Friday, 18 May 2012
The therapist from hell
http://www.lstudio.com/web-therapy/introducing-web-therapy.html
These are a series of short, improvised sketches where she plays a web
therapist. Lots of laughs and uncomfortable moments ensue.
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Is There an Ecological Unconscious? - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31ecopsych-t.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Here's a rare crossover of mental health and climate change. Ecopsychology.
Sent from my smartphone
Thursday, 5 April 2012
The Sun Magazine | Side Effects May Include
http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/435/side_effects_may_include
Good article
Sent from my smartphone
Friday, 30 March 2012
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Friday, 23 March 2012
Action for Happiness - 10 tips for more happiness
http://www.actionforhappiness.org/10-keys
This is pretty good. It's all stuff people have said before but in a nice short form.
Sent from my smartphone
Monday, 19 March 2012
Suicide isn't a right
It is a priviledge to get an assisted suicide. The law is being tested in the UK and other countries have more progressive laws but there's still a long way to go before assisted suicide is consider a legal right in the UK and a legal right for those who have experienced mental illness too.
Assisted death isn't a great option for any human being. It is the end of their life but it is a choice some of us have to make rather than be forced to live with so many days wanting death. There are few solutions I've coming across to living with the desire to die. Those I found didn't seem to work.
Perhaps the shift needs to come with a shift in research into psychosocial options. By this I mean changing society as well as changing people through chemicals and talking.
There is a lot of internal suffering which drives a person to want to die. It is usually a long process when it comes to a suicide with capacity to understand what death means.
I want to kill myself but I haven't always felt this way when things got bad or when things were good. It wasn't an overnight change where I found myself facing more days with suicidal thoughts than without. There were cycles of time and there are still periods where I feel less like wanting to die and simply want to stop living or even don't think about my death at all. Every once in a while I get close to making an attempt and occassionally I try something but I'm still, sadly, alive and not in the frame of mind to make an attempt.
I'm so keen on an assisted dying scheme to help me out. About 150 people with mental illnesses have been given a peaceful death by Dignitas according to their Wikipedia page. I would like to be one of them.
It will take a long time before I have this right. :-(
Sent from my smartphone
Google's new search technology and unwanted search finds
Google is updating its search algorithm - the software which determines what search results come up and in what order - to be more effective. By more effective I mean getting the right web page - the right answer to the question - straight away at the top of the page and even as the first link.
This is a next generation technology which will make finding information ever more easy. But what of things which society doesn't want people to find? For example the ingredients list of a suicide cocktail and where to buy them would be a brilliant search result for those who actively want to die. Current searches don't easily reveal this sort of information. In fact the Wikipedia page has been altered to remove the ingredients list of at least one suicide cocktail.
Will Google continue this subtle censorship of suicide literature or will they automatically serve up the best information which directly answers the query? I suspect Google will adopt the former approach and have less relevant web pages ranking above the information which helps a person end their life. This is in line with current suicide prevention techniques which use suppression of information and access to self-termination materials.
This sort of censorship has never been challenged. It is a shame but it is done to save lives. The problem is some of those people don't want to be saved. They're looking for a solution which they've consciously decided upon: the time and place of their death.
There may be other keywords which also have similar sorts of search censorship from paedophile porn to hacking sites. Standard algorithms did not censor well made and well ranked sites without manual intervention but this manual intervention is easier and perhaps more commonplace when developing a semantic search system, I.e. to get good search results the programmers must have had to spend more time ensuring good results come higher up the rankings. They may have spent time making sure good information about dangerous, illegal or subjectively described as mentally ill or immoral keywords was suppressed and some of this could have been done through manual intervention.
With so much effort put in to suppression suicide by suppressing and monitoring online communication and information it is likely this trend will continue irrespective of privacy and freedom of information. The right to die will change all this I hope.
Sent from my smartphone
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Psychiatry's oppression of human types
First incarceration was used to make the mentallly ill disappear. Then drugs were used to free the mentally ill but suppress their symptoms and type. Depressive types were prescribed narcotics to make them cheer up and not be so glum. Manic depressive and schizophrenics had other drugs foisted upon them but these central nervous system drugs were not real treatments.
