L is for…

Labels

Are for cans, not for people, but on some level can we avoid summarising the complexity we perceive in another person to a more manageable, memorable tag? As far as I can tell, this works best as an unconscious thing as when we notice and respond to the labels we make in our minds, they are detected by the ‘other’.  Even when complimentary,  people don’t like to be reduced, I have deduced. It took me a while as I seek to understand how I am seen, but I am self obsessed and desperate to be accepted. Ha, that is a self-defeating prophecy. Giving another person the role of judge perhaps also does not sit well and help everybody play nicely. Of course I am reflecting on it now and making observations – I should probably be asking more questions and describing rather than making statements, or is it too late?

Laughter

Prized as an indication of ‘getting’ and explicating something – communicating a shared but maybe unthought understanding of something from a non-traditional perspective. Can be found in any walk of life and in the most grim places. Often, I find laughing in darker moments lends a more potent connection between selves, a moment of reassurance that a shared human experience can make sense of a situation even when it cannot resolve it.

Giggles and peals of laughter from a child can light up the most dreary day and ignite a silvery memory that lasts as long as the mind even though the sound may last just a moment.

Lazy

Or efficient?

Life

To be summarised in a paragraph? Hopefully not because there’s more to learn, I don’t want to get bored and think I’ve got it down. Though the situations thrown at me often leave me feeling like a teenager without the veil of self assurance or droopy stomach. You should always look on the bright side. Then you can maintain an attractive and hilarious expression of incredulity rather than a world-weary eyebrow tipping an ‘I told you so’ angle when it bites you on the arse. Being eaten like a blubbery lollipop deserves, well requires a wry angle.

Light

Something I will never be again. Life is heavy, and being buffeted by it necessitates a certain solidity. I can’t get this from my musings or imagination, I usually require something tangible, sugary, and where possible, baked. There is a chance I have overdone it as life’s blustery weather these days doesn’t really need 16 stone of cellulite wobbling in the wind. I used to weigh 9 stone, at 6 feet this is a bit on the slight side but I fear I’ve overshot with the solution.

Or from a not incompatible perspective, light is the thing we should always keep moving towards. I maintain that even if unachievable weight-wise, I should keep trying to be lighter. But what about the tunnel? Some of us are asked to stop moving towards the light to prevent us becoming it, at the point of death. But working through life’s problems means not lingering in the tunnel to absorb quite how awful it is. Instead we should keep moving, however slowly, forward – towards the light. which implies that death is the answer to life. Hopefully dying wipes out all sins and transgressions, but does it leave us purified and enlightened?

Loss of control

Rollercoasters, facilitating workshops, parties. I dread all of these to a greater or lesser degree. Though the likelihood of actual harm is small, not being able to direct the actions of others, or  my speed and direction in the case of rollercoasters is impossible for me to bear. I used to not be bothered by rollercoasters, and found them exciting. But I have developed a narrative around them being dangerous and unnecessary stimulation of the fearful part of my brain. Why do I assume of the 100 people on it at any one time that I would be the one who would fall out or whose brain would explode? Because I secretly (or not so much now) believe that my height, weight and general disposition single me out for disaster. Was this LSD-induced or a product of self absorption and experience- induced uncertainty about the assumption that I will be here, in this state or awareness tomorrow?

Now I hate drugs and don’t really drink that much – remaining in control, even when giving myself permission to eat a grab bag of monster munch and a bounty bar after a night in the pub. Scarily it extended to giving birth (‘I can’t believe how quiet you were’ was the feedback last time when the baby’s shoulders got stuck) but sadly also to sex, I dissociate too often and have to work hard with my partner to bring my controlled self neatly to orgasm.

Love

The oldest yet the latest thing. For me it goes through unpredictable seasons – moments of crashing doubt and numbness to exquisite heights of fulfilment achieved through walking alongside someone. I love, I lean on my lover and I know I am loved. At times I may test this like a naive teenager – checking the emotion can still run high and he cares. I then berate myself for having doubts when he is so steady and undemanding. Were it not for this would we still argue?

We have moulded ourselves around each other and grown together like two trees planted in synchrony. Are we enmeshed? Co-dependent? Probably but I counter that we compromise the same amount. It is a long way to go, this compromise  – he donates money and endless patience, I offer individual care and acceptance of the role of ‘interactor’ – with the kids’ messier needs, trades and other professional bodies who need to intrude on our bubble every now and then. And as I know my lover hates attention, the personal bit stops here.

Love can get you through the worst moments of your life, but it can cause them too. Love can ruin your life when it is taken away or for granted. Assuming it doesn’t need to be tended or nurtured – just seeing it from one person’s point of view may lead to that most ignominious event – the surprise break-up. Why does someone leaving us out of the blue make it feel more like something about ourself than about them? Should they have made it clearer that they needed something else? Should we have been a different person? Does asking this imply we have no empathy or that maybe the chemistry was not right? Being in love may blind us and entreat us to put up with screamingly awful behaviour but does that necessitate blame or self-hatred? Can we develop the capacity for change without such emotional drivers? Maybe if we move with the shifts life’s obstacle race presents us as part of a three-legged athlete, we can work towards feeling less tied down, more triumphant when we’re still standing and in heaven;y synchrony when we lie down.

Ligature

What a fun one… I’ve never seriously thought of hanging myself, though I’ve considered lots of other methods and road tested overdosing. When I think about why it seems to me that the image my loved ones would last hold would be me dangling, which leaves a dark, haunting dread. Though were I to reflect further, the sight of my yellowed carcass covered in vomit from gorging on paracetamol and rum might also not be one I’d choose to be remembered by. Practically,  being over 6 feet tall means the mechanics of finding somewhere high enough with a suitably strong ligature point that is unfrequented long enough further narrows the chances somewhat. But I’m in control of what I do in the pits of my emotions and plead to the disillusioned me that might be tempted to take the easy way out to remember the joy that has beset my life since will come around again.

