West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum
22 Jan 2012 8 Comments
Yesterday afternoon, we took a drive to Bolton Abbey, realising when we got there we didn’t have any money to pay. We drove to Ilkley and stopped off on a walk to the Cow and Calf rock; it was so windy it nearly took Luke away! Charlie whined and Elizabeth lost her hat. We all laughed, it was hilarious, all of us staggering about holding onto our hoods. Then the cold rain, shot with hailstone, hit us with a vengeance and we rushed back to the car. Our faces were red and Luke hardly had any breath left. I suggested to drive to Menston, because I hadn’t been there for some time, in fact, for fifteen years.
When I was fourteen I went to Highroyd’s Psychiatric hospital as an inpatient on their adolescent unit called Linton House. You may know of it as West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. I went online and discovered this: http://www.highroydshospital.com/insight/linton-house-adolescent-unit/
These pictures really reminded me, everything is so much bigger in my memory than those thin corridors. And it seems even sadder, as the place in the pictures, is so dilapidated and empty yet full of echoes of its troubled past. I remember the view of the girls’ dormitory well, I remember where I slept and how it felt not to be at home. I remember the view over the main hospital, great dark gothic buildings that struck fear in my heart, because nobody could possibly imagine the agony of the people within its walls. The shabby NHS sheets and curtains. I remember the wind whipping around the dormitory in the night and keeping me awake. I remember the crying and the screaming. I remember the blood and the scars. I remember Dr. Manny. I remember the two way mirror and the medical room where I went to get cleaned up after I cut my arms. I can even remember the way things smelled. I remember Debbie, Nikki, the two Sarahs, (Angie Jumanji). I remember suicide attempts and slashed wrists. This place, it was terrifying- the lengths we would go and the pain we were going through. We were just kids. I saw things there, experienced pain, that has virtually matched anything I have seen or experienced as an adult.
I sometimes, return there in my poems. It was a fascinating place. Self contained, its own little village. It got under my skin. Today I wanted to go there and say yes, I was here, it was real, it actually happened and everything you feel about it now is valid. When we arrived we found, to my amazement, it has been rebuilt or re-imagined (bizarrely, they have retained the clock tower and decorative roofs) into a residential park called ‘Royds Park.’ Children play happily in its grounds. I can’t imagine who would want to live there, with the permanent memory of the weight of unbearable human suffering. I think they should have let it stand, as a mark of respect for all those thousands of people who graced the doors and four walls (many who died there!) of the hospital through the ages. The forgotten. Nobody will ever know what things went on inside in the asylum. We know enough. We can imagine enough. But, people don’t want to remember. They need to demolish it, to be able to forget. They need to forget padded cells, confinement and ECT that went wrong, Insulin Shock Therapy, and psycho-surgery. They need to forget these things happened and that it was allowed for so many years.
I remember how I came to rely on the place. I needed it. I needed to be able to express myself, and there, at times, I could. I cut off all my hair. I painted and drew. I sang in front of people. I was not just withdrawn, not just crying, shut off, angry and desperately sad and alone. When I look back, I am sad, to think of the other ‘YP’s’. When I remember I feel so much pain and sadness. Children should never feel that way.
It was as though we had all been severed from reality, the real world held nothing for us, nothing but people treading on dreams. Nothing but that sharp, cold feeling of mortality and the razor edge of madness. It was the start of what was to be over a decade of hospital admissions for me, of feeling not there, of being dissociated and alienated and lost. It’s hard to come back to this; my memories seem so distant now, they’re barely memories at all.
I would love to know how the other girls went on in life. I don’t think I’ll ever know. I don’t think I could bear to hear bad news. Those girls are forever to me, forever in my heart and mind. In spirit, forever, free, wild, young.
