Dr Leanne Hayward 2023-07-08 Person 5 5 0

The doctor listened to me and asked appropriate questions to elicit the information she needed to make a diagnosis. Statistically, she could tell me why I didn’t have a relapse with my mental health on my second pregnancy. That was reassuring as I’ve felt I’ve had to explain and defend why I didn’t have a relapse to NHS but all I know is that I didn’t. That not relapsing didn’t mean I didn’t have a mood disorder. She reassured me that I had a mental health condition which was unrelated to my personality. I felt the NHS doctor I had seen had been using an exclusion criteria and fitting me into a personality and anxiety box to exclude me from mental health services. I’m grateful I had help to pay for a private appointment because it also meant I could choose to speak to a female psychiatrist. It felt different. It felt that I wasn’t being squeezed into that personality and anxiety box because I was a woman. There wasn’t the ego and prejudgments I’d experienced with male NHS professionals and sometimes females working under a male doctor. She asked me about the impact of my menstrual cycle, something a male MH professional has definitely not asked me! I could tell her about side effects of breast tenderness, something my NHS male professionals behaved awkwardly about. I hope I can move forward with appropriate treatment now I have an accurate diagnosis.