Lithium

An element that treats bipolar disorder and the name of an awesome song by Nirvana (because of the first point) – see here if you missed the grunge scene in the 1990s. Is losing your hair and damaging your kidneys (as suggested here) really worth it? The coincidence that there is a metal found here on our planet that can help balance the human mood is pretty earth-shattering. But if it were meant to be, would the toxicity people struggle with need to be the price to pay to stay out of mania-induced debt and depression-induced suicidality? The dangerous farce created by relentlessly prescribing more side-effect ridden drugs to follow those that you used to have and that could still kill you isn’t funny.  Neither is your psychiatrist reacting with swift and punitive correctional action when your anger shows up – perhaps this is the coincidence that prescribers really ought to note.

K is for…

Kaleidoscope (and Knowledge)

Emotions, perception and interpersonal relationships shift and dance in ever unfurling, never repeated patterns. As one nears focus, another explodes as if a micro-universe playing out the life of its stars in a day. Though beautiful, can it be meaningful if it doesn’t endure or hold its shape? If wisdom is observed, noted, studied it might be said to exist. If it tumbles into a new form that is never gazed upon again it retains its mystery but loses its solidity.  If it stands still, it stops developing and creating but is petrified and sought to be ‘understood’ by humanity. The ultimate arrogance is that we can make pronouncements about life, the universe and everything when our individual time on the planet is so short and the relay race of the transmission of knowledge runs with no points of certainty and no hope of continuity.

Karma

Does this exist? Should we rely on it? Or is it a convenient way of commandeering coincidence to allow us to not dwell on injustice? If we can let go of the need for vengeance are we healthier or happier? Or just relieved that we don’t have to do our own dirty work. Of course I’d like to not wish ill on people who’ve let me down or upset me. Or would I? Maybe plotting their downfall or comeuppance is a guilty pleasure and imbuing the process with natural inevitability lets me off scot free.

Keel, even

Is steering a steady course through life enviable? Possible? If you never have to call all hands to the deck do you know whose support you have? I’ve spent a lot of my life avoiding risk and confrontation (largely as I lump them together). But as I summit ‘the hill’ and start the decline down the other side that physics dictates I’m wanting to do it kicking and screaming. Causing a fuss, pointing out the bumps in the road and dragging ’em all down with me. Well, I will do when I am ready and can do it with decorum. And the sailing metaphor? It might be faster to cut straight through the water like a knife but it looks more fun to tack here and there catching the breeze and living. And I am not sure I want to cut through life as fast as I can.

Keen

I was once nominated as ‘most keen’ in my university year. It may be true, I can be keen as mustard… to linger in the heart but end up inadvertently polluting the breath of humanity. To prove I was here… but instead I leave a luminescent stain that dulls, not illuminates its observers. I get ideas, sometimes even energy and revel in my genius. The urge to share this self-satisfaction comes from a desire to give my hopes a glimpse of attention but ‘sharing’ seems to cut others like a dagger in the back. Do my aims detract from anyone else? Not on purpose but I can’t control anybody else despite a sustained campaign. I don’t see allowing my wishes as mutually excluding others’ but my being excited about them apparently puts the wind up those people, the vast majority – those who do not get me.  So my keenness leaves me forging ahead alone cutting no swath whatsoever.

Kiss

I’ve often wondered what other species think of our mating rituals… flamingos, swans, spiders and even Japanese puffer fish have elegant and extravagant displays of courtship. Though to be pedantic kissing is part of mating rather than wooing, isn’t it an odd thing to do? Interlocking our most sensitive attributes may have some merit and getting lost in the experience can be exquisitely exhilarating because of this. But is our enthusiasm about another’s dentition? tongue control or freshness of breath? Moistness? Do these confer an evolutionary advantage? I imagine kissing is some kind of prototype for the sex act and helps get things ready. But why does it excite us so when it is, for me anyway, a rather disgusting concept? Some suggest it is a way to get close enough to ensure genetic compatibility, (which our ancestors used to do by sniffing each other according to BBC Earth) but I suspect our interpersonal biological sample sequencing equipment is less sensitive than it needs to be to make good choices. Fact is our conscious brains seem to have gotten involved so we layer in mystery, romance and synchronous world views and suddenly procreation decisions are harder, or more unwise.

Kitchen

My domain…where I prepare celebrations, nurture my loved ones, share with my friends, comfort myself and escape. The heart of the home? Gadgets and goo, sweet things and melty stew. It is just supposed to keep us moving – food is fuel. Though the way in which all of our senses contribute to dreaming up, sourcing, cooking and devouring a meal means it is an experience in itself.

Knowing

Can we know something that isn’t true? Can we know everything about anything? Is being comfortable with uncertainty healthier? Who is happier – a satisfied pig or a dissatisfied Socrates? It is more fun floating down the stream of life untethered by the chains of education? Or does that leave you more vulnerable to the prevailing wind of whatever myths and idols society is trumped by? I don’t know…

J is for…

 

Jail

Somewhere many people seem to think they end up in by accident. But the exact point at which being let down by society meets deciding that your needs are, overall, greater than those of the rest of humankind is difficult to pin down. What I find most terrifying is when the lifestyle that leads someone down this garden path is the one they aspired to before it became inevitable.

 

Jealousy

Is the label the ‘green eyed monster’ a misnomer?  When I’ve been cowed by it (and have been frequently) yes, it’s felt like an imploding rage. But one that burns away the oxygen of my self esteem. It’s a futile attempt to compare myself with someone with prominent attributes that obscure their frailties and naturally ends up highlighting mine. If it makes me a monster I am a pitiful one, neutralised rather than energised

Job

For some its a proxy for who you are, for others its an unnecessary drag but mostly people experience difficulty in finding one that they can make work for any amount of time. People hate them, but are hated if they don’t have one.  Society doesn’t function if we don’t have them but many of the things they require people to do (such as generate or consume stuff) are annihilating the natural world.

