I lived in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex between the years 1979 and 1984. Everyday during the summer we would head down to the beach for a while. It was a five minute walk from our house. One time the tide was out and me and a friend headed out for a swim. I had had swimming lessons, but I wasn't a very good swimmer. My feet were on the sea bed for most of the time, then I suddenly reached a part where the sea bed dropped. I started to get into trouble. I held onto my friend but quickly realised he couldn't carry me out of danger so I had to let go. I started to drown. I could see off to my left (when facing the beach) a concrete jetty, where there was man standing right at the end. He saw me and got into the sea and walked over to me, lifted me up into his arms and carried me to safety. He left me in the shallow water and I ran as quickly as possible to my mother who was sat on the sand. Before I had a chance to acknowledge him, the man who saved me had gone. I told my mum what had happened and began to cry. I then realised that I never thanked him and my mum didn't thank him either. I would love to thank him. I was only about six or seven at the time and I have long since left Clacton.
At the time I thought this man was very tall, but the fact was I wouldn't now know whether he was tall or not, because I was small. He was in his twenties or thirties. I remember more or less what he looked like, but I don't think it would be very easy to recognise him now. I am 44 years old, so it would have been over 35 years ago. He would be at least 55 years old now. I guess I'll never know.
Monday, 11 March 2019
Wednesday, 6 February 2019
Please Visit My Go Fund Me Page.
As an author with mental health problems, writing has been a very testing experience for me. I get good review most of the time, but this doesn't translate into sales. My failure to become a full-time writer has caused a great deal of depression for me over the years. What I need to do is raise some funds to raise my profile as a writer, and try and get myself onto the next level of writing. It is so important for me to do this. A lot of my life is difficult, but I am happier when people read my work; work that I have struggled to create. If I was more successful and I was happier, it would help me fight back against a range of health issues, that as a sufferer of mental health difficulties, continues to get worse. I feel like I only have a few years left of moderately good physical health, in which to break the deadlock in my career and change my life for the better.
The link is here. Please visit my page a read about my appeal, if if you don't give. And if so inclined please post a link on your social media. Thanks.
https://www.gofundme.com/turn-me-into-a-best-selling-author-123
The link is here. Please visit my page a read about my appeal, if if you don't give. And if so inclined please post a link on your social media. Thanks.
https://www.gofundme.com/turn-me-into-a-best-selling-author-123
Friday, 18 January 2019
Fat is a Feminist Issue: How Being Overweight Determined My Destiny.
I was listening to the radio, when the author, Susie Orbach writer of the very famous feminist work, Fat is a Feminist Issue, published in 1978, was discussing her book. She said that overweight women were possibly overeating as a way of protecting themselves from the attentions of men. I began to put on weight when I was about fourteen. Up until that point I had had plenty of girlfriends and was developing normally. But as I put on weight, the girls at school and out of school were no longer expressing an interest in me as a possible boyfriend. By the age of fifteen I was losing my confidence, with all types of social interaction and was losing friends and losing opportunities with girls at school who I liked. I remained overweight for the next four or five years, as my communication skills and confidence around women got worse, I started to withdraw into myself. I developed nervous habits and suffered from loneliness, depression and anxiety. I was also suicidal.
When I was twenty in 1994, I was unemployed, living on my own and going hungry. I could not afford to overeat. As a result, I lost all the weight I had put on and women began to show an interest in me again. But by that time, I couldn't seem to rescue my confidence back and I missed many opportunities to get a girlfriend and the following year I had a massive psychotic episode. From 1995 - 1997 I binged food everyday and by the time I moved back out of my parents house, where I was recovering from my illness, at the end of 1997, I was 21 stone. Very fat, very ill mentally, with a nasty psychotic illness which wouldn't go, fat had started me on the path I am still on today. It began with a loss of confidence, which led on to feeling very low about who I was, effectively hating myself for being fat and unattractive. Fat took me off on a path of loneliness, depression and ultimately a severe mental health condition, with many other factors affecting me along the way. But I do believe that my size at varying times in my life, diverted me from a normal development course, from adolescence to adulthood and once I was knocked off course things just got worse and worse for me. In the end I spent so much time alone, that now I am 44 years old, I no longer want a relationship. I don't enjoy that level of human interaction that is necessary to maintain a relationship, and I'm happier alone.
