Seeing red

In miserable rain this morning a colleague drove me to Didcot for the first day of a three-day training course. I was navigator but almost missed our turnoff for not spotting my landmark – the rather large Didcot power station – in the grim greyness. But by lunchtime the sun was Mediterranean and I used our break to prowl a new blip-hunting ground.
 
The course was on ‘Personality Disorder’ and I confess that my previous experiences of trying to get mainstream support before troublesome mental health problems became a crisis meant that I went in warily. I wanted to know whether, if I came across a subset of difficult behaviours in combination, there was a known effective way of responding to it. By tea-break I’d learnt that I should put the person at the centre of my work (I do) and listen with empathy (I do).
 
By the time the sun came out I’d learnt that tattoos used to be an indicator of personality disorder, but are not any more (perhaps since middle class community psychiatric nurses started having them too?). By lunchtime I’d learnt the symptoms of Anti-Social Personality Disorder and realised that they happen to map almost exactly onto what I know of the behaviour characteristics of unemployed young males growing up on run-down housing estates. One symptom (no remorse for their behaviour) also happens to map onto the behaviour characteristics of rich people accepting hefty bonuses.
 
I diagnosed myself as suffering from Politically Disruptive Personality Disorder but managed to keep it under control this session. I will do my best to go into the next two sessions (over the next six weeks) with an open mind and if anyone here can offer me treatment to facilitate that I’d be grateful.

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