Alex has had negative experiences with clinicians in the past and has struggled to find a psychiatrist they trust. After finding a psychiatrist and a combination of medications that have helped ease their symptoms, they plan to share their experiences through various platforms. However, they wish to remain anonymous for now as they criticize aspects of psychiatry, psychotherapy, and neuroscience and do not want their current psychiatrist to discontinue their service. Once their symptoms have improved and they feel safe enough, they plan to reveal their true identity while keeping the pen name Alex Mendelsohn. They hope to use their unique perspective to help others and prevent similar negative experiences from happening to others.

In the past, I have been refused treatments that eventually worked, and had interactions with past clinicians that unintentionally drove me towards suicide, rather than away from it.

It took me a very long time to find a psychiatrist I trust. Once I did, we landed on a combination of medications that have progressively eased my symptoms over the last couple of years. I take one of these medications off-label (this means that the medication is licensed for another condition, not the one I am taking it for). My current psychiatrist is the first I have met willing to prescribe this medication.

During my recovery, I plan to communicate my diverse range of experiences over as many platforms as I can find. However, within most of these stories, I will criticise the fields of psychiatry, psychotherapy and some parts of neuroscience. While the risk is relatively small, I don’t want my current (private) psychiatrist to recognise me as the author of the articles I plan to write. Although I have a lot of praise for them, I am worried they may discontinue their service.

Ideally, I want to work with people focusing on mental health and the central nervous system subjects. I believe my story, lived experience, personality, communication skills and education in physics could be beneficial to those willing to listen. My insights are valuable – as are others with severe mental illness. I hope my unique perspective will help prevent what happened to me from happening to other people.

I am quite happy to reveal who I am to those willing to help me.

Once remission of my symptoms has been achieved (and I feel safe enough), I will forgo my anonymity entirely. Although, for continuity and searchability, I still hope to use Alex Mendelsohn as a pen name. I hope this blog post has helped to clarify my position a bit better.

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