Side 1 - bare fact : quotes
_______________________
first bite : opening the packet - (suicide natural?
/ why examine pain? / have a choice?)
"Nothing momentous about it. No hesitation. No
resignation. No heightened emotional state. Just
the knowledge I couldn’t take another second of
this existence. And it would only take a few
more for it to drain peacefully away.
"Life has some inbuilt gear that seeks to
continue against all odds. Why? When we’re old,
we don’t feel old mentally, and we moralise
about it, but never seriously contemplate the
option of dying unless we’re severely pressured
or suffering. We never credit the topic of suicide
with any validity, even when suffering is
involved. But suicide is much more than simply
wanting to be dead. There is a big difference. It
has numerous faces.
"What’s good about that - a person deciding
between taking his life and eating a biscuit?
Think about it…
End life / Eat biscuit"
___________________________
2nd bite : nutritional guidelines (anything good
about depression? / why this book?)
"The reality is, people suffering
extreme mental distress are usually more
positive than you or even they can imagine,
even when they don’t appear to be. They’re
inspirational if we only take the time to find out
why. They can show us how to get through
when the filthiest shit hits the fan.
“...the true choice apropos of historical traumas
is not the one between remembering or
forgetting them: traumas we are not ready or
able to remember haunt us all the more
forcefully. We should therefore accept the
paradox that, in order to really forget an event,
we must first summon up the strength to
remember it properly. In order to account for
this paradox, we should bear in mind that the
opposite of existence is not non-existence, but
insistence: that which does not exist continues
to insist, striving for existence...” So rather than
turn away, turning away from ourselves, it
means opening ourselves up to closer scrutiny
of our pain and possibly a redefining,
repositioning, or justification for it. This is not a
new idea; but the concept that eating a few
biscuits can alleviate suicidal compulsion must
be. As soon as I discovered it, after my initial
shock, I thought - ‘people need to know about
this.’’
"The main reason I want to start a revolution in
mental health... Why it is needed? In 2003 I
asked members of a depression mutual support
group - some of them long-term sufferers and
very perceptive people - ‘Have you ever
considered that there might be anything good
about depression, anxiety, trauma and
distress?’ The looks I got ranged from ‘are you
being real?’ to betrayal, to ‘oh, god… don’t make
us go there,’ to apoplexy. The most significant
thing about their reactions was that this idea
had never occurred to them. "
___________________________
3rd bite : anal retention -
(language of depression, trauma
/ zero-tolerance culture)
"Non-tolerance of foul language is often an
integral part of what constitutes ‘good practice’
and the politically correct policies of service
providers’ clinical governance. They can use it
at home, in their fag break, with their children or
anywhere else they choose, apart from the
cauterised, sanitised environment of mental
health care. … If this
prohibition closes down communication from
someone justifiably suffering, what of it?
"I applaud the old couple who live under London
bridge, next to the heating ducts of a multi-
million pound office complex I applaud that they
get their heat for free,that they recycle far more
than I do and their carbon footprint is probably
nil. Watching the old man bathe in the Thames,
to the consternation of the river police, gives me
a sense of pride, of heritage, and to get real
about essentially what we’re forcing each other
to become - survivors."
___________________________
4th bite : shafted - (who is
robbing you of your rights? / positive - negative
stigma)
"As a matter of fact, you are being robbed. You
are being deprived of a basic and fundamental
ingredient of your right to self-preservation; just
as crucial as crapping. Who are you being
robbed by? Well, by mostly everyone (though
there are exceptions), even by those who are
closest to you and quite probably by yourself.
Yes,
there are more documentaries and dramas in the
media about social and health issues but the
facts indicate that very little has changed in our
attitudes, our perceptions and the stigma
surrounding mental health.
"…but what if one day, without provocation, you
found yourself in circumstances where your
own mind was turning against you. What if it
made you act in uncharacteristic ways? Maybe
you think you are too principled and far too
strong to let that happen. That in itself is
dangerous thinking and could leave you more
susceptible to internal pressure than others.
So, just in case, I’ll let you have a look at my
mind; see what you think. It may save you a
heap of trouble.
"people nowadays are equally fighting, for
years on end, with everything they have,
materially, mentally and physically … We rightly
applaud those who endured in the past, but the
same stiff upper lip ‘shoot deserters’ mentality
that treated traumatised people as weak, or
worse, as traitors, is evident towards people
that struggle mentally, today … Assuming that
wartime was tougher and people today are
weaker doesn’t get to the reality of what is
worse about our society and what are the
causes of so much depression."
___________________________
5th bite : in the dark - (who can guide? / health
system in dark ages / light relief)
"Who would be best placed to guide people
through the dark? Someone blind? A blind
beggar? Mr Magoo!
"I’d suggest there’s an easier more skilful
approach than us all becoming Waldos … The
alarming thing is, your passage through the
health system when at your most vulnerable and
sensitive could be as hair-raising as Waldo’s
experience, because most professional
approaches are somewhat Mr Magoo. They are
safe to those dispensing them, no matter what
they put
you through.
"There are three changes that I am aware of
that are designed to place the patient - you - at
the figurehead of decision-making regarding
your health. Services are supposed to be bound
by these developments and indeed some are
cautiously moving in this direction, but there is
an established culture of tokenism and tick-box
sidestepping, as genuine implementation
involves more flexibility and accountability on the
part of service providers.
So, what are these developments that are so
crucial to you, but not widely known?
"It is so patronising to assume a person that has
problems confronting is weak or ill. But we
rarely challenge this perspective … We accept,
in our careers or passions or even
relationships, ‘difficult’ is worth doing. But we
rarely afford ourselves that respect when it
comes to mental distress. “You have to learn to
live with it,” but how, when you’re effectively
left to it?"
___________________________
6th bite : swimming in denial - (social stigma /
abuse in health & support / brain washing)
"Leo Bloom (Wilder) the accountant in The
Producers panics more over Max Bialystock
touching his blue blanket than the financial and
moral bankruptcy of backing a musical
production about Hitler. When he attempts a
viewpoint Max shoots him down; “SHUT UP! I’M
HAVING A RHETORICAL CONVERSATION.”
That’s precisely the dynamic mental health
practice recreates.
"Like my dad, when he came out of the
operating theatre crapping through a hole in his
side; like anyone who has gone through a stroke
or horrendous accident; or anyone who has lost
the object of their love, motivation and purpose
for living… there are things we have no choice
but to face, or give up, or distract ourselves
from. Whatever we choose, those things will not
go away… it really comes down to what we
make of them. And I don’t mean the cliché“what
doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” As one
experienced ward nurse who suffers severe
depression stated - “I don’t want to be bloody
stronger, I just want to be well.
"This is why I champion the weaknesses of
people, because it is part of us all and when
we strengthen the weak we strengthen
ourselves. And while we make it easier to get
real about ourselves, we need to hold culpable
those who through delusional ambition are
determined to rob us of it."
___________________________
7th bite : two-edged sword -
(who's responsibility of care? / empower -
disempower)
"The idea that you will be put in the driving seat
for your health matters is wonderful, but when
you are held responsible instead of
practitioners, when your choices differ, how
prepared do you need to be? Will health
professionals take on that responsibility or
relinquish it? How much of a partnership can
you currently depend upon?
“Responsibility of care” is the phrase that you’ll
hear when your human rights are being eroded
or denied.
