Narrative amputation
The interviews for my book on men’s depression were hard, very hard. But a few of them were harder than others. I want to write about one of them. The man I interviewed was in his seventies and I met him after his suicide attempt.
Say: I will listen
It’s World Suicide Prevention Day. My Twitter timeline is again full of the “It’s OK to talk” slogan. And I, again, despair. As well-meaning, well-intentioned, well-everything it is, I find it only irritating. No, it’s not OK to talk! Continue reading “Say: I will listen”
Empathic uncertainty
In this post I want to continue with the story of my illness. As I said in the previous post, I really wanted some reassurance. And here is the key aspect of my experience. All the doctors were very keen to tell me they didn’t know what was wrong with me and while, I suppose, I can admire them for their honesty and intellectual integrity, I really hated it. Bloody hell, I hated it. I wanted to know, for goodness sake!
The unsayable reassurance
I’ve been ill. I’ve seen four doctors in two countries and they disagreed (interestingly, along national lines). One of them was a GP here and she asked me to ‘watchfully wait’. In this post as I give you part of my ‘illness story’, I also want to write about a clash of expectations I experienced.