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Through the Looking Glass: A Psychologist's Experience of Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2018

Martha Manning
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Extract

Driving to the symposium, the vague anxiety and discomfort I had heen experiencing for the past few days finally culminated in the realization that 7 years ago that day, I awoke from my first night as an inpatient at a psychiatric unit.

Since then and because of that, I've learned a great deal about depressive and manic-depressive illness. I've learned about stigma and shame. I've learned about the devastation that the violence we benignly call “mood disorder” wreaks on families. I have been awed by the array of treatments we've found to ease the suffering, and humbled by the fact that we still have a long way to go. I have become painfully aware of how unenlightened the world still is about psychiatric illness, and saddened by the cruel irony that the only thing more stigmatizing than suffering from a psychiatric illness is seeking treatment for it.

Type
Grand Rounds
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 3 , Issue 5: An Integrated Approach to the Treatment of Mood Disorders , May 1998 , pp. 38 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

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