Medcast news and blog

Our bad experiences of mental health care with health professionals

What have we learned from the last lockdown? Does having a job and being an introvert make it any easier?

School teachers have been hit hard by COVID-19. Since the start of 2020, teaching roles and demands have changed significantly. One key change was the rapid addition of new online methods of teaching. This was crucial to cater for students still in the classroom and those who had to learn at home during lockdowns or quarantine.

“What a night...we needed it!” This was one of many responses to a musical soiree I held at our home on a Sunday evening in late May. The flood in expressions of gratitude reflected how much we all valued playing and reconnecting. This was an inaugural event, an idea to get some of our Musicus Medicus members together again.

As you may know, I’m a big fan of writing as a stress management tool. There’s even evidence to support the idea!

In late 2020, I was lucky enough to start in a new role at The Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety & Depression (CRUfAD) at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney. This was the year in which there were many challenges and barriers to accessing mental health care, as we all faced the extreme uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Do you ever struggle with explanations around mental health interventions? Do you need to learn some interventions that may be useful in your own life?

Once upon a time I would have baulked at any conversation about retirement. Even a chat about superannuation would have given me a vague feeling of nausea. For me, both subjects carried with them very unpleasant notions – old age, senescence, incapacity and burdensomeness.

A taxi driver asked me recently if I was still working. I hurriedly assured him that I was indeed “still working” as I was not yet old enough to retire – that, I’m afraid, was a lie!. What surprised me was the rush of emotion the question provoked and the amazing need to tell that lie. What is the matter with me?