I made excuses for over two years before allowing my male primary care doctor to complete a thorough physical exam. He turned down my request to be examined by a female physician. Over time I agreed to be examined by my male doctor because I was afraid of being branded as too demanding and unreasonable.
I remember when I was first doing clinical training we had an advanced psychopathology course every Wednesday after rounds. When we started, we looked at the syllabus and there were a number of familiar texts: the DSM-IV-TR, and Adult Psychopathology and Diagnosis. But sprinkled throughout the texts were other readings: Nabokov, Dostoyevsky, Rilke. After we’d had a moment to look it over the teacher said, You will no doubt notice that there are a number of texts that you have not seen before. This is because I assume that your clinical training to be largely complete. Otherwise how would you get here? But now you have to learn what things actually look like. And, over the course of my career, I have found that anywhere a psychiatrist would go a great writer has been there before and has described it better.
As a person in long-term recovery from using opioids for more than three decades, including 16 years as a Medication Assisted Treatment client, I have been watching with great interest the progress of The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) of 2015 through the legislature. According to Faces and Voices of Recovery, “this is the most expansive federal, bipartisan legislation to date for addiction support services, designating between $40 million and $80 million toward advancing treatment and recovery support services in state and local communities across the country, which will help save the lives of countless people.”
Despite the mountains of snow outside, it is a beautiful morning in Boston! The sun is shinning through the window. My coffee is just right. I need something fun to do... crochet or write? Reading would cap off the morning! What a perfect start to my day!
