Robbie Zzz is now acting as spokesperson for the rebel Finity O’Really, read his thoughts at www.guerillathinktank.org.uk
Guerilla Think Tank
July 1st, 2010Tired Eyes
June 11th, 2010I have been writing Tired Eyes for months as an initiative for open up, a charity challenging discrimination of mental health sufferers.
I have now uploaded the site and am pleased with it. It contains statistics on disability benefits in the UK, that challenges the myths created by the media to prejudicially attack some of the most vulnerable people in this country.
Here it is:
Tired Eyes – defending people who need to put health ahead of work
Hope you like it and people find it useful.
Support Networks
April 14th, 2010This blog is from my Open Up blog, with a little editing.
Nowadays we talk about “support networks”, when people are struggling, they need a group of people to be there to support them. I wish to discuss the issue that support networks are a two way process. Support networks don’t materialise out of thin air. People don’t receive support from others for free.
Support is often hardest for the most vulnerable people. I have endured many difficult periods in the past trying to manage without any support, especially when I was homeless. Family members, even if they were concerned just didn’t have the time and energy to support me. Siblings were busy in paid work. “I just don’t have the time for this” they would say sharply. And when people don’t have the patience for you, you feel even more isolated. You feel even more of a burden, causing “all” the problems. You feel hurt and relationships break as they take the strain.
The principle reason why I have a solid support network nowadays, is I have more solidity in my own life, a secure tenancy, secure benefits. I am less vulnerable, managing better. And as a result I have the wellbeing to be able to put a lot of time and energy supporting friends and family myself.
My elderly parents always need support, sometimes siblings and friends. Many friends are struggling with mental health problems. But I have found the recession is causing greater need for support. One friend who is usually free of anxiety, is struggling to cope with fear of redunancy. Another is drifting into depression as she bashes her head against a brick wall looking for work that isn’t there.
I take pride in “being there” for my friends and family. As I don’t work, I have more time and energy to support them. So I’ll be one of the first people they turn to, as I always make it appear that it is a pleasure to listen, and not a burden.
Yet it takes its toll. It may seem like socialising. But people having fun, can interupt, be a little bit insensitive, generally not have to think too much. When two people meet, one to support another, the supporter has to be aware, thoughtful, take in as much as they can, empathise. Perhaps the way I empathise is more laboured than other people, but I also need to spend time alone, thinking about my friends problems, trying to understand how they must be feeling, thinking about the right things to say when I see them next and the things not to say.
As much as it is a joy to support others, it is also taxing. It takes time and energy. So support networks are not free, they are not a pancea for all our problems, such as getting people with mental health problems back into full-time work, as they require time and energy in their own right. Support networks are most stable in groups with the least amount of problems, and least stable with groups with the most problems. In the same way that insurance is often most expensive for the poorest people.
For the most vulnerable people, building support networks are essential but they require additional resource, they are not free!
Craft and Capability
March 15th, 2010This blog is a slight adaptation of my Tired Eyes blog at Open Up.
Today my post is about the concept of capability. I’ve met many intelligent people with mental health problems who, despite their potential, are either not in paid work or are in low-skilled work. This is not due to lack of skill but an inability to cope with work pressures.
I personally believe that we are banging our heads against a brick wall if we challenge this underemployment – a form of discrimination – without challenging conventional attitudes to work capability itself.
When in work, employers and colleagues worry about the “reliability” and “capability” of people with mental health problems. I see the heart of this problem being the modern link between time and skill. People are regarded as skilled when they not only have skilled attributes but are also able to work under “pressure”, with tight deadlines. This concept of skill excludes many of us from our potential.
Another perception of skilled work is the idea of craft. When we think of a craftsperson, we think of someone who puts loving care into making a quality product that will be built to last. Time is of little value. The emphasis is on quality and durability.
Perhaps the modern link between time and skill is a product of the industrial revolution, summed up by Benjamin Franklin’s phrase “time is money”. Mass production has brought us many human advances but it has also brought many human and environmental problems too.
The Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century was a reaction against the dehumanising aspects of the industrial division of labour. Today, across the political spectrum there is talk of new economic structures with more cooperatives and charity run public services. Many of these ideas of a “social economy” are attributed to the movement championed by, amongst others, William Morris and John Ruskin.