Jokes

Essential to manage the growing feeling that everything is hurtling toward the big crunch at the end of the universe with no consideration of the inconvenience and indignation it will cause. Everything is futile, everything will come to nothing so let’s grin and bear it. My final contribution to the game we are all playing might be the lighthearted musing ‘I needn’t have worried’ engraved on my headstone. ‘Cos if death is coming to us all it may as well not put us off enjoying the bits of life that stand some chance of being fun.

Junkie

A cutesy word for someone chancing it to see how much hedonism one person can actually take? Or the car crash in slow motion that explodes apart families and friends to reveal the masturbatory frantic self stimulation that is as excruciating to see as to come to recognise about yourself? Hmmmm.

I is for…

ICD-10

The international classification of diseases. Given the cultural differences in the expression and experience of emotional issues this seems somewhat grandiose. But then the position you have to start from to classify a large part of the population into your own taxonomy requires a decisive, fixed view of things. And perhaps a detached position from which to view people. And maybe even a fixed idea that your own cognitive processes are not ever going to be clouded by the flaws you see in those of others… Because any personal preference for a particular diagnosis is never going to reflect anything other than the collection of symptoms you see before you. And as for changing diagnosis, why would you ever need to talk to the individual about why you did this? What impact might it have (other than access to services, stigma, self-stigma, medication options)? Of course the patient will find all they need to know from your letter, the one from one professional to another that they are compelled to cc the client in to. What more explanation would you want?

Insight

A formal way of saying ‘agreeing with your psychiatrist’, often substituted for knowing what to say to suggest you might. Playing the game. Unfortunately truly coming to believe that reality is unreliable heightens your suicide risk. ‘Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion’ (Edward Abbey) seems to be the prevailing notion behind insisting someone is not just mad but mistaken about it. There is a case for preserving the ‘truth’ at any cost. But as we can’t be sure what the truth of humanity in its multidimensional subjective glory actually is, maybe we ought not to bait people who are perhaps at their most contemplative. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’ (Shakespeare’s Hamlet) sums up the epistemological position that celebrates individual differences. It also nods to the impossibility that one person might be expected to have all knowledge within his or her grasp. Spill the beans that you’ve lost your marbles or accept a lonely path pursuing an elusive truth that’s beside the point for those assuming power in your life.

Intelligence

Eludes definition but distinctive when you see it. Interesting that for the elite in MI5, it refers to accurate inside knowledge about others. But when it is refracted through the lens of a mental health issue, the light and colour of experience create a truly novel and often unverifiable compound which is laughed at or rejected. People not willing to look at the life story of someone professing unusual knowledge may be  those unwilling to contemplate the transformation of the literal to the figurative. Dogma and psychosis require acumen as well as a leap of faith to be understood.

Intrapsychic

Stuff that goes on in someone’s head. Idiosyncratic, idiopathic – processes that go on within an individual which don’t always translate well into words let alone conversation.  Some discount or diminish the extent to which others have depth of thought, through fear not just self absorption. Others live in fear of others’ condemnation whether expressed or not and fantasise about the grotesque assault being made on their existence. Often exists in tandem with:

Introspection

Voyaging within, exploring what we are composed of that we are not yet conscious of. Can bring about great awareness and empathy or wreck your chances of achieving positive self regard. Often it becomes an inspection, are our thoughts / emotions / reaction up to scratch? Are we fit for purpose? Should we stay engrossed with the self within or face the possibility that others see wha wet dread? Not a healthy process but the only way to sort it out is to take a long hard look at oneself.

Isolation

Paradoxically one thing that unites a majority of society, whether engaged in social games or not.  Isolation can be imposed by the self as a precautionary measure – to protect the self or others. Or others can expel individuals with very little effort, play elaborated into an impenetrable or inescapable iron fortress. The longer you live there, the harder it is to describe your dungeon to another in a way that defeats it.

H is for…

Hallucinate

Strangely close to the word ‘eludicate‘ – ‘to explain or make something clear’. Maybe the visual (or other sensorial) expression of an internal dilemma it can crystallise a set of unconscious concerns. The resulting metaphor may represent something only understood by the being that generated it, and then the meaning can shift in time to an unknown beat. If they care, others may seek to understand it and hold your hand through it. Either to soothe, guide or ground you.  Hallucinating may represent the illustrations to the book of an individual’s journey through the void but it usually serves to make it clear that someone is on course for a diagnosis. Telling someone ‘its not there, it’s not real’ is like trying to convince someone herrings aren’t red. And to respect individual differences and the subjectiveness of ‘reality’ we can in many situations be clear that it is there, if only for that person. The real question is ‘why is it there?’ and is it a keystone in the jenga of the experiencer’s mind? If the meaning the ‘hallucination’ holds for the individual is central to the structure of their world, embracing other, neutral interests may be the least toxic escape, implying there are ways out of the grip of the loneliest place there is – the inside of our own minds.

Heal

To ‘get better’ from injury but also to ‘make someone better’ – but do you have to think of yourself as better to be able to do that for another person? If ‘ill’ is a value judgement does the healer have to be superior? Or even well themselves? If a solid place to stand is needed to shift someone’s world view, the pivot point is dictated by the healer who also therefore assumes all the control. Where the removal of autonomy or the misuse of power has been implicated in the troubles an individual lives this seems profoundly ill judged. Where the act of healing heals the healer careful attention to whether the act is consciously benefiting both people’s sense of self is key. Not being personally invested in the recipient of the intervention’s wellbeing may be more selfish than seeing others’ improvements as a support to the wannabe healer’s ego. Healing may represent the  journey everybody takes from the trauma of birth to the often hoped for wisdom and serenity of late life. Sadly the trials and burdens people face on this ride can lead to a deep desire not to reach the end state of life and to cut short the journey instead. If living is learning, we have to be supported to stand the lessons we can’t unlearn not considered inferior for having a blind spot others diminish.

