About I Digress
I Digress is a newsletter from a retired psychiatrist looking back on his 25 years of work. Rather than finding a lifeless place at the hospital, he was struck by the vibrancy and elan of patients and staff. The anecdotes and experiences reveal a world of unconventional growth and healing for many, he included. Note: all names have been changed, personality traits altered, and distinguishing characteristics omitted, to protect the privacy of patients and coworkers.
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About the author
After 25 years as a psychiatrist at a state hospital, I retired. There is so much to share from those years. Whether it’s serious stuff like how disintegrating mental illness can be, or more humourous things stemming from the seemingly infinite imagination of the patients I think others will be surprised at the amount of life found within the hospital walls.
The hospital is a place I grew to love and feel more at home in than any other public setting, but it is a hard place to describe. The hospital buildings opened in 1959, the same year I was born. We celebrated our 50th birthdays together. I felt an unearned connection to the facility. We were twins with our own walls. For most of my time there I worked on the male geriatric ward, a place filled with elderly, mostly harmless men of all shapes, flavors, and constitutions.
It was a work that profoundly affected my life. I’m excited and grateful to be able to share some of what I experienced and how it changed me.
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