Partner/Psychologist at Central Ontario Psychology. Advisor, @badgelifecanada. Constantly amused by the cosmic absurdity of human existence. I block incivility
Barrie, ON
Joined December 2010
- Tweets52.1K
- Following3.7K
- Followers6.4K
- Likes39.6K
Pinned Tweet
We've got a proposal to solve the registration problems at CPBAO. We think we can solve more than one problem, and reduce the chaos!
change.org/SaveONPsychology
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
Here is the Covid debate in a nutshell....
On one side you have "Covid is dangerous" backed by 500,000 peer reviewed publications showing the damage Covid causes, coupled with the reality that more people are sick more often, for longer, more severely.
On the other side you have, "Covid is mild", backed by, "the government said so", with zero proof, publications, or even real world evidence to show it to be true.
There really is no debate, it's just facts vs fiction at this point, and the fiction is winning because its less work and more comfortable.
Policy should match the reality.
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
To whom it may concern,
The problem for physicians is not the long hours or the countless sacrifices during training to become a physician.
That comes with the territory.
The problem is the loss of autonomy and constant undermining of our ability to best care for our patients.
This moral injury is why physicians are leaving medicine early.
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
How many times do we have to explain this?
What part of your brain switched off and convinced you COVID just packed its bags and disappeared?
When a magician shows you an empty top hat, do you genuinely believe the rabbit ceased to exist?
COVID didn’t disappear. We stopped looking for it, stopped talking about it, and somehow confused silence with safety.
Stop calling this a “post-COVID world.” We’re post-emergency declarations. Post-precautions. Post-giving-a-damn, apparently.
But we are NOT post-COVID.
The rabbit is still here.
And at this point, I’m starting to think it’s the only one with object permanence. 🐇🎩
I wonder what nugget of wisdom caused the Deepstash people to depict all men in their ads as muscle-bound and all women as tiny and frail
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
This is so beautiful! This is the kind of friendship all men need.
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
A scammer called my grandmother.
"Grandma, it's me. I've been arrested. Please send 3,000 dollars."
She said, "Oh no, sweetheart. Where should I send it?"
He gave her an address.
She wrote it down very carefully.
My grandmother was a police detective for thirty-one years.
She kept him on the phone for forty minutes.
She cried. She asked for his "lawyer's" number. She asked which bank.
He gave her everything.
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
💖 Actress Marina Sirtis Posts Heartbreaking Tribute to Sir Patrick Stewart! 💔
Posting on Instagram, she said: "He's gone. My friend. My Captain. Me fellow football fan"
Sirtis and Stewart worked alongside each other across #StarTrek: The Next Generation, 4 movies and returned for #StarTrekPicard 🖖
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
I never saw Patrick Stewart at a convention and didn't come with him into direct contact in any way when working on #StarTrekPicard but there's one Patrick Stewart/Jean-Luc Picard related achievement that only I have ever made - find proof that Patrick Stewart exists in the #StarTrek universe. 1/10
Worth the read. A truly great soul.
In 1952, an English teacher named Cecil Dormand secretly paid for a dirt-poor 11-year-old to take a drama course.
He never told him and the boy didn’t find out until decades later.
By then, he was a knight, that little boy’s name was Patrick Stewart.
He was born into a poor family in Mirfield, a small mill town in Yorkshire and his father came home from World War II a violent man, and he was violent toward Patrick’s mother.
Young Patrick learned exactly when to step between his father’s fist and his mother.
An English teacher put a copy of Shakespeare in his hand and told him to get up and perform.
He never stopped and left school at 15.
By 19 he was completely bald... most agencies told him he'd never make it because of that.
In 1987, the LA Times called him an “unknown British Shakespearean actor” when he was cast as Captain Picard.
Then he became one of the most famous faces on Earth.
You’ve probably heard that part.
Here’s the part you haven’t:
He spent decades as a patron of Refuge, sheltering women and children from domestic violence.
But he never stopped trying to understand his father.
He dug up a 1940 newspaper clipping that said his dad had come home with severe shell shock.
He went to France and walked the ground where his father’s unit was pinned down under bombing for hours.
He learned his father had PTSD, and nobody ever helped him.
So Patrick became an ambassador for Combat Stress, a charity that helps veterans.
In 2013, a young woman at a Texas convention told him she was a survivor of domestic violence.
He asked, “My dear, are you okay?”
Then he hopped off the stage, held her, and told her: “You never have to go through that again, you’re safe now.”
At Dragon Con, a Make-A-Wish girl dressed as Spock came to meet him.
2,000 people were waiting for him to speak... he sat down and talked with her for 15 minutes, making all of them wait.
He told her that since they were friends now, whenever she saw him on screen she could wave and say, “Hello Patrick.”
After 9/11, he felt helpless, so he brought his one-man A Christmas Carol back to Broadway for a full week of charity shows.
He played every character himself and donated every cent.
In 2019 he did it again, and every dollar went to feeding hungry New Yorkers.
In 2017, he fostered a pit bull named Ginger, who had been rescued from a dogfighting ring.
She was his first dog in more than 50 years.
He couldn’t bring her home to England, so he found her a family.
Then he kept fostering more.
When he said he was done with Star Trek so many people told him the show had gotten them through the hardest times of their lives.
So he wanted to see if Picard could do it one more time.
Rest in Peace, Sir Patrick 🖖
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
One more bizarre story this week for the Covid Twilight Zone.
I have a longtime friend who I always thought of as my most grounded, logical and insightful one out of everyone.
She lives 400+ miles away. So I’m always so excited to hear from her. She called this week and I was thrilled! Whenever I need to have an objective opinion about a decision, I have always reached out to her.