Heaven

A place on earth? If it is it might be hell to be stuck there. Believing you are the lucky winner and no longer need to strive to improve or change anything when all around you pity your self absorption sounds a lot like addiction to me.

Hell

Sounds a lot like life for so many who care, who feel and who are ignored in the great distribution of luck that is called life. Those I know who have been to their own personal hell cruelly feel and care more than those who think they are ‘normal’. But which comes first? Hell or giving a fuck? Those who seemingly don’t care so much seem destined to to end up in some kind of infernal torment but are seemingly working (or playing) to build up a tolerance. The journey is hedonistic, the destination desolate. If they get what they deserve, those who feel and care would be reciprocated, though may most likely be driven by rescuing others from the hells of their own making, feeling for them to fill the gaps in their own sense of self.

Help

A cry to meet an urgent need but also assistance, a supplement. The best help is not having it done to you, but being supported to find out what you are going to do to achieve / deal with something significant. Not realising you’ve been helped and delighting in the notion that you did it all yourself is a particularly deft form of aid. Its not always clear what we need other than to be somewhere different in your mind / life /relationship(s) and if anyone tells me what they think I need, rather than shrug it off feeling annoyed and patronised, I am highly likely to defer taking responsibility for my actions and try out any suggestion, delighting in the knowledge that if it gets spunked up the wall I’m not responsible. Trouble is that’s usually the problem – unlikely estimations of my own accountability.

High

Intoxicated, stoned, wasted…adjectives abound. Being high sounds like being naturally elated, as if you are somewhere with a good vantage point enabling a well observed overview of stuff that you’re usually too close to to properly comprehend. Though in my experience it was like being over inflated, losing perspective on the accuracy, appropriateness or interest value of your musings. It seems, from my sober observations, to lead to becoming more and more acquainted with the seedier, grittier and decidedly less picturesque aspects of life available for insatiable consumption.

Hope

Vital to recovery from most forms of the Darkness and successfully not killing oneself. Elusive and likely to evade definition or permanent capture but beautiful in its fragility.

Humour

Builds hope, shows acceptance, the possibility of new understandings and ingenuity under pressure. Impossible to formulate and delicious to experience. Therapeutic, inventive  and mischievous at its best; banal, divisive and lumpy at its bigoted worst. Almost anything is endurable with a dash of hopeful humour, with tolerating some troll’s hatred draped in stereotypes being the decidedly-not-droll exception to the rule.

 

 

 

G is for…

 

Games people play

These ‘exist’, if anything that inhabits the communication between people can be said to be. For me this is the problem. They aren’t measurable, visible, repeatable to others with anything like the impact of the fresh variety or explicit. So what is it that ‘exists’? In my life, communication with lots of people (everyone I don’t consider a best friend / family member) is fraught with tension – for the side effects of Olanzapine I can no longer ad lib and as I seem to have turned over two pages at once in the book of life, I have no understanding what people mean in their subtext, beyond the layers of realisation that leave me recoiling hours later. And the more I seek to understand this countertransference the more I am frustrated by the ‘first rule of fight club’. I recognise paranoia, that I see others’ communication reflecting back the flaws I dread in myself which I can’t see how anyone would be aware of / interested in. Unless they are true. In my internal dialogue, the term ‘paranoia’ reflects something that is ‘partly known’ – but by whom? and why is it necessary to parade it in front of me in glorious technicolour, showing off new and humiliating ways in which I checkmate myself. Maybe I avoid communication because it is too rich for me, too full of patterns and links I am doomed to chain myself down with. So I favour the monologue leaving self absorption inevitable. Problem is, though not playing means I can’t lose, playing alone means I am not exactly a winner.

God

An awkward one, is there one? Is he / she / it omniscient and benevolent? Is it possible that anyone could be being both? In my darkest (overenlightened?) days I accidentally thought I was God. For a couple of months. Not just God of my life or people and things I could see and touch but of everything. Being a pragmatic, but lazy God my will was not always consciously available to me but would be enacted automatically. Handy maybe? Noooo. If my will is what was happening in the world around me I could not feel anything other than disgust, abject terror and oh yeah. Guilt.

 

Good God

Obvs I tried to be good, definitely a guiding principle. Becoming God had been a fast promotion given I had only recently elected to remain on the light side of the force and reject the darkness. Being good though isn’t a binary choice, its highly subjective and fluid. So to bed it in, I aimed to unite and (literally) resurrect people, unsuccessfully. I talked about writing a book with a friend concerning what it means to choose to be a benevolent and conscientious religious figure when the inspiration finds you. But my friend discharged the ultimate expression of mortality and sadly lost her life too soon. RIP RC.

 

Grief

Pain, unfinished love, regret, loss. Emotions focused on someone else that leave you more lonely than is bearable. Is it necessary? Respectful? I’ve spent a lot of time trying to avoid feeling emotions like this by guessing the regret generating acts that might maintain them, and neutralizing the hell out of them. Grief should make me appreciate what I’ve got more, but instead I want something unattainable – something I can’t lose. Perfect love that transcends life, death, armageddon, humanity destroying itself for nothing and betrayal. The pain of losing someone may sometimes be sweetened by the eventual realisation that great loss follows great love. And even if the love is only half alive, knowing it has been shits all over the innocence of never having been loved.

