Am I even supposed to use the word nuts?

This term should not apply to anyone yet I find it can apply to the standard approach to treating schizophrenia.

What I find unbelievable is that in my 28 years in recovery no psychiatrist ever asked me about the kinds of food I ate or exercise I did. Even though for the first six years of my illness I was 20 pounds overweight. I was always the one to initiate talking about these things.

It is an injustice if not unethical that treatment providers like psychiatrists don’t integrate a whole body approach to treating their patients. I’m so inflamed about this that when I talk to Dr. G next I’m going to tell him how I feel about this.

Why don’t:

Psychiatrists ask about our goals for our physical and emotional and mental and spiritual well-being. Does yours?

Why don’t:

Psychiatrists give their patients referrals to a nutritionist.

Why don’t:

Psychiatrists ask us what OUR number-one priority is for ourselves in our treatment.

I kid you not:

What shrink in only a 20 minute session ever truly gets to the heart of a patient’s goals and dreams?

If a doctor has blinders on and only focuses on the medication this really isn’t right.

I had a second doctor I quit seeing after five years. This guy had an agenda to get me to take Risperdal and I told him no,no,no at every session. You can read about this doctor in my memoir Left of the Dial. I’ll post this session in a memoir excerpt in the Left of the Dial blog on Tuesday.

I just think it’s questionable that individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia often get shabby medical treatment. Should I use the term baloney instead? As in: this is truly baloney. Maybe that would be better.

I’ll end here by saying that I want to continue to write about fitness and nutrition in this blog.

In October I will only occasionally freelance at HealthCentral. For the last nine years as the Health Guide at that website I did write about fitness and nutrition. I was in the vanguard because I wrote about things at HealthCentral five years before anyone else was writing about these recovery topics.

I’ll start to talk in here about things I used to talk about at Health Central. Stay tuned.