They were using the power of medical science to change behaviour and being. CNS medications are used to solve psychosocial problems, not real illnesses, but the science is applied as if they were real illnesses and so is the language of change.
Change is what treatment involves but a different type of change to what most physical medications achieve. Drugs for mental disorder arrest the disorder. They can incapacitate individuals to resolve the problem of emotional and behavioural disorders - the stuff which is often a problem for society and can be healed by changes in society or society's norms.
For example, homosexuality is one diagnosis which was healed by forces other than the usual treatment of an illness. It was demedicalised. There still exist other paraphilias which are treated the same way as homosexuality was but today a social change changed the pathologisation of homosexuality. This happened when psychiatrists said it was okay to be gay.
Other 'illnesses' may be healed in similar ways. There is a growing movement who seeks to shift the power-base away from psychiatry's biomedical dogma and domination over humanity. This is the movement which seeks to look at schizophrenia as not an illness. Many just call the idea the social model of mental disorder without fullying comprehending what significance the social model has.
It demands demedicalisation in my opinion because medicalisation - no matter what it purports to achieve - is only one half of the solution. The illness model says the individual must be changed to remove abherrant symptoms. Psychiatry and psychology both work on these aims. They percieve people as ill and healing means changing the person to be more normal.
The social model asks people to consider the impact upon the individual from different cultures and countries, from social factors which can significantly impinge on the disability.
After all, the science of psychiatry exists because of a social problem where the mad were outcast from family and society. Their exclusion was created by dispassionate norms common in the industrial revolution societies. Those who fitted in prospersed. Those who didn't fell into disability and inequality. It was only afterwards when psychiatry and the biomedical model really developed to take custodianship over the asylums and their inmates. This is the beginning of the mental health system and the paradigm of illness as a commonly understood social knowledge about humans who were different in some way.
Unwittingly, psychiatry became a tool of social order instead of something which treats any real illness. Homosexuality was never an illness and neither are any of the paraphilias. They're a social problem for society and a problem for individuals when there aren't suitable structures available in society. This may be hard to accept when considering something like paedophilia but it is easier when considering depression.
Depression may simply be a natural pain which some people suffer. This is the pain of life and a shit life for certain individual types, types who may suffer to much or not feel enough joie de vie. This doesn't have to be an illness but it can be treated by drugs which make the person feel better. The drugs aren't curing any illness because unhappiness isn't an illness however it is also true that some really unhappy people are made happier by SSRIs just as many people are made happy by other things, not all of which are drugs.
Bah...buggered this piece up.
Sent from my smartphone
Friday, 16 March 2012
Portraits of Bob Whitaker speaking (those I didn't like as much.
photographers might prefer some of these to the ones I like. It was a
tough choice to leave some of these out from the final 5.
Portraits of Bob Whitaker speaking
him speak last year and he's great.
These are photos from last year's Hearing Voices Network event. It was a
tough shoot as always with my Canon 50D and Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 lens.
The lens only works at f2.8 and at the focusing distances I was shooting
at this meant a depth of field of around 6cm. Perhaps a little more. The
lighting conditions were also poor and these were shot at ISO6400 -
above the natural range of the Canon 50D. I had to rely on a monopod to
help get sharper shots with the lower shutter speeds like 1/90sec at 320mm.
The shots were processed from RAW using Canon Digital Photo
Profressional then edited using Gimp, the opensource alternative to
Photoshop. The converted-from-RAW images are a so different to the final
edited version. The first step is Unsharp Mask. I used settings of
around Pixel Size 1; Amount 250-350%; Threshold 1 or 2. This boost the
sharpness but it also creates bobbling and grain because of the high ISO
which is why I went for black and white for most of the shots. The
colour shots have been colour adjusted using Hue/Saturation to bring out
the colours and correct for any colour casts. The key element is the
editing of curves. I usually deepen the blacks a lot and create a lot of
contrast while sightly boosting highlights to get the look I like.
