Now
available in hardback
Issue 2 (July 2005)
The Eccentric
Times is supported by Bucks Mind (a Mental Health charity), although
the
views expressed within are not necessarily their own.
TAKE
ME SERIOUSLY!
I’m A Person, Not An Illness
by Tony Rickman
I was going to originally entitle this piece “Say it loud
– I’m mad and I’m proud!”, but
it wasn’t
something I could say with any real conviction.
“Why?” You
may ask. Well whenever I meet new people and they ask me what I do for
a living, I feel embarrassed when I tell them I only work part-time due
to a mental illness. Some people wonder why I should tell them at all,
but I feel like I’m being deceitful in some way if I
don’t.
A
big part of why I feel bad confessing I have a mental illness
is because of the way certain sections of society view it. I guess
it’s a case of: “if you’re going to
reject me, reject
me now. It’ll hurt less than rejecting me when
we’ve gotten
closer.” The problem is that many people equate mental
illness
with danger, whilst others, and this is what really gets me cross,
equate it with stupidity.
Like
most minority groups, people base their opinions on the few
who cause all the trouble. You don’t notice the peaceful
majority
because they stay out of trouble and therefore don’t draw
attention to themselves. The truth is that mentally ill people are more
likely to be vulnerable than dangerous.
As
for people in the mental health system being stupid, well
there are plenty of intelligent, articulate people within the system
who will prove otherwise if you make an effort to find out (it is my
hope that this magazine demonstrates this). And as for the people in
the mental health system who do have learning difficulties, well they
deserve to be treated with just as much respect as anyone else.
Most of my friends are in the mental health system because I find it so
hard to find people outside of the system to accept me on account of my
illness. Don’t get me wrong, I value my friends within the
system
greatly, it’s just that I don’t want to feel
limited to one
group of people for the rest of my life.
Still it’s not all bad, things have progressed a bit. In the
old
days they’d just lock mentally ill people away for
society’s “safety”, along with other
oppressed groups
such as single mothers and homosexuals. Now, thankfully, society
isn’t as narrow minded, but there is still plenty of room for
improvement.
So please remember that there is so much more to people within the
mental health system than just their condition. Still not convinced?
Then try and get to know one of us, you might be pleasantly surprised!
Looking
at Work
by Paul Nelson
One
thing employers have always valued, above qualifications, is
experience. When one has been mentally ill for some years, chances are
one has not been able to build up the experience required. One probably
has not had a chance to train in any trade or profession. Even if one
had, it all too easily goes to pot when the symptoms of mental illness
strike.
One
common symptom of mental illness is a disturbed sleep pattern, which
can play hell with timekeeping.
Mentally
ill people tend not to be the aggressive, pushy, driven people who
thrive in most work environments.
Mood
swings can play havoc with one’s interpersonal skills, as can
hearing voices or paranoia.
Interpersonal skills are a key component of all work scenarios and
fellow employees tend to be less understanding or accepting than fellow
mental health sufferers.
A lot of noise is made about getting us into work, but evasiveness and
fluff talk are the reply when questioned about specific numbers, who is
working, at what, and for how long?
Getting an unemployed person to work is tricky and problematical. A
mentally ill person has all that and all the previously mentioned
problems to contend with. The main problem, however, remains the stigma
attached to mental ill health. A stigma fed by distorted media
coverage. We are not all murderers, indeed there is less violent crime
among us than among “normal” people.
All this and more should be honestly confronted or we will see replay
after replay of the sad scenario of mentally ill people trying to find
work, failing and ending back at square one, a little more disheartened
and disillusioned.
Most of us would love to work, to live, to earn a wage to live on, to
marry and raise a family, to feel the pride of a good job well done.
Sadly this is not likely and maybe not even possible at this time.
If someone thinks they can get us into work, then they should face the
hard facts honestly, if they would stand a ghost of a chance of
meaningful success.
Tranquillised
Tim
It’s
getting harder and harder for people to agree on a term for
people within the mental health system that pleases everyone.