"If someone lost a leg and was discriminated
against in hospital, or by their G.P. or in the
workplace, we would be up in arms. We
wouldn’t call them stupid if they wanted to carry
on working, or say their judgment must be
impaired all of a sudden, that they must now be
a different person. We wouldn’t think twice
about supporting that person when they
struggled with their emotions. If they expressed
a desire to climb Mount Everest, or just to play
football, we wouldn’t call them mad, we’d
cheerthem on. We’d call them heroic.
"When I needed those Jammie dodgers, I had
just enough money left to my name (33p) to buy
a packet. No exaggeration. At that precise
moment the value of my life amounted to 33p.
For many in disaster areas it’s less than that.
"It seems we are content to shove mental health
into the corner and let ‘experts’ or those who
have developed the stomach for it deal with it.
This is not good for you. There is an immense
network of information on mental health and
services, a glut actually. But I challenge you to
find one pamphlet on the subject, with all the
other paraphernalia in a GP’s waiting room"
___________________________
8th bite : jammy fix - (formula for understanding
suicide?)
"To attempt to understand my desire for death, I
tried to think up a formula, an equation, to simply
extrapolate the elements of the four Jammie-
dodger episode.
"If anyone is in doubt about what’s going
through the mind of a suicidal person, it may be
akin to these elements.
___________________________
9th bite : shitting ourselves - (culture of fear /
protective-abusive siege mentality)
"The stifling air being forced down our lungs, as
inexorably as Chernobyl’s invisible fog claimed
its children through cancer, is a protracted
downward trend that constitutes one of the
biggest single contributors to mental illness. It is
a mental illness and it is epidemic. You can
catch this mental illness. It is air-borne. It
infiltrates every corner of society and we are
now starting to reap its whirlwind.
"That’s why those that have come through a
level of mental illness and seen the light are our
best saviours, because they’ve seen the
unreliable side of the staple principles we base
our lives on. They have experienced the
appalling state it can leave us in and the
counter-productive attitudes and treatments that
then strips them of the little power they have
left.
"That’s why mental illness isactually honest. It
obtusely warns us of things that are wrong;
wrong with our situation, wrong with the way
we're treating each other, or ourselves;
especially things that we have ignored and that
are unseen. … Mental illness stops us ignoring
ourselves."
___________________________
10th bite : social denial - (escapism, suppressed
nature, subjugation = abuse dynamic)
"Foreign cultures kind of admire and are
astounded at what they think is proudly called
‘British reserve,’ if they’re not perplexed by it.
But thereis an inherent evil to this inaction; it
isn’t simply passivity.
"The mental illness I'm talkin about, in society,
politics and institutions, is far more insidious
than cancer and doesn't show itself without
some subcutaneous scrutiny. What enables it to
take hold and grow? Someone once said "the
only thing it takes for evil to grow is for a few
good [people] to stand by and do nothing." Why
would good people do that? Why have they
done so in the past?
"The problem is we have substituted what we
regard as strength and weakness. That's why
the world grows weaker, not stronger - thinking
it is getting stronger by getting tougher … We're
outraged at the appalling abuse of Baby P and
the incredulous neglect by experts who saw
the evidence of it seventy-eight times and did
nothing. Good people stood by and did nothing.
The expert politicians and captains of
commerce are doing the same with us. We
have to call to account those who condone
practices, financial or practical, that carelessly
severs billions of grandchildren from their
futures. We have to call them what they are.
Criminals.
If surface and marketing and public opinion and
confusion makes it easier for us to be bigoted,
to follow the tram-lines with others for an
easier life, to be a Bay City Roller, mistaking that
for reality or forging a reality out of it, or a
sense of belonging, or equal esteem, it works to
a limited degree. Many get by on that … The
reality beyond can be pretty scary… …not
preparing ourselves for it, or living a life of
unchallenged security, deprives us of other
qualities to our life.
"…what if we generalise in order to compare its
effect on you, on your awareness and
sensibilities and what you regard as reality? …
What if we illustrate it with one pre-eminent
prejudice in society; the age-old sexism: are
men and women equal?
"…Bisexual man is doubly untrustworthy.
Straight man is just sad, inhibited and in denial,
but becomes disingenuous and a little creepy if
he moisturises. Unless he is a body-builder
hunk, or he is naturally or unnaturally bald. Or
on telly. JohnnyDepp using moisturiser is a
given, but Hugh Jackman? That kind of ruins
woman's perception of just what man is
supposed to be. Why can't man just make up his
mind, like woman? The resulting equality is quite
disturbing for feminists."
___________________________
11th bite : political denial -
(divide and conquor reliable? /
de-humanising / psychopaths)
"If you are afraid of all this nonconformity and
it's not good for your politics, or business,
what you can do is corner a commercial empire
to compel people to do your will and herd them
into hospitals and prisons if they don't.
"And remember, there is no longer any such thing as
society, so stop complaining. "…Hayek's powerful
Road to Serfdom, dedicated to 'the socialists of all
parties,'" Thatcher's claimed inspiration. "Such books
not only provided crisp, clear analytical arguments
against socialism… …they also gave us the feeling
that the other side simply could not win in the end.
That is a vital feeling in politics; it eradicates past
defeats and builds future victories. It left a permanent
mark on my own political character…" [Italics ours].
Yeah, fuck the whole picture. Delusion - intrinsic to
politics. "
___________________________
12th bite : institutional denial - (strength v
weakness deceit / dumbing down / ignorance
bliss?)
"…the whole history of human relationships has
been largely based on trust - even the financial
system is based on trusting reliable forecasters and
promises on pieces of paper … When trust is
betrayed we all hate it. But the current level of
distrust of the electorate towards politicians,
businesses and the nigh-on police/nanny state is at
an unprecedented high and escalating by the day.
That level of mistrust is quite healthy, so what does
that tell us?
"These are classic abuse symptoms. We expect to
be abused.
“Fools and their money are easily parted,” is the
principle that made Sir Alan - producing crap
computers and crap hi-fi for a mass market of people
easily attracted like Magpies to thin Aluminium and
flashing coloured lights … Churn out the garbage,
some mug will buy it. Thus was ordained the dawn
of fools, education and employment followed when
the market no longer demanded a skill-base. How
better to make more millionaires, than to fix their
education to diluted aspirations of a broader market?
"Health care bureaucracy has become the worst
kind of political institute. It is a political process and
more disgustingly, a capitalist-led political
organisation playing directly with people’s lives …
So, now the PCT needs to use more money to justify
collating the evidence (that is evidence-based
practice, incalculable in practice) to justify that the
practitioners jobs are as justifiable as theirs. It
creates more work, more jobs for the boys,more
money, more readable results; so that's good isn't it?
Because they can look good and the government can
look good at spending public money, even though
people are dying of MRSA for lack of basic-wage
earning cleaners. Or an acute patient can die for
being discharged early without consultation and
dumped on their own doorstep without any
aftercare, but the department productivity sheet
shows a bed freed up and filled more rapidly.
"You can't always be moral about the decisions that
are made when people arepushed to extremes. But
we run our governments that way.
"The press used to be the prime tool for holding
people in government and commerce accountable …
The press undermines its own credibility by
becoming a mere mouthpiece for trendsetters,
bamboozled by them … The IRA are dead,” you
know, dead, without a single consideration for the
embedded potential of another uprising and the litter
of family members' corpses a glib cajoling brouhaha
like that could generate … Dumb-down and
sensationalise media is a major contributor to our
mental subjugation and illness.
