Wednesday, August 08, 2007

And The Winner Is........Roy!

One month ago today I posted the Who Reads Shrink Rap? poll on our sidebar. We know we get roughly 1500 unique visitors a week, but people aren't much for polls. We took guesses, we even set up a poll to see who folks wanted to win the guess about how many people would actually take our poll (say what?). I guessed we'd have 275 responses, ClinkShrink said 186, Roy said 246. With 251 responses, Roy is both the closest and he hasn't gone over. You Go, Roy!

So Who Reads Shrink Rap?
21 shrinks (really? I bet they don't vote)
40 other mental health professionals
10 non-shrink physicians
29 other health care professionals
4 of our friends (I thought we had more friends...)
84 patients
69 curious bystanders (whatever that means)
53 others.

Who are The Others? I feel like I'm on LOST.

Other Responses :

student psychologist
psych student
psych resident
minister
pre-med
consumer advocate
Medical Student
medical blogger
Podcast listener
medical student
person with schizophrenia
Confabulous Transsexual
Teacher
do MT work for psych
neotenous ape
medical student
Researcher
medical student
Ex-patient (a success!)
Family member of person with MI
Recommended read from FD
blog reader
medical student
Software developer looking for PhD proposal
clinical psychology student
Probation officer who writes presentence reports
Compulsive reader, sponge for all types of info.
Engineer
medical student
iphone hype link
heavily medicated blogger
just got here thru a link in a news article about iphone crazy
chaplain
democratic network engineer
frustrated late-teenager
clinical social work student
college student
CASAC Student
Medical Student (starting in August)
blogger
student
science writer
blogger/psychology grad student
medical librarian
I am in nursing school, and I am also in psychotherapy
nursing student
medical student
medical student
don't know her
lesbian housewife
I am co-blogger and am patient with Dinah.
Umm, I'm one of the 3 bloggers.
Other Mental Health Provider Student


So there you have it. Thank you for voting and have a good day. Roy is away, we'll have to think about his prize?

13 comments:

Aqua said...

Not sure if it was intentional or a slip, but I found it interesting that you forgot to include the number of patients who read your blog (82 patients took the poll....your highest readership of all). I am pretty sure there was a fairly high number when I took the poll...so the 83rd was me again. Love your blog. Very interesting, funny, extremely insightful...and sometimes a bit painful...hey it's just like therapy.

Dinah said...

Thanks, Aqua,
I thought I had entered this, I think I got sidetracked cutting and pasting the "other" information. It's fixed now.

What part is painful? I'm always a bit perplexed when folks get upset by what we say....

Anonymous said...

I wasn't aware there was more than one of me. Attack...of the clones. :-)

Aqua said...

Dinah,
It was one of the reader comments I read this a.m. when I was browsing some of your old posts and read "Out of the Office", that prompted me to say "painful".

You might remember TheTundraPA saying, "Those of my patients who have seen me primarily for mental health concerns--usually depression--are not generally people I would want to spend time with...if my village patient with schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression invited me to dinner, I would not accept. She is simply not someone I would enjoy spending the time with. Not that she would ask; she is usually oppositional/defiant towards me" My reaction...hmmm, defiant? towards you? I wonder why?

These kinds of stereotype based reactions towards people with mental illness make me want to scream. I agree boundries are extremely important in therapy, but to use them as an excuse to not spend time with "my kind of people" (MKP...AKA those with a mental illness) is simply an idea born of ignorance. MKP includes some pretty interesting people, think Schumann, Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, William Styron and the many unique souls I am fortumate enough to meet online and in therapeutic settings as we struggle together to become well.

My point is, I believe, similar to the one given in your follow-up response, "Who Wants a Diagnosis". MKP includes people all around you, those you love, those you hate, those you respect, those you connect with and those you don't. Boundries is one thing, ignorance is another.

One post you wrote, "Salt Mines", about work and disability hit a bit close to home. When I read that I felt an intense sense of guilt for not working...even though I cannot seem to get my mood stabilized by meds, therapy, or anything else...I wrote about this guilt and my struggle to deal with it in my last Vicarious Therapy post if you are interested.

