Telepathy in waiting rooms? no......

Hello everybody, hope you like this post, and I hope that you'll stay on my website for a bit after reading.  
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Working in the NHS on a mental health ward, and paying attention to the news, I am aware of the odd shortcoming.  The NHS takes a lot of flack for it's operational lapses and even some misdeeds and I suspect that some of them are real cases where real change needs to happen.

I personally think it boils down to under funding when a patient seems to be receiving shitty care - if there was more cash then I'm sure the care would improve.  But I am fairly impartial and I believe that much of what the NHS does is done very well.  Take today for example.  My mum had an appointment at the Eye Day Care Unit at The Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital for a 'Laser Capsulotomy' and me being the responsible and loving son, I took the afternoon off work to go with her and do the driving, as the procedure leaves the patient with 'eye floaters' for a few days until the debris in the eyeball created by the laser removing the offending cells (that are creating the vision problems) is reabsorbed and disposed of safely by the bloodstream. 

Eye doctors must have interesting days to talk about when they get home or to the pub. "Oh today? just the usual.  I did three laser capsulotomies before lunch and in the afternoon I implanted four artificial lenses.  I did some cataract surgery too.  I gave nine people their sight back." 

Credit to the professionals in the NHS who do things like that, I don't think I'd have the nerve even if I did have the knowledge.  

But that isn't all.  The whole process this afternoon was very smooth, something I used to appreciate very much when my social anxiety was bad.  We were only at the hospital for 25 minutes. 

Back in the day I used to have a very quirky experience whenever I was in a waiting room or a queue.  I used to call it 'Telepathic Tourettes'.  With my imagined telepathic abilities, in a waiting room I'd think that a person could quite possibly start hearing my thoughts.  If I sat down next to someone who was quite ugly, I'd hear in mind - "fuck me, aren't you ugly."  And then I'd think that they heard my thought, in their mind. 

This was a while back, I'm much better with it now.  It was an uncontrollable thing - I didn't want to think it, let alone broadcast it telepathically.  I am kind and I don't insult the afflicted - I'm not all that good looking myself, but my mind used to be uncontrolled and it just blurted stuff out. 

After thinking that Mr. Ugly had just heard my telepathic insult, I had to frantically clarify, telepathically - "Sorry about that.  I don't think you are ugly at all.  I'm quite ugly.  you are not.  Fuck me you've got a stupid haircut.  Oh No! I didn't mean that!  No - your hair is completely normal in every way!  Oh shit..."

Then the person might get up for their appointment or there'd be a distraction of some kind and I'd never see them again.  And I'd just hope that they didn't care about my insults, insults that I could have, in reality, thought about again and again and nobody would ever have known.  My imagined telepathic ability caused me problem after problem, day in day out for years.  It was tough. 

But today, in the waiting room, I had a chat with another man about DIY (a hobby of mine) and construction in general.  Then I went on Twitter on my phone for a bit, comfortably relaxing. I had a look at my website, this website, making a mental note to ask my web guru about adding photos and making other small changes to my blog when I see him next week.  Two minutes later, my mum had finished.  

We drove home on roads that were welcomingly traffic free.  I don't like traffic, back in the day it used to really make me panic - but that's another story.   

I wish you all good mental health, especially when things get tough.