These 5 are my favourite from 18 different edits made from a variety of
shots. I'll email the ones across which didn't make it.
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Untitled
The sun is shining but I don't feel it on my face. Its shadow feels where I am more comfortable. Its light isn't my place to be. I feel unclean to be shone upon.
My eyes don't look forward. They look at the pavement. I hope to fall into the cracks and never resurface. I walk on the cracks.
This walk to the shops feels like another journey I don't want to take. I want the end to come quickly so I don't have to walk another weary step. I want to stop now and go no further.
Weary. So fucking weary.
Sent from my smartphone
Psychodynamic Psychopharmacology - Psychiatric Times
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/1946385
Thought this might interest you. It's about the power of non-drug effects - like prescriber power or patient willingness to change - having strong effects, sometimes greater than the active effect of the drug itself.
It might not be news to you but the article has some good modern references, for example a benzo study on anxiety where the non-drug effect exceeded the drug effect.
Sent from my smartphone
BBC News - LSD 'helps alcoholics to give up drinking'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17297714
Sent from my smartphone
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Surviving suicidal ideation
I suppose this is one area where I have expertise. This blog has slowly developed into the pit where I expunge suicidal feelings.
In a sense it is a technique. It is basically anonymous apart from a few slip ups. My suicidal ideation exists rather than being kept silent within. I could write to a private diary but there I feel it still doesn't exist. Here my desire to die does even if few know it is me. My professional blog also has a small inkling into the darkness which I live with and is in such contrast to my external mask of jovviality.
There are other techniques too which have been built upon through resilience and time. Distraction is one of them. Sometimes I sit and edit photographs rather than wallow in the low. Other times it is sudoku puzzles or writing or whatever. These fill times without directly expressing my deathwish.
In terms of the suicidality itself I know that life gets better as well as worse. There are times it feels like it won't get better and I'm stuck in one of those times but, in a strange sense, I am okay with it because I know this is a false feeling. Well, it is actually true in the sense that my desire to die has escalated rather than gotten better but I mean life in general feels like it can get better when it feels like it is at its worst.
This is a maturation process and one I developed in the abscence of support. The problem with support is it can lead to dependence and this can end up being a negative thing especially when support isn't available.
I know with certainty that I don't want to live a long life. There's is a very high chance I will take my life but it doesn't matter. In fact it is a positive thing for me. I am in control that way. I just wish someone would be willing to take it for me. To end this shit of a life with the kindness of strangers.
Another coping mechanism was this hope but this hope has been dashed. Fucking assisted suicide cunts don't understand how terminal suicidal ideation is. Now it is left up to me and it actually feels better. I don't have to continue with my stupid plan. I can exit when the timing suits me.
Sent from my smartphone
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Demedicalisation and legalisation of suicide
it is far from easy because death and self death are the hardest things for the public at large to conceptualise in an advanced way.
Death is death. It is sad and a thing which causes grief. No one should die. Should they?
No is the simple answer and I stay with that simpleness but we don't live in this sort of time. No one should die unless they want to. This is my simple morality.
This may sound strange but it doesn't. This is a product of our time. I am a product of my time. A time which leads me to want death so much.
A century ago suicide was decriminalised. I will not wait for society to progress to the point where advancement means I can have a legal death but perhaps there is a better solution.
No. I'm crazy. The better solution is never driving human beings to suicide in the first place. This is truly crazy because it is difficult and not profitable, or at least not cost effective. It isn't even worth exploring much as any suicidologist would know well.
The solution in the near term - after I'm dead - will be the legalisation of assisted suicide. The future though is a society where people aren't driven to feel that bad or are equipped with skills...no...no...the former is more relevant than the latter.
Physical and mental health will truly be equal in the future.
Sent from my smartphone
A song lyric
I think the song is called mad world.
"The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had."
And yet why is this saddening? This is a sign that hope still exists. It is the hope to die but it is a hope of a voluntary choice being made real.
In real life it may as well be the hope of winning the lottery for most people. A small handful get their wish.
Well, of course, the difference is the subjective judgement. Those left to live while feeling like the song from Donnie Darko are only left to live with their dream while others ensure there is no possibility of it ever happening.