"We even dumb-down our education system for our
kids and moolah. Lots of the younger generation
have dropped the racism crap, so, who is
perpetuating this? If it isn't the government and it isn't
the schools and newer generations, who is it? "Well,
they're coming over here and taking our jobs!" Are
they? Or
is it greedy British companies, who don’t give a shit
where you’re from as long as you’ll work for fuck all,
giving them your jobs? Capitalism is such a supporter
of society, see? Such a level playing field; such a
respecter of law and community.
"What we’ve seen is, politicians
get their way by using words. Words, words,
words... Words. Words words words words words
words words. Words. Words are
all they trade in. Rhetoric and semantics is all that
counts and all you’re gonna get … As for anyone
else, it doesn’t matter how many words they use, or
how they use the words - put them in writing, in
petitions delivered by hand, through rallies and
protests marches, shared worldwide in blogs, emails
and networking, in ink, in paint, in blood, flown
across the sky on the tail of a bi-plane with a scantily
clad wing-walker. monocycled acrossa tightrope, or
chained to a statue, doused in petrol and set alight
with the reader. No more Emmeline Pankhursts. No
more Emily Davisons. The more words you use, the
more they are ignored; the stronger they get, the
closer organisations get to their zero-tolerance.
No matter how much your words mean,
they mean nothing … Innocent mothers and
grandmothers with babes in arms and numerous
innocent children should suddenly be turned out on
to the same
street at night. The same street they’re
told their offspring should not have been
out on at night. No questions asked. There is no
injustice too cruel for such scum.
"Religion, by definition beyond human, promotes and
condones any deemed inhumane act and comes
before everything, even though each religion seems
to base
its judgment on our treatment of each other, during
our fleshly existence."
"One council authority's homelessness department
let slip to me that it built up three million in its account.
This, while they
dithered for five years over what
they should do for those who didn’t know where
their next meal was coming from and were sleeping
in doorways every one of those one-thousand-eight-
hundred and
twenty-five cold fraught nights.
_
"Yes, its national paranoia
everyone. Every man for himself, because we're all
just numbers. Better play the numbers game than end
up a splinter in a splinter-group, don’t make waves,
mind your ‘p’s and ‘q’s, don’t kick up a fuss, don’t bite
the hand that feeds, don’t let it all out, think inside the
box, tick the box, fit the bill, what do points make...?
"Take a good long look at me, then. I'm a broken
man with a mind that attacks me as much as it
supports me; a wretch, a no-one who has
contributed little to this world. Not martyr, nor
antagonist nor navel gazer. Just a simple
insignificant human being, as hypocritical and
imperfect as anyone, who cannot get
everything right and is not willing to give my
soul for a cause; one who compulsively put
myself down and repeatedly wanted to snuff
myself out … This is the entire point. Being able
to survive this."
Side 2 - bare soul : quotes 27-31
____________________________
27th bite : love shit - (is love good or shit? / have
to love yourself to be loved?)
"Does anyone know what love is
Do you? Do you know what
love is…
do you?
Is it felt… or shown?
Can it be one without the
other?
If you feel it… you should
show it… shouldn’t you?
Do you know what love is,
do you? … Do you?
And do you
only get back what you give?
I thought…it’s unselfish,
isn’t it unilateral?
So, how can you
get back… what you give?
And why do some people give
a lot and not get any…
and others not give any but
get a lot?
How do you
do that?
You’d know wouldn’t you?
You’d know if you were
loved…
wouldn’t you?
I know what love is.
At least, I think I do,
then sometimes I think, how
can I?
I think, maybe
I don’t really…
maybe… Shit! Why do I have
to think about it?
I don’t seem to have a choice,
I feel all this… shit. SHIT!
Why can’t I stop feeling
shit? …"
"So, how do you know someone who has
advanced Alzheimer’s, or someone in a coma,
or someone paralysed, or an elderly parent with
dementia still loves you? Something about our
needs and what we look to love for naturally
reacts to change, without the natural
accommodation of that change. It cuts deeper
than our emotional attachment and so do our
loyalties and affections, even when they are all
but destroyed by circumstances and building
frustrations. This is evident in family members
that become carers. Somehow, we look for
confirmation of it, from others and from
ourselves. In those circumstances, that may be
unrealistic and unrewarding. So we have to get
to the cold hard reality and give ourselves credit
for feeling that way. Bad feelings may be the
only confirmation we have that our love is
undiminished. But we need to take cold comfort
from that and run with it.
"When normal rules of life and
thinking no longer apply, it’s good to reaffirm
what you know of the past, or we dismiss part
of our core. But it’s necessary to accept new
things, the present differences and how the
person we thought we knew reacts with
change.
"Having gone through almost complete destruction
and a determined deconstruction of my past, I know
enough of it remains in the individual to emerge
distinct and intact.
Society and the mental health approach tends to load
negative implications on change, but it
is a person’s journey and sometimes what comes out
is better, or they’re better for it,
in the long run, even if they don’t like it or recognise
it."
______________________
28th bite : evol si dog - (depression and
condemnation / biblical conflict hopeless?)
"Self-condemnation is the second most
powerful force any human can face.
"...Even now, after I dedicated my life to God,
through a religion that I am convinced shows
sufficient evidence of His blessing and spirit.
There are some things I see as unhealthy about
it.
"The association of genuine Christians,
throughout the earth, should be a loving family
and that would by necessity lead to
interdependency.
"This is supposed to be a good thing. Salvation
would not depend on others, ultimately, but
guidance, insight and practical support would. It
would engender trust and it is the nature of this
trust, paradoxically, that can place the most
vulnerable believers in situations that compound
their feeling of oppression, or alienation, based
on the imperfect and sometimes erroneous
judgments of others. Where mental health
issues arise, there are some symptoms that
even mature Christians would find anathema to
how they perceive the operation of God’s spirit.
Things their faith would make them unnaturally
and unnecessarily afraid of, for fear of
compromising their own consciences, or
contaminating their faith. Anything that could
make them feel this uncomfortable couldn’t
possibly have God’s involvement, surely? So...
condemnation.
"When extreme mental issues and the
extraordinary power of the human mind and
body come into play, it’s easier to be dismissive.
The scriptures are no more a medical journal on
these issues. Most references to ‘madness’ are
related to 1) conditions imposed by God; 2) the
stance of those who oppose His wisdom; and
3) those who are possessed by demons. This
doesn’t help if you’re not that interested in the
subject to check it out sufficiently. But the bible
deals with the whole spectrum of the human
condition in non-discriminatory terms.
“Mere oppression may make a wise one act
crazy.” Solomon in his sanity gave his heart to
knowing wisdom and to knowing madness.
"When a sufferer’s feelings and behaviour
contravene scripture and actually resemble
debased mentality, it is easier to conclude it
must be Satanic and demonic activity. Such glib
assumptions, without any consideration of the
long-term implications and consequences to a
vulnerable and ill person, are grossly
irresponsible, yet no self-respecting shepherd
would dream they could be sending out such
dangerous signals.
