@Powderfinger I don't know how to respond to be honest. Everyone says the same thing - but no-one has walked in my shoes. I am taking time out to sort this out for myself. It takes a great deal of consideration. He trained me to be cautious and well-considered in all things. How could one person present himself in such an impeccable and honourable way - then throw away all of his achievements. Why?
He was always there for everyone. Unlike so many in his profession he was prepared to put aside all he had been taught because he knew that what others describe as so-called "mental illness" was an expression of the malicious and systematic abuse to which they had been subjected and which had distorted their personalities and reasoning. He went out on a limb to prove it.
In the 6 - 8 years I studied from medical text books he told me to never go near a text book on psychiatry - for several reasons. I considered his reasoning to be that I would find it distressing, I would find it distressing to read such misinformation which affects so many lives, he wanted me not to be influenced by what others have unlearnedly written as "gospel" - to sort it all out for myself. He wanted me to watch and learn. I regard that as sound and learned advice. I would tell anyone to do the same. As a consequence I consider myself to be well-informed having not been influenced by others' misleading information. I didn't - and won't - go near such books. I worked it all out for myself.
Regarding my time with the homeless - I had been living alone and in great distress for a number of years. I was extremely ill as a consequence of unrelenting distress which had broken my health so devestatingly. I found it arduous to try to keep going - to buy food when I didn't have a refrigerator, at times I slept on the floor, I didn't have a washing machine. I was physically broken in health. Devestatingly so. In fact, without going in to all the additional details, I could hardly walk - so reduced was my strength.
When I went to see him, it took me a week to build up the strength - like a battery recharging from the exertion of my previous week's trip consultation. I couldn't support myself in the chair and would slide over and almost hang over the arm. Sometimes I would continue my consultation for a while in that position because I didn't have the strength to right myself and I knew I would only slide back again. He was my only support during this time. He kept me going.
When I asked a social worker for information regarding board and lodging as I just couldn't keep going and this refuge was all she offered, my psychiatrist did indeed hear a 'cry for help'. He told me to go there because he knew I would be among decent people - people who had walked the same path I was walking. He knew I would be safe with them, well-fed and that I would have company whenever I chose. He was right.
And, working as a team, together we would bring peace and order to their lives and give them time to think - in an environment which was no longer pure mayhem. It only takes one person doing their job to bring order from chaos.
He has a large family, was under enormous stress trying to prove he was right in a profession where others were going in the opposite direction, he worked in three places - which sometimes included weekends, did inhuman hours under unimaginable stress.
It is easy for psychiatrists not to feel distress dealing with their patients if they are able to completely disconnect themselves from it - feel nothing. That is how I see psychiatry being practised today. It is more convenient to simply attribute others' suffering to so-called "mental illness", chemical imbalances etc. because to feel their distress as they unpack and deal with their 'loads' is distressing to them. He chose to walk that path with his patients. He helped us carry our loads.
He never missed a beat. I don't know what else to say.
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