A Day in the Life

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...