Healthtalkonline began in 1999 and began to gather people from across the country to talk about their personal experiences of various health issues and their effects on individuals.
Subjects that affect all of us in some way are covered, such as cancer, dying, mental health, pregnancy and childcare and living with disability are discussed in face to face interviews with real people telling real stories. Their own stories. This website is unique inasmuch as it acts as a tool and reference point for healthcare professionals, educators and the public alike.
I was interviewed in July 2007. I volunteered after seeing a link on the National Autistic Society website and was contacted by Dr Sara Ryan, pictured above right, from Oxford University. We met at an hotel in Derby for the video interview, which can now be seen at http://www.healthtalkonline.org/disability/LifeontheAutismspectrumAdults/People/Interview/1608/Category/172. We talked at length about my life experiences as someone with Asperger’s syndrome.
At the time of my
interview, I was suffering from what turned out to be a prolonged period of depression, a subject also covered on the Healthtalkonline website.
The renamed and reshaped website was launched on October 13th, 2008 at Altitude 360, Milbank Tower in London and I was invited. By Lord Stone of Blackheath, it appeared. Altitude 360 is a reception room at the very top of Milbank Tower, which was built in 1963. It was here that, on December 19th, 2008, just two months later, Lord Mayor Boris Johnson announced the New Bus for London.
It was a strange experience to turn up for our ‘Writing the News’ module that morning with my wheely suitcase, knowing I would, several hours later, be at a unique reception attended by author Philip Pullman, Ann Keene MP and Parliamentary Under Secretary for Health Services, face of Channel 4 News, Jon Snow and others. I would be making the news.
Perhaps if a resource like Healthtalkonline had been around back in the early 1970’s, when I was 9 and referred for the first time for psychiatric help, it would have helped those caring for me, including, and especially, my parents, teachers and wider family. Perhaps they would have been more understanding. Perhaps I would have been treated more kindly. Perhaps there would have been no need for the three years spent on highly addictive drugs that were only ever intended for short term use and are now never given to young children. Perhaps I would have been treated more kindly by the women on my mother’s side of the family, who ridiculed my lack of femininity and mocked my tomboy, outdoor lifestyle. Perhaps, too, I would not have been driven to live in a fantasy world where my best friends were Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes, from the popular TV series, Alias Smith and Jones. My bike would have been just that and not the ‘horse’ I rode for miles on my own, with my ‘dog’ at my side. It would have helped to avoid the black rages that filled my head in response to yet another misunderstanding. Perhaps I would not have suffered twice from Anorexia nervosa, prolonged bulimia nervosa and three failed marriages.
The launch party was a personal triumph. Negotiating the London underground and locating Milbank Tower was a victory of fear over need to be there. A melding of journalist with autist. I felt very small and frightened, knowing, as usual, I would be the visiting alien. Would there be anyone else there ‘on the spectrum’?
It was the second time I had met Sara who, thankfully, recognised me. She was with two other women who did not look at all autistic. My facial recognition may be patchy but I always recognise my own and these two women were on the website because they had autistic family members. Sara introduced me to Mark, who was also interviewed for the website. He was 27 and had Asperger’s. At the end of the evening, we walked back to the tube station together. ‘At least,’ he said, ‘I didn’t get laid.’
I looked him up on the website when I got back home and found he was rather prone to one night stands because he was so bad at forming relationships he foresaw himself as staying single.
I had my very recently bought contacts book and got so many numbers, email addresses and contacts, my head spun whizzier than a psychedelic spider’s web. Philip Pullman gave me his number and signed ‘The Subtle Knife’ for my son. Jon Snow was incredibly kind adding his email address and work number. Lord Stone gave me his card and a very English ‘peck on the cheek’. I got so many business cards my Filofax looked like the seven ‘thin and ugly cows’ swallowed up by the seven fat ones in Pharoah’s dream (NCV 1993). Still skinny, but something to remember in the morning. So, too, did Jon Snow’s tie, which I won in the fundraising auction. It cost me the equivalent of one month’s mortgage but memories are priceless.
Healthtalkonline is priceless, too. Not just for the people taking part but for families, friends and the miscellaneous menagerie of professionals who need educating.
Dr Jonathan Miller spoke at the launch. As a medical student at University College, London, in the 1950’s, he noticed that doctors had little time to spend at the bedside of patients, whereas nurses did. He spoke of the Monty Python sketch and ‘the machine that goes ping’. The medical profession were, at the time, more interested in the mechanics that made people well but were out of touch with the people, the humanity, behind the suffering. In his eyes, Healthtalkonline was the avenue by which those affected by illness could voice their feelings. Until these people are consulted, considered and cared for, the machine will continue to ping louder than human suffering.
Healthtalkonline.org is a meisterstueck , a brilliantly obvious platform for the little voice to shout.
