A Day in the Life

Before all of you scream out and say, "My God! I would never have guessed!" and start daubing my house with insults and threatening to beat me up, I should remind you that the word in my blog title is "bibliophile", not the other kind of " phile " which goes around molesting children. I only say this because there was an incident in fairly recent history when, in the UK, a paediatrician was mistaken for a paedophile, simply because people didn't understand the difference in meaning of the two words. Needless to say, people marched to her house demanding that she be thrown out of the neighbourhood. So, I reiterate, I am a commited "bibliophile", which, according to the OED is a "lover or collector of books". So, having cleared that up, perhaps I can tell you what it is like being a voracious reader and collector of books. For a start, one always seems to have the wish to have read everything. But, I can assure you, one thing you w...

It has been a while since I've blogged, but this has been because I have been quite busy (at least for me) doing my voluntary work and also working on the film I mentioned not so long ago (See Hollywood Here I Come, parts I & II). And so it came; the big day. Thursday, March 26 th , 2009. The premiere of the film. It was an important night for me as not only was I to give an introductory speech to the film, I had also written some of the voice-over for it and was also having some of my poetry displayed in the foyer of the museum where the film was being screened. So all in all, it was either a pretty nerve-wracking or exciting event for me, depending on how you looked at it. There were seven short films being shown in all. I have to say that ours, of course, was not the only one. It wasn't as if this was all about me, after all (although my ego almost had me believing it at one stage). The films, generally speaking, covered a variety of topics to do with both physical and ...

For this blog I have decided, for once, to write about something that has nothing to do with mental ill health, but something which, at the moment, seems to have the nation divided, and that is the increasingly incredible story of Jade Goody. I write this blog particularly because of the enormous amount of hypocrisy I think is being displayed by the media, especially the supposedly fairer, more intellectual broadsheets. As we all know Jade shot to fame as a contestant on Big Brother. Perhaps she was best known, sadly, for the stupidity she seemed to display during her time on the Big Brother set. Despite this, though, she was a lovable character who, although she didn't win, made it through to the final stages of the show. Before we knew it Jade was all over the place, on the covers of magazines and newspapers, selling stories about her every day life. She also proved herself to be somewhat less stupid than she appeared, becoming an incredibly successful business woman and cleverl...

Throughout my experience of mental ill health, it has often been my misfortune to think of myself as a "bad" person. Indeed, it seems to be something of the nature of depression and illnesses like it that when you are in its throes you seem to automatically come to think of yourself, not necessarily as "mad", but most certainly as "bad". This sort of thinking came to its zenith with me when I began to feel as if I were not just a bad person, but an inherently evil one. However, as sanity and its clearer ways of thinking began to sink in, I realised that these notions of evil I had been carrying around with me were pure fallacy . As they often say at the "Changes" group, we might not realise it at the time, but "feelings are not facts", particularly the feelings we have about ourselves when we are ill. But this did all get me to thinking, what exactly is a "good" person? Indeed, does goodness and evil exist at all, in the bibli...

Echoing the concerns of many, me included and perhaps others who read this blog, I have decided to share some of what I have learnt in researching mental ill health, particularly of my own diagnosis, schizophrenia. God, how I loathe "that word", but for the time being it will have to do as a description of what I have experienced over almost the last twenty or so years. It would appear to me that, according to research I have done, there is something of a split, a division, amongst the opinions of psychiatrists as to what actually causes mental ill health, in particular schizophrenia. While some would appear to see it as a purely bio-chemical condition, others, like the (something of a celebrity) psychiatrist Oliver James, for example, emphasise the impact of our society and environment on mental ill health. On the one hand, then, many would view depression as a simple chemical imbalance of levels of serotonin in the brain, and similarly with schizophrenia, levels of dopam...

After my last blog, I thought I might say a little bit about what is actually being done to combat the stigma surrounding mental ill health. Instead of being so negative, I thought I would try a shot of positivity and finally accept that much is currently underway to try to stop the many outmoded attitudes that continue to plague those experiencing mental ill health. For a start there is a national campaign currently underway in the UK, called "Time to Change". It is, by any account, a massive and truly national campaign that is taking place over the next four years at a cost of some sixteen million pounds. Most of the leading mental health charities, like Mind and Rethink, are involved, all tying to portray a positive, realistic and sympathetic portrait of those experiencing mental ill health. After a somewhat disappointing initial TV ad, I can only say that I am impressed by the vigour and range of this campaign. Many celebs in the UK have also "come out" in its ...

In the bad old days of mental ill health, psychiatric hospitals or wards used to be called "asylums". According to the OED "asylum" means "1. sanctuary; protection, esp. for fugitives from the law. 2. hist. institution for the mentally ill or destitute." And, indeed, when asylums were first set up, I believe in the sevente enth century, they were not only for those regarded as mentally ill, but also the poor, the indigent, the workless and destitute. What I want to know is, has that much really changed since the inception of the asylum all those years ago? Due to new ways of thinking about madness in the seventeeenth century, many more people would find themselves  confined as a result of suffering from some form of mental distress. Before this, according to Michel Foucault in his book " Madness and Civilisation", the mentally ill were allowed to roam free. There are many examples of this in literature. For example, the clown or fool in Shake...