This weekend’s TWIM comes to you courtesy of David Woods, Editor of the British Journal of Community Nursing (BCJN) and Deputy Editor of Independent Nurse. David is one of our judges for the 2012 awards. We’re hoping we can get a few more of the judges to write round-ups for us in the coming weeks, so watch this space. In the meantime, enjoy David’s selections :)
Greetings Madosphere.
Apologies in advance for following and I fear illegible stream of conscious, but the magnanimous Pandora in her questionable wisdom asked me to introduce myself as a TWIM awards judge by having a look over the week for your delectation.
My lack of writing talent could, I fear, lead to my removal from said judging panel, but in the hope that it doesn’t, I’d like to take the opportunity to say how honoured, humbled and excited I am to have been asked to be a judge. And, if you’ll pardon the cliché, I would like to add that I won’t be ‘judging’ people in a conventional, good/bad way – I think that anyone who has the guts to write a blog addressing something as complex and important as mental health is a winner already, because they are winning a battle against stigma, prejudice and ignorance.
As editor of the BCJN, I meet the people working with the more mentally interesting among us almost every week. I also constantly have an ear to the ground on the Whitehall chat and if you think the rhetoric coming out of good old Richmond House around is the same old words and no action, who am I to argue?
But a change is coming, I can promise you that. And the talented writers I’m about to introduce you to in this short round up are a testament to that.
Their words inspire me.
Ok, so enough babble from me and on with some more quality writing.
Firstly a confession: After my praise of the readers of the magazine I edit (nurses and social workers) working on the mental health ‘beat’, I came across this post by Werehorse on A Path With Heart. The title was ‘you sound angry‘…
‘Let’s just say that my social worker has rather a talent for stating the fucking obvious.
She returned my call this afternoon. It only took her nearly a week.
And our conversation demonstrated just how appallingly deficient communication between different departments is. She didn’t know I had been under the crisis team, or that I had presented to A&E, or that the police had been sent round to my house.
She asked “Is your mood swinging about?” which is a bloody ridiculous question because my mood has NEVER “swung about”. I’m high for a period of weeks to months, I’m low for a period of weeks to months, and inbetween I’m stable.
Then she asked “Are you in control of your mood?” Well, obviously, NO. I would hardly have been phoning everyone I could think of and asking for help if I felt in control, would I?
So, “What do you want?” I want my medication addressed please, it’s really not that hard to grasp. But no I don’t want any so-called “support”. TALKING isn’t going to change this. Having a nice cup of tea or a hot bloody bath isn’t going to help this (not that I even HAVE a bath!)
She said she would leave a message for the consultant, and call me in the morning, and asked if I still wanted to her to come to my house for our arranged visit. I don’t know – part of me wants to see her because I would relish sharing some strong words with her about how essentially ineffective she has been during the four/five years I have been seeing her. But at the same time, unless she is going to bring me some medication, I really don’t see the point.’
Interesting choice of words from Mrs Social Worker, methinks: ‘is your mood swinging about?’.
I genuinely wouldn’t have expected this level of ignorance from a health professional.
Was she trained by Marie Antoinette? Is her mantra: ‘Let’s munch on some cake shall we, and ignore the simple fact that mental illness can’t be just sorted out with a scone and a chat and a cuppa.’?
This post, I should add, was put up the day after a GP informed Werehorse he couldn’t prescribe or alter medication because Mr GP wasn’t trained in psychiatry.
Disgusting.
What a waste Werehorse’s time.
I don’t know Werehorse so don’t really know what to add to this except, “disappointing”. I’m already starting to eat my words about a change coming… But I stand by the fact we need more bloggers to put these issues out there, for the decision makers in their ivory towers to see.
Hopefully Werehorse did hear back from Mr consultant, but the post was from Tuesday and nothing has been added since.
Next on my tour of the madosphere I came across this little poem on the Depressed Moose Blog by Garry Williams:
Things are not always what they seem from the outside when depression gets a hold of someone
Been a while since I tried some poetry as always forgive me as it is not a strong point of mine!
This is no way indicative of how I feel today though….
You have wonderful kids and a beautiful wife!
I hate myself and hate my life!
You have a roof over your head!
