A Day in the Life

If you live in Britain, you'll know that at Christmas time the Queen gives a special Christmas message. It's usually broadcast on the BBC on Christmas Day, and in it the Queen often tries to boost the morale of our country. Thing is, this year the Queen may have a pretty difficult time doing this, such is the extent of our current economic malaise. In fact, if I were her, I'd probably start off by saying something like, "Yikes folks, things are awful, why not just stay in bed". Indeed, it's even worse if you're experiencing mental ill health. I'm not saying that it's only those in such a predicament that are feeling the pinch, but as my own previous Christmas messages in this blog attest, it is often a particularly difficult time for us. The isolation which mental illness can bring can sometimes be more acutely felt at this time of year, when everyone else is running around enjoying themselves and basking in the warmth of friends and family. Also...

At a meeting on 29th November, 2012, it was revealed that my local mental health resource unit, The Bennett Centre, is going to close on 21st December, 2012. The meeting was held by staff in order to attempt to reassure service users that the service they have relied on for many years will not be being completely dismantled, but simply restructured. We were told that care plans would not be being changed, but that the care co-ordinators who meet with us to arrange care plans might be replaced by other staff, due to the rearrangements which have resulted in the loss of 35 jobs. New venues within the community now might be used for service users to meet with staff, and we were told that the reason the Bennett Centre had been chosen for closure rather than other units was that such venues were more readily available within the Bennett Centre catchment area. Letters would be sent out to all service users to tell them of any changes. The overall feeling at the meeting was one of a...

How outcomes for people with schizophrenia and psychosis can be improved has been reviewed in a new report by the Schizophrenia Commission. The Commission was established by the charity Rethink Mental Illness and headed by Professor Sir Robin Murray. The report, entitled "The Abandoned Illness", states in no uncertain terms that the many who suffer with psychotic illness (some 220,000 in England alone) are being let down by, in the words of Robin Murray, "a broken and demoralised system that does not deliver the quality of treatment that is needed for people to recover". Among the many shortcomings of the system, Murray highlights psychiatric hospitals, which he states have become "frightening places where overwhelmed nurses are unable to provide basic care and support", and where "medication is prioritised at the expense of the psychological and social rehabilitation which are also necessary." Such is the condition of the hospitals that when pe...

Having now been looking for work opportunities for a while, something has finally come my way. It is a voluntary position at a local publishing company, and would seem to be exactly what I have been looking for in that it is something different to my usual work in mental health and would also make use of the qualifications and skills I have. As some of you who read this blog will know, for instance, I had a book of my poetry published back in 2004. However, there is a dark spectre hanging over me at the moment in terms of the benefits I currently receive. I was recently sent the form regarding my reassessment for Incapacity Benefit, which is being changed to Employment and Support Allowance. The fact that I am able to do voluntary work, I think, may go against me in my reassessment. The form contains such questions as, "can you lift a litre of milk using one hand?", and "can you set an alarm clock?" Hardly demanding tasks. For someone who seems t...

So, my love of the movies continues, and I just thought that it might be nice to explore some of the great lines of dialogue that we are all, perhaps, familiar with. Who could forget, for instance, Humphrey Bogart saying, "Play it again, Sam", in "Casablanca" (a line which, by the way, I believe was never actually spoken in the film, and what Bogart actually says is, simply, "Play it, Sam").  Or what about Jimmy Cagney saying, "You dirty rat", but again, it is thought that Cagney never actually said that. Perhaps better then to concentrate on lines that do actually appear in movies, and returning to Cagney, I believe that he does say the line, "Top of the world, ma", before being blown to smithereens in the film, "White Heat". Or what about Robert DeNiro in "Taxi Driver", holding a gun while looking in a full-length mirror and saying, ominously, "Are you talkin' to me?". Or perhaps Robert Duval in ...

So, it's finally happened. The changes which are currently being wrought in the benefits system which have caused so much unease amongst those who are ill or disabled, and which I have written about in this blog, are now going to affect me. I received a letter through the post last Friday telling me that I am going to be reassessed for the benefits I receive. Of course, Incapacity Benefit is being phased out by the government, with a new benefit, Employment and Support Allowance, replacing it. The new benefit is described in the letter as something which "helps people with an illness or disability move into work and provides people with the support they need". I will first have to fill in a "Limited Capability for Work" questionnaire, in which I will be asked to describe how my illness affects me from day to day. Later, I may be asked to attend a Work Capability Assessment, a prospect I am none too keen on given the appalling reputation of Atos, the co...