It seems I’ve been tamed. I’ve been medicated. I’ve been sobered and now I have some control and it’s difficult to look back because it’s as though, I was a dozen different people, making dozens of different mistakes. I think of how young, naive and poorly I was and how nothing could have helped me. These days I barely get out, not with other people, I don’t see much of anyone, and I like it that way. I like to be in charge of my life and my moods, though I do feel as though the drugs control me, that they keep me down, but that if it weren’t for all the drugs I would be dead now, for sure. I gave it one more week, I was prepared to live one more week to see if the injections would work and I never thought they would. That one week was crucial. I am so glad I gave myself that last chance. I have survived. Many people did not.
http://www.highroydshospital.com/insight/the-mortuary/ This is the grim reality of mental illness. I have decided that people are so repulsed by mental illness because they recognise that if it ever happened to them, they would lose control, lose friends and family, lose dignity, become disempowered, misunderstood, broken. The thought of being locked up somewhere because you’ve lost your mind is a nightmare. It’s a very real nightmare for a lot of people. This is all about fear. Stigma is about fear, the absence of empathy or understanding and fear is contagious. It brings us closer to death. People don’t want to be confronted with the reality of it, that we’re not a nation of perfect, balanced, happy minds. Is the stigma lessening? I’m not sure. There’s literature out there, TV adverts, posters in waiting rooms. We’re obviously trying.
I recently went to an interview for a voluntary job working with people with, amongst other things, mental health problems. When pressed, I disclosed that I have a mental health problem and had been stable for a couple of years. The interviewer scoffed, there was ‘no way’ he would let me work with anyone with mental health problems ‘because I might know one of them.’ Because, we’re all best friends. I know all the mentally ill people because we’re a great big gang out to infect everyone with crazy. He was so rude to me, and I thought, this is a man who is supposed to be empowering people with mental illnesses. It took me a while to recover from that incident, I really felt torn up.
Maybe this sensitivity is a blessing not a curse, but as I grow and develop as a writer, I become even more introspective, even more isolated. In the asylum, we were in it together. Often I can’t relate to people anymore. I don’t think there is a happy ending to this blog, I’m not going to succumb to the pressure of a happy ending. I think that above everything else, people are afraid to feel bad and admit it. It’s a tough thing to do in a society, where we are always looking for the antidote to despair in consumerism and in ‘being positive’ about everything. We are weak or self-pitying, if we feel anything other than in control, buoyant, accepting, ‘happy’…some people can’t handle another person’s feelings but then some people can’t handle their own feelings. It’s about being real. It’s about being honest. Next time someone asks you how you are, don’t lie.
Somebody committed suicide down the road from here by the cemetery a couple of weeks ago. There was half a dozen police cars on the scene that morning, people had found him and were obviously distressed. It didn’t make the papers that day or the next. He was the dad of one of the children in my daughter’s school. There seems to have been a number of high profile suicide attempts and of course, Gary Speed’s untimely death, over the past year. I can’t help but feel that this is a price we pay, as a society that hides it away. I’m not saying we should all adopt the Jeremy Kyle soap opera confessional as cure, but we have to go some of the way to addressing our desensitization. I know that at times people will and have thought of me as someone self-pitying or weak. And I tend not to do any more than be honest. All those times I have felt I should lie when someone says are you ok? I try not to do that any more, for sanity’s sake.
A Few Of My Favourite Things…
21 Dec 2011 3 Comments
Here are some of my favourite things from 2011. Not all of them are products of this past year but they are things I have enjoyed this year. I would like to say happy Christmas to all my readers and people who have taken the time to comment on my blog. I will post more in the New Year. I’ve been neglecting my blog for a while but I’m eager to write more after the festivities. Much love to all x
Favourite Poetry Collection : Abegail Morley – Snow Child
Favourite Poet : Priscilla Uppal
Favourite Poem : Domestic Mysticism – Lucie Brock-Broido
Favourite Novel : The Canal – Lee Rourke
Favourite Fictional Character : Smilla Jasperson from Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow
Favourite Book Cover : Emily Critchley – Love/ All That/ & OK
Favourite Literary Magazine : Tears In The Fence
Favourite Play : Kalagora – Siddharta Bose
Favourite Blog : forgettingthetime.blogspot.com
Favourite Album : C’mon – Low
Favourite Song : Juniper – Y La Bamba
Favourite Film : Talk To Her
Favourite TV : This Is England ’88
Favourite Place : Barafundle Bay
Favourite Moment : Watching Steven skydive
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Interview with artist Alexandra Gallagher
18 Sep 2011 1 Comment
in Alexandra Gallagher Artist, Interview
What made you want to become an artist?