It doesn't matter. If ever I was going to be a millionaire I guess I would be a self made millionaire. I don't play the lottery.
Sent from my smartphone
Sunday, 4 March 2012
I can't stand living like this
Things were meant to get better, not worse. I've struggled to keep going and it seems all that I have in my life to focus on. Plans which don't work out but there's one shitty plan I have to stick to: don't kill myself yet.
It would be so generous of me to kill myself now. Generous to myself. There are few people that would be affected, few that would care if I disappeared from existence and no one who cares enough to help me end my life.
Those few who care enough to shed a tear or two are those who I'm burdened by. I can't explain to them what it is like living as I do. I can't ask them to let go and...I can't live alone without those who bring a little light into my shit of a life.
It is just things are so much worse right now, so much shitter than six months ago when things were shit. Penniless and a broken man. This is what I am. I wanted death a long time ago and filling my time waiting for the certainty that my life isn't worth living is time I don't want to wait through.
If I won the lottery I don't think things would get better. I think i'd want death but I would be richer. I don't know what my solution is to wanting death but my situation right now feels like the perfect one to exit this life but for the tears and grief of those I care about and care about me.
I don't want to wait to finish my plan. I hate living like this and I've hated being alive for long enough. Won't someone take this life from me, won't some society understand that self-termination is a sane choice when a soul is ground down to nothing.
Sent from my smartphone
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Currently assisted suicide is blocked using by the machine of psychiatry
Why can't people be allowed to die when they want to? Perhaps this is a better title.
The answer is because of mental health. Those who want to die are deemed irrational and mentally ill. They must be 'helped' so they are 'treated' to change their mind, or not in some cases. In some cases they have to live long enough to find the means or will to take their own life.
The law changed in the 20th century to decriminalise suicide but a new system took over, a system without tenets or laws but only what it decides is mental illness or not based on whatever it feels like. This arbitary nature is what law is meant to prevent but mental health presides over the grey.
The greatest trick: compassion. There is no assisted suicide because it is compassionate to believe it will get better and watch a person live when they don't want to. It is compassion to believe life is sacred even when things are so bad the individual wants to end their life.
The truth? The absolute truth is assisted suicide will become legalised. One day. It is inevitable. It may not be in my lifetime but that doesn't matter. I'll kill myself any way. So do many others who do not want to live any more and there is no one who can help.
Sent from my smartphone
Is psychiatry the enemy of extreme creativity
Perhaps. Perhaps it is a tool rather than the enemy.
Difference in thought has always been regulated not by law but by the medical profession. Anyone can say what they want except a patient under a psychiatrist. They live in fear of expressing. Too creative and they are pathologised and drugged with stronger drugs to repress their madness.
Martin Luther King saw the battle against psychiatry as the battle for creativity. The result of his battle: black people are only overdiagnosed with schziophrenia 3 times more in the US. Only. In the UK it is higher.
The drugs themselves work to suppress creative types then the doctors foist art therapies on those made bereft of their true connection to art.
All in the name of mental health.
Sent from my smartphone
If someone dies because a doctor gives them something which they shouldn't then what happens?
Doctors are trusted to get on with it. They're trusted beyond any other profession and they're responsible for their own oversight.
When it goes wrong doctors admit it and then are left to continue to get on with things. This is sort of strange though given the horrors of recent times.
Thalidomide is one example of a drug which was used on pregnant mothers because it was a convenent way to allieviate morning sickness. The government are still paying out compensation to victims of the tragedy.
Clozapine is another example of a similar tragedy where 3% of patients died in the first 6 months. Though the manufacturers withdrew it doctors got it back because it was so effective. Now it only kills 1.5% of patients directly and many indirectly.
The dementia tragedy is the worst in modern times but there are no victims to pay compensation to. They're already dead. What happened there is a clear example of what happens when doctors have a power - the power of the chemical cosh - and the massive manslaughter which can inadvertently happen. 1,800 a year were killed in the UK unnecessarily. Many more would still have their life expectancy halved by treatment which is supposedly necessary though does nothing to heal the brain. In fact it harms the brain and body but alleviates symptoms.