I have often said in this blog how I think the problem of stigma is gradually improving. The national anti-stigma campaign Time to Change has itself reported a reduction in discriminatory behaviour, and an improvement in the knowledge and attitudes surrounding mental ill health. However, according to a recent survey by the mental health charity, Mind, the problem of stigma and also issues with mental health services seem to be very much alive and well. In the survey people were asked to tell the charity what they thought the major issues surrounding mental ill health were. What emerged was a really quite disturbing picture of the state of both stigma and mental health services. In terms of work, the survey reported that 1 in 4 people who tell their boss that they have a mental health problem end up either being sacked or forced to leave. 6 in 10 employers say that they wouldn't take on an employee with a mental health problem...

"All art is quite useless". Oscar Wilde, The Preface to "The Picture of Dorian Gray". It seems to me that the more books I read, the more films I watch, the more paintings I see, I come to the conclusion that, as Oscar Wilde said, "all art is quite useless". Art, in all its forms, it appears, has no practical utility. Wilde remarked, then, that "the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely". However, by saying that art was useless, I don't think Wilde meant that it is also worthless. In fact, the very opposite might be true. To me, a great work of art, whether it be a book, a film, a painting, or a poem, always has a significant power - the power to inform, provoke, make social comment, civilise and redeem. Keats wrote in his "Ode to a Grecian Urn", that "beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all / Ye know on this earth, and all ye need to know". There has been a significant amount...

By the title of this post you may think that I've finally decided to give up blogging. But, please don't breathe your collective sigh of relief yet, for 'tis not so. No, I will carry on with my anti-stigma message and occasional forays into other subjects for the time being. So, to what does my title refer? I hear you ask. Well, after five years of working voluntarily for the Media Action Group for Mental Health, I've decided that it may be time for me to move on. As I've said in this blog, I've started looking for part-time paid work with the help of the organisation, Remploy. So that I can concentrate my efforts on this (and writing this blog, as well as attempting to co-author a book about mental health with a friend), I felt that I had to give up something. I have often spoken of how my voluntary work has been invaluable in my recovery from mental ill health, and indeed, I would recommend volunteering to anyone who is trying to recover from a mental illness...

So, my good friend Gary, at his site klahanie , has seen fit to pass on "The Versatile Blogger" award to me. There are various rules attached to accepting this ward, but being a little bit of a non-conformist, I'm not going to adhere to them. Suffice it to say that I thank Gary wholeheartedly for thinking of me (once again). Gary has also passed this award on to a number of other bloggers, all of which blog about the subject of mental ill health. Gary has done this to further raise awareness of the many issues surrounding mental illness, and to attempt to reduce the stigma which continues to problematise the lives of many. But, as this is "The Versatile Blogger" award, perhaps I'll just say that my blog does attempt to cover other subjects as well as mental ill health, the main purpose of this being to show that those with a diagnosis of mental illness are not defined by their experience of such conditions, but are rather so much more than any label can...

"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members". Mahatma Gandhi.  Two recent TV programmes, Chanel 4's "Dispatches - Britain on the Sick", and BBC2's "Panorama - Disabled or Faking It?", revealed just how difficult it is to pass the assessment in order to get disability benefits in this country. As part of a programme to try to get people off incapacity benefit and back into employment, the coalition has contracted the French multinational company, Atos, to carry out such assessments, a contract worth £100 million a year. But, the programmes revealed that people with serious disabilities are being assessed as fit for work. In the "Dispatches" programme, an undercover doctor went to Atos Healthcare's 16-week training programme to see how those who carry out the assessments are trained.What emerged was truly disturbing. The doctor in charge at one point advised the trainees that even if a person had on...

OK, I have to admit that I was a little cynical about the London Olympic Games before they started. There was the ever-increasing cost (with some saying that the initial figure of £2.4 billion had ballooned to perhaps ten times that amount), the G4S security fiasco, and the fact that the Games was going to be so totally London-centric. But, when the opening ceremony arrived, I have to say my hardened, turgid little heart began to melt somewhat. Danny Boyle's spectacular extravaganza made me think twice about what the Games is really all about, and when one Tory politician even described it as having a political bias, that it was too left-wing, I began to warm to the whole affair. After all, anything that annoys Conservative MPs can only be a good thing, surely. Perhaps I should point out, though, that the guy who made those remarks is currently, I think, being investigated for attending a party in which Nazi garb was worn and extreme right-wing op...

