Am I a Scorpio? Or a Schizophrenic?

A friend told me, many years ago, that it is a good idea to thoroughly clean and tidy your home before you go on holiday. Thus, on your return, even if you have post-holiday blues, you are cheered by the sight of your pristine home.

I have followed this advice ever since. It works. Although I must say, I don't ever feel down on returning from a holiday - however good it feels to be away, it always feels equally good to come home again. 

This time, the pre-holiday cleaning and tidying rather exhausted me. There was a lot to do - there always is, because when the kids are out of the house I am not usually cleaning, but rather writing or studying, and when they are home I am usually cooking or dealing with their concerns (homework and so on).

Luckily, I am a fast and thorough cleaner (those years spent working as a chambermaid were not wasted, after all. I learned humility, and I learned that the things that matter most in life are not prestige and money and I learned - how to clean!) So when I need to tidy up, I do it pretty effectively - but still, by the time I had finished I needed a holiday even more. 

It was a great break. We were only away for five days, and it was a very active break - at Center Parcs, if anyone is interested. I like it there, the quality of accommodation is always high, the staff are always friendly, and it caters for all ages of kids. We have been several times over the years and we are not done yet, although next time we might venture to one of the continental parks. 

Paul and I decided not to take our laptops on holiday, which I think definitely helped us to relax. There is a lesson there, I think to myself. As I tap away, first thing on a Saturday morning, on my daughter's iPad.

I borrowed the iPad to read the paper online. I have been dithering about stopping my subscription to The Times, but in the end I couldn't bear to. Reading the paper is the way that I relax, and anyway reading good writing helps to inform my own (each of us can talk ourselves into anything if we try hard enough, non?)

So instead I decided to go digital - read online. It will save the time it takes to physically get the paper, at least. And I have really enjoyed the experience this morning - razor sharp images, news stories that you can watch as well as read...

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I remember, this is a mental health blog. 

Writing about reading is not totally unrelated, I suppose - good mental health depends to some extent on doing the things that make us happy, surely. And since, from the earliest age, my ambition was to be a reporter (my mother says that from the age of four this is what I said I wanted to do) then reading a daily paper makes even more sense.

The beauty of blogging is that you can write, and publish immediately. Who says that I am any less of a reporter than the columnists I read in The Times? They may get more readers, and they may be paid and they may have editors who help to finesse their work - but otherwise, surely we are on a par? Some kind of a par...

Actually, I could probably do with an editor today, because I am not used to writing on this sort of equipment. It slows my writing, and my thought processes. That's my excuse anyway. 

Also, I have not figured out how to link to stuff on this machine, so I will have to come back later and put something in here:

http://mindhacks.com/2013/04/24/deeper-into-genetic-challenges-to-psychiatric-diagnosis/
This is it - it's an interview with a leading geneticist, who started by looking for evidence if schizophrenia in the genes, and discovered that it is not as straightforward as he thought (surprise!).

I would go further, and say that these people are still on a wild goose chase - since there is no way that people without whatever genetic link they may end up finding which 'proves susceptibility' to 'schizophrenia, autism' and whatever else they are now looking for, will not still be susceptible, given exposure to high enough levels of stress. 

I suppose all this keeps scientists busy, and something useful may eventually be uncovered.  But personally, I think their time would be better spent on discovering how to make people resilient to stress, or how to recover if and when they do break down.  Rather than looking for the causes in our genes.  Ho hum...

I was answering a text from a friend yesterday. My phone had no connection at Center Parcs, so on our way home I had several messages. This friend wanted to let me know that she had recommended my book and blog to someone with a recent mental health diagnosis, who had found them useful. So I text her a few thoughts to pass on to her friend - for example that she should not get hung up on the diagnosis, whatever it is. And it occurred to me then that a parallel can be drawn between mental health diagnoses and star signs. 

If you read your horoscope regularly - as I used to, in my mother's weekly women's magazines when I was young, you end up thinking that your star sign has application to your life. I am a Scorpio. Therefore I am - I forget exactly - mysterious, passionate, and so on. I discount the things that don't apply to me - maybe because I am on the 'cusp' with another sign - and magnify the ones that do. Similarly, when I read that 'x' is likely to happen to me this week, I forget it if it doesn't happen, but if it does, I remember and see it as proof of the accuracy of my star sign.

I saw through all that long ago. The Times has a horoscope section, but I don't look at it. I have no idea what star signs any of my children are.

And thus with psychiatry. I don't need those people to tell me what I 'am'. I don't need their drugs, I don't need their advice to consider myself disabled, to take disability benefits from the government for the rest of my life and never raise my sights above the lowly horizon that they have assigned to me, in their view of my world. That is THEIR view. Of MY world.

I am not a 'Schizophrenic' any more than I am a 'Scorpio'.

I am a human being, doing all that I can to live and to love well and wisely. I follow my own instincts and make my own decisions regarding how to become the best person I can be. 

And yah boo to anyone who thinks I should be doing otherwise.
 

