Hark, a Deafening Silence

I am waiting for a voice from the north. Yet all I hear is a deafening silence. Sadly that is as I had expected-a world obsessed with pieces of paper clearly doesn't want to hear my voice. I have heard nothing from Cambridge. It seems ever the way with the honourable exception of my present employer, no one else seems able to look beyond what I lack and take in what I do. I expect the silence to continue.

I remain unwell with this mystery ailment. It appeared to be a kidney problem but now seems to have morphed into pain on the left side when I eat. I suppose I ought to go back to the Doctor but who knows if that will be more conclusive.

That brings me to main point of this post, voices and Doctors. I am as I have openly acknowledged a voice hearer. That now is exceedingly rare, such is the power of my risperidone. But when I was at the surgery on Monday there was no acknowledgement of my psychosis on her screen. There were 3 diagnoses, from 1991, 1994, and 2001-all were wrong. Whatever happened to the incontrovertible truth that I have a mood disorder with psychosis? Am I a liar? Is my book a complete fraud? Or do Doctors just lie?

Were I a liar I seriously doubt that my book would be on the essential reading list for our mental health nurses. If I was lying, why would so many different groups ask me to come and lecture to their students? Why do people who come to my training courses feel so uplifted? Why do so many who have heard my story or read my book describe it as "inspirational"? Is that the work of a liar? I guess others should judge that.

I have been around Doctors for years on both side of the mental health divide. Whether they are liars I do not know but what I do know is that what they tell you and what they tell each other are not always the same thing.

11 years on I am still ruing the day that the brilliant psychiatrist Heather McAlister suddenly left the employment of the Kent Mental Health Trust. Not that I do not wish her well-I certainly do. But she left before we could formally diagnose my illness. One might say who cares so many years on? Well I care, I have never lied about my illness.

I Heard a Voice.