I’ve decided that it might be time to venture back into the dating zoo. A few weeks ago I sat down to write an online dating profile and thought ‘How hard can it be?’ After all, I’m old enough to know what my interests are (I like books, especially when they’re in colour order), to embrace […]
Cave-dwelling: depression, ‘wobbles’ and seeing the light
Once, as an outdoorsy, devil-may-care teenager, I went caving. Wading through the black, up to my nose in chilly water, I found it thrilling…until I had to shimmy my way along a horizontal passageway just inches wider than my body and I thought I was going to be stuck in the cave forever. I got […]
The Sun & mental health: come on, you can do better…
As a former health writer and deputy health editor at The Sun, I’ve spent many an occasion batting off laughs, sneers and suggestions that Britain’s favourite red top couldn’t possibly ‘take health seriously’. When I wrote for the health section of the country’s biggest selling national newspaper, I felt privileged to have an opportunity to […]
Mental health services for MPs: what about the rest of us?
MPs are to benefit from a clinic that’s being set up at Westminster to help growing numbers of them to cope with depression and anxiety. Officials have approved £25,000 per year to fund specialist treatment after doctors in the House of Commons reported growing numbers of MPs with these mental health problems. Unsurprisingly, the response […]
Mental health diagnosis: relief or millstone?
After my last blog entry, one of my good friends commented, “I reckon you should say whether you mean losing friends before or after diagnosis. Now you’ve got a diagnosis, it explains why you were a bit random and crazy before.” Fair point. I would imagine there’s something very different about seeing a friend’s ‘random […]
Give Bipolar UK your coffee money – please!
OK, so times are hard and very few of us have avoided being hit by the recession in some way. For us journalists, it’s the shedding of jobs and the ever-shrinking pot available to pay freelancers (one of my editors described us journalists as being ‘on top of a shrinking iceberg’). When you’re at the […]