Recently, in our local newspaper, "The Sentinel", it has been reported that there has been a sharp increase in suicide rates among men. Charities like Brighter Futures and Samaritans have said that they have had an increasing number of calls from men who have complained of feeling suicidal. Most, according to the paper, are aged between 40 and 60, and have faced either the loss of their job or the breakdown of a relationship. Indeed, in my work at The Media Action Group for Mental Health, which includes the monitoring of our local and national media for mental health stories, I have noticed this increase, with the reporting of someone taking their own life becoming a regular, almost daily, occurrence. And they are, mostly, men. Indeed, the suicide rates for men run at around four times higher than those for women, and there seems to be a number of factors which make men more likely to take their own lives. For a start, current economic pressures, although also felt ...

"As humanity perfects itself, man becomes degraded. When everything is reduced to the mere counter-balancing of economic interests, what room will there be for virtue?" Gustave Flaubert. In these times of so-called austerity, it has been presented as something of a forgone conclusion that everyone must tighten their belts. The coalition portray this as unavoidable. I spoke in a previous post of how this has affected our local mental health services, and indeed, not a day seems to go by now without some government minister announcing new austerity measures which, to my mind, seem consistently targeted at the poor and vulnerable, the latest of these being the introduction of a "bedroom tax", which, it appears, may affect some of my friends who have a history of mental ill health. Also, one Tory minister recently announced that it was "immoral" for people to pay workmen in cash, as it encourages them to avoid paying tax. ...

Those who have read this blog from the beginning will know that I haven't always had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Indeed, my initial diagnosis, which I received when I first saw a psychiatrist back in 1996, was depression. I was first given Prozac to help with this condition, and later, when that seemed to have had little effect, other than giving me the shakes, a drug called Seroxat, which initially appeared to work, but then precipitated my first manic/psychotic episode. I was then given a diagnosis of bipolar, as it is known that those with the condition can often have an adverse reaction to antidepressants, with them often causing people to go into a manic state. Hence, antidepressants are, as far as I know, rarely prescribed for those with bipolar, precisely because of this effect. Later, when I had had another psychotic episode, I was given a diagnosis of schizo-affective disorder, which basically describes a condition marked by both a disturbance in mood (which can be ...

I've spent most of my life in Stoke-on-Trent. I grew up here. I live here. You could say it's the city that made me. It was once a thriving industrial area and is, of course, also known as The Potteries, synonymous as it is with the ceramics industry. Names like Wedgwood and Doulton, as well as many others, once gave our city something of a claim to fame. In recent years, however, with the decline in the coal, steel, and pottery industries within our area, Stoke-on-Trent has become a deprived city, with high rates of unemployment, illness and poverty. My mother, who has also lived here all her life, witnessed the city change. She almost can't believe the state of her home towns (Burslem, Tunstall, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton, which make up the city of Stoke-on-Trent), particularly her own birth-place of Burslem, known as the Mother Town, whose once magnificent buildings and architecture have fallen into disrepair. She also laments the loss of the social a...

Who can forget David Cameron's line about our situation in view of the economic meltdown of 2008. Times were going to be tough. There was going to have to be a new era of austerity. The whole country, apparently, was going to have to unite in this harsh economic environment. The rich, the poor, all of us. After all, Cameron said, "we're all in this together". So, fast forward a few years and what has really happened. Going by our own local mental health services it does indeed seem that many of us are having to cope with cut-backs. At a consultation meeting on 14th June at our local resource centre in Shelton, we were told that the Trust's "preferred option" would be to actually close the Bennett Centre which I had attended for treatment throughout my illness. Together with the loss of 24 community beds, the closing of the centre aroused fears that suicide rates would increase and leave many with no option other than to be treated at home or on an acute...

