It's been so long since I've written
anything. Except drug charts and stuff.
Normally that's a good sign – the
amount I write seems to be inversely correlated to my mood. The lower
I go the more words pour out of me.
My mental stability is undergoing
serious challenges this week: I'm moving house (which will involve
negotiating my way through London during the Olympics); and I'm
starting a new job. I'm having to say goodbye to all of my friends in
London and, perhaps more importantly, people involved in my mental
health care.
There is no way out of this chopping
and changing as a junior doctor. I'll have another job in four months
time and again four months after that. I will no doubt be having to
move to a different part of the country next summer depending on the
location of whatever training programme is mad enough to accept me.
I think it's hard enough for a healthy
person, but when you have an underlying mental illness such as
bipolar disorder moving so frequently can be very de-stabilising. I'm
having to make sure I have a good GP to access and that Occupational
Health at my new hospital are aware of my condition. I have to weigh
up the pros and cons of letting my next supervisor know. And I guess
in the short-term I need to be very vigilant about monitoring my mood
and intervening early if things start to slip. So far there's no
evidence of that that's happening. Not in a serious way. I felt
really down this afternoon after a seagull shat on me (this isn't a
joke), but come on... Isn't that a healthy emotional response?
I do wonder sometimes whether the UK
medical training system couldn't be better at helping some doctors
stay within a smaller geographical area. There are special
circumstances that can allow a trainee to request to stay in a
certain area, such as having children or requiring regular medical
treatment that couldn't be accessed elsewhere. However I think it
would be hard for me to make such a request on the grounds that
moving house “may” destabilise my mood, especially as staying
sane could well be seen as my responsibility, nor theirs. I don't
begrudge them this particularly. I suspect such requests are rarely
made on the grounds of embarrassment. But it's something to think
about in future I suppose...
