I never realised that I was mentally ill.

I am now on my first clinical placement on junior rotation, in psychiatry. My only other experience in mental health was in 1993 as a student nurse, when I was placed in a "drop in" day centre (Couldn't believe how many fags a group of people could get through). I think it is fair to say that until this week, my views of mental illness were archaic - mental illness happened to strange people who then went on to do very strange things.

I started this week by sitting in on an outpatient clinic with my psychiatrist. Most of the visiting patients were in various stages of depression and I made the mistake of commenting that I had never thought of depressed people as being mentally ill. I was depressed after my dad had his stroke a few years ago and ended up on six weeks of Citalopram. I knew I was depressed, but never for one moment thought of myself as being mentally ill!

I have always thought of mentally ill people as psychotic nutters (I had an altercation with a paranoid schizophrenic once that is probably to blame) but what I have learnt immediately, is that mental illness happens to normal people. It seems that you can be perfectly well one day and then wake up the next hearing voices and seeing little men running around the room. The latter are called "Lilliputian hallucinations" I love that name!

I also never knew that ECT was still a treatment and never knew that giving an anti-psychotic drug can stop the voices in Schizophrenia. That amazes me - how can a drug stop voices in your head? Apparently the voices start when too much dopamine flies around your brain, so drugs are given which bind dopamine receptors and when most of the receptors are bound, the voices stop. Brilliant.

My consultant has given me a DVD of "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" to watch this weekend. It looks a bit depressing but I think I had better keep in his good books after the "Depressed people aren't mentally ill" comment