Developments

I am excited to have been chosen as a runner-up (one of forty!) in the Rethink Your Mind competition.  Here's the link to that:  http://www.rethinkyourmind.co.uk/

The exciting part is that we get to collect our prizes from the House of Lords in a couple of weeks' time!  So London beckons...

Another development is that I have been featured in a new magazine, Still Here, which was set up by the incredible Katy:  http://stillheremagazine.com/  Thanks Katy!

I feel I should apologise for not posting much here recently - I am far too busy at the moment, doing all sorts of things.  I need time to sit still and focus on what is important - luckily I have a holiday coming up, so hopefully that will give me a chance to think and to sort out my priorities.

I am reading a lot about mental health - just finished Agnes' Jacket by Gail Hornstein, which was an amazing book.  But sometimes I think I am reading too much - I probably need to concentrate on writing for a while now.  

Anyway, I will be back on here when I can, hopefully soon-ish.

Adieu for nieu.

The Black Dog Tribe

I have been featured on the Black Dog Tribe website - I am really excited about this!  I might never have known, if Katy Gray (@SchizophrenicGB) had not told me about it on Twitter...

Thanks, Katy!

Here's the link:

http://blackdogtribe.com/news-features/memoir-schizophrenia-will-be-inspiration-0

Centre for Excellence in Mental Health and other resources

Here's the link to an amazing resource - the Centre of Excellence in Mental Health, based at the University of Birmingham:

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/social-policy/ceimh/index.aspx

I have spent the evening glued to this site, watching some amazing films, of people like Gail Hornstein, Dorothy Rowe, Richard Warner and so on.  When you come across stuff like this, it is really possible to believe that the tide is changing!

I found the CEIMH through Gail Hornstein's website: http://www.gailhornstein.com/

I am reading her book, Agnes' Jacket, which is absolutely packed with information about enlightened ways of treating emotional distress.  This morning I made a huge list of  websites and other information to look up, based on references in just one short part of the book.

Here's just a few of them - the Mental Health Testimony project archived at the British Library http://cadensa.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/5?searchdata1=CKEY5542415&library=ALLthe Survivor's Poetry Network http://www.survivorspoetry.org/ the Freedom Center  http://www.freedom-center.org/

And here's another, new site, that looks really interesting - the McPin Foundation: http://mcpin.org/ They are interested in peer-led research, so contact them if you would like to be involved.  And please spread the word about them.

Enjoy!

I am still only half-way through Agnes' Jacket, by the way, and will definitely post a review when I have finished, but meanwhile I can assure you it is most definitely a worthwhile and very pleasurable read.  Grab a copy as soon as you can.

Local Mum (me!) writes inspirational memoir

Here's a link to a nice article that came out in my local paper yesterday.  The headline is 'Louise's memoir will be an inspiration to all' which was lovely - it made my kids very proud!

I felt a bit weird this morning at the school - there was an Easter bonnet parade, the school and playground were crammed with people, and I couldn't help wondering how many of them had read the article!

But then, it doesn't matter - if my story helps anyone, and it has already, then it has served its purpose.  And the article did mention that I am better now, which was nice.  Just in case anyone around me was worried for their safety.

I wonder how many people still think that 'schizophrenic' is a term that describes dangerous people.  The media certainly use it less now - although there was an article in The Times this week about a violent perpetrator, and the headline was 'Schizophrenic man...' ... and then whatever he had done. 

The stigma will never go away until the name is changed, and everybody in the mental health profession knows that.  The brave and honest mental health professionals are willing to come out and say it, and that the current system is not a healing one.

Anyhow, here's the link:  http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/10316089.Memoir_of_schizophrenia_will_be_an_inspiration/

Enjoy.

Self-Publishing

This is a post for those of you who are interested in self-publishing.  I have found it an excellent way to get heard, and to stay in control of the process of writing and editing.  I have benefitted from my memoir in numerous ways.  I have also benefitted from this blog, and from the lines of communication it has opened up with others who suffer, or have suffered, emotional distress, and with those who love them.

Anyway.

It has been almost two years since I published the memoir.  Since then I have written hundreds of thousands of words, most of them on here, but a fair number on other books that I have started and not finished.  This has been happening worryingly frequently - most notably with my recovery book, which I lost heart in some months ago, feeling that I was only repeating what others have said, in books and in blogs and what I myself have written here.  I have written more than fifty-five thousand words on that book, but I couldn't seem to find the heart to finish it.

I then started a novel.  I applied for Arts Council Funding so that I could find the time to write it - because in recent months my time has got taken up in sundry other ways - by the need to earn a living, by the desire to help at my kids' schools, by a Psychology course...  I thought that if I got the grant I could ring-fence my time to write.

My application was turned down.  The reason given was that I did not have an agent or a publisher, although I had undertaken to do my best to get an agent once the project was properly under way.  I said that if I failed to get a publisher (or agent) I would self-publish - I have had ample experience in the last couple of years of this, and of marketing.

I actually don't mind that I didn't get the grant - because now I can stay in command of my own work.  I was never very good at accepting the services of an editor - I had to submit to this years ago when I used to write magazine articles, and I found it really frustrating.  I think that self-publishing, for me, is the way forward.

