Saturday 25 June 2011
***** MIC RIGHTEOUS FREESTYLE 2011!!!!*****
YES!!!! More Mic righteous, its gotta be. OMG! kill it brother
Wednesday 22 June 2011
Consquences, Meaning and Resolution of Madness
In the first instance, madness can be located in the system and in the institutions, we are born in and struggle to live in.
Who and what we are naturally as human beings has to fit into the society we are born into (which of course we have no knowledge of when we come into the world). So, for the many thousands, millions in this world who have experienced madness to varying degrees it is the emotional pain associated with the confining institutions we are born into that either cause or exacerbate the problem.
Institutions such as the family, school, hospital. Of course, I am not suggesting that we should do away with these institutions just yet, only that they change in their outlook, culture, and work with human beings and humanity rather than against it.
Mental illness and work
There has been much said, written about and policies made to make people sick with madness go to work. There has always been and always will be a number of people who are willing and capable of working.
They never needed any ‘encouragement’ like discharge from day center’s, or obscure and hampering benefit rules such as the permitted work rules (which have quite frankly put off hundreds possibly thousands of disabled people from working) as mechanism for obtaining work.
People with mental illness very often make very good healers, just as they do in other parts of the world, in Africa and Asia for example. There is very high recovery rates in parts of these continents and other areas of usually what is known as the third world. They ( those displaying symptoms of mental illness) are not outcast but sometimes revered and quite often given roles (or work) in their societies that involves healing, whether it be emotional, spiritual or physical.
It is no good trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, many of us who are or have been mad simply cannot fit into the jobs and the associated working environment that exist without getting so stressed out that we are likely to become a danger to ourselves and also to those around us. Basically we have limited functioning capacity in a workplace.
This is a fact for many of us and it is a hurtful fact for us to face. It is because of this that we become outcast.
The Resolution
Primarily mental illness is treated by psychotropic drugs, this solution is forced on us in our society (the western world) and we have no choice. One problem that is encountered as a consequence of this is non-compliance.
Current resolutions to the problem of madness is to threaten and consider locking people up even though they have not done anything. Of course this is intellectually and morally absurd and shows the lengths some people will go to in order to ostracise a group of people they maybe fear and do not wish to allow the same or similar rights as the rest of the population.
A good resolution is simple, the medication may or may not help us, personally I take it (the bitter pill), there needs to be more education and discussion about psychotropic medicine, but just ask anyone who is involved in the administration of medicine, this is only a small part.
For Madness and is consequences to be alleviated our basic needs have to be looked at and provision made. Housing, food, warmth and human company. Most of us will not just take and not give anything back. We are as I have said before excellent all-round healers, entertainers, musicians, artists.
We have special needs, cannot, and should not be forced into a working environment that we are simply not capable of being productive in.
Sunday 19 June 2011
Ramsgate Love Music Hate Racism
Well to be honest I was really desperate to go to the LMHR (Love Music Hate Racism) gig in Ramsgate on the Kent Coast after having 'discovered' Mic Righteous ( who was playing) through one of my face book friends who is also a real friend and one of the organisers of the gig. Of course the usual problem (reminiscent of my younger days when clubbing); who can I go with? Luckily I managed to persuade my dear sister to come along, and that was a great result, even better than going with a friend or acquaintance as you don't have to talk or pretend, you can just be, and that is what we did and we thoroughly enjoyed the day.
There was wind and rain at the site of the gig which was on the sea front, or the Harbour, so it was being postponed, on account of the equipment being too wet to use and needed drying out. So my sister and I walked along the harbour and found a really good art exhibition all along the sea front, really big pictures and some of them very good indeed, I was surprised and glad to come face to face with two of my favourite historical figures, Karl Marx and Vincent Van Gogh, well there was obviously some good spirits there in the Harbour.
The weather really was incredible, huge waves came crashing on the promenade, wind, rain, it was so bracing, mesmeric and picturesque. The sun did make special appearances later on ...
But not at this time around about one to two in the afternoon, it should have started at midday, and we were beginning to think that it would have to be called off.
But it did get going, first there were some warm up acts, grime, and it was beautiful, the lady above in the picture was from a class act called 'Vee and the Vendettas', and it was a little like a ladies day, which is cool, ladies first as they say!
