A Day in the Life

So, Christmas-time is here again and I repeat the same question I asked last year- so here it is, Merry Christmas, every body's havin ' fun. Or are they? Christmas can be a great time for children, but let's face it, by the time you become an adult the novelty has definitely worn off. All that effort buying presents in the packed shopping malls. All those relatives coming round who you don't particularly like. And don't forget, the absolute absence of the original message of Christmas which has been replaced by mindless materialism. The closest we probably get to that is playing John Lennon's "And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?" Also, it can be one of the most difficult times for those who have experienced mental distress. Our old friends isolation and social exclusion can be felt more acutely at around this time. And for those who aren't isolated, just the damn stress of the whole thing is enough to send you into a relapse. So, as ...

So, the film that I mentioned a few chapters back, after a few weeks of uncertainty, is still definitely going ahead. We have now given all our ideas over to the film making team, they have been back with a completed script, and now are off to make the film for us. Apparently it will be filmed mostly in January and February and should go into post-production and editing in mid-March and should be finished by the end of that month. It will be around six minutes long in running time and, of course, will be a mini-masterpiece. As I previously said the film will be there to highlight the experiences of the long-term mentally ill, usually sufferers of manic depression, i.e. bi-polar or schizophrenia. The film, however, is to be no straight-forward re-telling of our experiences but will be an arty, somewhat metaphorical, even esoteric rendering of what it is like to go through bouts of severe mental distress. As such the film will take the form of a mannequin going through a maze, the maz...

So the government has recently announced plans for those on job seeker's allowance and incapacity benefit to be further "encouraged" to get back to work. It seems that those who won't commit to voluntary or community work or training in preparation for going back to work will have their benefits rudely taken away. The notion that people will, in effect, have to work for their benefits seems to be rapidly coming to the fore. The government says that the severely disabled will be excluded from this new wave of what seems to be right-wing thinking from a supposedly centre-left government. At this point everyone will be telling me to wake up- true socialism died a long time ago in this country and perhaps it can now be seen that Blair and his ilk were the true inheritors of Thatcherism . Personally, I don't mind the idea of working, despite my illness. I have good days and bad days and on the good ones I feel I am capable of doing at least something. I already do so...

Is it me, or has television just plummeted to new lows? Watching last night's "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here", I suddenly thought, "What on earth am I doing watching a bunch of c-list celebrities, half of whom I've never heard of, arguing amongst themselves in the Australian jungle?" The answer was that I was wasting my valuable time, polluting my brain with garbage. Don't get me wrong, sometimes this show can be fun, and I remember the time when Paul Burrell , Princess Di's decidedly dodgy butler, called to his "mummy" as he put his hand into a nest of spiders. It was hilarious. So, I'm not being po -faced here, I am as susceptible to laughter and entertainment as any person. I suppose what offends me is the rise and rise of this genre of entertainment- the reality tv show. It seems you can't turn anywhere without a new reality show springing up. So, one has to wonder, where will this all end up- where are we going with...

So, it's going to be my birthday soon. I'm going to be 37 in just a few days. Unfortunately, though, I still feel as if I have the mental age of an 18 year old, while my body, on the other hand, feels about 67. I think, largely due to being ill for a long time, I have a strange relationship with my age. I feel as though I've been living in a dream world for around fifteen years and have suddenly woken up, only to find my brain still working quite actively, but, as I say, my body steadily falling apart. Due to this "experience" I don't share alot of common ground with my peers. While they have jobs, mortgages and marriages, I have blogs, recovery groups and seemingly endless free time. Some would say I was lucky, not to have to face the usual rat race, nose to the grindstone existence, but being in this position is alienating nontheless . Indeed, many of my old friends used to say to me that I had become a "waste". A waste of talent, a waste of oppor...

I don't know about you, but I've always had a vague mistrust of psychiatrists. For one, just simply the fact that they, along with GPs and social workers, have the power to put you involuntarily into hospital, I find a little scary. All that authority. To potentially have the ability to curb some one's liberty without their consent. I don't know whether I'd want such a big responsibility myself. And it wouldn't be so bad if they didn't get things wrong seemingly much of the time. I only have to look at my own history of mental distress to understand that psychiatry can often be a game of hit and miss. I believe this is largely because the view point of the psychiatrist is subjective and largely unscientific. It is, for the most part, sheer guess work. So when a psychiatrist tells you that he or she is scientific and objective in his approach, don't believe him or her. At this point, he or she will probably tell you that you're exhibiting signs of ...