"What if a believer suffers extreme mental
anguish, physical or mental abuse and the
unnatural feeling of filthiness, self-loathing,
worthlessness, self-harming, compulsive
disorders, manias, uninhibited sexual urges and
suicidal feelings, or they are too hurt to trust
anyone again? What about women with post-
natal depression, who have urges to kill their
child? What about abuse victims who want to
kill abusers or others that want to carry on
being abused? What if they feel no relief?
Where does all that go? And what if they don’t
feel anything anymore - no passions, no loyalty,
no spiritual thirst, no integrity, no personal
opinions, no willpower? What if all those lovely
scriptures about a new system where “…He
will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and
death will be no more, neither will mourning nor
outcry nor pain be anymore” is all for everyone
else and not for them? What if they cannot see
themselves there, or they honestly admit they
don’t want that? Are their feelings wrong? Must
they be made to feel wrong, otherwise, why
wouldn’t God be there?
"What if the way they feel inside
resonates more with condemnatory scriptures?
"Some of the desires and emotions I feel bear
more relation to these scriptures - “…in
darkness, mentally, and alienated from the life
that belongs to God… Having come to be past
all moral sense, they gave themselves over to
work uncleanness of every sort.” “God gave
them up to a disapproved mental state to do the
things not fitting, filled as they were with all
unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness,
badness…” “[God] knows how to deliver people
of godly devotion out of trial, but to reserve
unrighteous people for the day of judgment
to be cut off, especially, however, those who go
on after flesh with the desire to defile [it] and
who look down on lordship. Daring, self-willed,
they do not tremble at glorious ones but speak
abusively... like unreasoning animals born
naturally to be caught and destroyed, will…
…suffer destruction in their own [course of]
destruction, wronging themselves as a reward
for wrongdoing. They consider luxurious living
in the daytime a pleasure. They are spots and
blemishes, indulging with unrestrained
delight… They have eyes full of adultery and
unable to desist from sin… They have a heart
trained in covetousness. They are accursed
children.”
"Guilt can be a motivator for reform, or redress,
and I used it to try and make amends, but I was
too tired of fighting myself and trying and failing
to be good. “Fight the fine fight of the faith” - I’d
had a bellyful of fighting.
"God could not be wrong, could He? He knows
all hearts and minds, if no one else is there
surely He is, isn’t he? “God will not let you be
tempted beyond what you can bear, but along
with the temptation, He will also make a way out
for you, in order for you to be able to bear it.” I
feel sick every time I hear that, now. It is a
heart-rending stab in the ribs, to me, that there
wasn’t a way out. It wasn’t bearable and I ended
up in a total breakdown and change of
personality in conflict with Him, despite my daily
begging out loud for years, despite my
“groanings unuttered.” What was the only
conclusion I could draw? God must have left
me. Or even wanted me out. Isn’t that the logical
implication from that encouraging scripture?
"Here’s a few of the things God values. “God
chose the foolish things of the world, that He
might put the wise man to shame… the weak
things… that he might put the strong things to
shame… the ignoble things… the things
looked
down upon, the things that are not, that he
might bring to nothing the things that are, in
order that no flesh might boast, in the sight of
God” If that means suffering as a vessel of
mercy, or to become one, since mercy only
comes with suffering or being overpowered,
then what’s involved in becoming a vessel of
wrath, fit for destruction? Being overpowered
and suffering, if anything, is going to be
extenuating and mitigating is it not?
"Especially when it comes to suicidal feelings
can Christians become moralistic. Such a waste
of sacred blood. Such a lack of faith, surely, if
God promised strength beyond what is normal
and a way out in order to be able to endure it?
"‘Well, they’ve paid for their sins’ I’ve heard it
said." Really?
___________________________
29th bite : post-mortem (the third man) -
(psychotherapy records, make your own mind
up)
"As detailed as my portrait might be, from the
shards of my past or the fragments I’ve picked
up, since, that constitute the whole ‘me;’ this
only gives the appearance intended by the artist
in this finite slap-dash snap-shot portrait. An
artist’s impression with artistic licence. The
translation of intent to what the viewer actually
sees is so easily lost. So... to be fair, I wanted
you to have another perspective.
"I must begin by warning you regarding this
perspective; as non-judgmental as it appears to
be - (it rarely stipulates, as far as my analytical
eye can see) - it none-the-less is based on
biased
interaction and limited focus. It outlines the brief
period directly following my first death and the
first recovering steps from my overwhelming
mental oppression, which is all too apparent,
towards the emergence of independent
thinking. Like a trampled flower’s new shoot. As
if by ancient Assyrian divination, I wanted you
to dissect my insides from outside, pretty much
as if I’d jumped from a tall building, or was laid
out on a cold stainless steel forensics slab - as
it felt, whenever I left my psychotherapist’s. As
someone self-harming might need to see the
blood, what is inside them, the real self. It is a
cold process and having gone through my
therapy records completely unemotionally, to my
surprise, I cannot say I have a more refined or a
warmer image.
"Don’t get me wrong. Cold can be
refreshing."
(the chapter then features a series of scanned
relevant psychotherapy notes)
___________________________
30th bite : take the biscuit - (biscuit power /
expert patients, voluntary work / betrayal)
"From hospice auxiliaries and designer-charity-
shop sorters to
expert patients and foundation hospital board
members; the volunteer is more keenly aware
than most of the potency of biscuit. There used
to be cake in the volunteer sector. ‘No cake…
let them eat biscuit’ the half-baked response
from government, without a single thought to
what they lose along the way. Exploitation is
Best-Buy thin sliced white bread and margarine
for voluntary workers, who have to plead for
the scraps thrown them from charity banquet
tables. Survival is a lottery, literally
"Borden Grown Finer Temptress would
probably have put it this way, at a world trade
conference; “Yes, what we’ve been able to do
in the UK is ah… nothing. What that does is, it
frustrates the hell out of humane people and
they come out of the woodwork to complain.
What do we do about the complaints? We don’t
stop them, no, don’t do that… god forbid,
no,what other indicator would we have to
monitor how well our policies are working? So
we pretend we’re listening, then of course,
what we do is ah… nothing.... absolutely. Now
you’re catching on. Well... actually, we get
people to work twice as hard, to put into words
and on paper why doing less than we’ve done
before is more cost-effective and better for the
general public. And we can justify spending
more for that. What that achieves is, it
amalgamates and galvanises volunteers into
action, which they do for free. They’re so
frustrated at banging their heads against a brick
wall, they just get on with it, so, it’s all done for
us, for sweet FA. We keep them on their toes,
tell them there’s money for this and for that, but
that it’s constantly dwindling. Martyrs won’t
work for money, you see. That’s the advantage.
They’re content with the odd official wink or
gong and we keep them sharp by closing down
some of their long established and most noble
and successful initiatives - oh no, we can’t
allow them to remain successful for very long,
or the public would never keep coming back to
us you see - so they have to keep coming out
of the woodwork with new ones. They’re
persistent little buggers. It’s very simple. (One of
his rare genuine smiles, at this point). We’ve got
most of our services that way, now, by
additionally telling every Tom, Dick and Harriett
they should be involved at boardroom level and
they may even get on to Newsnight with
Jeremy Paxman. Yes, in years to come we will
get the credit for laying the foundation for the
coalition to offload everything onto society and
redirect the coffers to offset our pensions,
disguise bank bonuses and the national deficit.
If Thatcher hadn’t stuck the knife in society,
they wouldn’t have to resurrect that particular
dead horse, now, in order to flog it. So, we laid
the groundwork, do you see?
