A safe place to talk openly about mental health & illness
I saw this CBC News story recently about a man who was written off because he was just a psych patient. I wanted to write about it, then promptly forgot about it until suninthespring brought it to my attention. In April 2018, David Pontone went to the emergency department at Humber River Hospital in Toronto,… Continue reading Just a Psych Patient? Stigma in the ER
Sadly, there are plenty of incompetent mental health professionals and other helpers out there. A degree, a professional designation, and other mental health credentials are indicators of a certain level of knowledge and skill; however, that doesn't stop someone from having a bad attitude, having their head too far up their ass to do anything… Continue reading Understanding Mental Health Credentials
Spine Logo vector created by roserodionova - Freepik Let's say your back hurts. You go to a chiropractor, over a few visits they crack a few joints, and that's all she wrote, right? That's certainly what I used to think about chiropractic. It turns out, though, that chiropractic quackery has been around from the beginning.… Continue reading Chiropractic Quackery: The Wacky Fringe Side
A nurse that I used to work with developed an addiction a number of years back. When it came out, in order to have any hope of getting his job and his nursing license back, he was required to see an addictions specialist and adhere to the treatment plan that was set out. One of… Continue reading Should People with Addictions Be Forced to Attend AA?
"Drug-seeking". "Med-seeking". They're labels with very negative connotations that are often tossed around quite freely by health care providers when it comes to people taking medications with the potential for abuse. They tend to be applied most readily to those taking pain medications or certain psychiatric medications. The notion of people being drug-seeking is heavily… Continue reading Needing Medication Doesn’t Make Someone “Drug-seeking”
As a nurse in my province (British Columbia, Canada), if I am hospitalized for mental illness then the provincial Health Professions Act requires the hospital to report me to the nursing regulatory college, and the college must treat this as a complaint about my fitness to practice. This ends up with being offered the non-choice… Continue reading The Health Professions Act and the Fight Against Stigma
A few days ago, my family doctor had sent me into hospital because of worsening shortness of breath. I wasn't overly surprised when I was met with stigma in the ER. It seemed like the ER doc took one look at my list of psych meds and wrote me off as "just a psych patient."… Continue reading Adventures in Mental Illness Stigma in the ER
Let's think about the phrases "it's just anxiety" and "it's all in your head". Let's unpack them and consider them in terms of what we know about the brain and the body.