So, it appears that my addiction problems are not yet over. This is the third blog I've written in, what, a week or so. I have never done so many blogs in quick succesion. I am writing this very early in the morning as I cannot get to sleep. Maybe that's the real problem. I wake up at 4am with nothing to do but get on my blog. Anyway, thought I would use this one to print another poem. You've had the political and the depressing, so thought this time I'd get romantic. Hopefully though the poem is not overly sentimental, but speaks of true, deep feelings of regret and loss. You will also notice that in it, I use the phrase "tread softly", which if truth be told I kind of nicked from the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats. So, what is this? Downright plaigirism? I hope not, because Yeats' estate might sue me. Instead, I like to think of it as postmodern intertextual referentiality. Bit of a mouthful, I know, but you know the sort of thing, that all texts ...

Hello friends, people, masses and multitudes of the lonely. I write this because somehow I get the feeling that many of my blogging pals (I say many, I think maybe I have two if I'm lucky) suffer from a bit of a sense of isolation and loneliness. I can just see all of us beavering away at our keypads but longing for some real interaction with people. As I have said before, it seems that this sort of thing is prevalent amongst those who have experienced some form of mental distress and through the evil machinations of stigma we begin to loose our friends and sometimes even family. So where to turn. I know that I, for one, use my blog as a means of both writing down my feelings and getting in touch with others. Leaving comments,etc. is rewarding and it always lifts my spirits when I get one or two comments left on my blog. In fact, I have been visiting my blog site more and more often recently and think that I may have become somewhat addicted. So, what is the nature of addiction? We...

It is Wednesday morning and it is very early and the reason I am awake and writing this blog is because I've just found out that Barack Obama has won the US election. This is, then, a momentous occasion- the first African-American to make it to the White House. I often talk about the prejudice and stigma of mental health on this blog, so I thought why not extend that principle a little because this decision on behalf of the American people is indeed an historic one. Just think, for example, how far things have come since the early days of Booker T. Washigton and W.E.B.DuBois, or for that matter from the later civil rights movements of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, when America seemed truly divided along the lines of race. It just shows that things have truly progressed and I'm sure many not just in America but across the world will see this decision as a new ray of hope. Indeed, it has come at a time when America's popularity in the world has been waning and its credibi...

Just a short blog this time to say that I may be about to become a film star. Well, sort of. As I am part of the Pathways to Recovery group at the Bennett Centre, I will be involved with the making of a film to show the experiences of the long-term mentally ill. Most of us at the group have diagnoses of either schizophrenia or manic depression and we have decided that the film should be there to promote an understanding of our experiences of those illnesses. There has already been many ideas thrown into the ring about what the film should be about and look like. Many have mentioned the isolation and loneliness they feel, our difficulty in forming lasting relationships or indeed, any relationships at all. But despite this we all seem to feel that the film should also portray a message of hope, that there can be light at the end of any long and dark tunnell and that recovery, coping, living and achieving with such diagnoses is possible. The film, I think, will be funded by the council an...

Thankyou again for your comments on my last blog. I will definitely get back to you. This time I was going to talk about some of the work we are doing at MAGMH as I am finding it particularly interesting at the moment. We are currently researching the possibilty of changing the name of schizophrenia to something a little less stigmatizing. I say a little less, what I really mean is alot less, as I'm sure we all know about the prejudices that surround "that word". Anyway, if you don't know, I shall inform you- consider it educational! For a start, and in no small part due to sheer semantics, people often confuse schizophrenia with a "Jekyll and Hyde", split personality. Of course those of us who know better, know better. But that doesn't stop the general public confusing the condition with something that is more like dissociative identity disorder. Such misunderstandings lead to misattribution of anti-social bahaviours and stigma. Secondly, many of us ima...

It has been a veritable age since my last blog. So thanks again for your comments and sorry if I have not commented as much as I should have. Anyway, I was going to talk this time about one of my more favourable experiences with mental health and social services, and that has been my relationship with my STR worker, Carl. It seemed that when all around seemed to be losing their heads and me not keeping mine that Carl was a voice of sanity and just common good sense, which, as people often say, just isn't that common. Indeed, while I was being what I felt to be largely misunderstood by mental health workers, Carl was a breath of fresh air in that he could actually see my point of view and understand some of the massive unfairness I felt about my treatment. While I was being treated as some sort of social pariah, largely, I think, due to my relationship with alcohol, Carl could only see the positive side of my personality and expressed a vehement belief that I seemed like just a norm...