I don’t think there was anything that made me want to become an artist; it’s just what I’ve always done. I have to create. I’m quite hard to live with when I don’t do something creative, it’s part of who I am. I know that sounds like a cliché, but it’s true. As long as I can remember, I looked at what was around me and asked questions. I think that’s the biggest thing about being an artist – or anyone creative. You look at the world in a slightly different way. Like you’re on the outside, looking in. You look for the deeper meaning in everything and you look at everything in an abstract way. I think it is a common mistake that, being an artist is just painting or drawing pretty pictures. It’s not. It’s a way of thinking. It’s a way of doing and it’s the way you live your life. That doesn’t mean to say you talk in a pretentious way and carry a sketch book at all times – just so people know you’re an artist. I hate that side of the art world. Art should be for everyone, not just the people that look good and have money. Art was the beginning of communication. It is the most basic thing to all of us and it should be kept that way.
You recently exhibited at the Brick Lane Gallery, London as part of the popular Art in Mind programme.
How was that for you?
It was an amazing experience. I learnt so much. The main thing was meeting other artists, realising how they work and what they thought. I have kept in touch with some. I love viewing their new work. I think I took more from London, itself. I love visiting different places and observing how other people live.
What medium do you most like to use? You seem at home with traditional oil paint but, I’ve noticed you are concentrating more on digital art and images? Are you starting to prefer one over the other?
I love using digital media to create art and often use it to sketch out ideas before I paint. I’ve found it to be a really useful tool and it’s something I’ve grown into. I’m always amazed when I find a new way of working. I tend to become completely engrossed in it. I’m quite a geek really.
Working with digital media, is a lot quicker than, first sketching by hand and then rendering an image with paint, but I think painting with oils
will always be my passion. I’ve experimented with many other mediums, but I find oil paint more vibrant and easier to manipulate. I know there will be countless other artists in shock that I use digital – how dare I! But, artists have been using camera obscuras, dead bodies and whatever else they could get their hands on for a very long time.
What do you love to paint?
I love to paint people with character. They have a story to tell. You can tell a person who has lived. Their eyes sparkle. I know it’s a strange thing to say, but you can understand a lot about a person by their eyes. Some people possess old eyes, trapped in a young person’s body. Admittedly, I’m more drawn to the eccentric, in life as well as painting.
Which portrait is the defining image of your career so far?
I would have to say the Ally painting. This painting was a turning point for me in the way I work. It was a piece I did for a close friend and it was the first time I created a portrait directly from an original image. As a portrait artist that mostly works from photographs, I’m often given images that people think would make good portraits, like school photographs or a photo taken on a mobile phone. What makes a good photo very rarely makes a good painting. I prefer candid shots of people. A photograph where someone is unaware of the camera can reveal their character much more than one that is staged. They can be harder to paint, but the end results are so much better.
The portrait of Ally, which appeared recently in Artists and Illustrators magazine, looked lovingly crafted, absolutely beautiful; how many hours did you spend on it?
Wow, I couldn’t really say now, it was painted a while ago. Usually, if I have a few good quality photos to work from, then it can take about a week or two. If a photo is in poor condition, then admittedly, I struggle and the process can take a little longer. Sometimes, it doesn’t work at all, so I’ve had to let go of paintings that I’m really not happy with. These plague me. I feel the need to ring the client up and ask to do it again.
Which artists do you draw most inspiration from?
My greatest influences, growing up, were the Pre-Raphaelites and Impressionists. My dad is a painter and he taught me to draw, how to blend paint and to be aware of light and texture. Through my college days I would have to say Alberto Giacometti, simply for the looseness in his sketches. I love paintings that illustrate movement.
Currently, I enjoy the work of Catherine Brooks and Michael Hlousek-Nagle as well as countless unknown artists who post their work on the internet. There is some amazing stuff that blows my mind and at the same time makes me feel very intimidated.
If you had to have dinner with four other artists (writers, musicians, etc.) from past or present who would they be and why?
Hmm, that is a tricky one. So many! I think Tracey Emin would have to be one because I think she would make great conversation, along with maybe Fank Zappa. I would invite William Blake because I love the way he views the world and Leonardo da Vinci because I would love to know what makes him tick.
What does being an artist mean to you?
I’m not really sure. I still struggle with calling myself an artist. I think I’m constantly learning when it comes to creating art, so I never feel
I am at a point where I could call myself an artist, even though it’s what I do. I think being an artist, means freedom.
What are you working on at the moment?