"The holy grail of mental health at that time,
(with the introduction of the Crisis Intervention
Home Treatment teams), was alternative crisis
accommodation. "The same
Integrated Commissioning Officer had banded
about a pot of one million pounds, if we could
establish a home to help prevent people in crisis
going to hospital, or staying there
unnecessarily. Hospital was a bad environment
for people in crisis.
"It staggered me how many people were
passionate about this field. How come I’d never
known this when I was struggling on my own?
And how come this sector has ended up in
such a mess with little being achieved on the
ground?"
___________________________
last bite : the... -
(the inexplicable / 4th biscuit)
"...it is a good job most mental health recovery
takes place away from statutory health care.
We don’t tap this power and capability within
the health care framework.
"One person, on asking what this chapter was
about and I responded “searching, but not for
answers,” said “acceptance.” It didn’t quite cut
it. It is more pro-active than that...
"Explaining these things is not the way to find
the answers. Explanation is anathema to what
these things are, but to get to the inexplicable
it’s necessary for us, again, to get beyond the
explicable. We can only consider examples and
their effect on us, individually."
First bite : opening the packet - suicide natural? / why examine pain? / have a choice?
2nd bite : nutritional guidelines - anything good about depression? / why this book?
3rd bite : anal retention - language of depression, trauma / zero-tolerance culture
4th bite : shafted - who is robbing you of your rights? / positive - negative stigma
5th bite : in the dark - who can guide? / health system in dark ages / light relief
6th bite : swimming in denial - social stigma / abuse in health & support / brain washing
7th bite : two-edged sword - who's responsibility of care? / empower - disempower
8th bite : jammy fix - formula for understanding suicide?
9th bite : shitting ourselves - culture of fear / protective-abusive siege mentality
10th bite : social denial - escapism, suppressed nature, subjugation = abuse dynamic
11th bite : political denial - divide and conquer reliable? / de-humanising / psychopaths
12th bite : institutional denial - strength v weakness deceit / dumbing down / ignorance bliss?
Side 2 - bare soul : quotes 13-26
_______________________
13th bite : can biscuits really do this? -
(the margin / mind power / 6 types suicide
/ life v death)
"So, this is the unreasonable bit. This is where
principles and morals hold little sway. Principles
are usually beneficial and rarely leave us when
we’ve adopted them for good reason. Morals,
on the other hand, are never helpful in dealing
with other people. And sometimes with
ourselves.
"The same laziness translates to everyday
perspectives. Working on that basis with mental
illness, which is ultimately honest even in
delusion, makes the suspicious mind (reader)
more paranoid than the one suffering. And
because the one suffering may not be able to
speak up, or understand what they’re going
through, on whose assumptions are they likely
to be treated? This happens all the time.
"Maybe we’re afraid we might be part of the
cause. We can’t dismiss that. It’s often the first
nagging question someone asks when they
have lost a loved one to suicide. Then they
have to spend the rest of their days denying it,
or sink carrying the millstone of it. It’s as difficult
for a relative to accept they could not influence
an outcome as it is to live with the idea they
could have been part of the cause. We usually
enforce the former and seldom suggest the
latter, in the name of sympathy. This is not
always healthy, or honest, and part of the
reason why exposes the way denial and
evasion works on us. Guilt and denial seem to
have the same internal affect but denial is more
palatable. They’re psycho-twins running ring-
aroses around us.
"Life isn’t everything. We accept this, under
some very limited and extreme circumstances.
… As long as we think and feel that it is, or that
it is our duty, it’s hard to accept this. As logical
as an argument for not living might be, anyone
who has motivation for life will naturally shut
their ears to it. As well as those who believe
life is sacred, belonging to God and not to them.
Whether you believe that or not will not
influence the outcome of someone feeling
suicidal. It will not prevent you from feeling
suicidal.
"The good news for most people is that cliché
is true and there is a way, not just to endure
until hope raises its head but to find some
peace and even happiness,
whilst enduring. And, stonishingly, there is
something to be proud and happy about
regarding the condition itself. It is central to
what you and I - all of us as human beings - are
capable of, in our ‘weakest’ state. That’s
extremely valuable to everyone.
"There may be more ‘kinds’ of suicidal episodes
than this, but here are the six variations that I
have experienced over dozens of episodes. It
is important to understand that the accumulated
weight of those years of abuse and
devastating diminution and the resulting
hopelessness combined at these times, as
motivating factors."
__________________________
14th bite : what would i know? (educated
guess / diminished responsibility / who knows?)
"So, how does this mental destruction pan out
when a suicidal person is at their most
desperate and needs to be under someone
else’s care?
"What institutions do is make a model. The
model doesn’t fit any reasonable reflection of
what real life entails for most people. The model
is a model of good practice and judgments on
what’s “best for the patient” and the model is
supposed to fit all patients. Then they take the
patients and squeeze them into their boxes. If
they don’t fit into these boxes, they make sure
they cut off anything that sticks out, so they fit,
then they can get the money from the
government to keep on fitting people into boxes
that bear no relation to the real lives they led
earlier. This is good practice. This is their
“responsibility of care.”
"Services prioritise needs, but those needs
become null and void when simple wants are
over-ridden. Again, it isn’t rocket science.
People don’t live for their needs. They live for
their wants.
"…SEALS (Social and Emotional Aspects of
Learning for Schools) … “Some psychologists
admit that this type of understanding / skill
defies most adults, even after years of therapy.
What’s more we have to bear in mind that these
sophisticated ideas will be taught by teachers
who, through no fault of their own, are bound
to be inadequately trained to deal with the
complexities of the issues covered by the
material.” These “sophisticated ideas” don’t
exist in most adults who have never had to
tackle issues affecting mental health and if the
SEALS promotional video is anything to go by,
frontal lobotomy is all they’re able to pass on.
(The potential dangers of a systematic, explicit
approach to teaching social and emotional skills
(SEAL). Carol Craig - Centre for Confidence
and Well-being September, 2007).
“… There is no market for true radicalism or
plain disagreement with the status quo."
___________________________
15th bite : jaffa cake -
(compulsions / patronising attitudes /
battling isolated self)
“[John Lennon’s] first reaction to wealth was
not to purchase a Rolls Royce, but to buy a
huge quantity of Jaffa Cakes, which he ate until
he was sick.” I’ve just successfully restrained
myself from eating an entire box of Jaffa cakes
in one go before my tea. You might consider
that an achievement by the time you have
finished reading this book.
"I know you are probably thinking ‘what a lame
statement’ but you are thinking - not feeling. It
will mean more to you if you taste it, feel it - the
crumbs and chocolate flakes deposited in the
corner of your mouth, melting, the warmth in
your tummy, the comfort, the freedom from
care, then the bloating, the queasiness as you
force it down when you know you don’t want
any more, the hatred as you make yourself
push each one into your already full mouth, the
guilt, the compulsion.
"`Come on - that’s going a bit over the top, just
over a packet of biscuits, isn’t it? You could just
stop if you wanted to.’ There! The first of many
examples of the `SNAP OUT OF IT’ syndrome.
`So what, a full packet of Jaffa cakes - what’s
wrong with that - I do that all the time?’ There!