I never got married, I never had kids, I didn't develop my career, I never got onto the housing ladder, like many of my contemporaries, and I am now cast adrift, with no friends or relationships and very long periods of my life spent alone. It isn't all bad, but it took almost my entire life alone, to get used to my own company and to accept my lot and not get too worked up or depressed about being alone. And fat is such a central feature of my path through life right up to now, that not only did it act as a driver for my subsequent mental illness, I now have diabetes, liver damage, heart disease, and all the illnesses that come from a life time of severe mental illness. That overweightness has determined my possible death as well as the general course of my life thus far.
When I was twenty in 1994, I was unemployed, living on my own and going hungry. I could not afford to overeat. As a result, I lost all the weight I had put on and women began to show an interest in me again. But by that time, I couldn't seem to rescue my confidence back and I missed many opportunities to get a girlfriend and the following year I had a massive psychotic episode. From 1995 - 1997 I binged food everyday and by the time I moved back out of my parents house, where I was recovering from my illness, at the end of 1997, I was 21 stone. Very fat, very ill mentally, with a nasty psychotic illness which wouldn't go, fat had started me on the path I am still on today. It began with a loss of confidence, which led on to feeling very low about who I was, effectively hating myself for being fat and unattractive. Fat took me off on a path of loneliness, depression and ultimately a severe mental health condition, with many other factors affecting me along the way. But I do believe that my size at varying times in my life, diverted me from a normal development course, from adolescence to adulthood and once I was knocked off course things just got worse and worse for me. In the end I spent so much time alone, that now I am 44 years old, I no longer want a relationship. I don't enjoy that level of human interaction that is necessary to maintain a relationship, and I'm happier alone.
I never got married, I never had kids, I didn't develop my career, I never got onto the housing ladder, like many of my contemporaries, and I am now cast adrift, with no friends or relationships and very long periods of my life spent alone. It isn't all bad, but it took almost my entire life alone, to get used to my own company and to accept my lot and not get too worked up or depressed about being alone. And fat is such a central feature of my path through life right up to now, that not only did it act as a driver for my subsequent mental illness, I now have diabetes, liver damage, heart disease, and all the illnesses that come from a life time of severe mental illness. That overweightness has determined my possible death as well as the general course of my life thus far.
Tuesday, 11 December 2018
Smoking: Paying to Die Young.
As a small child I put up no smoking signs just before my grandparents arrived for a visit. They were both smokers and they were annoyed and insulted by the signs I put up. Both of them lived to a ripe old age. But when I was older I experimented with smoking, then I developed a habit of one or two a day. By the time I was 19, I was smoking about 5 to 10 a day, depending on what I was doing. By the time I entered hospital at age 21, I would sit in the smoke room with the other patients and staff and have good ol' chat about life, the universe and everything. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I came out of hospital early in 1996. In 1997 I was reacquainted with a friend I had made in hospital. He smoked a lot more than me. I spent long sessions with him chatting and having a laugh, but my smoking levels increased a lot over that time, to keep up with his smoking. I went from 5 - 10 to almost thirty. Now 23 years later I am totally hooked. I smoke between 30-35 a day; rollies and straights.
The smoke room in hospital was the best place to be. When I was there I made some very good, lifelong friends. My three closest friends are now dead, having killed themselves. I am left facing a life of smoking - a legacy of that social side to smoking. The government thinks that by constantly increasing the tax on cigarettes that they driving away smokers, making them quit. I haven't voluntarily smoked for at least the last fifteen years. I don't want to smoke, but my addiction is strong.
When you're a smoker, you grow more nicotine receptors in your brain over time. However, there are nicotine receptors all over your body, not just in the brain. So you have a physical addiction. I have tried to give up dozens of times unsuccessfully. The government knows that mentally unwell people are more likely to smoke. They also know that there is a hardcore group of smokers who will never be able or willing to quit smoking and yet they keep increasing the cost. They also know that the high levels of tax are driving many smokers to seek out sources of duty free, smuggled tobacco products. Some of these products are counterfeit and contain poisons. A lot of these people are just trying to earn a little extra. But some are Eastern European crime gangs. The money you spend with them goes to fund things like drug smuggling and dealing, and people trafficking.