I think your thoughts were a catalyst for me bringing it up again in therapy on Tuesday and I feel like I am inching closer to either option 3 or 4. So, thanks for the thoughts. Painful...yes, but helpful? Absolutely.

Anonymous said...

Aqua-- thanks for the feedback, and I get it. Glad it's helpful. And thanks for directing me to your blog.

The Silent Voices in my Mind said...

about your new poll... I found it impossible to choose. I am a loyal reader (first time commenter) and have never found a post from you guys that I didn't like, let alone an entire category. I look forward to your posts almost (but not quite, sorry) as much as my morning coffee. (Maybe if there was downloadable caffeine...)

From you, I laugh, I cry, I wonder, I see things from a different POV, and most of all, I learn...

Sorry I couldn't pick a category, but without any one of those topics, the dynamic wouldn't be quite the same...

Zoe Brain said...

Sometimes I doubt my own sanity.

I must be bonkers, so sane world could have this kind of thing happening.

Seriously, this kind of increasing persecution is starting to corrode my sense of humour. I'm starting to react emotionally rather than "slowly and surely drawing my plans against them".

ClinkShrink said...

Downloadable caffeine...yum....maybe that's what I need to get blogging again.

jcat said...

- lot's of painful bits. Mostly the ones that remind me of the huge gulf between people who admit they are f**ed up, and end up seeing p-docs and taking meds....and the ones who don't.

There are all sorts of things that I cannot ever do (or do again) because of having been a psych patient.

That the only person I have ever tried to harm is myself seems almost irrelevant. That I have had a handgun for over 20 years without using it on anyone including myself is irrelevant. That I am mostly MDD is irrelevant - I am tagged as an insane loser who is likely to go postal at the slightest provocation.

Painful? Yeah. Not only what you guys write, but, as Aqua says, some of the comments - once you have been to a p-doc as a patient, seems as if there's always going to be a desk between you and people who you would otherwise regard as equals. And as friends.

Sometimes when I read Clink's posts, I figure it would be easier to see a p-doc in prison (ok...definitely not in this country.....), that you can be a rehabilitated prisoner - once you are a psych patient, it's forever.

I'm glad you guys are coming back, albeit erratically - at least in SA p-docs take time off at random.
If you all take off in August....who gives coverage to all those absent shrink practices?

xx
jcat

Aqua said...

Dinah,
Thanks for "getting it". Thank god I feel like my pdoc does too. With his support, even if nothing works, I hope I can manage to keep trying.

Sometimes THAT is why therapy is important...it creates and nurtures the hope that helps us hold on to life and keep trying in spite of our illnesses' unbearable, and seemingly never-ending, symptoms.

Steve & Barb said...

Commenting from the East Norwalk (CT) Public Library...

Yea! I won something.
On the numbers...
-8% psychiatrists... that feels about right
-all health care people ~100 = 40%... similar to Poll#1, I think.
-many of our "friends" also fall into other categories
-next time (6 months?), we'll add a category of "Students (includes medical, nursing, SW, graduate, college, etc)" ... maybe also "Clergy"

Silent Voices: thanks for the kind comment. Hopefully, you'll get your morning coffee cup refreshed soon.

And, jcat: please don't go to jail just for the psychiatrist. While Clink may be secretly amused and, simultaneously, saddened by the idea, I suspect they don't have Wi-Fi in most prisons.

Anonymous said...

RoY!
I miss you.
Come home.

NeoNurseChic said...

Roy - Are you near New Canaan? That's where my mom went to high school. My grandparents and mom lived there from when my mom was in 9th grade. My grandparents moved to a condo sometime around the time I was born - they also had their condo in Sarasota, FL. Then maybe 5 years ago, they sold their condo in NC, CT and moved to Florida full time, although they've been up with us since early July and are now looking at moving to an assisted living place near us. They just spent a week in NC visiting a very old and dear friend, however. I miss it up there - it is so beautiful in CT!!

Hope you are enjoying your vacation!

Take care,
Carrie :)