What I'd like to do is phone the hospital where she is and find out what happened, then try and persuade her to let me see her. I can't do that though because I assume the staff would respect her confidentiality.
I think the reason why she has only told me last night is because she doesn't want the rest of the family to know. She's told me stuff before she's never told anyone else so I think I'm in the right zone to help her through this but at the moment she's shutting me out.
She's a doctor too so she may not be in her local hospital where I'd expect her to be. NHS staff are usually hospitalised at a different PCT.
Yep. That's how prevalent the stigma is amongst doctors. Mental ill health is something to be hidden from colleagues even outside the workplace. Its still fundamentally seen differently to physical illness by doctors outside (and perhaps even inside) psychiatry.
So I'm facing a struggle. At the moment she's responding to some of my texts. Any text that has an important question she doesn't respond to. So I'm just nattering with her about my life in the hope that it'll distract her for a moment, give her something else to think about, maybe say something that will make things a little bit better and maintain human contact. At the moment it feels very much like a waiting game and in the meantime I'm having a quick look to see if I can find something that will help me.
She's also a tough case. Tougher than me perhaps. The self-stigma is probably quite high but she knows me and I think she respects so I hope that my destigmatising, mad pride arguments might work and they'd be based on the evidence of my life. But she's a doctor and she's seen more than me, and she's a good scientists so she knows one single example (apart from in her own life) is not a truth.
She's exceptionally intelligent and driven when she's on form. She may easily have a genius level IQ and behaviour. Her capability at philosophical thought is far beyond most philosophy professors and she knows the material too. That makes it very difficult to argue with her rationally but I'm quite good at that.
But I'm not sure its worked for me in the past though because rational arguments not well communicated can mean a person gets defensive and builds walls around whatever they rationalise. I've had some very expensive therapy before from and had the problem that my intellect meant even the smartest doctor hit a wall with my counterarguments.
I feel stuck as what to do. I sadly see it as something of an intellectual challenge as well as helping out another soul. I've looked for some research and found a useless paper. (Doctors who kill themselves: a study of the methods used for suicide - http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/93/6/351).
Grr. Quantitative without decent qualitative stuff. Another US paper is also useless. (Suicide in Male and Female Physicians - http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/228/3/323) except for one useful bit. Young, trainee, female doctors have a significantly high suicide rate. But the stupid paper doesn't go into any detail as to why and what to do. Thankfully there's a reference....but the fucking paper is pay-for access. (SUICIDE IN PROFESSIONALS: A STUDYOF MALE AND FEMALEPSYCHOLOGISTS - http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/6/436)
I hope what's the abstract includes is useful though.
"Losses in ascertainment may contribute to the apparent deficit in males. The excess of suicide in females was consonant with the results of a similar studycarried out in physicians. Marginality, role conflict, and ambivalence about theachievement of success were discussed as possible factors contributing tosuicide in female professionals."
Sadly the paper is on data from the 60's but its all I've got to go on at the moment. Its a useful example of when research is useless I guess. That small gem is all I've got to work on at the moment.
Its very difficult dealing with doctors because they're arrogant and have something of an ego problem, much like myself. Sadly they often know their stuff too.
They seem to have a totally different culture to 'normal' and perhaps something akin to soldiers. This is where lived experience helps. She knows about my own deep, dark psychiatric past. She knows a little about my unshared perceptions as well. I think that's the tool that's most going to work to get her to at least talk about what's been going on.
The research has provided useful though. Its identified something I already knew. Doctors' mental health is usually pretty poor. Its so sad. My family and extended family are daily examples for me. Had I become a doctor I'm sure I'd be no different.
They're the arbiters of mental health and they're the healers given the highest respect, but underneath their professional exterior I know they're often miserable. I know the public wouldn't want that if they knew.
I feel they're the hardest to help and I'm totally stuck for ideas on what to do. There is one hope. Dr Liz Miller and the Doctor's Support Network. They may be my next port of call.
Its a shame no one read this blog yet. I could really do with some comments to help me out today.
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