There is no real help for mentally unwell people for giving up smoking. I have tried every single smoking treatment available more than once. The closest I got was going cold turkey. I was in bed for a week, unable to sleep, waking up every twenty minutes to drink water and my mouth was very dry the whole time. My body was not willing to let go of nicotine and in the end I went back to cigarettes just to make it stop. Just so I could finally get some sleep.
Smoking will kill me. I have already had one heart attack. I cough heavily on and off throughout the day. I will probably soon get a diagnosis of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). After that is a slow decline followed by death. The only thing that will save me is a massive change in lifestyle. And this is something I have tried hard to do, but I have failed so miserable, because my mental health is so bad.
The smoke room in hospital was the best place to be. When I was there I made some very good, lifelong friends. My three closest friends are now dead, having killed themselves. I am left facing a life of smoking - a legacy of that social side to smoking. The government thinks that by constantly increasing the tax on cigarettes that they driving away smokers, making them quit. I haven't voluntarily smoked for at least the last fifteen years. I don't want to smoke, but my addiction is strong.
When you're a smoker, you grow more nicotine receptors in your brain over time. However, there are nicotine receptors all over your body, not just in the brain. So you have a physical addiction. I have tried to give up dozens of times unsuccessfully. The government knows that mentally unwell people are more likely to smoke. They also know that there is a hardcore group of smokers who will never be able or willing to quit smoking and yet they keep increasing the cost. They also know that the high levels of tax are driving many smokers to seek out sources of duty free, smuggled tobacco products. Some of these products are counterfeit and contain poisons. A lot of these people are just trying to earn a little extra. But some are Eastern European crime gangs. The money you spend with them goes to fund things like drug smuggling and dealing, and people trafficking.
There is no real help for mentally unwell people for giving up smoking. I have tried every single smoking treatment available more than once. The closest I got was going cold turkey. I was in bed for a week, unable to sleep, waking up every twenty minutes to drink water and my mouth was very dry the whole time. My body was not willing to let go of nicotine and in the end I went back to cigarettes just to make it stop. Just so I could finally get some sleep.
Smoking will kill me. I have already had one heart attack. I cough heavily on and off throughout the day. I will probably soon get a diagnosis of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). After that is a slow decline followed by death. The only thing that will save me is a massive change in lifestyle. And this is something I have tried hard to do, but I have failed so miserable, because my mental health is so bad.
Thursday, 6 December 2018
Review of the Mental Health Act.
I don't understand the ins and outs of the new review of the Mental Health Act, but I know the UK was put on notice a few years back that the regime of detaining people with no access to lawyers and no right to habeas corpus, where the detaining official must prove that he or she has legal and good reason to detain someone. The UN's Declaration of Human Rights ruled that the UK among other Western nations were in contravention of the Declaration. The government went into denial and tried to claim that they weren't contravening it because people were given a say over their treatment. But the fact is mentally ill people have no rights under the current system. They certainly have less rights than someone who has committed a criminal offence. Those people have the right of hebeas corpus. The mentally ill can be locked up indefinitely without any judicial review. They can be assessed by a Mental Act Managers review. Maybe they'll be released maybe they won't.
In this recent review it recommends these ideas as part of a new Mental Health Act now being considered by the government:
In this recent review it recommends these ideas as part of a new Mental Health Act now being considered by the government:
- Choice and autonomy: people being supported to express what they want and to be heard; patients should understand their rights and their relationships should be respected.
- Beneficial purpose: care and treatment should be delivered with a view to ending the need for coercion.
- Treating patients as individuals: detention should respect the individual circumstances of the detained person, and consider their protected characteristics
- Least restriction: compulsory powers should be used in the least restrictive and least invasive way possible.
This is a good start to restoring basic human rights to the mentally people of the UK. You can read the full report and recommendations carried out by the review panel.
You can get more information from the charity Rethink Mental Illness: https://www.rethink.org/mhareview
Friday, 30 November 2018
Suicide Not the 'Easy Way Out.'
WARNING: METHODS OF SUICIDE ARE OPENLY DISCUSSED IN THIS POST.