And I was part of it.
http://www.healthtalkonline.org/Home
http://www.youthhealthtalk.org/
http://www.nas.org.uk/
http://www.entertainment-press.biz/albums.php?albumId=74025
Genesis 41:20-21 NCV
http://roycecarlton.com/admin/speakers/fileuploads/Miller_Info-Kit.pdf
Subjects that affect all of us in some way are covered, such as cancer, dying, mental health, pregnancy and childcare and living with disability are discussed in face to face interviews with real people telling real stories. Their own stories. This website is unique inasmuch as it acts as a tool and reference point for healthcare professionals, educators and the public alike.
I was interviewed in July 2007. I volunteered after seeing a link on the National Autistic Society website and was contacted by Dr Sara Ryan, pictured above right, from Oxford University. We met at an hotel in Derby for the video interview, which can now be seen at http://www.healthtalkonline.org/disability/LifeontheAutismspectrumAdults/People/Interview/1608/Category/172. We talked at length about my life experiences as someone with Asperger’s syndrome.
At the time of my
interview, I was suffering from what turned out to be a prolonged period of depression, a subject also covered on the Healthtalkonline website.The renamed and reshaped website was launched on October 13th, 2008 at Altitude 360, Milbank Tower in London and I was invited. By Lord Stone of Blackheath, it appeared. Altitude 360 is a reception room at the very top of Milbank Tower, which was built in 1963. It was here that, on December 19th, 2008, just two months later, Lord Mayor Boris Johnson announced the New Bus for London.
It was a strange experience to turn up for our ‘Writing the News’ module that morning with my wheely suitcase, knowing I would, several hours later, be at a unique reception attended by author Philip Pullman, Ann Keene MP and Parliamentary Under Secretary for Health Services, face of Channel 4 News, Jon Snow and others. I would be making the news.
Perhaps if a resource like Healthtalkonline had been around back in the early 1970’s, when I was 9 and referred for the first time for psychiatric help, it would have helped those caring for me, including, and especially, my parents, teachers and wider family. Perhaps they would have been more understanding. Perhaps I would have been treated more kindly. Perhaps there would have been no need for the three years spent on highly addictive drugs that were only ever intended for short term use and are now never given to young children. Perhaps I would have been treated more kindly by the women on my mother’s side of the family, who ridiculed my lack of femininity and mocked my tomboy, outdoor lifestyle. Perhaps, too, I would not have been driven to live in a fantasy world where my best friends were Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes, from the popular TV series, Alias Smith and Jones. My bike would have been just that and not the ‘horse’ I rode for miles on my own, with my ‘dog’ at my side. It would have helped to avoid the black rages that filled my head in response to yet another misunderstanding. Perhaps I would not have suffered twice from Anorexia nervosa, prolonged bulimia nervosa and three failed marriages.
The launch party was a personal triumph. Negotiating the London underground and locating Milbank Tower was a victory of fear over need to be there. A melding of journalist with autist. I felt very small and frightened, knowing, as usual, I would be the visiting alien. Would there be anyone else there ‘on the spectrum’?
It was the second time I had met Sara who, thankfully, recognised me. She was with two other women who did not look at all autistic. My facial recognition may be patchy but I always recognise my own and these two women were on the website because they had autistic family members. Sara introduced me to Mark, who was also interviewed for the website. He was 27 and had Asperger’s. At the end of the evening, we walked back to the tube station together. ‘At least,’ he said, ‘I didn’t get laid.’
I looked him up on the website when I got back home and found he was rather prone to one night stands because he was so bad at forming relationships he foresaw himself as staying single.
I had my very recently bought contacts book and got so many numbers, email addresses and contacts, my head spun whizzier than a psychedelic spider’s web. Philip Pullman gave me his number and signed ‘The Subtle Knife’ for my son. Jon Snow was incredibly kind adding his email address and work number. Lord Stone gave me his card and a very English ‘peck on the cheek’. I got so many business cards my Filofax looked like the seven ‘thin and ugly cows’ swallowed up by the seven fat ones in Pharoah’s dream (NCV 1993). Still skinny, but something to remember in the morning. So, too, did Jon Snow’s tie, which I won in the fundraising auction. It cost me the equivalent of one month’s mortgage but memories are priceless.
Healthtalkonline is priceless, too. Not just for the people taking part but for families, friends and the miscellaneous menagerie of professionals who need educating.
Dr Jonathan Miller spoke at the launch. As a medical student at University College, London, in the 1950’s, he noticed that doctors had little time to spend at the bedside of patients, whereas nurses did. He spoke of the Monty Python sketch and ‘the machine that goes ping’. The medical profession were, at the time, more interested in the mechanics that made people well but were out of touch with the people, the humanity, behind the suffering. In his eyes, Healthtalkonline was the avenue by which those affected by illness could voice their feelings. Until these people are consulted, considered and cared for, the machine will continue to ping louder than human suffering.
Healthtalkonline.org is a meisterstueck , a brilliantly obvious platform for the little voice to shout.
And I was part of it.
http://www.healthtalkonline.org/Home
http://www.youthhealthtalk.org/
http://www.nas.org.uk/
http://www.entertainment-press.biz/albums.php?albumId=74025
Genesis 41:20-21 NCV
http://roycecarlton.com/admin/speakers/fileuploads/Miller_Info-Kit.pdf
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment