A Day in the Life

For those of you who are wondering, a palinode is a poem in which a poet retracts what he said in a previous poem. OK , so this isn ’t a poem, but it is a blog in which I would like to retract something which I said previously and, I think, unfairly, about the film “The Soloist”, starring Robert Downey Jnr . and Jamie Foxx . The blog was entitled “Mediocrities of the World, I Absolve You”, and was an attempt to explain, in response to one journalist’s claims, why so-called positive images of mental ill health in the movies are sometimes just as irksome as their negative counterparts. In particular, I focused on the “tortured genius” stereotype, which Foxx ’s portrayal of a cello-playing homeless man, possibly experiencing the symptoms of schizophrenia, seemed to embody. However, having now seen the film in its entirety (I had only previously seen the trailer), I now find that I liked the film immensely and found it really to be a sensitive and respectful portrayal of both homelessnes...

I am writing this post because I recently borrowed a book from a friend entitled, "Ask and it is Given. Learning to Manifest Your Desires. The Teachings of Abraham" by Esther and Jerry Hicks. My friend had been so taken with the book that she felt that I should read it. Indeed, she wants to give a talk on its "teachings" at the Pathways Group (the group run by my local mental health residential unit for the long-term mentally ill) as she feels that what is contained therein has genuinely changed her life. Indeed, she recently claimed, "no one need ever suffer from depression or psychosis ever again", because of what she had found in the book. However, I have reservations about this for a number of reasons. It is not that I have anything against helping yourself, but I have long held an aversion towards the so-called "self-help" industry. And it would seem that it is, indeed, some sort of industry, producing books which sell in to the millions. My...

The above title is taken from a quote by William Goldman, the Hollywood screenwriter whose credits include the brilliant "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid", and it refers to his belief that prior to a movie's release, nobody in Hollywood has any real idea how well a film will do. No matter how well you think you know the public mind, you never really do. And, I believe, one could use Goldman's quote in a similar way to describe psychiatry. For, the more research I do on the subject, it seems that for every theory about psychiatric illness that is espoused, there is always someone else out there who thinks differently, or has done research to prove otherwise. This seems particularly true of schizophrenia. Is it an illness, or is it, as some would argue, a "state of being", for example? Is it caused by a mere imbalance of chemicals in the brain (the medical, dopamine model) or is it more to do with some emotional trauma and is really a form of post-trauma...

I am writing this blog because my very dear American blogging friend, dcrelief , recently wrote, (after I had made a comment on her blog saying that I was pleased that Canada had won the men's hockey final against the USA in the Winter Olympics) that her country "must have the worst reputation in the world". "I am so very, very sorry", she wrote. Well, for a start, I don't think there's any need for dc to be sorry. The responsibility for the reputation of America in the world hardly lies at her door, or, for that matter, to my mind, at that of the larger American public. That is not to say, however, that the reputation of America has not taken a few knocks in the recent past, and America-bashing seems to have become something of a cultural phenomenon, not only where you would expect it (i.e in parts of the fundamentalist Islamic world where America is regarded as "the Great Satan"), but also in the western world and my own country, whose bond w...

Last Friday I went to an event organised by "Open Up", part of the "Time to Change" campaign to reduce the stigma surrounding mental ill health. It was called " yourSTORY " and was billed as a "creative autobiography event". The "purpose" of this event was to "create a safe, fun, and encouraging space where people can create a personal story from their experiences and experience creative fun and play". So, this was an event designed not only to battle stigma, it was also going to be "fun". Indeed, telling your story of mental ill health seems to be almost universally regarded as a good thing. Coming out publicly and offering your own telling of events is thought, even according to anti-stigma guru Professor Graham Thornicroft , a liberating experience which combats stigma and social isolation. At the Media Action Group for Mental Health also, in the days of the " Talkbank " project, volunteers were invite...

So, there I was, innocently sitting in a session for the Pathways Group (a recovery group for the long term mentally ill) when it was decided that this week would be a session about physical health. At this point my heart sank a little, as, although my physical health has been of concern to me for some time now, I feel I have been putting off doing anything about it out of sheer worry. If I did go to the doctor's for a check-up, for instance, I was concerned about exactly what they might find, considering I feel physically sluggish most of the time, mostly due to my increasing girth, due in no small measure, in turn, to my taking of anti-psychotic medication. Indeed, I believe I have already mentioned in these pages quite a few times, that statistics are said to be emerging of people with diagnoses like mine dying relatively early deaths due to physical health problems, which would seem to be exacerbated both by medication and our own, if we are honest about it, bad habits and o...

Having been well for some time now, but still with a diagnosis of schizophrenia hanging over my head like a veritable sword of Damocles , I am beginning to feel somewhat disappointed and, indeed, rather confused at the nature of my own past. With around four years of relatively good mental health, I find myself questioning more and more what, exactly, went wrong with my life and how, exactly, I have come to have this diagnosis which I continue to feel is a million miles away from describing the type of person that I am now. OK, so I know there were the usual stress triggers there to tip me over in to mental illness, and I have spoken in this blog about having to come to terms with the grief and loss that these situations imbued, as if falling in to a delusional insanity were some way, my way, of coping with emotions and trauma that I could not face or come to terms with in my sane state. Indeed, I do remember thinking at the time that this was all too much to bear. I had taken just o...