I used to take life pretty seriously. You could say that I was weighed down by it. Having gone through an emotionally traumatic time and then become quite seriously depressed, responsibility seemed to impose itself at what was, looking back on it now, quite an early age. Passing exams was of utmost importance, getting to university was imperative, and getting a good job after it was an equally serious matter. But, although I did manage to get a degree and then work for some time after it, it wasn't long before my illness took hold and I was unable to do any of the things which everyone in my peer group were doing. I lost friends, I lost the ability to work, I lost myself. It wasn't long before abject misery turned into mania and psychosis, and it seemed questionable whether I would ever regain some semblance of normality. I was ill for a long time, and even on getting somewhat better, there was still the prospect of facing up to the things I'd lost. Perhap...

The above title comes, of course, from Alan Bleasdale's drama, "Boys From the Blackstuff", in which the unemployed Yosser Hughes tries to find work in Thatcher's Britain. His saying, "gizza job", became part of the consciousness of the '80s. Now, it seems, I myself may be repeating that sad, affecting slogan as I have just started the process of trying to find some paid work. On Tuesday I went to see a Disability Employment Adviser at my local job centre. I haven't set foot in such a place for many years, and I have to say that there seemed to me to be a marked improvement in the attitude of the staff who work there. The DEA herself was polite, even understanding about my position, and gave me some valuable advice about writing my CV and also on other "soft" skills. She pointed out, after making some calculations, that I would be significantly better off even if I only did part-time work at minimum wage and, frankly, that's something t...

The other day at the Media Action Group for Mental Health we were discussing exactly what is meant by that nebulous term, "stigma". It seemed to us that it is used as a catch-all phrase to describe a number of different things. It encapsulates problems of knowledge (ignorance), attitude (prejudice) and behaviour (discrimination). In trying to come up with our own definition of the term we began to talk about our own experiences of stigma - how it had impacted on our lives and how we had felt about this impact. It soon became clear that stigma, as it is actually experienced, is both an internal and external problem. There are the external, societal problems, such as the ones highlighted above, but it is also how we deal with those issues that is at stake. The problem, then, of "internalised" stigma came  to the fore: the way in which some with experience of mental ill health can absorb the social and cultural negativity surrounding mental health conditions, and perh...

"Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football" Albert Camus.  OK, so I'm not a particularly sporty person. Nor am I a particularly ardent football fan. But, I like to think that I do appreciate beautiful things, and could it not be said that football (when played as it should be played) can be aesthetically beautiful? Is it any mistake that it is sometimes referred to as "the beautiful game"? I write this because Euro 2012 is upon us. Somewhat unfortunately it is taking place in between our recent Jubilee celebrations and, of course, the London Olympics. This seems to have had the effect that not too many of us appear to be that bothered about what happens in this particular championship. Unusually, it has been said that the expectations amongst fans for our own England team are at a low point, or perhaps we should say are, this time, after a woeful performance in the World Cup, more realistic. We do not, it seems, exp...

In my journey through mental health services, I have met a number of people, both in hospital and outside it. As those of you who read this blog will know, a serious amount of drinking accompanied my mental ill health, and it was through this that I was admitted to our local drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit. It was during my time there that I met people not only with problems with alcohol, but also "hard" drugs, like heroin. I am somewhat intrigued by the subject of addiction, and although my own problems have only ever been to do with drugs of the legal variety, i.e. tobacco and alcohol, when I was admitted to the unit I was, therefore, curious about what other drugs actually did for people. The downside of drugs is well known and overtly publicised, but as many people succumb to them, there must be an upside, otherwise why take them? Why take all the risks if there is no reward? It seems to me that the taking of a drug in an addictive fashion might replace, or be ...

It's approaching the end of May now, and here in little, old Eng-er-land it seems that finally we're getting some decent weather. Temperatures are now reaching up to 26 degrees Celsius, which may not sound like much to some, but to us it's a little slice of heaven, probably because we've had some  most bizarre conditions of late. As Gary over at his site, klahanie (see link on the right of this page) reports, April was the wettest since records began, although at the same time we were officially in a drought. I even heard one weather reporter say that we were getting the "wrong type" of rain to alleviate this situation. Just how do you get the "wrong type" of rain? Also, to say that our climate is inconsistent is perhaps an understatement. I went out for lunch with a friend yesterday and she said that only a couple of days ago the temperature in her car was 2 degrees Celsius, whereas yesterday it was 22. Maybe this is all to do with climate change, b...