Grit

What mental health issues necessitate. The darkness is to my mind not a sign of weakness but an indication of the proportion of strength that is required against a backdrop of impossibility. Coping does not necessarily feel good / right / successful but it doesn’t have to, to allow survival. Going against the grain, whether it is doubting everybody else’s view of you or doing something unexpected means drawing the most basic atom of certainty from within and wearing it with determination, to construct a self. This may form the core of the rarest pearl – a purely self generated being, beautiful in the eyes of the most exquisitely attentive beholder, though ironically destined to doubt their own resilience.

Guilt

An emotion that serves to prevent us making the same mistakes over again by reminding us exactly how much we have screwed up, specifically in a needless way at someone who was largely undeserving. So is it a useless emotion? If so I waste a lot of my time trying to instil a pointless feeling in other people. Why? I feel it intensely about a striking variety of lifetime experiences. Maybe making others jump this hoop is a way of normalising screwing up, sharing the self hatred? Or is it that I want to feel I have an effect on others, can make them care? Only if they do, it’s often a hidden feeling. If everybody I wanted to, cared, the world would be much fluffier and clear of pointless games (see below). But Others don’t seem to care about causing self doubt and internalised overresponsibility. Unless people may be motivated to hide the things they are not proud of from others or maybe themselves. And I seem curiously devoid of any ill feeling about passing the vibe on and creating a guilt grenade in someone else. Can you feel bad about something you are not culpable for? Could anyone generate innocent guilt?

 

F is for…

Facebook

Seeking, verifying, making, keeping and supporting friends happened a long time before Facebook ever hit the internet but social networking seems to have ruined friendships for me. I’m rubbish at anything media based but gingerly started trying to explore this new platform a few years ago. I hoped I’d be some kind of star whose words became legend and that millions of people would adore. Truth is the well of interesting chat is much, much drier than I predicted and I’m still rubbish at making friends. I spend a lot of time ruminating about my own personal Interzone (a place between my and others’ worlds where everyone else seems to know in a rather disdainful way what the fuck is going on, though William Burroughs discovered a very different version). I turned over two pages at once and missed out the life lessons on how to understand subtext, ‘do’ social play and repel criticism. But facebook promised to let me in on it all and let me live happily ever after when I mastered it. But no, I have few friends, I freeze before posting everything as I am scared of offending / looking stupid / being boring / doing it wrong. So I’m behind, out of the loop and even more paranoid as I haven’t actually managed to find and take down the site where everyone shares information and jokes on me. So I am hitting back, furiously typing my interpretations and incredulity of/at coincidences and the massive hypocrisy that is social ‘support’ for socially induced pain. Its going into the void, into oblivion, but better out than in.

Family

I have one, I love them, they love and look out for me more than I could ask. And I have seen the abyss that exists inside when family is absent from someone’s world. Love causes stress though (or there’d be no missing them or draw towards them). ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad, they don’t mean to but they do’ as Philip Larkin pointed out. I’ve always wanted to write about my life (in the hope I could make it sound interesting by forcing it through my mental processor) but I think I’d have to wait until I was dead so I could no longer be grounded / disowned / disappointing. Lots of my family have extreme emotional needs which have changed the course of their lives. Though the Irish heritage sees to it that we are a large extended family, the sad death of a much loved lynchpin of a grandmother and long-grown divisions and distance mean we seldom meet in fuller numbers. But I know we tend to share a sense of humour and a predilection for radical acceptance (eventually) of the less pleasant aspects of the lives we’ve carved out. Still I’ve gone on to have my own family whom I love dearly. Though I’m convinced I’ve screwed the kids up already and would much much prefer to live their pain than for them to stare into the void. I’m trying to hold onto the notion that love heals more than pain can hurt.

Fashion

Fashion has never been good to me and I’ve never really courted it in response. It’s always seemed unflattering or far fetched.  I’m usually lagging behind by the time something seems wearable or affordable. The ‘fashion is what you look good in’ vibe is my only consolation, or would be if clothes were ever designed around tall, overweight middle aged women. Until recently however, I’ve always been able to see some good in what the kids are wearing. To belie my age however, how can retro designing 80’s pieces ever be new ground? My eye is so off I can’t even tell when someone’s outfit is now or just ill thought out. If its a new way of promoting gender equality then its a quiet revolution. Or am I just impervious to the collective unconscious? People seem to take it really seriously, though its very much a first world concern to my mind. If we have the space, time and money to worry about what we shield our forms from humanity with then we’re doing ok. As an indulgence to help us distract from the stresses of a capitalist and fame focused society, fashion might be somewhat hypocritical, given the conspicuous expense often involved in following it. It’s tempting for me to think of people as shallow for taking so seriously something so loosely connected to any of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (overheard on a bus: ‘I’m not really feeling AW 2012’) but if you have so few other worries, or the pain on the inside really is disguised by an expertly assembled outer coating then that’s all good. Its probably design 101 but why do we need fashion? To mark the development of technology, morality or industry? To stop history books looking muddly? To prevent boredom? To sell more widgets? To showcase evolution in design? If so how do revivals fit in? Have we run out of options? Of course fashion isn’t just clothes, but furnishing, food, hobbies, causes all diversify over time. Lots of people, me included, think society influences how we make sense of the world. It’s a short leap to the possibility that ‘unshared beliefs’ vary over time as well as between cultures, in the dark ages we were concerned about spirits, now it is often  surveillance and technology people get caught up in worries about, though not exclusively. Is this social fashion exerting its influence over our innermost thoughts or vice versa? As a way of preparing us for the future, our unshared beliefs may be forming the sense in sensitivity. Creative leaps in other areas wouldn’t be considered madness but genius, its a fine line…  With new forces being discovered in the discipline of physics, is there space to consider social forces connecting the fabric of consciousness together in unseen but suspicious ways? Could life force, synchronicity, folie a deux, deja vu and other shared mental experiences have some explanation? Answers on a post modern card please…