Wow! Lady Leshurr totally mashed up the place, with some superb rap and grime, and as you can see she looked absolutely stunning too ( sorry pic is a little blurred)
Then there was this energetic Young band with another female lead, the band was called 'Shy Chlo', and were a combination of metal and rap, wonderful and very powerful too.
OMG Mic Righteous, whatta man, what can I say, he was my reason for attending and he didn't disappoint, he followed a most amazing grime rapper called 'Spookasonic', who really got the crowd going and the sun shone and blazed while Mic Righteous blew up the stage. Mic Righteous has become somewhat of an 'underground' celeb, he is very well known and loved now particularly after his 'fire in the booth' performance that I posted here, so he gave us that and his new single which isn't due out until next year called 'Lets get nasty', I loved it, there was some great audience participation on that one. Stunning pic of him above.
There was a fantastic surprise after Mic Righteous, I was ready to retire and go home, but for a wicked Rasta who was simply brutal, all the righteous rasta lyrics, but 'hard core', and that is how he described it too. He looked brilliant with a nyabinghi turban, gold in his teeth and a beautiful reddy black complexion. I was awe struck. Was unprepared with my camera and too absorbed in the performance to take any pics, but he will live on in my memory and my minds eye for a very long time to come.
The last act we saw were 'Kid British', but I was tired, my sister was cold so we departed the scene, just as they were singing a song something about a middle aged woman although I didn't catch any other lyrics, a nice band though and after that there was the head line act, 'Congo Natty' AKA Rebel MC who I remember from back in the day with the classic line in one of his rap tunes that went 'Is he a Yankie; no, I'm a Londoner'. The crowd was so up for it I bet it was a great performance too.
There was some Leary behaviour which thankfully didn't escalate, and I hope it remained calm throughout the duration and after we left, the organisers and sponsors ( the trade union UNISON), really did an excellent job, I will write to the main organiser who I know and congratulate her.
Friday 17 June 2011
Cannabis use among the mentally ill
I am not suggesting that people use cannabis, personally I think there is a lot to be said for sobriety, but the way mental health practitioners are using the issue of cannabis use as a stick to beat people with mental health problems is wrong.
They (the practitioners) don't seem to realise that people who use a mind altering drug such as cannabis know and understand that they are experiencing increased levels of emotional things, like anxiety. However, they might actually feel that they are enjoying their altered state of mind even if its bad. Exactly the same goes for alcohol.
One of the major problems of cannabis is not necessarily the mind altering qualities, but the illegality of it. Some studies have shown that it is widely used and by people who have some mental problems to begin with. It is probably unlikely that they cause them in the first place. But problems with cannabis are definitely increased by the criminal circles that surround its supply. This can lead to absolutely tragic outcomes for some people with them being sucked into either harder drugs and /or prostitution.
It would be better to put resources into the community such as social projects involving sport, art and craft for example than the situation that exists now of threatening to withdraw services and resources in the community for people with mental health problems. People who take cannabis currently face discrimination from mental health services; with an emphasis on provision rather than punishment, the future could be brighter for both service users and professional alike.
Thursday 16 June 2011
Guest Post by Chris Barchard. 'Can you always believe Psychiatrists?'
There is an old saying that goes “He lies like a physician”. Although this belongs to a bygone era when the term “psychiatrist” had not been coined people still sometimes mistrust what doctors tell them and psychiatrists are no exception to this. It is of course impossible to produce statistics to demonstrate the incidence of psychiatric disingenuousness and even if a comprehensive body of data existed there would still be questions about individual clinical opinion, actual lack of knowledge and mistakes on the part of particular doctors. However none of this proves that the practice does not go on or that it does. Rather than try to answer this contentious question directly I aim to point the reader in the direction of things that I have myself been told by psychiatrists and that others have told me anecdotally with a view to the reader assessing for themselves whether these are things to which a psychiatrist could reasonably be expected not to know the right answer and whether there are grounds to suppose that he/she would have a motive for lying about the matters.
