Vulnerability in Psychiatry

don't trust you.Any of you."The teenaged patient said as tears rolled down her cheeks and she hung her head down, refusing to make eye contact."I bet you don't believe me, and you don't understand."We were in a conference room with her mental health team including the attending psychiatrist, a nurse, a social worker, a psychologist, and me, the psychiatry resident who was interviewing the young woman just 10 years younger than me.She had recently escaped a severely abusive situation prior to being admitted.Her post-traumatic stress symptoms were visible for all to see, and the entire team's hearts bled for her.We had often discussed her with pained concern given the severity of her background and her presentation, and we wondered how we could connect with her and make her feel safe, supported, and welcomed.I have been interested in the mind since I was a child.People behaved in ways I didn't understand in my abusive home, and it frightened and confused me.In fact, a lot of people presented confusing emotions and behaviours even outside my home, and I made it my mission to understand by studying psychology as a precocious pre-teen.That helped me make sense of my life and the minds of the people around me, which led me down the path towards a career in psychiatry.The journey has been a rollercoaster, with gratifying moments of seeing my positive impact, along with the various struggles of working in a strained system with colleagues and authority figures who were sometimes very unkind to me.This journey has been full of grappling with the concept of vulnerability both personally and professionally.