An example of the `YOU HAVE TO BE LIKE ME’
syndrome. `Well a box of biscuits isn’t going to
harm you. At least you’ve not developed a drug
or alcohol dependency.’ There! An example of
the minimising, `I JUDGE SYMPTOMS NOT
CAUSES’ syndrome. `But you’re not as ill as
others are, you should be grateful, you actually
look fine to me, people have a lot more than
Jaffa cakes to worry about, if you had this or
that then you’d know about it.’ There! An
example of `YOU HAVE TO DO AS WELL AS
OTHERS’ syndrome.
"It would be unreasonable and inhumane to say
a person is failing when they experience a
relapse. If they slip back and continue to
endure, does that not call upon more of their
resourcefulness? It is us that make a relapse a
negative, when the relapse, as dangerous as
they can be, may be necessary for a
breakthrough. So… what seems on the surface
to be self-indulgence (and it might be that at
times) maybe something else entirely."
_______________________
16th bite : no man's land -
(war heroes / torture trauma / is
everyone else right?)
"…trenches, mud, blood, barbed wire, tank
traps, darkness, damp, thick smoke, fog, mist,
cold, shivering, deafening explosions, startling
flashes, bullets flying past in every direction,
futility, bewilderment, desperation,
dismembered corpses, panic and loneliness. An
environment hostile to life. No one wants to
enter even if they have been trained for it. The
only thing they could count on is chaos.
"Maybe some think that would be preferable to
torture, a fighting chance at least. There are
things that can be trained for, prepared for,
even if the actuality is only marginally
attenuated by your pre-conditioning. But the
weapon of torture - how do you prepare for
that? The constant drip drip drip, the Japanese
used; how did they know what that could do to
the mind? Russians used sleep deprivation,
cold and slapping; the SS liked fear and pain,
cigarette burns, dentistry, shock, medical
experiments, psychological manipulation and
like all others, humiliation and degradation. Good
cop / bad cop, it all works.
"I was only ever burned by cigarette in the
uncontrolled explosions of rage, never as a
deliberate threat of pain, but I can still feel the
heat of the tip on my eyeballs when the derision
was being spat in my face. The body language,
the deranged, demonic, seething eruption and
what was spewing out verbally was more
terrifying. And without any restraints, I was
imprisoned to that spot.
"As a soldier, somehow, if you know where
you are and where you stand, there's some
closure, some mitigation that helps to assuage
the horror of what has been done to you,
despite any long-term consequences. There
are clear reasons. Reasonable reasons. Even
when they’re wrong and the inhumanity to man
defies imagination. It’s not personal. That’s bad
enough. Hard enough to come to terms with, for
a trained soldier. Former enemies have shaken
hands over it.
"I'll never get to that stage, the stage of
reconciliation or understanding, or mitigation.
Never get to relent it was a war, or understand
what was behind and underneath that body
language and perpetual, incisive deprecation.
Good job I was only a child. What got me
through? Some deep personal conviction;
philosophical latitude? No. Axminster carpet!
Axminster carpet got me through. Thank fuck
my poor mother had expensive taste.
"What if your worst enemy of all isn’t someone
else who is ignorant, careless or predatory.
What if, on top of all these, your worst enemy
turns out to be you?"
___________________________
17th bite : grand delusion -
(the paedophile grenade / incest / broken
trust / rejection)
(1997) I still see him today. I want to take him
down a dark alley, only this time to set about
him with a piece of four by two and watch his
ruddy face plead for mercy, then break each
limb one by one, starting with the smallest and
progressing. The little finger, the toes, the
knees, the shins, the nose, the wrists - oh
yeah, ‘specially those - watch his eyes, watch
the fear, despair, hopelessness overwhelm
him, removing anything left of his optimism, or
faith in reasonableness, until he pleads. Not
his dick - no. Leave that to plague him for the
duration, to make everyone he turns to for
mercy, for relief, despise him. Yeah, let him
live… that’s the whole point. Tempting as it is.
___________________________
18th bite : fucked -
(transference - emotion, pain, sex, paranoia, inner
beast)
"...it weeps from
everything,
from amateur cheerleaders
past their prime
to Oscar winners being
someone else better
than they could be
themselves,
it’s in a beautiful panorama -
“…need sun, need sun tingle
skin, need sunset
over lake ripples,
through pine, dapples…” -
and too many children’s toys
but mainly people
in glory and pain, runs riot
through exhausted fibres
and bleeds and bleeds and
bleeds ducts and sinus-
clamped confusion,
“AAAAAAAAaaeeeeerrrrr!
ergh!” This is not you!
You’re not this!
… “Look, look someone,
everybody - look at what
I’m not!”
And all I want
is to sit here beneath
my duvet of absent
apologies, the protective
film that numbs
the intrusion of those
callused hands
and eager tears and eager
arms and half-smiling
sympathetic eyes will tear
me in two
it’s something I don’t do.
(break)…
(2000) "…so, either I forget it and
endure the gnawing, the visceral self-
deprecation, or I just give myself
away for sex. It’s the only way I seem
to be able to please.
"There is a sense of abandonment with me
now, in that I don’t seem to care about danger
or death. It is inconceivable that there could be
a greater pain than that which I am already
enduring. Death would be a relief and suffering
may pacify my sense of self-denunciation."
____________________________________
19th bite : do unto mothers - (psychotic
target / mixed blessings / hate / forgive?)
"Flash - we’ve been playing
soccer (toggoh) in the street for
ages and we’re both knackered
and thirsty. We go into my other
mate’s kitchen and his mum’s
there. … She caressed her son’s
hair as he filled our glasses at the
kitchen sink, asked him if he
wanted her to make him and me a
sandwich. Then she stood with her
back to the sink with her arms
around his neck, asking me I don’t
know what. I felt unnatural, as if I
was in the way, intruding, but
envious. I was thirteen and it was
the first time I ever saw that. All I
could think was ‘is that what mums
do?’ She was another one that
knew something wasn’t right. Two
invitations to stay, anytime I
wanted, in short succession. I
have no idea what was showing.
"I dare not close my eyes. I can
close them a little bit, I can’t stop
them, but if they close fully I’m
dead. Closing them fully is the
trigger. Closing them is the key to
unleashing all her hell. So I play
games.
"One game, to keep my eyes open,
is to look at the coffee table. It is
metal edged with stainless
pedestals, a brace and two
splayed legs at each end. The top
is hand painted tiles that form a
symmetric but opposite abstract
pattern, so it looks the same when
the table is turned around. Game
one is to take a selection of the
pattern and make something of it,
form it into another thing, or
imagine it as another thing, where
would I see a shape like that in a
city, in a garden, in a car,
anywhere? Game two is to take a
small feature of the pattern and
find its matching counterpart
opposite, move my eyes to it in the
quickest possible time and move
on to the next piece straight away,
make it a constant eye movement
so my eyes are constantly
scanning the surface, skitting from
one end to the other and
diagonally, vertically, the other
diagonal, different distances.
"It’s impossible for me to convey accurately the
drip drip drip of every little nuance of her
diminutive controlling torture. Every little cutting
aside, the looks - you can’t describe the looks
unless you believe Bram Stoker’s werewolf
metamorphosis...
"Later on, I marry my mum. Of course, eleven
years of crap every night and you get jaded.
Another five years of it night and day and
there’s an equivalent ten years again there. No
rhyme or reason behind the martyrdom, apart
from wanting to fulfil my vows and obligations
to her and to God - and to love. Exactly the
same as my dad. Not the madness, not the hate
nor terrors…
"…it’s the love… that’s what’s frightening."