Something I have been told all too often when I have complained about problems with memory, weight or sexual function is the suggestion that it is to do with age. The role of psychiatric drugs was to say the least played down. When I didn't know as much as I do now about the effects of psychiatric drugs I was a bit puzzled by this because my memory was much worse than others of my own age group, my weight seemed to have gone up as soon as I was put on certain antipsychotic drugs and I thought I was a bit young to be getting problems of sexual dysfunction. In fact all these problems have markedly improved on more modern drugs and I was only in my thirties when I can remember being told these opinions. All of these problems are well known side-effects of many antipsychotic drugs. As to a motive for deliberately misinforming me about these matters I would contend that the doctor concerned wanted me to comply with the treatment programme and may well have thought I would stop taking the drugs if I knew the truth. Furthermore when the issue of psychiatric staff being untruthful about the adverse effects of the treatments they dealt out was discussed at a local Mental Health Forum I used to attend, it was admitted by a senior nurse present that the fear of non-compliance with treatment by patients was the primary reason for withholding information about these matters.
Similarly when I was taking lithium the psychiatrist let me know that tests on my kidney function were giving slightly abnormal readings. Rather than admit this was the lithium damaging my kidneys he equivocated about the distinction between changes in kidney function and structural damage, obfuscating the issue of damage caused by lithium, saying it could be a number of things. This was in spite of lithium being the most immediate candidate of causation. He did not want to stop the lithium. I took affirmative action. It was my life and I wasn't going to take chances with this drug. So I took myself off it and it was little surprise that the kidney tests improved a little. The psychiatrist admitted grudgingly that the timing of this did make it look like lithium was the cause. Why might he have been disingenuous in the beginning? Compliance again seems the obvious candidate. I think he was so worried about my stability that he just wanted me to keep taking the tablets.
More recently I heard that someone had been denied aripiprazole, the newest antipsychotic drug, on the grounds that it was used when the patient needed to be somewhat sedated. Given that the person in question was taking olanzapine at the time this seems a rather improbable reason since olanzapine tends to be more sedating than aripiprazole. I have taken both and this is certainly my personal experience. I could only speculate why the psychiatrist in question might have tried to mislead this person. It might have had to do with cost although the difference may not have been great or it might have been to do with cautiousness about using drugs that have not been around for many years and whose long-term effects are thus unproven. Whatever the reason it seems that the psychiatrist may not have wanted to be open about it with the patient.
A more general situation can be described that was prevalent particularly in the 1990s when a whole new generation of antipsychotic drugs became available. Many psychiatrists were very reluctant to use the atypical antipsychotic drugs much when they first came on the market. They have become the norm as a first choice in treatment of psychotic problems nowadays. One of the commonest reasons that was given at the time was that they were no better than the older “typical” drugs. That very much depended on what you meant by “better”. If it was just reduction in positive symptoms: delusions, hallucinations etc., then there was a grain of truth in this assertion. But if someone's overall quality of life were considered then for many people it has proven to be wrong. It is worth noting that “atypicals” such as olanzapine, quetiapine, clozapine, risperidone, amisulpride and ziprasidone, are considerably more expensive than the previous generations of antipsychotic drugs in most cases. The same is true of aripiprazole which really is part of an even newer generation of this class of drug.
Life is such that it is usually possible to invent plausible alternative reasons for things which are not the genuine ones. Some people are frequently taken in by this but the more perceptive and knowledgeable can spot the flaws – at least some of the time. The question is whether psychiatrists at times withhold information and sometimes do this by giving misleading or false information to their patients. If they do then it raises questions as to whether it really is in the best interests of the patient to do this – it is certainly very undemocratic – and whether it is in fact counter-productive. As soon as someone gets an inkling they are being lied to it creates distrust and can in itself lead to non-compliance with treatment. I think a lot more people undergoing psychiatric treatment nowadays know something about the adverse effects of the drugs they are given than they did 20 or 30 years ago. In my own experience of knowing people who are to a degree “in the know” about this it does not usually stop them taking tablets. In some ways it makes one feel better to know that it's not all the illness that's giving one problems. It makes the illness seem that much less. Anxious uncertainty is almost universal amongst patients when they know little or nothing about what is being done to them. The idea that people with psychotic illnesses are quite unreasonable has been greatly exaggerated and knowing what risks there are associated with the treatments can remove one level of uncertainty. It may not be the best time to talk about this when one is in crisis but as reason returns so does the ability to distinguish the effects of treatments that are not to one's liking and to want to know the truth.