My place is so small I dont sleep in a bed!
you live off the state so you must be rich!
try telling that to my empty freezer and fridge!
you get money for nothing life must easy!
Im dealing with thoughts that are trying to kill me!
you spend all your time on the internet!
I have to rely on people that I’ve never met!
depression isn’t real its all in your head!
I battle with the feeling of being better off dead!
your putting it on there is nothing wrong that I can see!
walk a mile in my shoes and see what its like being me!
You have a smile on your face you cant be ill!
the smile is fake masking how I really feel!
Garry has literally, in my humble opinion, summarised the issues with the mental health sector into 16 lines. If only this were included in the training of Werehorse’s social worker’s training…
Even as I’m writing this, my temptation is to say something like ‘Sorry to read this Garry, I hope things get a bit better…’
Then I suppose we can sit down and eat some cake with Marie Antoninette and everything will be fine. Not that simple though is it? This poem has really touched me and I’ll be thinking about these statements and ideas for some time…
Enough of the UK now, let’s take a hop across the pond to the US of A (and happy Thanks Giving this week, lovely American friends.)
On the topic of Thanks Giving, Anxiety Adventures, while dreaming of Pumpkin Pie – and rewriting classic stage numbers from Les Miserables (loving your work by the way…), was struggling…
I’m struggling to write this post.
Mostly because my weekend was strange. Sure, it was the usual holiday anxiety: interacting with people, keeping up the friendly persona, questioning my role in the universe, etc.
Family Stuff
Generally, the guests were family members with whom I am comfortable, so the small talk situation was mostly fine. Plus, my cousins’s baby is cute so we all mostly talked about her.
The strange came from my mom. She’s such an excitable puppy that she allows me zero alone time when I’m at my parents’ house. By the time our extended family arrived I was so tired of socializing that I just wanted to go to home.
As I get older, she gets weirder about family time. Since my brothers are both in serious relationships and developing their own holiday traditions, I’m sure that it’s her own anxiety about “losing” us, but the remedy is not to overwhelm me – it has the opposite effect, where I want to spend less time at home.
I spoke with Claudius about it today and he shares my feelings. We’re going to develop a strategy on how to impress upon our parents that the times are a’changin’.
Of course, the strategy that we’re creating goes against the rumblings of a strategy that my parents are creating. Their strategy says: It’s ok for the boys to have their own holiday traditions because they have significant others, but you have to follow different rules.
My mom thriced said I should come out for Christmas four days early, even though the boys are only spending one day at home. Usually, my dad dismisses this crazy plan but, this time, he kind of agreed. Partially, it’s their strategy and partially he doesn’t want to deal with her enthusiasm during the holidays.
Either way, it led me to text Claudius saying, “Just let me have my time!”
Would this all be solved by having a conversation with my parents? Yes, yes it would. Instead, I’m going to go the usual family route of talking around it to others until we’re all a little annoyed.
Anxiety
This has become a theme recently, navigating the waters of establishing my adult life regarding family time, but also wondering whether I’m subconsciously isolating because the togetherness makes me anxious.
Creating a distance between myself and others, especially for holidays, is a first step into becoming a lovable, curmudgeonly recluse.
Am I trying to set a standard wherein I can maximize isolation without raising any red flags?
And finally back in the UK where Amanda, writing on Beauty from Pain, says:
I feel a little wary of writing this blog post – after all, does anyone really like those who blow their own trumpet?
Although, when I have said similar things in the past readers said that there’s nothing wrong with blowing our own trumpet and that we all should do it sometimes.
Personally I don’t see it as blowing my own trumpet – rather I see it as telling a little of my own story in the hope that it might help give someone else a little hope for themselves.
In February 2011 I had a short stay in my local acute psychiatric ward. You can read more about that here (may trigger). For those who opt not to read about my stay there, let’s just say that the treatment of me by the staff there was appalling, and it was probably one of the things that has put my mental health most at risk over the last few years. (The following sentences may trigger). I was very unwell when I was admitted there but I was even more unwell when I was discharged – having made the nurse fully aware that I was extremely suicidal and intended to act on those thoughts that night. I practically left with her blessing to go ahead, having first told me to ‘stop being so irrational’. Helpful, huh?