Craft is something many of us yearn for. Instead of work being a hard slog, something to endure and be compensated for, many of us want our work to be labours of love, our time fulfilled and with the joy at completion of the highest quality product or service that will be used for many years. For this to happen, the modern link between skill and time needs to be broken.
I believe the promotion of craft is very important in helping all people improve their work-related mental health and hence subsequently helps people with mental health problems realise their potential too.
The New Cold War?
March 9th, 2010Is the clash of beliefs over global warming an indication of a new ideological cold war? I think it is an interesting way of perceiving the ferocity between the two sides, for which I am a firm believer in the science that shows human influence on the climate. It is “belief” that is the single greatest issue whichever side your on. Science can establish truths but it is not possible for all humans to have the time and capability to understand the entirety of all truths. We can learn as much as we can but eventually it still comes down to who you believe.
If the 20th century ideological battle was between capitalism and socialism – two visions of economic growth – the ideological battle of the 21st is growth versus sustainability. Underlying this is an enduring philosophical struggle between those who believe in the infinite and those who believe in the finite. The majority believe that economic growth can continue ad infinitum. This requires that as resources deplete, new resources are found, such as energy sources or that the economy decouples from material. Environmentalists, on the other hand, point to signs of a finite planet with limited resource, peak oil, copper and rare metal depletion, loss of fish stocks, erosion of top soil and state these can not simply be replaced. So that leaves us with decoupling the economy. Tim Jackson argues in Prosperity Without Growth that absolute decoupling isn’t possible. And of course then there is also climate change!
Again the problem here is that it is difficult for the vast majority of people to know who to believe, as it takes understanding of huge figures for all global resources and sophisticated knowledge of economics. However there is another front in the ideology battle between the infinite and finite. As well as mass and energy there is also time. Instead of universal infinity versus one planet, both involving pretty large numbers, there is also the ideologies of eternity versus one lifetime. The dimension of time is every bit as vital but it is far easier for us all to understand the effect on our lives.
The Sopranos
March 6th, 2010I’ve adapted this from my post on a forum at Open Up: http://open-up.org.uk/node/684
With a recent BBC documentary prejudicially linking mental health and violence, I have decided to blog about one of the greatest tv shows in decades, The Sopranos and its relationship with mental health.
The Sopranos starts with mafia boss Tony Soprano collapsing from a panic attack and deciding to see a therapist. But although this a character connected with violence, the violence is professional and expected as part of a family business. The mental health problems are a combination of a cruel upbringing and the severe anxiety and depression caused by his violent work.
This is what I digged off Wikipedia from a Vanity Fair interview of Chris Albrecht the then boss of HBO original programming:
I said to myself, this show is about a guy who’s turning 40. He’s inherited a business from his dad. He’s trying to bring it into the modern age. He’s got all the responsibilities that go along with that. He’s got an overbearing mom that he’s still trying to get out from under. Although he loves his wife, he’s had an affair. He’s got two teenage kids, and he’s dealing with the realities of what that is. He’s anxious; he’s depressed; he starts to see a therapist because he’s searching for the meaning of his own life. I thought: the only difference between him and everybody I know is he’s the Don of New Jersey.
So even though The Sopranos isn’t “realist” and even though it is violent, it is different to other violent screen characters with mental health problems. Tony Soprano is a character who belongs to a deeply repressed culture that is reactionary to mental health issues as it is seen as a sign of weakness in a dog eat dog world. The problems have become so severe, he has no alternative to address them. However, with therapy Tony Soparano becomes a healthier person with improved relationships as a result.
Over the six series the macho men begin to open up a little more, not overly but a little. So in my opinion within the unreality of a story of a mafia boss and his colleagues is the reality of a character learning to successfully cope with mental health problems. And that is in my opinion a positive reflection of mental health.
The First Cold War
February 28th, 2010I often think about the strangeness of growing up through the second half of the cold war. There was real warfare but for most of us it was experienced as a war of ideology. Yet even at the age of seven, since I lived a mile from the Royal Navy HQ and NATO European HQ, I knew I would die within minutes of a nuclear war breaking out. I wasn’t fooled by talk of sandbags and whitewashed windows.
We were also under the Heathrow flight path. My heart would thump every time an airplane would descend, anxious of it being an H-bomb, heightened by mum’s stories of hearing the Doodlebug buzz before it dropped in the war. Occasionally local air raid sirens were tested for the middle classes to practice running to their kitted out basements and shelters. I saw no war violence in childhood but I lived in fear.