We would share Covid information, me from a professional lens…and her from a community view.
She was a teacher who had to retire after being hospitalized for Covid and developing Ocular Paralysis in 2021.
Ocular Paralysis makes her unable to move her right eye. She has endured several surgeries over the past few years to regain movement. None of which have been successful.
This week when I asked my friend if there were any changes in her condition, she stated that “If I had unmasked sooner my eye would have improved.”
I asked “How can that be?”
She stated that “EVERYONE has an eyeball stuck because they had problems seeing over their masks.”
I said, “I still Mask and both of my eyeballs are still moving.”
She said, “Well you don’t live in Michigan.”
I asked her very slowly “Are you saying that Ocular Paralysis, a condition that originates from an INFECTION or disease state is somehow coming from Masks?”
She said, “Yes, and being in lockdown where your eyes are inside the house all day.”
The only thing that I could think was “Damn! YOU TOO!”
The only thing I could do was sit down in the “off limits” living room, poured a glass of wine, lit a candle, and played some Camden Stewart.
I’m beginning to think that No Interaction is the Best Interaction.
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
I am mid-flight right now and I have just received the news that Sir Patrick Stewart has left us. Modern technology is both an impressive and an extremely cold thing. Internet databases have already begun referring to him in the past tense. “Sir Patrick Stewart was…” and such a surreal sight hangs heavy on my heart.
Patrick was a friend. Not a close one, mind you, but it was a friendship, an “acquaintanceship” perhaps, that spanned more than half my life.
Ann Cook Calhoun was an extremely well published and well known Shakespeare scholar who also happened to be a dear friend of my family. A better way of describing our relationship is that she became something of a fairy godmother to me, taking an early interest in my education, both financially and academically.
Ann and Patrick had been dear friends for many years (since their mutual involvements with the Royal Shakespeare Company) and she often told me that I reminded her of a young Patrick. Of course, I always thought the comment was her way of being encouraging. Once, when I was attending the graduate Acting program at Columbia University, Ann came to New York with my parents and took us all to see Patrick play Prospero in a Broadway production of “The Tempest”. That was the beginning of my association with Patrick and, in that one evening, I saw what an artist and a professional truly looked like.
Flash many years forward, and you can imagine our mutual surprise at finding ourselves in the very small club of Enterprise Captains. Just… I’m not sure there’s another word for it but “bonkers”. Every time we saw one another, Patrick and I couldn’t help but marvel at this strange serendipity and how Ann, God rest her soul, would have been over the moon at this kismet. While I always thought that Ann had just been doing me a favor, I eventually realized that she really had seen something in me that would, for whatever reason, prove a connection to her dearest old friend. God, I loved her.
Like I say, I didn’t know Patrick incredibly well, but I always knew him to be generous and gracious to a fault. Our first time appearing together as captains was at the network up-fronts in New York. I had arrived late because of my production schedule so I didn’t get to rehearse our bit on stage before we walked out to the lights and cue cards. Of course, I completely missed my mark and had to adjust which made the entire audience laugh. Patrick held his opening line, looked at me and made a gesture as if to say, “You good?” I nodded vigorously, which seemed to elicit another laugh and he nodded back as if to say, “Alright then.”
Patrick had presence, generosity and good grace to spare, and along with an incredible intellect, he brought those qualities not only to Jean Luc, but into a lived integrity that made him an exemplar for lost, young actors looking for a way. I’ll always love him for it. I’m just sorry that was our one and only moment on stage together. Even our turn together in “Dr Strange” was pieced together in post. Why? Because he was shooting Star Trek: Picard” and they couldn’t get him off the set. Jean Luc was if not his first love, his deepest.
Oh well. Perhaps in the next play, in the next theater, he’ll hold a small, nameless roll for me and I will carry that spear with delight.
Bravo, Patrick. I will miss you dearly. Until next time… Engage.
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
RIP Patrick Stewart. What an actor. I still can’t believe he agreed to do this scene. And he didn’t even mind when I ruined every take. Legend.
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
What a heartbreaking week it has been. Sir Patrick Stewart was a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor. From the stage to the bridge of the Enterprise, he brought intelligence, grace, and a deep sense of humanity to everything he did. Captain Picard stood for the best of us, and so did the man who played him. I was filled with affection and admiration for him and his work.
My heart goes out to Sunny and his family. He will be deeply missed.
Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych retweeted
My cousin who I haven’t spoken to since around 2021/2022 after she became irate after I shared Covid information with her grandmother, posted that she lost her Mom, son, and uncle in 2020.
She lost her step-sister, fiancé and who would have been in MIL in 2021.
She lost her best friend, brother, and two of her friends from high school in 2022. (She is in her mid 40s).
She lost her aunt, 2 cousins, a friend from work, and her manager in 2023.
She lost two dogs that originally belong to one of her cousins that passed on her father’s side after only having them for a few weeks in 2024.
The same year, her daughter who is now 11 years old, lost her best friend and her best friend’s Mom died. She also lost both of her remaining aunts.
In 2025, her department combined with another department at work because what used to be 8 people was now down to 2.
Three people died. Two went out on medical leave and didn’t return, and one went out on disability in December 2024.
She stated that most of her weekends in 2026 has been driving her grandmother to funerals..and that her grandmother has outlived all 6 of her children….5 daughters including her mother, (one daughter died in Nov/Dec 2019 from “pneumonia”), and a son.
THEN SHE SAID….. “I can’t even imagine Covid being as bad as the SUPER COLDS that they couldn’t shake. Knock on wood, none of us got Covid.”
….and for me…this is why distance is good to maintain sanity,