But my problem still remained.  If I am to continue to be a writer - and I don't want to ever be anything else (apart from a wife and mother) I need to earn some money from writing.  Otherwise, as somebody famous and clever once said, I will have to go out and get a job.   

I have not published anything of significance for almost two years.  That fact irked me.   So many books started and not finished, so many words wasted.  All because of my inner critic.  Nothing I wrote, however enthused I was about it at the time of writing, ever seemed any good when I went back to it the next day, or after a gap of several days.

I vowed that the next thing I wrote, I would finish.  I had made and broken this vow several times already.  But then by chance I read a short story in this month's 'Mslexia' magazine that chimed with me.  It was one of the winners in the 'Memoir' competition category.  The story was well told, and the crux of it, or the message I took from it, was when the writer decided that she would write not for an audience but for herself, freely, just to enjoy the process of thinking and of expressing those thoughts.  Rather like I write this blog. 

 And then I read something that's been on my Kindle for a while - an e-book by JA Konrath, called the Newbie's Guide to Publishing.  He has a blog of the same name.  The book and blog are about how to make a living from writing.  So I read some of the book, and then I looked up the blog, because it's been a while since I glanced at it, and I learned that he was doing very well, self-publishing to Kindle. 

Then I went onto Amazon and looked to see what sort of books are on the Kindle Bestsellers list.  And I saw that light-hearted romances sell well, as do thrillers.  Of the two, I prefer the romances.  So I read some samples of some of them. 

And then I got stuck in.  I started writing on Tuesday afternoon, and by this evening I had written and edited almost eleven thousand words.  It is a complete story.  A novella (too long to be a short story, far too short to be a novel).

And I had the best time ever writing the thing.  It reminded me of all those years ago at Roedean, when I used to go to the bookshop in the main school and spend whatever money I had on Barbara Cartland books.  Complete escapism.  I tried to write in a light, fun way.  I edited very little, and down rather than up - in other words, if I wanted to say 'observed' I said 'looked'.  I wanted to make my work as accessible as possible.  I did not want to be too high-faluting. 

When my almost thirteen-year old came home from school at quarter to six, I gave her the manuscript to read.  I'd estimated that it was at about her level.  I wrote the novella for adults, but of course there's nothing racy in it.  My daughter likes to read all sorts of books, and I'd kept this one simple - I knew it wouldn't be beyond her understanding. 

I watched her closely for a reaction.  I was hoping for a smile or two, perhaps a chuckle.  I knew it wasn't the funniest thing I had ever written but I hoped that it would be at least amusing.  And there was a slight smile or two, and then at about a third of the way in - she laughed out loud!  Hurrah.  And when she had finished reading (after about an hour) she gave me eight out of ten.  Which for a book that took me a total of - I'm not sure, somewhere between fifteen and twenty hours - to write,  is a satisfactory outcome. 

Job done.

The book is not art, not by a long chalk.  But it's moderately entertaining, which was what I set out to achieve.  And now that I have silenced my inner critic, I intend to keep the lid firmly on it.  I am tempted to tinker with the book, to improve it, but I am not going to succumb to the temptation.  I am going to publish the book, in its present form, to Kindle, as soon as I possibly can.

And then I am going to start the next one.

I am going to write freely, and regularly, and fast and I am going to finish every single book I start from now on.  And maybe I'll get on and finish the ones I've started already too. 

Such fun!

  

Great interview from Mad in America

I just came across this interview from Rachel Waddingham, of the Hearing Voices Network.  This lady is really courageous and articulate.  It's only a short video, about six minutes.  Here's the link: http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/03/interview-with-rachel-waddingham/


I also wanted to mention that I have just received a five star book review on Amazon from an American psychiatrist, Gregg L Friedman.  I got quite tearful when I read it - it says that my book is an excellent read, packed with useful information, and will be helpful to psychiatrists, patients, and their families. 

I used to be completely in awe of doctors, and suppose I do still have a sense of respect for the medical profession.  I have become disenchanted with psychiatry over the years though, because of the diagnosis I was given and how it affected my view of myself.  And as I get older I have realised that I need to be the guardian of my own health, instead of trying to hand the power over to medical professionals to help me. 

However, the fact that I got so emotional when I read this review shows that I am not as strong or as independent as I thought - because I really am grateful that a doctor - and a psychiatrist - has taken the time to read my book and review it.  And the fact that he thinks it is helpful, that seems like a real accolade to me.

Don't get me wrong, I am grateful to every person who has taken the time to read my book, whether or not they have found the opportunity to review it.  Sales have dropped recently - not surprising really, since it is about 21 months since I first published the book.  Yet still, every day this month I have sold an average of a couple of e-books and a paperback, and sometimes it seems to me not much short of a miracle, that every day there are people who spend money on a product that I have written and manufactured.  People who think that my book is worthy. 

And the very best thing is when I hear from the people who have been helped or inspired by my work.  I intend to create a folder soon, of all the emails I have had (and a few letters) from people who have appreciated my work.  And the reviews, or course.  It really is all quite incredible, and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to get my work published and read, and commented upon.  There can be no better career than writing in the world!

Thank you all for reading.