So, a little bit of positive news this time. Of late, it seems, there has been something of an improvement in the media's reporting on mental health. With an increasing number of celebrities being open about their mental health problems there has been a growing interest in mental health in the media, as well as what appears to be an increased understanding of such matters. People like cricketers Andrew Flintoff, Marcus Trescothik and Michael Yardy have all been open in the media about their experience of mental ill health, and the media's reporting of their problems has been, largely, sympathetic and understanding. Perhaps most significantly, ex-boxer Frank Bruno's recent relapse into mental ill health was greeted with a tellingly more sober response than when it was first reported, many years ago now, with the sensational and derogatory headline, "Bonkers Bruno Locked Up". So perhaps it is that finally the impetus for celebrities to be open about their experienc...

Those who read this blog will know that one of my major interests is cinema. And, a few weeks ago me and a few other members of the Pathways Group went to a film night at the local Film Theatre in Stoke. One of the short films shown there had been produced with the involvement of one of our members, Dom, hence our presence. There were other films shown there, however, one with footage of Marlene Dietrich giving a performance at a concert in London in the '70s. My friend remarked that Dietrich had lived into her 100s, but later corrected himself, saying that in fact she had only lived into her 90s, and that he had been confusing her with another, famous (nay infamous) German female figure of the cinema, Leni Riefenstahl, who indeed did live until the grand age of 101. Although involved in the same industry, the figures of Dietrich and Riefenstahl were polar opposites in terms of their political beliefs. While Dietrich was a fervent anti-Nazi, and became an American citize...

Anders Behring Breivik, the man who murdered 77 people in a twin bomb and gun attack on 22nd July, 2011 in Norway is currently standing trial for his shocking crimes. What has held the media's attention is not only the scale and barbarity of this attack, but also Breivik's motivations for committing the murders. A holder of extreme right-wing opinions, Brevik has stated that he acted to defend Europe against a Muslim "invasion", which was being enabled by what he called "cultural Marxists" in Norway's Labour Party and the EU. In November of last year, Brevik was, not surprisingly, assessed by psychiatrists to determine whether these were the acts of a sane or "criminally insane" man. The conclusion then was that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and that he was in a psychotic state both before and after the attacks took place. The two psychiatrists who interviewed him on 13 occasions concluded that he lived in his "own delusio...

At the Pathways Group on 10th April, we were asked to give our views of what was good and what could be improved in our local mental health services. This was done because, with the government's impetus to "decentralise" in the name of David Cameron's nebulous "big society", services are facing some radical changes. Staff wanted to know, then, what we had found helpful and what not, perhaps in a bid to show those in charge just how valued some aspects of our local services are, as they are facing the possibility of some enormous cuts in spending. It seems that the coalition want to devolve power from central government and put it in the hands of citizens. But, is this really just a positive sounding spin to detract from the fact that services are going to be cut? Indeed, as nurse Jane Lord put it in our meeting on Tuesday, "in other words, you're going to have to do it yourselves". Phil (a member of our group and also chair of our local North...

After a series of candid posts from my good pal Gary at his site klahanie , I thought that I would dedicate this particular posting to him. It seems to me that Gary is having a particularly difficult time at the moment, due to a number of trying circumstances. As if this were not enough, those of you who read Gary's blog will know that he also lives with a debilitating illness. I say "lives with" because Gary always says that himself. He does not like to say that he "suffers" from depression, as he is, despite this condition, always trying to find the positives in his situation. By doing this I'm sure he offers inspiration and solace to the many who read his blog. So, Gary, this one's for you, my hairy, hippy friend. And, as dismantling the stigma around mental ill health is a large part of what both our blogs are about, I thought I would give some consideration to what it is like for those who do not live with a mental illness, but perhaps know someone...

To broach a completely different subject this time, I thought I'd take a little trip into the territory of consumer affairs. We are all, it seems, these days, consumers, and don't like it one bit if we think we're being ripped off. I suppose I'm no different in this, and recently, after joining "LoveFilm", the Amazon company which rents out DVDs via post in return for the payment of a monthly subscription fee, I found that I was "dissatisfied" with a certain element of their service. It appears that because "Love Film" is an Amazon company, they will sometimes only offer certain DVDs to buy via Amazon, even though it has passed the date of their release for rental. The result is that customers of "LoveFilm" cannot watch certain DVDs, which should, by all accounts, be available to rent, and only have the opportunity to watch them if they buy them. The said films are then released to rent via "LoveFilm" at a later, unspeci...