Forever

I’ve promised this and desired it – I thought. It might exist (time being finite is a concept I cannot fully comprehend in a manner that enables me to deploy it with any conviction). The word has come up in two main realms in my existence thus far. Predictably, love and life (length of). The struggle to accept the actual  impermanence of the two forms the deep turbulence that devastated my early adulthood, and has caused tremors warning of  my impending redundancy from life. Well at least the bit of my life that food, fashion and advertising court the attention of these days. I want love to last forever, though I really don’t want to live forever – possibly a slightly selfish wish then. But I don’t want to assume that love (at least of the type for and from my significant half) will carry on regardless. That way solitude lies, the closest I came to (involuntarily) decoupling from my soulmate was when I got complacent and thought I didn’t need to manage the maintenance. And living forever doesn’t appeal if I don’t know what happens later on, if we’ve nuked the planet or the sun has collapsed I’m not too sure I’d want to be hanging on and on.  I’m pretty sure I’ll get sick of life at some point and will stop being avoidant of risking it. But until then I’m still glad neither of my suicide attempts have been successful, I’m still interested in what happens over the page. The kids are a shot at forever, and carry the most hope in that relatively shortly, their rockets will continue venturing forth whilst my baggage will separate off and fall back to the Earth – them venturing on alone.

Frenemies

Yes, people who I have felt obliged to pass time with that I’m not entirely sure I like. Of course I want them to like me – even though I don’t value their principles I hypocritically desire their admiration / respect. It seems neither are assured, and (nobly but ill advisedly) outing myself as a nutter has delighted the real housewives of my locality who seem to see it as a talking point. This may have kinda been my intention but the talking was supposed to be to with me and enlightening rather than between themselves and frightening. But ‘cos of the kids I kept rolling up to the parties and playdates despite a felt sense of not being welcome and definitely not having fun. It took a while for the cogs to turn into place but, eventually I decided I’d rather not have my kids see and learn hypocrisy and fakery. I mostly don’t want them to learn to be cruel which to my mind is what happens when you switch off to what another person is thinking and feeling.  Rocking up to events people don’t really want you at because they can’t have a real conversation with you leaves an empty space ripe for occupation by self-loathing and thinly veiled lies about how good it is to see you. Imagining what is going through the other’s mind at this juncture is not recommended. But fatally addictive.

Future

The far off place you never get to, which I seem to spend too much time trying to improve anyway.  Delaying gratification, denying rewards and comforts in the now so that they;ll be sweeter, juicier and more appreciated in the distant time that’s out of reach of now.  I don’t deserve to rest on my laurels and stop working to build it up just yet. But I’ll probably know i when I get there…though it meaning that my life is done might just take the shine off it now I come to think of it. Am I sacrificing the present for that?

 

 

E is for…

End of the world

‘Going mental’, as someone called it in the pub recently, can have a kind of finality about it. Losing my naivety about how great life is, thinking I (in my new role as God) literally had to organise the end of the world and then almost dying from the resultant guilt and self-hatred induced paracetamol overdose meant the universe almost blinked out in several ways. Not to mention other people’s inference that your brain’s working days are done. Then there is the reality that people and events may never seem the same again. But there is life after the paranormal. Without wishing to sound trite, I had to rethink my whole life – my career choices, my friends, leisure activities and my approach to relationships. I like to think it has worked out ok but I’ll have to let you know, I’m still on the journey. I cleaned out some of the rubbish that was bringing me down and took the ‘this isn’t a dress rehearsal’ motto about life to heart and worked really hard at university. Blah blah blah it was the making of me, retch…I actually think that my indignance at other people daring to try and write me off reinforced some values around equality and humanity that I’d never been brave enough to rock out in public. But once you’ve been laughed out of a flat full of petty criminals for divulging to them that you psychically run the mafia you get less stuck to servicing other people’s opinions of you. So when the world ended for me, I remade it, just on a smaller scale than that I thought I was doing – which made it much more achievable and far less condescending. As a career development manual popular in the 1990s advocated, when the plane’s engines fail and you’re jumping out of the sky, there’s time to marvel at the colour of your parachute.

 

Epistemology

I just put this in as I want to come back to someone I was talking to at a party. It was only  5 years ago, it’s still a warm retort. So – discussing studying psychology and I accidentally dropped the phrase ‘as a scientist I…’ to be interrupted by the conversational partner correcting me to ‘pseudo scientist’.  I actually said I … er… drink?  What I should have said was ‘one has to be fully aware of the remit of positivism in order to soundly reject it for the more nourishing epistemology of social constructivism’. What an arsehole – it took me ages to get the wording right (double arsehole!). I meant life makes more sense and is easier for me if I assume that we all have different ways of looking at it and none is right (we each construct our perspective). Though for others, a central measurable truth for all (positivism) is an easier and less anxiety provoking point of view. Of course the social constructivists win as we all think differently. Though is that the central truth? Is it starting to unravel..?

 

Equality

I started off assuming this was the natural state of affairs in the world – everyone has won and we shall all have prizes. Then reality bit and as a teenager loads of ‘reasons’ for discrimination and inequality surfaced and were accepted as meaningful, even necessary. A tide of rascism and sexist assumptions washed over me, courtesy of my new peers after moving house to a new socio economic  constituency. As a lone voice piping up about the inequality I was expected to accept was normal, I was drowned out and looked faintly ridiculous – like some deluded female wannabe King Canute figure convinced of a belief about power so fantastical it was impossible. So I now carry around the weight of a middle class guilt complex about not being able to stem the flow of fetid comments and attitudes that made me squirm. And of course they are now reconstituted in every encounter with elements of difference or diversity. In my twenties I genuinely thought I could start to change the way people with mental health needs were perceived (usually as so deviant they aren’t in one’s own social circle / intellectual bracket). The longer I kept swigging on life the more I realised how little I really knew. To a former narcissist focusing on the previously unthought known that I am ineffectual (unequal as I can’t rebalance inequality or communicate a solid position I take on anything in case it offends) my quest to reduce inequality has massively flopped.