___________________________
20th bite : death us did part - (marriage
values / dignity destroyed / breakdown /
loss)
"What did I do - what did I do to her? I loved her
until I was dead.
“People think you can do anything
for love. You can’t. Not even when you want
to.
"What I wanted to achieve in the writing of this
account is not another droning monotony about
yet another broken marriage, but some detail of
the process of how it is possible for one
person to so skilfully pick away at another
person’s dignity, until there is nothing left of
them. … How can you put into words all the
intricacies and seemingly puny things that drive
you down and down and down, day by day -
the bricks in the chest, the dread, the split-
second occurrences that file away at those
raw open nerves, the familiar noises that
shudder the bones, the body language that
regards you as a leper, the obligatory
comments that are spat like bullets perforating
the skeleton, another chip off the shoulder, a
grazed skull, another snapped rib and the
crumbling, splintering implosion as you listen to
this stranger getting on with their impervious
life, in the next room?
“So, what did I do so wrong? I left
butter in the fridge. To this day, I cannot spread
butter on bread without seeing her venomous
glare, her white knuckles lunging at me with a
bread knife, screaming “YOU’VE LEFT THE
BUTTER IN THE FRIDGE AGAIN!”
I suppose that was the first time it hit me, it
might not be me.
___________________________
21st bite : y jibberney motch ibbannay -
(catatonia / abandoned self)
verticl white band
angry no bad no
good no damp air
con den say shn
stare
nothin evrythin
nothin
cream must be sill
window
sepia
sharp stars crystal
glass
sum1 av that so wot
things
drink
no
neighber voice...
ADRIAN ADRIAN ARE YOU IN?
(mutter shuffle...
foot s t e p s )
am I
in …
___________________________
22nd bite : ...It's a hit -
(poverty trap / overbearing stress / suicide
the easy way out?)
"The cost of living in Britain is precisely that,
nowadays - the cost of living. ... And if you’re
not prepared to pay with it, then you’re a
disgrace to the restless masses that have no
choice in the matter. ... Being a human being
involves money. No money - no life.
"People are relegated below contracts and
business dealings. Lives and efforts are worth
less than small amounts of money and a bunch
of numerals.
"Everyone who descends into poverty not only
witnesses this process but becomes a target
for the predators who are usually not struggling
financially and who are backed legally to plunge
you further into that mire. They say life is
cheap. Life is actually far more expensive for
people who have no money than for those who
have.
"She has three doctors treating her and is on
medication. She is often unable to afford food
and is so worn out she isn’t capable
of dealing with everyday affairs, so she has a
social services support worker. An exploratory
reveals she has multiple ulcers. The doctor
employed by the Department of Works and
Pensions to assess her claim for benefit totally
ignores all this and her state of mind and
passes her as fit for work. Her benefits are cut
from the day of the decision. The examining
DWP doctor’s critical observation? “She was not
rocking in her chair.”
"I was in slow-mo and ill most of the time, so
employment was
never going to happen. I ended up in such
turmoil over where the next rent was coming
from, I couldn’t stay in and rest. I had to put one
foot in front of the other, so I walked the streets
in a daze, partly knowing I was out of ideas but
walking anyway. As long as I walked,
something might come out of the blue from
somewhere, but I was not really there. I didn’t
know where I was, which direction to walk in.
I’d have an idea - go to the job centre; what am I
doing? Turn back, went yesterday, nothing
there; yeah but turn around, go again; a bit
further on, turn back, what’s the point? No, turn
around again, do it anyway. Go to the library -
what for? Look up the job bulletins for the
council and health services etc; did that a few
days ago, nothing new until next week; what’s
the point? Where to now? Might have missed
something, go and check. Who will employ
someone that’s not all there? What kind of an
interview could I give in this state? Never mind
that, apply anyway. Forms, forms… can’t fill out
all these forms… chest pains. What if a job
involves using a telephone and filling forms?
More chest pain. It’s only boxes that need filling
one at a time. Can’t think. Why can’t I remember
simple things? Try again the following day. Half
way there, panic - got to get home, get home,
close the door. Go and call on this and that
customer that didn’t pay. Call three times a day
if necessary. No result. Just go and do the few
that pay, then. Fewer and fewer each time.
After weeks of this, I managed to scrape
together enough rent for a few weeks. I closed
my door and just worried about where food
was going to come from, though, fortunately my
appetite was shot.
"When I get home, I collapse into the previous
chapter."
___________________________
23rd bite : jam tartarus -
(beyond hell / madness / supernatural
or psychological?)
"(1999) Rambling rapid images:
everything I’ve ever seen, even
for a split second; chocolate bar
ad my panting dog scratching
dirt with all fours jet fighter
peacock Cambodian prisoner’s
brains spurting out in a
crimson arc still standing
seventies brown wallpaper
vagina dutch barge potted
cheese plant JCB golf course
dangling fig headstone
Chairman Mao ivy leaf
basketball arthritic toe.
Jumbled nonsensical ranting,
incessant hostile barraging - it
doesn’t want me to sleep, won’t
let me sleep, you’re not
sleeping, forget that. I am
exhausted in every fibre of my
being. My mind won’t stop.
Won’t stop. Stop. Stop. Lay on
my back. Toss. Turn. Toss.
Pounding the mattress, my
pillow. Moaning. Awwwwugh,
please stop, please stop.
Satiated with irritation. Heart
pounding. I get up, walk to the
bathroom and sit slumped over
the toilet seat. Nothing doing,
it’s not that. Maybe a drink? No.
My head - it’s my fucking
heeeeaaAAAD! STOP WILL
YOU? FUCK! I’m back in bed,
my body giving out and the slow
delirium starts to descend. But
not me - I rise, I rise a corpse,
physically, I feel the mattress
leave my back, lifted by four
dark murky pole bearers. "
Of course, as a condemned man, there was
nothing anyone could do to me. Not in
comparison to what has already been done by
my sister, mother and wife. But what could I do
to myself? A grenade had gone off in me. All
that remained was minced offal. Detritus.
Maggots infested my limbs and I was flailing
myself against the wall, at night, pleading for
someone to sever them with a blunt, rusty
wood-cutting saw and to take me outside and
slowly squeeze all my innards out of me with a
steam-roller until my head popped. You think I’m
laying it on thick. You hope I am.
"Homer’s Tartarus, (Tartaros -pit) broadly, was
a mythical subcontinent as far below hell
(Haides - pit, grave) as the stars were above
the flat Earth. It was a place where the Titan
gods were imprisoned, where darkest night
and tempestuous winds resided, only to be let
loose when Zeus ordered the gates opened.
Only later was it misrepresented as a place
worse than the broader adopted view of ‘hell’
as purgatory or eternal torment and damnation,
fire and brimstone, the stuff of Hieronymus
Bosch paintings."
___________________________
24th bite : there's violence and violins -
(victimisation / tolerant - intolerant / confrontation)
"I saw my dad severely tested. All through the
agonising nights with my mother in the most
excessive stressful conditions, never once did
he lift his hand to her. I suppose, subliminally,
it’s as a result of his example that I could never
stand violence.