I've had suicidal thoughts almost everyday since I was fifteen and when I wasn't directly thinking about it, it was there in the background. I was watching BBC One last night. A program called 'Ambulance'. Paramedics have always had a bit of reputation for being unsympathetic towards people who attempt suicide, often saying it was a waste of their time and resources when others were in grater need. Paramedic's could sometimes be very blunt about this. This is changing, but last nights Ambulance, showed one paramedic, saying that she didn't understand why people would ever consider suicide and even when she was at her lowest it hadn't even entered her head. Lucky her. Her colleague then admitted that he'd considered it, when he first came out as gay.
The wider public also seem to have this attitude and this belief that suicide is an easy option and a cowards way out. Having been a member of the mentally ill community, I have known 19 people who have committed suicide. Several of these people, I have had intimate knowledge of their history. Their problems from childhood right up to their suicide and believe me none of them were cowards. None of them took an 'easy option'. This is because the human body and mind, is a very robust thing. It is designed specifically for survival. It is physically hard to kill yourself. Take cutting your wrists for example. People think that you just cut across your wrist. This is not true. You have to open up the main artery. The main artery is hard to find. I know someone who tried to kill himself this way. He was very determined to kill himself, but he was unable to find his artery, but severely cut up his arm in the process.
I knew of one woman who stabbed herself in the heart. This is no mean feat. You have to puncture the structures of the chest which are designed to protect vital organs. So the breast plate, has to be punctured to get to the heart.
Another friend of mine attempted suicide by covering himself with petrol while sat in his car. When he'd soaked himself with petrol and went to pick up a lighter he thought he had, he couldn't find it and had to return home and clean himself up. I tried to convince him that God had intervened and it was a strong sign that God didn't want him to do it. Unfortunately this didn't convince him and he threw himself under a train a couple of weeks later.
I have know four deaths from going under trains. Two from throwing themselves off tall buildings, one (explained above) from stabbing herself. Several from hanging (which is painful) and several from overdoses of various medicines. All were fraught with dangers. All were suicides where the person involved was in very serious mental distress. And not just around the time of their deaths. Constantly. Every day.
I believe that to kill yourself is hard. It is hard mentally and it's hard physically. You have to have a proper go at it and be sure that once you step over that threshold, that you will definitely die. Plus the things drawing you back from doing it, like the feelings of family that you leave behind. How will they cope? I know of two women who attempted to hang themselves and were found and rescued. One of them went on to have a happy normal life. The other was severely brain damaged and is now in a care home, where she will see out her days, with very little mental awareness of who she is and who her family is. She will never recover.
There is nothing cowardly about suicide, especially if you're in constant mental anguish. Especially if you've been like this for years, even decades, without any real prospect of recovery. And that's why doctors in Belgium and Switzerland, have no problem with euthanasia of mentally ill people. Many people have fully engaged with mental health services and treatments and still suffer every day. I am one of them. I have tried almost every medicine I was offered. I attended every appointment with psychologists, councillors, nurses and doctors. Nothing has worked. And the pain is terrible - terror being the operative part of that word. It terrorises me and people like me. And you have to decide what you want. A life long painful experience, that will never change, never get better. Or peace in death.
There is a website you can visit which sets out all the different methods of suicide, with a pain index next to each one. You will notice from this list that none of the options are pain free. Death by shotgun and the method used by Dignitas (barbiturate overdose), are the only two pain free options. But they're still fraught with dangers. What if you partially miss when shooting yourself? What if you get hold of some barbiturates and they turn out to be fake? No option is a good one.
Suicide information: http://lostallhope.com/suicide-methods
I've had suicidal thoughts almost everyday since I was fifteen and when I wasn't directly thinking about it, it was there in the background. I was watching BBC One last night. A program called 'Ambulance'. Paramedics have always had a bit of reputation for being unsympathetic towards people who attempt suicide, often saying it was a waste of their time and resources when others were in grater need. Paramedic's could sometimes be very blunt about this. This is changing, but last nights Ambulance, showed one paramedic, saying that she didn't understand why people would ever consider suicide and even when she was at her lowest it hadn't even entered her head. Lucky her. Her colleague then admitted that he'd considered it, when he first came out as gay.