This is a dangerous mode of treatment which doctors far too easily dole out. The antipsychotic is the drug which is shown to reduce life expectancy, cause illness and kill people. It does not heal the organic illness and causes harm. It suppresses symptoms but it does not heal the illness.
Every year these drugs are killing many, many people. Every year no one gives a shit because they trust doctors to get it right and there is no oversight.
When 1,800 elderly people were killed every year there was barely any public outcry. There was no punishment for the profession. Worst of all, the Department of Health wrote back to tell me they were reducing the number of unnecessary deaths to a third.
Who wouldn't want to top themselves given this mad world. I can do nothing more I think. No one cares. Everyone trusts doctors. I am one crazy lonely poor freak.
Sent from my smartphone
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
I miss my cat
It isn't fair. She was the most positive thing in my daily existence. I never appreciated just how important the presence of my mangy moggy was.
I just had a sharp heart pang. I have many of these because I miss my feline friend. Her simplicity. Her sleeping next to me while I work away on my computer. Her walking over the keyboard to let me know who's boss - she always was.
I know she's safe and that's important but I want her here with me. No person will fill the void being without her for 2 months can ever fill. No thing. No replacement. She's my darling cat and I miss her.
Sent from my smartphone
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Tonight I feel less suicidal
But I still want to die, to end this lifetime.
Yes. I'm sure things can get better but worse is all there feels like. The evidence is things do get worrse and a lot worse. Here in my room trapped in the prison of poverty and feeling - rightly or wrongly - that there is no way out.
These may be false expectations of life - that life is anything but misery and false smiles. Fuck. So long since I have felt genuinely good. I can almost not remember.
Maybe that's why I want to die. So long is it since I've felt genuinely good about life or me or whatever.
Oh..but it isn't depression I'm going through. Only a doctor can tell me I'm miserable.
I get left to struggle on till I succeed in my only hope. Death.
Sent from my smartphone
Monday, 27 February 2012
When I've hit rock bottom...
...there's always one more kick to make sure that I realise I don't know what rock bottom is.
I'm sitting here waiting for the wonderfully useful British Transport Police to turn up for something I did months ago. I don't know why they picked the moment I was going to bed. I was in the middle of writing an email saying I was in bed and off to sleep when they called.
It was a minor incident but they're going to come and see me. I'm sure they want a sober explanation. I've got nothing more of an explanation to give. Perhaps one of them will carry a gun but sadly I don't live in that sort of society. Actually..that is one good thing except when I feel like a need a gun to shoot myself.
This is a minor thing to happen but I don't need any more grief. I need a gun though or a needle full of morphine to end my life as soon as possible. I don't need this today but this is what life is like.
God I fucking wish I was dead.
Sent from my smartphone
RE: Music photos from 6 billion ways conference
I've just ordered a Canon 85mm 1.8 prime lens. Any feedback?
-----Original Message-----
From: Arj [mailto:arj.name@googlemail.com]
Sent: 25 February 2012 11:17
To: Diane Parker; Erica Crompton; Paul Baird; arj.name.blogsend@blogger.com; g.rasch@mind.org.uk; danny@solle.net
Subject: Music photos from 6 billion ways conference
Some of these are blurry because they were shot at a low shutter speed
but the fact that they're sharp at all is a testament to drinking while
taking photos. I was shooting at a tenth the required shutter speed -
some are at 1/20s instead of 1/350s - but had about 6-8 pints by the
time the live music was on. The technique is to firmly support the lens
with one hand, find any form of support around and shoot on continuous
shoot once an image has been composed. It's still very hard but the beer
helps to steady the hand as well as Image Stabilisation technology. It
takes a lot of luck too.
Sunday, 26 February 2012
Why don't suicidal people seek help?
If they're smart enough to want to die they're smart enough to realise there's no help. There's just hell.
Sent from my smartphone
If anyone asked me why I wanted to die...
...I might ask what was wrong with them. Why don't they want to die when they see and feel shit.