“Service users” and “client”
are too clinical
for some, and “mental health sufferers” sounds too
negative
to others. Well a new politically correct term has been coined to
remedy this situation. From now on people with mental health problems
shall be referred to as “the emotionally hindered”.
There are so many initiatives for the emotionally hindered (see
I’m putting it to use already) to get back into work these
days.
Even some CPNs and mental health professionals seem keen to push people
back into full-time work. By the sounds of things it seems like they
believe that many of us are actually ready to return to work but choose
to live on benefits. Well personally I am inclined to agree, who would
want to give up such a lifestyle? While the greater sense of financial
freedom and self-respect that come from holding a full-time job are
certainly appealing, they are far outweighed by the extravagant
luxuries of social alienation and sitting about at home twiddling our
thumbs and bored out of our minds because we can’t afford to
go
anywhere.
Lets face it, the mental health system is chronically underfunded and
it doesn’t seem to be an election-winning priority for any of
the
political parties at the moment. Maybe the answer to our problems would
be privatisation, in other words selling off mental health services to
private companies. How about that? For the more fashion-concious
amongst you, there will be designer straight-jackets from Giorgio
Armani but if you’re on a tight budget you can opt go for a
Tesco
Value one with blue and white stripes on! And for you lucky people due
for ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy), well you can even be fried
Kentucky style! And I look forward to saying to the psychiatric nurse
serving me “I’ll have the McProzac with fries
please.”
Is it just me or is most psychiatric medication given long and
unpronounceable and names just to keep us confused so we
don’t
question the doctor’s judgement? How are you going to be able
to
look up Oxydoxypoxyline on the Internet when you don’t even
know
how to spell it?
And council estates…why do they also house us on rough
council
estates, with the drug dealers and criminals? If I wanted a life of
crime, I’d rob the bank of England or serve alcohol in the
House
of Commons bar!
CPNs
(Community Psychiatric Nurses)
The Bad & The Good
The Bad
by Adam Makeham
Roughly
about nine months ago I was discharged by CPN, in other
words he stopped supporting me. He told me that I no longer needed him
because of the social network I had built up around me. Personally I
felt that this was rubbish and it caused me a great deal of distress.
While I appreciate the friends and services I have regular contact
with, these are people who are not trained to deal specifically with
issues faced by mental health sufferers like myself on a day-by-day
basis. Furthermore he offered me no numbers I could contact in case of
personal emergencies.
Since
I have been discharged from my CPN, I have had some serious
mental health issues that I needed to address with someone
professional, but couldn’t because that support had been
withdrawn. I was reluctant to raise them with people within my social
network as they were of a very personal nature. It then took a further
few months for me to be appointed a psychiatrist and get the advice
that I needed so badly.
I
feel that, at the time of these problems, if a CPN had been in
place, I would have received the level of support that I so desperately
needed, and that maybe these problems wouldn’t have surfaced
at
all.
The
Good
by Paul Nelson
Just in case we run away with the idea of all CPNs being
bad, I have had very good experiences with two such
creatures, and the current one is a good listener, good feedback, and
she gave me a list of emergency contact numbers over Christmas. Nice
one Debbie! There are good ones as well and I salute you.
About
The Eccentric Times
The Eccentric Times is a quarterly magazine written by the members of
Wings Support Centre, a social support centre in Aylesbury for people
with mental health problems.
The following people helped make this magazine possible:
Paul Nelson
Co-Editor
Tony Rickman
Co-Editor
Danya Day
Chief Tea Lady
Adam
Makeham
Senior Elvis Consultant
We would also like to thanks Bucks Mind (especially Carolyn Smyth) for
their invaluable help with printing and distribution.
You can visit our website at: www.geocities.com/eccentrictimes
Comments & Complaints
If you wish to contact us you can send your correspondence by either
post or e-mail:
The Eccentric Times
Bucks Mind (Wings)
4 Temple Street
Aylesbury
HP20 2RQ
E-mail: [email protected]
We may even include your letter in our next issue, but please note that
letters may be edited for the sake of space and clarity. Please can you
also mention where you saw the magazine.
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