A Day in the Life

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...