An Insight to Doctors Knowledge of Psychotic Depression

So this New Years Eve I was chatting to a very good friend of mine who is training in medicine at university to become a doctor. Even with my friends I never explain all my experiences or what happend to me or what psychotic depression is. However after a few drinks he got the nerve to actually ask me some questions about it. I was pretty shocked about his lack of knowledge of the subject.

I tried telling him some of the basic details of what had happened, how I discovered it and what sort of symptoms I suffered from. As a friend he was obviously concerned, but what struck me most was the guilt that he then felt. After doing my best to explain real paranoia, delusions and mood swings it was weird to see that as a "doctor" in training he wished he knew more about it so he could help. He had known I had the mental illness for well over a year but obviously didnt know much about it like most people. However felt as a doctor he should of.

This then made me think, if doctors in training are losing there awareness of mental illnesses, what hope is there that the doctors we encounter, who were trained years ago knowing what they are doing. I mean I am used to the public being unaware and ignorant to mental illnesses, there was that sucky advert that tried to spread awarness but it was more cringe than informing.

I always had major paranoia over what doctors though of me, I always thought they were bullshitting me and giving my shit loads of placebos. Obviously that's a dangerous position to be in as it could of caused me to stop taking medicine or stop going to appointments.

I am thinking that more needs to be done in informing the public and even training professionals of mental illnesses. This is partly the reason I try and share my expreiences. Most acedemics will tell you that knowledge is power. I beleive it is the same with this illness. The more you / friends / public know about it, the less "taboo" it will become and the less not talked about. I stay annonymous and dont tell many people of it mainly cos I dont know how they will react. Im proud of who I am now and I live with psychotic depression but that shouldnt influence peoples opinion of me.

Do you ever think that you doctor isnt filling you with confidence or wish the common person was more aware of mental illnesses?

You lose your life but it doesn't mean you can't live!

One if the things I have found people dont understand at all is the sense of mourning one gets after being diagnosed with a mental illness.

Okay lets not get too mellodramatic yes we're not going to die. . . its not fatal or terminal like other illnesses. But everything you knew, the life you had, it dissapears and changes and you feel robbed, cheated and this is why sometimes I feel like a part of me did die.

Ive spent the past two years like many people who get diagnosed with mental illnesses concentrating all their energy into changing, healing, becoming a better person, building destroyed bridges everything we are told to do to help us get better. Yesterday I found a memory box i used to keep, filled with gig tickets, old photos and random bits and bobs that i thought were important to me. I was deverstated to see how much I had changed and how im just not the same boy I was before all this happened. When people told me how much I changed I used take it as a complement thinking that it represented my mental state. . . but it doesnt.

The sad truth is that I will never be that person again, I loved my old life, I hit the metal illness wall, spent so long changing and healing that there is no way back. However before you finishing reading this feeling worse or scared, there is a beautiful flip side. Although my old life is gone, I have all my memories from it, and unlike a lot of other unforgiving illnesses we have a second chance.

I will always have days where I can look back at miss the life I had, but i also have a new life to shape. Its not the same, a lot of things are different, like the regular hospital appointmants, tons of medication etc but its still a life. We need to appreciate that it is okay to mourn what we have lost and so what if people don't really understand, they also won't understand the opptimism, excitement and possibilites having a secomnd life can create. Take this opportunity to do something different, something that the 'old' you wouldnt do or something that you always said you would do but never got around to it.

Im a different person, I miss who I was but im excited to see who I can be.

Let me know your thoughts on this, is this something you have come across on your journey?