Some don't. The deluded ones are lucky. They can perceive goodness when there is no goodness. They can feel joy at their own self agrandisement. Ever small step of progress is like an ocean of positivity for them. Twats.
This world is wretched and this life is better off ceased than continued. There is so much ill in my life and a bullet to the head would solve it all.
Oh joy...to sleep forever. Fuck this waking shit.
Sent from my smartphone
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Music photos from 6 billion ways conference
but the fact that they're sharp at all is a testament to drinking while
taking photos. I was shooting at a tenth the required shutter speed -
some are at 1/20s instead of 1/350s - but had about 6-8 pints by the
time the live music was on. The technique is to firmly support the lens
with one hand, find any form of support around and shoot on continuous
shoot once an image has been composed. It's still very hard but the beer
helps to steady the hand as well as Image Stabilisation technology. It
takes a lot of luck too.
Friday, 24 February 2012
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Fwd: [Enusp] CZECH REPUBLIC MUST STOP CAGING HUMAN BEINGS - FINAL PRESS RELEASES
Hi all
I've not read this because my internet access is limited to a smartphone. It is about cage beds. If you don't know what they are please Google it. They are what the words mean and they're still used in the Czech Republic.
This is a press release. Please forward it to anyone who can do something about these attrocities or anyone who just cares about the suffering of another human being. This is what psychiatry does to people in other countries and it is heartbreaking.
Increase the peace
Arj
Sent from my smartphone
From: "Debra Shulkes" <debra.shulkes@gmail.com>
Date: 22 Feb 2012 17:04
Subject: [Enusp] CZECH REPUBLIC MUST STOP CAGING HUMAN BEINGS - FINAL PRESS RELEASES
To: "ENUSP ALL" <Enusp@nogcson.lautre.net>
Dear everyone,
These are the final versions of ENUSP's press releases calling on the Czech govt to stop caging and killing distressed people.
_______________________________________________
Enusp mailing list
Enusp@nogcson.lautre.net
https://listes.lautre.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/enusp
Monday, 20 February 2012
Fwd: Celebrating Kurt Cobain's 45th birthday through happy photos
Sent from my smartphone
From: "Flavorpill" <no-reply@flavorpill.com>
Date: 20 Feb 2012 15:04
Subject: Celebrating Kurt Cobain's 45th birthday through happy photos
To: <arj.name@googlemail.com>
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Blog Archive
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2012
(126)
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March
(19)
- On the challenges of studying suicide | Mind Hacks
- In a strange sense my going on medication is a fai...
- Action for Happiness - 10 tips for more happiness
- Suicide isn't a right
- Google's new search technology and unwanted search...
- Psychiatry's oppression of human types
- Portraits of Bob Whitaker speaking (those I didn't...
- Portraits of Bob Whitaker speaking
- How Psychotherapy Changes the Brain - Psychiatric ...
- Untitled
- Psychodynamic Psychopharmacology - Psychiatric Times
- BBC News - LSD 'helps alcoholics to give up drinking'
- Surviving suicidal ideation
- Demedicalisation and legalisation of suicide
- A song lyric
- I can't stand living like this
- Currently assisted suicide is blocked using by the...
- Is psychiatry the enemy of extreme creativity
- If someone dies because a doctor gives them someth...
-
►
February
(54)
- I miss my cat
- Tonight I feel less suicidal
- When I've hit rock bottom...
- RE: Music photos from 6 billion ways conference
- Why don't suicidal people seek help?
- If anyone asked me why I wanted to die...
- Music photos from 6 billion ways conference
- I hope for a terminal illness
- Fwd: [Enusp] CZECH REPUBLIC MUST STOP CAGING HUMAN...
- Fwd: Celebrating Kurt Cobain's 45th birthday throu...
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March
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About Me
- we
- We It comes in part from an appreciation that no one can truly sign their own work. Everything is many influences coming together to the one moment where a work exists. The other is a begrudging acceptance that my work was never my own. There is another consciousness or non-corporeal entity that helps and harms me in everything I do. I am not I because of this force or entity. I am "we"