Thread by @drjanaway

This here is the problem. People assume my career choice means I don't value people, or see myself as superior. Ask anyone who works in mental health if they believe 'we are better people.' We work with that society have excluded, and it is more humbling than you would know.

https://twitter.com/EssexPR/status/1454834506716925955

Over the last two years, we have gone from 'heroes' to 'enemies' and back, but we do the same job day after day. It is not us, but the political expediency by which we are portrayed for the gain of charlatans and government. Am I Adams's enemy? No. We simply disagree.

To paint myself, and most doctor, as some kind of elitist authoritarian is simply wrong. If we were elitist and authoritarian, we would not have gone into a job where we disproportionately help the poor and forgotten. Why? Because they suffer the most.

In my personal experience I have found myself humbled over and over by realising the real difficulties people face, and find myself ashamed to be spared them simply by luck. I would never talk down to someone I wish to help, nor many of you reading this.

By making me (and us) the enemy, this cycle of anger and displacement continues, to see us as 'elite' and 'awful', above the 'oiks (his words, not mine,) strips us of our humanity and steals us our own morality. Its simply ah hominem in lieu of reason.

So I ask, predicting more abuse, that you consider us as humans separated only by the political vehicle by which we met. If we met in a consulting room, I am sure your view would be very different.

So @EssexPR , I welcome you to walk a day in my shoes, to live my life, to consider how I came to be who I am and direct my attention, to see what I have lost, and what I have turned the pain into. And then I invite you to insult me again.

And, I am sure, if I were to walk a day in yours, I would learn things that I didn't know too. I have nothing against you, but continue to treat me as the punching bag for your anger, mislead about my intentions and behaviour, and you will find yourself without my patience.