Hello to everyone who happened upon this blog. My name is Alex Mendelsohn*. There isn’t much here in the form of sunshine and flowers (unfortunately, I couldn’t find those emoji’s – all I could find were these red flags: 🚩🚩🚩). Instead, you are free to feast on a collection of thoughts from a physicist going through severe mental illness. Yippee!**
In 2015 I had a severe reaction to the antidepressant Sertraline. Overnight, and I mean literally overnight, I went from someone who had never had any symptoms of anxiety, to someone who had almost all of them in their most severe form. It was a biochemically caused disease.
A lot of my writing will focus on problems in the mental health system from my perspective as a physicist. I finished my PhD just before things got pretty darn awful. The rest of this blog will likely be random curiosities. I will post at least once every month.
I try to write solely from my own perspective. Keep in mind, however, that in my posts there might be details I have missed and arguments that are possibly flawed. I believe a healthy dose of scepticism, or perhaps better put, a healthy dose of uncertainty (not too much nor too little) goes a long way.
I hope this blog may help me to connect with other people out there who think my story is worth listening to or worth telling. If I am really fortunate, I am hoping I can find a researcher who can aid me in figuring out the original cause of my disease.
I have purposely set this blog up using a pseudonym to protect my identity. However, it is also my attempt to look edgy and cool (has it worked?)
*pen name: my reasons for anonymity are in this blog post.
**please see disclaimer
