illnesses some of whom do talk predominantly about mental health stuff, some who talk about all sorts of things in their life. (Although I imagine that many might say the two are not just overlapping but entirely intertwined?)

Now my thoughts are this. I don't see myself as a psychiatrist/doctor/mental health worker primarily, I see myself as an average person with a life and family who just happens to be a doctor/psychiatrist etc. I have good and bad days, feel excited or lonely etc. A comment to my post from in-the-margins was 'But I thought everyone that worked in mental health had their lives all sorted and were completely mentally healthy!' Now, I believe I am mentally pretty healthy but I certainly don't think my life sorted! In fact, not very sorted at all lots of the time....

Now interestingly, whilst other doctors in fields other than psychiatry post blogs that discuss social lives /girlfriends/personal issues as well as medicine, I've noticed the mental health workers don't tend to. Whilst I believe those boundaries should certainly be maintained professionally at work and in our therapeutic relationships with patients, does that have to hold true here?

Whilst I do see the value in just discussing work/mental health issues on here, personally I see this as an opportunity to discuss lots of issues both at work and in my 'other' life. What do people think about that? Maybe by talking about more than just our day job it might make me/us as a group more real....is that a bad thing?

Would appreciate any thoughts on this!

Honesty is the best policy?

Today I had one of those 'lightbulb' moments regarding this blog. I couldn't quite understand why I was wanting to write on here - I'm not a great writer or wordsmith and struggle to make any sense at times. I'm a chatty person, so why am I doing this?

I think the point is I'm actually feeling a bit lonely and lost at the moment. Over the last few years for a number of reasons I've managed to become more and more cut off from my old friends and now I'm not quite sure where I fit in. It started with going overseas to work for a few years, everyone else stayed behind and of course, moved on with their lives. When I returned we were still good friends but I couldn't just move back and carry on where we'd left off. Unfortunately, they had other friends/boyfriends they now did that with and I had Mr O and lived 30 miles away, not around the corner. I have made some friends here, but mostly through work and not sure that's always a good thing - always lots of politics involved or just discussing work when we're supposed to be out relaxing. I really miss my old friends, we still meet up and that's lovely, but I miss the closeness we once had.

Other thing is the job. I really like psychiatry but I'm finding it really hard to work out where my niche is within it. I always saw myself eventually working in a district hospital, with some inpatient work and some outpatient/community mental health team work. Unfortunately for me, the system is changing so that many consultants end up doing either all inpatient or all outpatient work. Both those options sound quite dull, it was the variety I liked the idea of.

I'm sure a big factor in my current negative mindset is that I'm presently working full time (plus on calls) and commuting 40 miles each way to work most days. This was never a problem BC (before children), but now means I only see the duracell toddler for extremely short periods in the week - about an hour in evenings before he goes to bed. Mr O is brilliant with sorting him out and getting him to/from nursery but this doesn't make me feel like a very good or nice mummy. Would like to be home a bit more with DT. Unfortunately I have always been the major breadwinner and part time work has not been an option for us as yet. I'm holding out for October when I change post and will be much closer to home - I'm sure everything will seem much rosier then!

There you go, this is working as therapy....I think just writing this down has brightened me up a bit and is making me think about what I can do about some of these things rather than just feeling unhappy with them. So much easier to sort out other people's issues, ridiculous eh?

Patients say the funniest things....

Embarrassed Chimp,originally uploaded by Greencolander


I was doing well today. The sun was shining and I left the house for the first time this week without being covered in little flecks of Weetabix flung randomly by the Duracell toddler. I was feeling pretty smart and thought I looked pretty good wearing my new jacket. I made the early train with time to spare so managed to sit down looking reasonably cool and collected holding a latte, as opposed to my usual windswept appearance after running and jumping on as the doors are closing. I had time to buy a copy of The Big Issue from the ridiculously cheerful homeless chap who nearly always shouts a cheery 'hello!' at me as I rush past. I was given the nice airy clinic room by the clerk as opposed to the tiny one that smells of feet on a dry day and wet cat on a wet day. I saw my patients who all seemed to be doing reasonably well, their medication was helping them, the work we were doing was helpful etc - all was good. I was pleased. Very pleased. Self-confidence was at a high.

