Tag: Stigma

Wedding Breakfast Spoiled

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I had plans for this post to be much softer than the last. No politics or indignation…

I started with excellent intentions. I slept in, made banana pancakes for breakfast, a big plunger of coffee, got the paper, and planned to read about the royal wedding preparations, the politics of which I am not particularly invested in.

So, I opened The Weekend Australian. I never got to the royal wedding preparations on page three.

On the front page the following words tore at my eyeballs:

‘Killer grandfather had acute depression’

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Mind Your Language Katy Perry

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Have you ever heard or seen a word or phrase that made you feel intensely uncomfortable with who you are?

Until about eight years ago, I had never been on the receiving end of discriminatory language. And yet it managed to find a way into my white, straight, agnostic, charmed life. The first time it happened, I was walking through a shopping centre. The words assaulted me suddenly, shook the breath out of me: ‘PSYCHO BITCH’

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ECT: Blowing up some myths – Part 2

Mental illness
To find the story behind this photo read to the end of the post

Where were we? That’s right. We’d left me in a state of catatonic depression. If you haven’t read Part 1 of this post, which dropped yesterday, I suggest doing so now.

The first time I slid into catatonic depression, my psychiatrist tried anti-depressant after anti-depressant while I was hospitalised. Nothing worked.  I was still brand new to mental illness. Two months before, I’d suffered my first psychotic episode after the birth of my first child. My First Time

I had gone from mentally healthy for thirty-two years, to experiencing some of the worst psychiatric symptoms in existence. I felt as though I had entered a parallel universe. When ECT was recommended I had a sense of being at the end of the line. I didn’t know much about it.

Continue reading “ECT: Blowing up some myths – Part 2”

ECT: Blowing up some myths – Part 1

Mental Illness
To find the story behind this photo, read to the end of the post.

(Please note – this post contains vivid descriptions of severe clinical and catatonic depression)

Let’s play a quick game of word associations: If I say Electroconvulsive Therapy or Electroshock Therapy, you think…What?

‘They still do that?’ is a common response. A half jokey reference to ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ is another. If you thought there was stigma surrounding psychiatric medications (and there is), ECT takes the stigma, myths, misinformation, and at times insults to a new level.

Continue reading “ECT: Blowing up some myths – Part 1”