Because of more patients having knowledge it is probable that psychiatrists are more open with more patients nowadays but it is not something that should be taken for granted.
I have only given a few examples in this piece. Readers will know whether these ring bells for them and whether they have had similar experiences of their own. If the examples do resonate with them then it will have been worth bringing this issue out into the open.
Something I have been told all too often when I have complained about problems with memory, weight or sexual function is the suggestion that it is to do with age. The role of psychiatric drugs was to say the least played down. When I didn't know as much as I do now about the effects of psychiatric drugs I was a bit puzzled by this because my memory was much worse than others of my own age group, my weight seemed to have gone up as soon as I was put on certain antipsychotic drugs and I thought I was a bit young to be getting problems of sexual dysfunction. In fact all these problems have markedly improved on more modern drugs and I was only in my thirties when I can remember being told these opinions. All of these problems are well known side-effects of many antipsychotic drugs. As to a motive for deliberately misinforming me about these matters I would contend that the doctor concerned wanted me to comply with the treatment programme and may well have thought I would stop taking the drugs if I knew the truth. Furthermore when the issue of psychiatric staff being untruthful about the adverse effects of the treatments they dealt out was discussed at a local Mental Health Forum I used to attend, it was admitted by a senior nurse present that the fear of non-compliance with treatment by patients was the primary reason for withholding information about these matters.
Similarly when I was taking lithium the psychiatrist let me know that tests on my kidney function were giving slightly abnormal readings. Rather than admit this was the lithium damaging my kidneys he equivocated about the distinction between changes in kidney function and structural damage, obfuscating the issue of damage caused by lithium, saying it could be a number of things. This was in spite of lithium being the most immediate candidate of causation. He did not want to stop the lithium. I took affirmative action. It was my life and I wasn't going to take chances with this drug. So I took myself off it and it was little surprise that the kidney tests improved a little. The psychiatrist admitted grudgingly that the timing of this did make it look like lithium was the cause. Why might he have been disingenuous in the beginning? Compliance again seems the obvious candidate. I think he was so worried about my stability that he just wanted me to keep taking the tablets.
More recently I heard that someone had been denied aripiprazole, the newest antipsychotic drug, on the grounds that it was used when the patient needed to be somewhat sedated. Given that the person in question was taking olanzapine at the time this seems a rather improbable reason since olanzapine tends to be more sedating than aripiprazole. I have taken both and this is certainly my personal experience. I could only speculate why the psychiatrist in question might have tried to mislead this person. It might have had to do with cost although the difference may not have been great or it might have been to do with cautiousness about using drugs that have not been around for many years and whose long-term effects are thus unproven. Whatever the reason it seems that the psychiatrist may not have wanted to be open about it with the patient.
A more general situation can be described that was prevalent particularly in the 1990s when a whole new generation of antipsychotic drugs became available. Many psychiatrists were very reluctant to use the atypical antipsychotic drugs much when they first came on the market. They have become the norm as a first choice in treatment of psychotic problems nowadays. One of the commonest reasons that was given at the time was that they were no better than the older “typical” drugs. That very much depended on what you meant by “better”. If it was just reduction in positive symptoms: delusions, hallucinations etc., then there was a grain of truth in this assertion. But if someone's overall quality of life were considered then for many people it has proven to be wrong. It is worth noting that “atypicals” such as olanzapine, quetiapine, clozapine, risperidone, amisulpride and ziprasidone, are considerably more expensive than the previous generations of antipsychotic drugs in most cases. The same is true of aripiprazole which really is part of an even newer generation of this class of drug.
Life is such that it is usually possible to invent plausible alternative reasons for things which are not the genuine ones. Some people are frequently taken in by this but the more perceptive and knowledgeable can spot the flaws – at least some of the time. The question is whether psychiatrists at times withhold information and sometimes do this by giving misleading or false information to their patients. If they do then it raises questions as to whether it really is in the best interests of the patient to do this – it is certainly very undemocratic – and whether it is in fact counter-productive. As soon as someone gets an inkling they are being lied to it creates distrust and can in itself lead to non-compliance with treatment. I think a lot more people undergoing psychiatric treatment nowadays know something about the adverse effects of the drugs they are given than they did 20 or 30 years ago. In my own experience of knowing people who are to a degree “in the know” about this it does not usually stop them taking tablets. In some ways it makes one feel better to know that it's not all the illness that's giving one problems. It makes the illness seem that much less. Anxious uncertainty is almost universal amongst patients when they know little or nothing about what is being done to them. The idea that people with psychotic illnesses are quite unreasonable has been greatly exaggerated and knowing what risks there are associated with the treatments can remove one level of uncertainty. It may not be the best time to talk about this when one is in crisis but as reason returns so does the ability to distinguish the effects of treatments that are not to one's liking and to want to know the truth.
