A Day in the Life

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...

So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun. Or are they? It's obvious that Christmas, amidst all the mindless materialism and wanton celebration, can be a difficult time for many of us. Imparticular those who experience mental ill health. So, I'd just like to say in this very short blog a very Merry Christmas to all at Mindbloggling, particularly those who have taken the time to read and comment on my blog. I know that for many of us, including myself, social isolation can be a big problem, but it is always nice to know that there are some of us out there who can share our experiences and communicate in this way. I truly believe that this can make our lives a little bit more enjoyable and I have certainly enjoyed being a part of mindbloggling. So, for at least this year, that may be all from your average delusional and paranoid man. Oh, please don't be too sad, after all there's always next year and who knows what that might bring. Or, as my old aunt use...