The wider public also seem to have this attitude and this belief that suicide is an easy option and a cowards way out. Having been a member of the mentally ill community, I have known 19 people who have committed suicide. Several of these people, I have had intimate knowledge of their history. Their problems from childhood right up to their suicide and believe me none of them were cowards. None of them took an 'easy option'. This is because the human body and mind, is a very robust thing. It is designed specifically for survival. It is physically hard to kill yourself. Take cutting your wrists for example. People think that you just cut across your wrist. This is not true. You have to open up the main artery. The main artery is hard to find. I know someone who tried to kill himself this way. He was very determined to kill himself, but he was unable to find his artery, but severely cut up his arm in the process.
I knew of one woman who stabbed herself in the heart. This is no mean feat. You have to puncture the structures of the chest which are designed to protect vital organs. So the breast plate, has to be punctured to get to the heart.
Another friend of mine attempted suicide by covering himself with petrol while sat in his car. When he'd soaked himself with petrol and went to pick up a lighter he thought he had, he couldn't find it and had to return home and clean himself up. I tried to convince him that God had intervened and it was a strong sign that God didn't want him to do it. Unfortunately this didn't convince him and he threw himself under a train a couple of weeks later.
I have know four deaths from going under trains. Two from throwing themselves off tall buildings, one (explained above) from stabbing herself. Several from hanging (which is painful) and several from overdoses of various medicines. All were fraught with dangers. All were suicides where the person involved was in very serious mental distress. And not just around the time of their deaths. Constantly. Every day.
I believe that to kill yourself is hard. It is hard mentally and it's hard physically. You have to have a proper go at it and be sure that once you step over that threshold, that you will definitely die. Plus the things drawing you back from doing it, like the feelings of family that you leave behind. How will they cope? I know of two women who attempted to hang themselves and were found and rescued. One of them went on to have a happy normal life. The other was severely brain damaged and is now in a care home, where she will see out her days, with very little mental awareness of who she is and who her family is. She will never recover.
There is nothing cowardly about suicide, especially if you're in constant mental anguish. Especially if you've been like this for years, even decades, without any real prospect of recovery. And that's why doctors in Belgium and Switzerland, have no problem with euthanasia of mentally ill people. Many people have fully engaged with mental health services and treatments and still suffer every day. I am one of them. I have tried almost every medicine I was offered. I attended every appointment with psychologists, councillors, nurses and doctors. Nothing has worked. And the pain is terrible - terror being the operative part of that word. It terrorises me and people like me. And you have to decide what you want. A life long painful experience, that will never change, never get better. Or peace in death.
There is a website you can visit which sets out all the different methods of suicide, with a pain index next to each one. You will notice from this list that none of the options are pain free. Death by shotgun and the method used by Dignitas (barbiturate overdose), are the only two pain free options. But they're still fraught with dangers. What if you partially miss when shooting yourself? What if you get hold of some barbiturates and they turn out to be fake? No option is a good one.
Suicide information: http://lostallhope.com/suicide-methods
Sunday, 25 November 2018
I Wish I was Dead.
If I went to sleep tonight and never woke up that would be the best things that could happen to me. I don't get a chance to talk about my suicidal thoughts. I wouldn't burden my family with it. The friends I made years ago in hospital and at group meetings with MDF (formally the Manic Depression Fellowship - now known as Bipolar UK), have all since died from suicide. Since I got ill in 1995 I have known 21 people who have killed themselves. I would like to follow them, but I never seem to feel so bad that I wanted to actually attempt it. If you're going to do it you need to be sure your method is going to work and you're not just going to end up in a wheelchair or hooked up to a machine for the rest of your life. I feel anxious and depressed every single day, day in and day out. But I feel I'd have to be at least 10% worse than that to really try hard enough to be successful. I have a bad heart and poorly managed diabetes. But hoping I will die from a heart attack while asleep isn't really much of a plan.
Everything stresses me out. Staying in, going out. A twice yearly visit from my dad. Contacts with the agent who manages my flat is a tough one. She always seems to be trying to charge me for something and I am paranoid they will turf me out so they can get someone else in here. I can be in a state for days at a time. I have three possible methods of suicide in the flat ready to go. My preferred one is supposed to be slow and painful. I have looked online to see if I can get pills that will make it pain free, but these pills are illegal in the UK and you can get arrested for ordering them if you get caught. Plus they might be fake and filled with God knows what.