Because of more patients having knowledge it is probable that psychiatrists are more open with more patients nowadays but it is not something that should be taken for granted.
I have only given a few examples in this piece. Readers will know whether these ring bells for them and whether they have had similar experiences of their own. If the examples do resonate with them then it will have been worth bringing this issue out into the open.
Tuesday 14 June 2011
The mad in me
Having just come out the other side of a short bout of madness, it isn't and it wasn't my fault. I was chugging along nicely, doing art for the exhibition in October, leaving my place untidy and spending hours on blogs and social network sites, and then ... I had some stuff laid on me which occurred at the same time as the terrible fuss that was made over the Internet about it being the end of the world, I knew it was bullshit, but with the green as well my sanity suffered.
One of the sayings close to my heart is that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and insanity is strange like that and definitely no exception. During the throws of madness, you suffer so bad, your friends and family can't handle you, in fact no-one can. In one of my hospital admissions for example, not even fully trained psychiatric staff could handle me and I was discharged much earlier than I should have been, left to cope on my own.
However contrary to popular belief, surviving a bout of insanity is not for the weak or the feint hearted, you have to be strong. Then again just because you might be strong (as many people who suffer with their sanity are), it does not mean you don't need any help and should be left to suffer it alone, we do need lots of 'intervention' in the form of human beings being kind and showing us love. This doesn't happen much if at all in the world we live in, at least not this part of the world anyway, and so we do pretty much get left alone to cope with it.
Its hard to struggle back to normality, the first step is to recognise that what you experienced was insanity. It can be an extremely hard thing to do because those ideas that you have that seemed so real and important are nothing more than heightened imagination, its a real struggle to get a grip and perspective that is sane, and of course the line between sanity and madness is not clear.
Every thing that was important to me I could not do during the recent attack which probably lasted about two weeks, like painting and art. Not only was this out of the question ( as I was constantly being told by 'voices' in my head) but every move I made seemed to be a directive from an entity outside of myself, it was like being controlled, you lose yourself, you don't exist, and this loss is strangely coupled with almost grandiose ideas about yourself too, probably something to do with survival. I am not going to analyse it to death because I would rather try and get on with my life, because life is for living and I can still do that.
Just want to big up my friends and family who had to yet again watch me painfully deteriorate and they still stood by me giving as much support as they could, and, as is always the case I have got some mends to make with a few people too ...
You can restore your health and spirit ( that will never die) but I feel much weakened as a result of that episode of insanity, I guess it will take time to heal, it always does take a while. At least though I am able to carry on with the art work, in fact my latest picture is an Anti-war picture, it is probably one of my best pictures I have done, it will go on the exhibition this year, it is called 'Man from Afghanistan'.
A friend and old colleague of mine has just produced a Short DVD of last years exhibition too, and it is very interesting. I am lucky to have the project to get stuck into, there is always plenty going on and my health has restored enough so that I can carry on organising it.
Oh gosh, Lord, all my trials ...
Saturday 11 June 2011
Don't let it Pass You by.
You get past a certain age, don't ask me what it is, and time can pass you by. Being in my fourties now means I am middle aged and in some aspects I am stuck in the past (apparently it happens to us all).
Take the new phenomenon that is catching on around the world, and had its origins in Toronto, these 'slut walks'. The idea came about when two police officers gave a talk to local university students after a few serious incidents, Michael Sanguinetti outraged the students by saying "if you really want to know how not to get raped don't dress like a slut". This wasn't the first comment of that sort made recently where the victim is blamed for rape crime, and there is also a long history of this. Reporting and conviction levels for rape are low. See the following statistics :
Now this is where I got caught out because I could see sort of what was going on, but felt really uncomfortable with the name of the demonstration being 'slut walk', because to me ( being old fashioned) I took that fairly literally to be a rallying cry, rallying us to demonstrate as sluts. Of course there is that confusion, but as the demonstrations have gained momentum, interest and popularity, it seems that it is more than just trying to appropriate the term 'slut' but sort of carving out some solidarity. If a woman is blamed for being raped because of the way she dresses and she is called a slut, then we are all sluts because none of us are. Strange logic I know, but its a kind of strange Spartacus moment. Rather than single out any one women for dressing like a slut; we all are, so pick on all of us; or leave us alone ( the prefered option).