The West claimed to defend freedom while the East claimed equality. Philosopher John Gray declares in his book Black Mass:
Both were Enlightenment ideologies that looked forward to a universal civilisation.
The reworded Animal Farm phrase “We are equal but some are more equal than others” was a common saying in Eastern Europe. While the phrase “The price of freedom is not free” is still liberally used in the United States, especially in defending military action. They reveal the truth, the West was never really free, the East never equal. The ratio of wealth between rich and poor was greater in the Soviet Union than many Western states. While it is hard to claim to be free when you are told to sit at the back of the bus because of the colour of your skin. It is hard to claim freedom when cheap life-saving drugs are more than you can afford. In the West real freedom was and is the preserve of the white and wealthy.
The paradox of the Cold War is how the ideology of each side gave hope to the dispossessed of the other. Eastern Europeans had captured moments of freedom, with smuggled western goods. Secretly listening to banned radio waves to hear Western rock and roll and pop music. With these moments they could dream the American dream. Yet once freedom was finally won with the fall of Communism, the short, sharp, shock led to starvation, the poor realised the dream was merely an illusion.
Western Europeans experienced a post-war Keynesian consensus, with a mixed economy, generous welfare and enshrined trade union rights. The consensus kept Western European states relatively equal and this was partly to ensure the working class were not tempted by Communism. The consensus was broken with the rise of Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of Economics in the 70s. The Greed is Good philosophy with monetary policy and severe public service cuts adopted first in Chile and the UK, destroyed society and we are paying the costs to wellbeing today.
Five therapeutic films
February 28th, 2010I posted these five films on an anxiety forum as five films to cheer myself up.
High Anxiety
This has to be at the top of my humour list. Mel Brooks spoof of Hitchcock films. Just hilarious. Brooks is a newly appointed director of the Psychoneurotic Institute of the Very, Very Nervous.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076141/
Amelie
This is probably the film I am most likely to watch to cheer myself up. If you don’t mind subtitles, this is a most wonderful film about a character with social anxiety. It is very hard to make films about a sense of lonely isolation, without the film being depressing but this film manages to be beautiful, funny, wistful and still capture our atomized lives.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915/
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
This is a love story in chronological reverse. Jim Carey plays an introvert and Kate Winslett an extrovert.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
You may have to be a Kevin Smith fan for this but it is an outrageous slapstick, stoner road movie. It is worth watching just for the most sophisticated fart joke of all time.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0261392/
Stardust Memories
I felt I had to throw in a Woody Allen film and this is my favourite. It is also a homage to Fellini’s 8 1/2.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081554/
But as for my favourites, I find they change over time but these are pretty much my five top films that I can’t live without at the moment:
Amelie and Eternal Sunshine as above.
La Dolce Vita
Fellini’s classic. I love the way each scene has its own mood and intensity and it takes you as a tourist to the point when the party has gone to far.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053779/
Donnie Darko
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society – Krishnamurti
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/
Alphaville
Weekend has been my favourite Godard film but this poetic dystopian story of love has pipped into the lead.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058898/
Empowerment and Emancipation
February 24th, 2010As someone who takes an active interest in politics and who also has to manage mental health problems, I am acutely aware of how different these two areas of my life have been. Political activists are exactly that – very active. They generally believe in working hard to bring about political change, so that everything will be finally ok. Problems are perceived as external and we work together to overcome them. Mental health recovery is traditionally seen as overcoming illness. There is something internally wrong that needs fixing. Only I can change the way “I am” and when I do, everything will be finally ok.
The reality is different to both these perceptions. People who solely work to improve their mental health bash their head against a brick wall as they come up against repetitious external problems such as debt and work stress. Whereas people who work for political change can not understand why people don’t try harder and are never happy with any money when they do have it. By recognising that good mental health is a complex set of internal and external factors, we can ensure we spend time on both our own recovery and environmental recovery.
The concept of wellbeing is beginning to change economic and political thought for the better. The New Economics Foundation and The Equality Trust (behind the book The Spirit Level) are two organisations at the forefront of this change. I very much hope that I can contribute to this change too.
Welcome
February 23rd, 2010Well, it took five minutes to set up WordPress and I am up and running.
Thanks to the Brighton Community Reporting Network for a very interesting meet earlier this month and a very instructive demonstration on setting up WordPress.