The other day, I heard about the case of Wendy Potts, a UK GP who wrote a blog about her experiences with bipolar disorder. A patient of hers read the blog and raised concerns over her fitness to practise. As a result, Potts was suspended from practising while an investigation took place, but she committed… Continue reading Mentally ill and working for the NHS?
Over the years I’ve had both private psychotherapy and NHS treatment for my mental health (including CAMHS, psychiatrist’s, a social worker, CPN’s, an occupational therapist and inpatient treatment). With that in mind, I thought I’d do a bit of a comparison between private therapy and NHS treatment for mental health. Privately, I had a good experience,… Continue reading Treatment for Mental Health: Private vs. NHS?
Everyone made this whole bipolar thing sound easy- take your meds and you could forget about it. 800mg lithium at night, a sleeping tablet as and when, an antidepressant if you need a nudge up or quetiapine if you need reigning in a little. Easy as. I’m finding it a lil tougher than that. Sure,… Continue reading Well and wobbly: adjusting to stability
My CAMHS notes make semi-frequent reference to the fact that I had “thoughts of LNWL” during the time I was with them (LNWL being short for ‘life not worth living, I came to realise). One particular night when struggling with thoughts of LNWL, I googled ‘things to do when you’re sad’ and found a website… Continue reading 100 Little things (that make life worth living)
26. Institutionalisation- this one is HUGE. It was within my first two weeks on the ward that I learned just how easy it is/would be to become institutionalised. Often, when hospitalised for mental illness, patients have little or no structure in the ‘outside world’, living a life completely consumed or controlled by their illnesses. In… Continue reading De-glamourising inpatient (Part VI)
So it’s Mental Health Awareness Week. I’ll start of the way a lot of these awareness posts tend to go- with a comparison. Three months ago I was a psychiatric inpatient, approaching the end of a fairly lengthy admission. Today, I stood in front of the Top Dogs of my health trust- chief execs, funding… Continue reading Surviving/Thriving: Why mental health funding is IMPORTANT
I’ve blogged before about getting treatment for my self harm scars, and the other day I had a procedure called fat grafting on them. So here’s a lil update on how that went, what it involves, and what happens next! Pre-op I didn’t know much about the procedure at all before I rocked up to… Continue reading Pre-op/Post-op: Treatment for self harm scars