Its a bit of a head twist, but kind of cool, although I still would feel uncomfortable about joining the demonstrations under that banner, but hey, I am a bit passed it now, you young people have to understand this and make allowances. There was one today in London which I missed, but I am very glad something is taking place and that young women are taking to the streets demanding the right not to be abused and raped. I will endeavour to join the protests in future.
Now the other way that I got stuck in the past was how I just didn't get the grime scene, but Mic Righteous has managed to get through to me thank god, and now I can't get enough of it. Unfortunately I have only one grime CD by big cakes. I did always treasure that CD, but I am so hungry for grime, I want more. I'm hooked, I love the ethos, the passion, the lyrics and have just cottoned on to what the term 'represent' is all about. The rappers 'represent' themselves and their peers, then Mic Righteous says 'in the hope that you represent us too'. I find this concept so exciting in that what ever I do, wherever I go, I represent those who inspire me, the young grime mc's whose music and lyrics I love, they represent eachother, and then for all of us, young and old we do and we can get that little bit closer, and closer to being one world, one love. Peace! Yay!
Take the new phenomenon that is catching on around the world, and had its origins in Toronto, these 'slut walks'. The idea came about when two police officers gave a talk to local university students after a few serious incidents, Michael Sanguinetti outraged the students by saying "if you really want to know how not to get raped don't dress like a slut". This wasn't the first comment of that sort made recently where the victim is blamed for rape crime, and there is also a long history of this. Reporting and conviction levels for rape are low. See the following statistics :
- 23% of women are sexually assaulted as an adult in Britain—and 5 percent are raped
- 54,602 sexual offences were committed in 2010 according to the British Crime Survey—up from 53,091 in 2009.
It recorded a 6 percent increase in the number of most serious sexual crimes—up to 44,693 from 42,187 - 40% of adults who are raped tell no one about it. Of the rapes that are reported, less than 6 percent result in a conviction
- 86% of rape victims know their attacker, exposing the myth that it is what women wear that leads to sexual assault
Now this is where I got caught out because I could see sort of what was going on, but felt really uncomfortable with the name of the demonstration being 'slut walk', because to me ( being old fashioned) I took that fairly literally to be a rallying cry, rallying us to demonstrate as sluts. Of course there is that confusion, but as the demonstrations have gained momentum, interest and popularity, it seems that it is more than just trying to appropriate the term 'slut' but sort of carving out some solidarity. If a woman is blamed for being raped because of the way she dresses and she is called a slut, then we are all sluts because none of us are. Strange logic I know, but its a kind of strange Spartacus moment. Rather than single out any one women for dressing like a slut; we all are, so pick on all of us; or leave us alone ( the prefered option).
Its a bit of a head twist, but kind of cool, although I still would feel uncomfortable about joining the demonstrations under that banner, but hey, I am a bit passed it now, you young people have to understand this and make allowances. There was one today in London which I missed, but I am very glad something is taking place and that young women are taking to the streets demanding the right not to be abused and raped. I will endeavour to join the protests in future.
Now the other way that I got stuck in the past was how I just didn't get the grime scene, but Mic Righteous has managed to get through to me thank god, and now I can't get enough of it. Unfortunately I have only one grime CD by big cakes. I did always treasure that CD, but I am so hungry for grime, I want more. I'm hooked, I love the ethos, the passion, the lyrics and have just cottoned on to what the term 'represent' is all about. The rappers 'represent' themselves and their peers, then Mic Righteous says 'in the hope that you represent us too'. I find this concept so exciting in that what ever I do, wherever I go, I represent those who inspire me, the young grime mc's whose music and lyrics I love, they represent eachother, and then for all of us, young and old we do and we can get that little bit closer, and closer to being one world, one love. Peace! Yay!
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