I see so many people biting down on the shit end of the stick because life hates them and grants no respite from bad luck. I want to ‘help’ but people like me have often contributed to the judgements that add to the struggle and ‘helping’ becomes a futile or patronising aim. In my view social class divisions are directly responsible for a lot of emotional anguish. I thought I was being compassionate by noticing invisible differences like glass ceilings or sticky floors at work, and purposefully trying to smooth the friction implied in difference. The psychological heritage I was endowed with (assumptions and expectations I took on board without noticing from my parents) collided with my consciously adopted view that difference is not a value judgement. I thought I railed against marginalising the minority but did not even recognise the hundreds of assumptions that formed the bedrock of my perspective on the world. As a teenager that never belonged in either of the class groups I encountered, I found I could not forge a personal way through territory so colonised by my parents’ views on society and my position within it.  Or maybe that’s my view because I am weak. Because I am mad. Because I am weak. Because I am different. The sad finality of the assumptions made about class, race, religion, disability, sexuality, gender was neatly summed up by an item of graffiti on a club wall in a deprived area of London, where racism and other crimes are just part of the daily grind. The idiosyncratic assumption I make here, I own, is that graffiti, in the form of tagging is emblematic of social decay. Though I also own that I enjoy a lot of artistic street art. Like the grimmest self fulfilling prophecy stamped on a wall, redolent of the frustration and anger that drives a devalued group to try and recalibrate the oppressive majority, it simply reads ‘its because I’m black’.

 

Existence

Why does it happen? Can I bring myself to keep on doing it? What is it? How did I manage to bring the whole of it about before I was even born? These are questions that have perturbed me in many ways at various points in my longer-than-it-was-going-to-be life. I never used to question the sort of things whose relevance is not immediately obvious. It seems a bit indulgent – I’m a me so I must do. Then I went to university and read about the Cogito which suggested that doubting whether you exist is the foundation of knowledge. ‘I’ll have some of that’ I thought, certain knowledge in a world that was becoming increasingly unreliable was a lifeline. So I applied systematic doubt – nihilistically doubting everything I could not be sure of – my eyesight, other senses and eventually my own existence. Resources I look at now call it methodic doubt but I’m sure I was taught it was systematic. Or was it? Can I be sure about something that is not true? Note to self to write something about epistemology.

Anyhow. It is an interesting thought experiment to consider doubting things that seem quite concrete. But thinking about what proves you exist when that existence has got pretty grimy lets something loose that is hard to put back in the box. And when thinking is somewhat intensified by emotion, chemical influences and nasty feedback from furtive social interactions you start to be concerned that not all is what it may at first seem. Finally when, inexplicably, Bad Stuff starts happening, you can very easily disappear into your own navel in a puff of logic. For me I became scared of life, the gap between what it was like and what it had been supposed to be like. I had no template for dealing with life going down the drain. So I tried to follow it by chasing paracetamol (more about suicide attempts later – joy!). But when I opted out of that at the last moment, I had to find something to stuff in the hole in my identity. So tiny bits of data from different experiences and encounters were kind of mechanically recovered in my brain and I started to surf the non-existent wave. Total saturation in the belief that the lanky, anxious and creepy girl I saw in the mirror was a front that had been intricately woven to protect the truth – that within was the embodiment of <cringe> God!

What a relief! I didn’t have to sweat the social rejection, academic failure and disappointment I saw knocking on the door as such concepts were unimportant to my true mission. I didn’t think much about who might have concocted this facade, or why I only became aware of it when I was 18. I scratched around for a bit trying to unite people in their diversity and planning doomsday. Then after about 3 months, the impossibility of reconciling these two tasks and some other niggling doubts nudged me to topple this whopper of a misapprehension of the truth. Not before some very embarrassing public displays of course. But existence should be colourful, and as work experience, it was – let’s say a useful overview.

 

 

D is for…

Death

Inevitable, avoided, yearned for. Other people’s can make us fear / crave our own. I don’t know what lies on the other side, though I peeked my head round when sliding into madness for the first time. In place of certainty, I’ve had to develop a theoretical stance on the question of what death might involve – going back to where I was before I was born leaves the fewest gaps and is also least scary (as well as appealling to the Buddhist leanings in me). Now I’ve got kids I’m terrified of leaving them and I spend lots of my time trying to work out how to cope with my parents’ deaths. Oddly though, trying to prepare for their demise so I feel less guilty generates a shedload of guilt.

Diagnosis

The label your suffering, in all its complex, nuanced, context-dependent technicolor glory is approximated to using a kind of tally system. You may start off doubting it can be a label  as its actually real and not in your head, find a label is forced onto you whilst you are forced into treatment. Both label and treatment you may reject outright, which rejection then in a kind of catch-22 scenario can lead to knowing nods of I-told-you-she-was-mad. Or you can desperately seek validation and understanding from a name for your illness then find that the name / service configuration changes so frequently that the help never gets close enough to make any lasting impression, other than that its your fault nothing stays the same. Diagnosis can group people together or split people away from their experiences, so that what you think you know and experience becomes a token of a symptom that people give you whilst taking away your inner reality. But like buses, don’t worry there’ll be another one along in  a minute.