"Some people love it and some people have
nothing better to fill their lives with. They don’t
want their lives to be sad and little, so, they
attract attention to it by thinking they are bigger
or acting bigger, because it is an act. So, they
drag any unsuspecting individual into it, or
they’re so insecure they think their respect is
contingent on forcing total strangers that don’t
automatica lly feel it for them, to know about it.
"I’ve been forced to recognise, though, against
my own nature and resilience, my capacity for
sickening violence and potential to maim and kill.
My move to a new location was, amongst other
reasons, to avoid that eventuality. Since I
decided to carry on living, I had to seriously
contemplate what I would do to stop anyone
that would try to interfere with my life. I’d had
more than my share of violence and finally got
so sick of it, I drew a line that I would allow no
man or woman to cross. But what would I do if
they crossed it? What was my capacity for
retaliation, despite my utter loathing of violence?
How would I combat my overwhelming fury and
intolerance of people who seek to inject
themselves into my apparently defenceless
life? "
"Why do we have to be tough? What are we
doing that makes that necessary? Why would
we want good-natured people to change and
what are we changing them into? If that pushes
some people beyond their capabilities and
reason, are we prepared to accept collective
responsibility...?
"...There is diminishing tolerance for this within
the current reductive culture of official health
and social support bureaucracy. In the guise of
‘good practice’ some care professionals impose
“zero-tolerance” rules that take nothing of this
pressure and resulting self-preserving
behaviour into account. The prejudicial
assumption that abused people always become
abusers ignores all those who have this
balance and have fought hard to remain non-
violent, deliberately or unwittingly.
"...I wanted to die anyway and sometimes a
horrible death. What you’re prepared to do,
under those circumstances has no bounds."
___________________________
25th bite : the permissive sociopathy -
(sexual compulsion-orientation-loneliness-
confidence)
"It was a trust beyond the physical. I can’t
describe it. I can’t have this trust with anyone
else. What if they’re cruel and it turns out to be
nothing and they walk away? Our trust is
based on a knowing, but a knowing beyond
anything I’ve understood. It’s in a realm of its
own and nothing around me, or anything I’ve
felt previously, compares. It blows all my
perceptions of what life is about clean away.
So I trust and that’s all I need to do. Only she
makes me feel this way. She’s cautious with
my feelings, introduces me to them, one by one.
Can you conceive of a love like that?
"She betrayed it… abandoned it… left every
part of me cold and bereft.
"Fortunately, the time has elapsed where you
could say something consensual couldn’t
possibly be called abuse.
"(1999) I want to scream, I want to
cry, I want to smash everything in the
house, slit my wrists and let the
blood spurt all over the walls so that
someone - someone - will be
appalled at what could cause such
agonising fucking torture. How could
anyone love that of me? Could you?
There are some people who can. I
can love that in a woman. I don’t need
to compensate or make penance for
the lack of love between my mother,
sister and myself. I think it is
because I can see the dignity and
honesty in some women that act in
such lascivious or seemingly
uncontrolled ways. Maybe it is
because of what I assume they must
have gone through to act that way.
Part of me knows that I have
uncommon attributes that they
deserve and that could help them
avoiding abusive situations again,
but in reality I know that I would not
necessarily be able to stop them.
"One thing that I have yet been
unable to understand is why part of
me, and others with similar
experience, still wants to be abused.
But not in the same uncontrolled
circumstances. For me, anyway,
consent; consent and trust is the key,
but the abuse is similar. I still want
it. But I want the person doing it to
understand what they are doing and
that they are not an abusive person. I
would not tolerate any abusive
person treating me that way again,
but trusting someone who cares for
me to take it further is another
matter.
"I wonder if this attraction I have to
older women is some driving
obsession to fuck my mother - a
confusion that substitutes sex for
pain relief or a warped desperation
that scrapes and begs for the
nearest kind of intimacy that I could
expect from such a relationship.
Replacing, filling the void left by the
dearth of physical, mental and
emotional attachment to my mother.
Substitution."
___________________________
26th bite : blood is thicker -
(family delusion / belonging /
consequences of rejection)
"Incest. It's a word. You've probably heard it
before.
"It’s more popular than anyone is happy to
admit. That’s not just because no one is happy
to admit it. But it’s still not used much. It’s a dirty
word. I was going to say ‘more common’ but
that allows for the possibility that there’s no
choice involved, just as some pedophiles might
assert that they have no choice in the way they
feel. And though there are always reasons,
some of them perfectly good ones, I’m not
interested in them and it doesn’t make those
choices acceptable to me. I’d rather shoot
pedophiles than understand them.
"…I detest the thought of imposition of any kind,
even when it’s considered ‘legal;’ to me it is
weak lilly-livered insecurity. Using a child for
self-indulgence, or taking advantage of anyone
with naïve, under-developed, or angst-related
insecurities, is the worst kind of sickness. But
that’s the reality for millions of victims of abuse,
who have to wake up and face that reality
every day, even if they spend the rest of their
time trying to escape it, or they’re surrounded
by family that want to deny it. They may not feel
heroic and some (particularly those trafficked,
or pressured into prostitution) may feel it is the
only way open for them to provide for their
immediate and future family.
"When it comes to incest, it isn’t always as
clear cut as abuser and abused. A line has to
be drawn, though, and the line must be clear
and inflexible, or how can anyone know where
they stand? The line should be natural. The line
should be drawn in blood. It’s because of the
inalienable rights we attach to blood. It’s to do
with a sense of belonging that doesn’t
necessarily grow from thinking. Blood doesn’t
think, it just is.
"Can you call incest love? It’s easy to dismiss it
and remove ourselves from the topic by our
natural repulsion, or beliefs.That’s not always a
bad thing. And who could make a case for the
selfish breaking of the trust of a child as
something loving? I can’t. So, for most people it
might be easy to make the distinction. But
where does that leave our millions of little
freaks, who’ve been eyed up, touched up, or
been involved sexually with a family member?"
____________________________________
(click below to continue; 27th to last bite)
13th bite : can biscuits really do this? - the margin / mind power / 6 types suicide / life v death
14th bite : what would I know? - educated guess / diminished responsibility / who knows?
15th bite : jaffa cake - compulsions / patronising attitudes / battling isolated self
16th bite : no man's land - war heroes / torture trauma / ...everyone else right?
17th bite : grand delusion - the paedophile grenade / incest / broken trust / rejection
18th bite : fucked - transference - emotion, pain, sex, paranoia, inner beast
19th bite : do unto mothers - psychotic target / mixed blessings / hate / forgive?
20th bite : death us did part - marriage values / dignity destroyed / breakdown / loss
21st bite : y-jibberney motch ibbannay - catatonia / abandoned self
22nd bite : ...It's a hit - poverty trap / overbearing stress / suicide the easy way out?
23rd bite : jam tartarus - beyond hell / madness / supernatural or psychological?
24th bite : there's violence & violins - victimisation / tolerant - intolerant / confrontation
25th bite : the permissive sociopathy - sexual compulsion-orientation-loneliness-confidence
26th bite : blood is thicker - family delusion / belonging / consequences of rejection
27th bite : love shit - is love good or shit? / have to love yourself to be loved?
28th bite : evol si dog - depression and condemnation / biblical conflict hopeless?
29th bite : post-mortem (the third man) - psychotherapy records, make your own mind up
30th bite : take the biscuit - biscuit power / expert patients, voluntary work / betrayal
last bite : the... - the inexplicable / 4th biscuit