Thanks once again for your comments on my previous blog. Please keep them coming! Anyway, this time I thought I'd tell you about the staggering amount of free time I have and the resultant feelings of absolute boredom I get. And belive me, this is no ordinary boredom. It is like watching the hands of a clock ticking all day with no relief. As the seconds pass by, striking like thunder bolts, I sit, inert. In fact, it's not really like boredom in the sense that it is far more far reaching and overwhelming. Indeed, probably the french word ennui better describes it. According to the OED ennui is "mental weariness from idleness or lack of interest", and this, it would seem, is what I am suffering from. Who knows, it may be related to those so-called negative symptoms that I have been going on about. Suffice to say, I feel as if I am caught in some kind of negative spiral, my idleness feeding my boredom, my boredom feeding my idleness. So how do I break free of this and t...

Thanks again for your "mindbloggling" comments. They really gave me a lift after my news last time and I really am beginning to think I'm nicer than I thought I was! This is no small step for me after years of barraging myself with negative thoughts, particularly in terms of how I got on with other people. So your comments really are very welcome. Anyway, this time I was going to talk about the way this illness can sometimes make you feel, which has nothing to do with hallucinating or being delusional, but is to do with what are the so-called negative symptoms of the disease. I feel that I experience these even when and despite taking medication. Indeed, perhaps as I have said before, medication can be very good at relieving positive symptoms, such as delusions, but is not so great at relieving the negative ones. According to some literature I have, these negative symptoms can include many different facets, such as "your interest in life, energy, emotions and get up ...

Again thanks for your comments on my blog. As you know they are always welcome. This will only be a very short blog as I have but to relay one piece of information, and that is that my diagnosis, as far as I know, has been updated. My psychiatrist says that this was a diagnosis given in 2005. But I don't think I was really aware of it until recently. Anyway, suffice to say that it's the biggy. The one almost everybody is scared of. Yes folks, its schizophrenia. No longer can I merely say I am bi-polar or schizo-afffective ( which nobody seems to know the meaning of anyway) -I am now one of them- a schizophrenic. And when one speaks of being schizophrenic it seems that such diagnoses become inseperable from one's own identity. For example, the famous psychiatrist R.D.Laing said, "one cannot talk of someone as having schizophrenia. No one has got schizophrenia. They simply are schizophrenic." (from "The Divided Self"). I cannot say that I agree with this...

First of all, I have to thank all of you who commented on my last blog. The comments were all extremely positive and really gave me a lift. It reminded me that I can be more positive about the issues which are facing me and, indeed, should always be grateful for the support I've had through mindbloggling. So, I am going to start with something positive. This blog will only descend into gut-wrenching negativity later on. Only joking. So, what is this positive thing, you all ask? Well, I have managed to actually lose some weight. If my scales are right it is in the region of around 6lbs. I don't exactly know what I've done to lose this weight, my life-style has hardly dramatically changed, but there it is. Needless to say I am now a little more encouraged that it can actually be done and the weight, if I do it right, may eventually come off. We are looking a long time ahead in the future for that, but it is a goal I now feel I can actually do something about, instead of feeli...

I have been asked recently by the Talkbank Action Group to keep a diary of my so-called "progress". They have told me that this diary will go onto a new blog, but just as a bit of practice I thought I would write something here for all of you out there in blogland . As many of you will know from my previous blogs the illness I have is a chronic, long term one. That is to say it is not curable, but it is treatable. In this way there can be long periods of well-being as well as illness. Indeed, so long as medication is taken there seems to be no need why you cannot live an apparently "normal" existence. However, and it is a big however, medication, whilst being very good at reducing so-called "positive" symptoms (such as hallucinations, delusions and hearing voices), is not always as good at reducing "negative" symptoms of the disease (such as tiredness, lack of motivation and low mood). Indeed, many people put down these negative symptoms to act...

I have been looking over my blog recently and it struck me that there isn't too much on there about me. That is me. That is David. That is I. It mostly seems to be rants about mental health issues. So, this time, as we have been doing personal testimonies of our own experience of mental ill health at the Talkbank group, I thought I would print mine here to give you a chance to get to know exactly how, in the words of the great Talking Heads song, I got here. So, here goes... I was first diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder in 1998. For those of you who don’t know, this basically means that I suffer from the symptoms of both schizophrenia and mood disorder at the same time. It seems I have the best of both worlds! Mine is a chronic condition, episodic in nature, which will require medication probably for the rest of my life. However, there is a long and tortuous story behind this diagnosis, and it is one which begins much earlier than 1998. I first noticed a change in my mood ar...