Drugs

The ‘recreational’ rather than prescribed kind (though the boundaries are somewhat permeable on these). I have limited direct experience (cannabis, LSD, amphetamines), though my observations of those who’ve experienced more expensive concoctions (heroin, crack) suggest that these are less recreational and more of a full time job with crappy hours, a high level of attentiveness required and rapidly diminishing rewards. Though the chemicals I experimented with certainly were fun at times, I can’t help but thinking that they’re still not quite out of my system some 20 years later. I have a suspicion that the wind changed when I was on acid at some point and something unhelpful was set into my brain. Though I flirted with the grunge look (my teens coincided with the rise and demise of Nirvana), I have never really wanted ‘drug taker’ to be part of my personal identity. Though the drugs I took may well have stretched my psyche through the doors of perception, it never regaining its initial elasticity wasn’t a helpful outcome for said psyche. Now if I want to feel somewhat trippy I just have to realise three days in advance and have a ‘drug holiday’ (again, much less fun than it sounds – merely referring to a break in the usual medication regime), though as it tends to lead to a resurgence in paranoia and self-hatred its a less than desirable option. I know lots of people who take drugs and enjoy them, some people who take drugs and enjoy them despite the reaches of their world and cognitive function diminishing worryingly and more people who take drugs and don’t enjoy the experience along with significant others around them. Not that I want to judge, but as one comedian (whose name I’ve forgotten – bloody cannabis) once said, any hobby that could end up with me having to suck off a sweaty, hairy middle manager in a drugs import ring is not for betting the farm on.

C is for…

Care co-ordinator

In my experience (being cared for and working alongside people in this role), care co-ordinators have been dedicated, adaptable and heavily oppressed by deadlines, targets, paperwork and impossible demands. Being expected to pull a caring, openminded countenance together after being sworn at, being sent rude emails (by those policing their adherence to training / endless repetitive but not cut-and-pasteable forms) must be difficult. When the extent of the criticism unleashed for both co-operation and non co-operation with other services looking to pass the buck and designate their (frequently heart clients as dangerous / needy / not suitable for them is considered alongside the high expressed hatred  unleashed by both people ‘co-ordinated’ for and their ‘carers’ it’s hard to know how they could win. Not that they always get it right or even start off with values privileging the lived experience of the individual, but those that do might expect disillusionment and burnout. NHS services seem to rarely value their employees even where clients / service users / patients are receiving a good service. Rant over – complain vociferously whatever your position.

Committed

Some people still think this happens, that the untethered mind of the lunatic can be trained to act in accordance with acceptable norms (approved or ‘normal’ ways of behaving) by virtue of a forced relationship where the individual is placed inside the mental health problem ‘container’ (hospital) and not allowed to leave, hardly an equal ‘relationship’. The ‘norms’ would be those advocated by the asylum (see previous) to which a person is entrusted /abandoned (committed). As a union, there may be some areas where trust / respect are lacking on either side, though the potential for over dependence (for funding / outcomes / an identity) is also terrifying. Another angle is the degree to which individuals are ‘committed’ to treatment / change / staying themselves. The ‘professional patient’ concept – an individual who doesn’t want to get better because it is easier / more lucrative to stay ‘unwell’ might be also designated a ‘committed’ party. Though in terms of finding and keeping an identity, that is constant, familiar, alternative, meaningful, expressive and unique, wouldn’t refusal to be deflected, misrepresented or overlooked be highly adaptive commitment?

Consciousness

A marvellous thing, which we cannot replicate, define or understand. Often described as the thing that’s missing when we are driving on autopilot, but also the thing that drives us to do things to heighten itself (take drugs, stim, love). I spent too much of my life not appreciating the similarities and differences between my and others’ minds and found an unhappy medium where everyone knows what a shit I am and I don’t have the faintest idea how to change / decouple from their view of me that must be more accurate than mine by virtue of them being the audience. I’ve been told I care too much what other people think, which is probably true (though I’d be a rubbish psychologist if I didn’t). Consciously acting to create an impression you actually can’t control rather than acting in accordance with values that are meaningful leads to self annihilation. But we need a reflection to prove we exist (thanks to the Manic Street Preachers for that handy capsule sentiment), if we scream in a vacuum does it matter if no-one hears or will we just get sectioned? Medication has an unhappy habit of creating cognitive deficits – memory, attention, mental agility, alertness can all diminish to unknown ends (research on newer atypicals only started a few years before I started taking them long term in 2000). But that doesn’t matter as long as we aren’t having those pesky heightened experiences others find so garish.

Contraception

Trying not to have children, it turns out, can seriously impair enjoyment of life. Not through the absence of more little us’s running around the planet. Hormones intended to reduce the stress of children overload have seriously played on my emotions and rejuvenated the delightful opera that is the interaction between anxiety, depression, paranoia and self consciousness in my mind. Similar to a chemical cosh, an enzyme that accelerates mental self destruction innocuously shuts down normal functioning and masquerades as a socially responsible life aid – problem is the alternatives are also painful to think about. Harder to act on.

Conviction

The degree to which you know your Bad Stuff to be true. Often handily rated by asking the percentage you believe it to be true, right now. It’s accepted (and almost pathologised)  that this changes with the day, time, weather etc. It is also the word that denotes the proven guilt of someone. It can also be the drive that leads another to accomplish great things, going where others fear to tread. Standing alone seems to be the common factor, but the drive to stick to something that may be life changing or world beating whilst suffering the slings and arrows of others’ discontent sounds like a romantically worthy endeavour. Trying to encourage a committed (convicted) individual to abandon their sociocentric principles for individual gain (letting go of saving the world because its stressful and taking up crocheting instead) must make it seem like the world really has gone mad. Why would you want to hang around and get with that programme? Of course this is oversimplistic and I had loads of personal gain related projects that wouldn’t have fitted this template and that were awfully embarrassing. Holding an idea against the tide of the rest of human comprehension has a noble air to it even when the core of the idea evades understanding. If the underpinning values (however deeply buried) are morally justifiable, laughter at the expression of an idea is the real sickness.