Well, as you may know from recent blog posts I have trained to be an instructor for Scotland’s Mental Health First Aid (SMHFA). I gave my first course recently and it went really well. It was a wonderful experience that I can’t wait to repeat again soon. The group engaged really well and it was wonderful to get lots of really positive evaluation forms returned. One of my highlights was during the self harm section when one participant commented ‘I can think of one situation where I will definitely be able to apply these skills, and the first thing I’m going to be doing is apologising for how badly I handled it last time’.
Well, I have been organising a number of SMHFA courses over the next few months. And where better to arrange one of them than in my local psychiatric hospital? There is a centre there which has rooms available for use. I have some daytime courses planned and I am in correspondence there about possibly arranging a course in the evenings, which I believe there could be quite a lot of demand for.
I am very ambitious with SMHFA. I want to really reach people and train as many people as possible. But most of all what I really want to do is to make people out in the community aware of mental health first aid, and make it easily accessible to all. I want people to walk into as many community centres as possible and see posters advertising Scotland’s Mental Health First Aid. I want posters advertising it in lots of other places out in the community where it would not traditionally be advertised. And I don’t want classes just to be run in the daytime Monday to Friday. I want to run courses in the evenings / weekends (including Sundays), whenever there is a demand I hope to help meet it.
And I believe there is a demand within my local psychiatric hospital. I know of courses that have taken place there. But they did not seem to have been advertised publicly and if they were they were not widely advertised (to my knowledge). I want to really reach people, really engage people, and to really make a difference in the lives of the community.
And it makes me smile to think of how I was in February 2011 – and fuck it, but how I was for most of 2011. I was severely mentally unwell at that point. I did not intend to be alive right now. I could go on, but that’s as simple as it gets really. Right now, I did not plan to be here. Instead I am, and I am planning to give mental health training in my local psychiatric hospital.
I think back to that nurse and how she treated me the day I was discharged. I can look at it as an outsider now, not caught up in how I was feeling at the time. But I think back to what I said to her, how I was behaving. I can think of what a mental health first aider should do in response to that. And I can clearly see that she acted in the complete opposite way of how a mental health first aider will act. (And unfortunately that applies to pretty much every staff member who was present during my stay there. )
I am not naive enough to think she would ever attend a mental health first aid course. After all, isn’t she a trained psychiatric nurse, what would she need that for?(!) That is one of the biggest barriers that I see with courses like this – that it is those who most need them are least likely to sign up for them.
But it still pleases me a lot to think that I will be giving SMHFA in the grounds of that hospital. It feels like a little bit of a personal triumph and makes me a teeny bit proud.
From the lost, confused, scared, severely suicidal young lady to the strong, confident, able SMHFA instructor.
And maybe a little naively I have a little hope that some people from the area / from the hospital may attend who are not psychiatric nurses (e.g. locals, carers, non-psychiatric hospital staff etc.) And that each of those will engage with SMHFA, will learn to be good mental health first aiders, and will leave with the right attitude and apply ALGEE throughout the community and perhaps even within the hospital.
And that their approach may spread and that over time their skills and approach may have a positive impact within the hospital.
Naive? Maybe a little. But hey I can only but hope. And it surely is a step in the right direction either way.
So yet again, Dear Nurse, despite your careless approach that day, your willingless to let me die, I continue to refuse to let me die. I continue to refuse give in to my illness and let it win. You told me to ‘stop being so irrational’ when I told you what was going on in my mind. It was my mind made me irrational. I wasn’t irrational by choice. And your judgemental words and lack of compassion did nothing but make me so much more unwell.
But Dear Nurse, I am now rational and I am now doing my little bit to truly make a difference and I am bloody proud of it.
Dear Amanda – you’re a star!
That’s just one nurse and, I hope, a horrendous example of an archaic and dying way of doing things (still holding out for this change I talked about earlier, readers). But the end of this story has really amazed me and Amanda’s strength in being able to move on to help other people in a way this nurse couldn’t is really astounding. Amanda: you have every right to be proud and totally smug in my opinion.
So that’s all folks. I’ve learnt a lot and I’ve got a lot to think about, but I’m smiling because this proves the point that it is writers such as these that are going to change the world.
Yes, I love dramatic statements like that. I’ve made a career out of it after all. But if you think about it, there’s at least a bit of truth there isn’t there?
Until next time,
Big love, David xxx
