Self-Care Tip #143 – Choose differently. Be a friend to yourself.
Psychiatry, love of my professional life, married me into his secretive family. Of course I wanted and want psychiatry, finding so much inner congruence to the paradigms regarding human behavior, emotion, and more. However, I did not want all the dangers of prescribing, of sharing advice (even solicited advice) if given outside sound proof walls, formalities with documentation, and a doctor-patient relationship that guards against abuse of power. These are important things for sure but for me, they seemed to seep into my personal life. For example, I was coached that even a cousin or friend or colleague whom I loved and loved me might throw me into prison, a Joseph toward the land of Egypt, should something go wrong that they thought was connected to my involvement. Their own guilt and anger would be my judgment.
We do see this. It is not a myth. It happens not only in the personal scenarios I have described, but even when treatment is done in the most discreet, professional and informed circumstances. In eating disorder families, for example, the psychiatrist might become the scape-goat. Their calorie-deprived daughter, wife, sister, son is hospitalized and despite all their physician does or does not do, the beloved starves and dies. The survivors are so confused by their grief. Their pain, an angry god, will consume them if nothing is done. And that is how the psychiatrist ends up in court to carry the sins away for the lives left behind.
And so my professional relationship with psychiatry became part of the neighborhood zoning that conditioned my choice to be more personally disconnected. There are other cultural reasons, some of which I have mentioned in the blog-post Journey. The key though is that is was my choice. No one forced this on me. No one forced me to respond in the ways that I have. I am not a victim to my culture, sex, profession or anything else. And I can choose differently any time I want.
I choose. Is not that marvelous?!
Question: What trips up your choices to connect? What has helped you choose differently when you needed to? Please tell me your story.
Related Articles
- When I Can’t Take Care Of “Me” (friendtoyourself.com)
- The Medical-Psychiatry Unit: The Moment Has Arrived (thepracticalpsychosomaticist.com)
- SOTT FOCUS: SOTT Talk Radio – Dr Colin Ross Interview: CIA Doctors and the Psychiatry Scam (sott.net)
- Middle-Aged Americans Committing Suicide at Unprecedented Rate (stateofglobe.com)