I often think how brave my friends were to kill themselves. I knew first hand what they went through because I witnessed it. And I think how come they had the guts to do it and I don't? Then I think it's about whether I think I could have a future or not. I never got the career I wanted. I am a struggling author. I'm 44 years old. If there is a slither of hope I might be able to improve my life, it seems to be enough to stop me killing myself. But it's on a knife edge, on a daily basis. Maybe it will be this week? Maybe this year, next year, in ten years. Who knows?
I have suffered from an anxiety disorder since I was fifteen. But that disorder is now completely out of control. This is because of Iain Duncan-Smith and the Conservative changes to benefits. It is a constant worry. There are many scare stories on the news of people going without payments for months, having to sell all their possessions, go hungry and getting made homeless after getting into arrears on their rent. My anxiety disorder is now at a chronic level, ironically making it less likely I will be able to take on any work. It is an epic battle that I go through every single day.
And the NHS is no help at all. In my last session with a psychiatrist I told him how suicidal I was and he discharged me in that very same appointment. I got assigned a support worker and when she asked me what I wanted from the sessions with her and said I needed support. She said 'we don't offer support'. Her job title is 'support worker' and she doesn't offer support. When I was first ill you could turn up at a hospital in the middle of the night and get admitted there and then as a voluntary patient. Now you can't even get a referral to see a psychiatrist. We're being pushed further and further to the margins of society, by the benefit system, by the health system.
One of my friends begged to be taken into hospital because of feeling suicidal. They said to go for a walk or have a hot bath. He killed himself soon after. He was fifty-four, had been ill since his early twenties and had never attempted suicide before that day. The system let him down badly. And there are many like him up and down a country that doesn't care about suicidal people anymore. If I decided to do it, there would be no intervention, even though there are well established prevention strategies that can be used by the psychiatric system. The funding is just not there anymore. And I can't see that will change any time soon.
Everything stresses me out. Staying in, going out. A twice yearly visit from my dad. Contacts with the agent who manages my flat is a tough one. She always seems to be trying to charge me for something and I am paranoid they will turf me out so they can get someone else in here. I can be in a state for days at a time. I have three possible methods of suicide in the flat ready to go. My preferred one is supposed to be slow and painful. I have looked online to see if I can get pills that will make it pain free, but these pills are illegal in the UK and you can get arrested for ordering them if you get caught. Plus they might be fake and filled with God knows what.
I often think how brave my friends were to kill themselves. I knew first hand what they went through because I witnessed it. And I think how come they had the guts to do it and I don't? Then I think it's about whether I think I could have a future or not. I never got the career I wanted. I am a struggling author. I'm 44 years old. If there is a slither of hope I might be able to improve my life, it seems to be enough to stop me killing myself. But it's on a knife edge, on a daily basis. Maybe it will be this week? Maybe this year, next year, in ten years. Who knows?
I have suffered from an anxiety disorder since I was fifteen. But that disorder is now completely out of control. This is because of Iain Duncan-Smith and the Conservative changes to benefits. It is a constant worry. There are many scare stories on the news of people going without payments for months, having to sell all their possessions, go hungry and getting made homeless after getting into arrears on their rent. My anxiety disorder is now at a chronic level, ironically making it less likely I will be able to take on any work. It is an epic battle that I go through every single day.
And the NHS is no help at all. In my last session with a psychiatrist I told him how suicidal I was and he discharged me in that very same appointment. I got assigned a support worker and when she asked me what I wanted from the sessions with her and said I needed support. She said 'we don't offer support'. Her job title is 'support worker' and she doesn't offer support. When I was first ill you could turn up at a hospital in the middle of the night and get admitted there and then as a voluntary patient. Now you can't even get a referral to see a psychiatrist. We're being pushed further and further to the margins of society, by the benefit system, by the health system.
One of my friends begged to be taken into hospital because of feeling suicidal. They said to go for a walk or have a hot bath. He killed himself soon after. He was fifty-four, had been ill since his early twenties and had never attempted suicide before that day. The system let him down badly. And there are many like him up and down a country that doesn't care about suicidal people anymore. If I decided to do it, there would be no intervention, even though there are well established prevention strategies that can be used by the psychiatric system. The funding is just not there anymore. And I can't see that will change any time soon.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)