On the way out of my clinic I bumped into a previous patient that I hadn't seen for some time. When I had last seen T he was an inpatient in a community learning disability unit. He was admitted due to his psychotic symptoms and had a history of arson when unwell.

T had remained in the unit for a number of months longer than was necessary after his mental state improved, due to the problems in finding him an appropriate place to live. Despite this prolonged stay, he had generally been a cheery kind of chap with a ruddy-faced appearance, nicotine stained fingers and a long black beard. I knew that he had had a tendency in the past to say extremely untactful, sometimes slightly inappropriate things to others but I had always got on well with him and hadn't experienced anything like that. He used to talk to me about his favourite football team and would tell me all about their most recent match. Although I often didn't know much about his team, I would ask him questions about the game and he would delight in telling me the details of the players, the fouls, the fights and the goals of course.

When he saw me today he hurled himself across the waiting room shouting my name and nearly bowling over a grumpy-looking secretary, her arms full of medical notes. She scowled at him but he carried on, totally oblivious shouting "Doctor, doctor!" I stopped and he launched into his news. After excitedly telling me details of his new shared accommodation, the signings made by his football club and his predictions for the season he suddenly stopped and peered at me closely for a few seconds. It was just getting to a point when I was about to ask him what he was looking at when he took a deep breath and said "do you know you have a bit of a moustache?". This was followed promptly by "it was OK to tell you that wasn't it? I just thought you ought to know".

I went an interesting shade of deep red and told him that it was fine. Outside, it started to drizzle with rain....

Not waving but drowning...

Firstly, on behalf of the bewildered I feel I ought to clarify that I am not a whiz at doing wheelies on a small bike designed for adolescent boys. No, 'trick cyclist' is in fact slang terminology for a psychiatrist. Far less exciting than BMX riding I know. I think it's highly unlikely that you will be seeing videos of me doing a 180 barspin, followed by a funky chicken (real BMX bike tricks, I am reliably informed) on this webpage at any time soon. I recently purchased an ordinary road bike and had enough trouble working out how to change gear, never mind anything else.

No, instead I have decided that due to current job of listening to other people all day in my career, I need the chance to vent my spleen at someone myself. Guess what, you're it! Aren't you lucky? The good thing is (for you) that you can leave at any time and I can just jabber on to myself.

Only one slight problem I currently foresee, I am pretty bloomin' hopeless when it comes to technology. It's taken me nearly a week to:-
a)understand what a blog actually is after someone told me about them
b)work out how to find them on the internet then register for one
c)choose a name, then a template, add a photo on the site and type this in.

Basically, if I don't get any quicker, I'll be older and probably more withered than Methuselah before I even get to the weekend. I'm hoping I've done the hardest part...

Anyway, I live in a small town 'oop north'. It's a nice place, up-market with lots of arty and cultural events happening and populated by rather a high percentage of posh, yummy-type mummies, their almost inevitably rich (and older) husbands and their delightful and usually gorgeous offspring with their often 'unusual' names. I hope the O family are a little more grounded than some of the 'yummies' as I like to call them, more about them another time!

I have a husband, originally from down under, who is rather keen on his cricket, golf and rugby so most weekends he is off doing one or the other, depending on the season. I just don't get it, especially cricket - how can a game that slow possibly be called sport? I think it was Robin Williams who once described it as 'baseball on valium'. Then there is the Duracell toddler, self-explanatory I think! (Note: other long-life battery brands are available....)

I qualified from medical school and did a few posts in medicine, surgery and accident and emergency before settling down in Psychiatry. After spending some time working overseas for a bit of 'life experience' as my mother liked to call it, 'doing less work with more time in the sun' I called it, I settled back to work in the UK. After paying an unfeasibly large amount of money to the Royal College of Psychiatrists I finally passed my membership exams , was awarded more letters to put behind my name and then promptly got pregnant. To be fair it wasn't really the best timing as the Government in it's wisdom was about to shake up junior doctors training, and what a palaver that was! However, after attending my job interview whilst 5 months pregnant wearing some huge Bridget Jones-style knickers I got my higher training post and all (so far) has worked out for the best.

So here I am, trick cycling my way through life....most of the time I really enjoy it and feel I am helping people, even though it is sometimes a slow process. Hey, it could be worse, I could be an appallingly bad BMX biker.