Stonebird

I was reflecting recently on what makes a good carer, it struck me that it comes down to a willingness to listen! The person will tell you all you need to know, if you have ears to hear- sadly many times I have not fully heard my wife, Linda, not read the signs properly, misinterpreted the situation, always with unfortunate and sometimes painful consequences. By profession, I trained as a Registered Nurse, yet I recorded, soon after my wife became ill with Severe ME : “ The fact is I find myself in a situation where my use of a Nursing Process model has served, to my dismay and horror, to highlight how much my own thinking and practice has been locked into a set way of operating. Being a nurse, caring for my wife in our home, means I find myself in a situation, more complex than a professional work setting, where the roles and boundaries are much more explicit. ” We exist on a delicate, difficult knife-edge here, of treacherous life-destroying, ravenous suffering, where ev...

“STRAIGHT-JACKETED BY EMPTY AIR: Psychiatry’s long and shameful involvement in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis” ....is available to download as a FREE eBook. It is a critical time for people with ME, it is important to work with NICE to get a biomedical healthcare pathway established in the UK. To achieve that, you really need to understand the issues, especially the history. This book is offered in love, as a contribution to the ME community, to teach, to inform and, as in all my books, to inspire. Here is how it begins : " If I was to focus all my hurt, all my tears, all my despair, all the love poured out, over 25 years of gross medical neglect, onto these words: PSYCHIATRY OUT OF ME, NOW !! ..they would be written a million miles high. " Many, many thanks for all the support and enthusiasm for this book, it spurred me on! Special thanks to Rachel Higginson, Susanna Agardy, Geoffrey Keith Brown, Sally K Burch, Colleen Steckel, Nancy Blake, Corina Duy...