Currently, I am employing more digital techniques in my art. I want to expand on working with this type of media. I love taking photographs, manipulating them and adding things to create a narrative. I want to expand on using digital means and layering it with paint and other media. I find this adds extra depth to my images. I’m always experimenting, trying to push myself and my work further.
Alexandra Gallagher was born in 1980 in Bury, Lancashire and has been working as an artist for over five years, selling internationally, mainly producing portraits, abstract and design work. She is available for commissioned portraits and can be contacted through her website AG Portraits.
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Is Mental Illness Ever A Gift?
20 Jul 2011 17 Comments
in Bipolar Affective Disorder, Medication, Mental Health, Mental Health Awareness, Psychiatrist, Writing
4OD are showing a series of five minute films this week
posing the question Is mental illness ever a gift?, and it has prompted me to
answer the question for myself.
I’ve been asked this question before, very recently, by
someone who doesn’t have bipolar and said they found it hard to imagine what
bipolar is like. I think it is almost impossible for a person to imagine what
bipolar is like by explanation; I always feel like words are simply not enough,
you can run through the symptoms verbally but it doesn’t mean anything and if
you have never been slightly depressed or slightly high you could never imagine
how much worse being a manic depressive is.
So. I am a writer. I write virtually every day and have done
for the majority of my life. I’ve accumulated a lot of garbage and got rid of
most of it. I am happy with a percentage of my work, mainly my book A Body Made
of You which I wrote while experiencing a debilitating and life-threatening mixed
bipolar episode. Sometimes I try to pretend to myself that I was fine when I
wrote the book, that I just didn’t sleep because I didn’t need any sleep, and I
went into hospital because I was exhausted, not ill. But the reality is I was
off the scale and while most of the time this made it impossible to concentrate
enough to write, there were flashes of divine inspiration which I can read in
my words. Sometimes I feel that I
would do anything to have that back again, so I could write with that same
spark, but in reality without the medication that grounds me and keeps me
stable I might not even be alive never mind able to write good poems.
I am very proud of my book. I am proud that I have survived
and have written a book. I am proud of writing it under the conditions that I
did and it not just be a jumble and a mess, and I feel that it is the best
thing I have achieved.
But if you were to ask me if it was all worth it, for my
little first collection, I would have to firmly say no. And this is why:
When Dr. Prince at the child and adolescent psychiatric
outpatients unit told me I have bipolar I don’t remember at any point
understanding what he was saying. It meant nothing to me. I had been seeing
psychiatrists for a couple of years, hospital stays and being out of school
attending a child and family psychiatric unit. I was suffering, but I didn’t
know what it was. I thought it was all my fault, I thought I was being punished
for something or that I just wasn’t normal like everyone around me seemed to
be. Dr. Prince told me a few things. He told me that if I used class A drugs it
would take 48 hours for me to become addicted to them. He told me that I should
always swot up on science and maths lessons and be one step ahead of the
teacher and that I should become a doctor because it was the best profession
there is. He told me to always give a firm handshake. What he didn’t tell me
was that I’d end up pregnant at sixteen and in and out of hospitals until I was
28, losing people around me like flies and barely managing to stay alive
through it.
He didn’t tell me that I would get myself into situations
out of my control.
He didn’t tell me that I would have ideas that I simply
couldn’t realistically follow through.
He didn’t tell me that suicide attempts would do nothing but
hurt the people that love me.
He didn’t tell me that making it this far meant that I had a
far stronger survival instinct than I had imagined.
He didn’t tell me I’d waste a few of years of my life inside
institutions.
I have a weak handshake, I’m not addicted to class A drugs
and I’m crap at maths, so nothing he told me really was of any use to me at
all.
How can I say how bad it really is/was/might be? How can I
even say. I remember being drugged up to the eyeballs on a women’s ward for
weeks just sat shaking in the lounge room my thoughts and hallucinations just
humming around my head constantly, painfully, and me occasionally getting up to
smoke, and to cry and heave with agony in my room, and to take my pills. And one
day I just had a lucid moment, and I stood up, and it was raining outside and I
felt like someone punctured a hole in my heart and the bleeding wouldn’t stop.
I am struggling to find examples of the worst times because
mostly they’re too horrible for words and you really wouldn’t want to read
about them.
I’ve seen people devastated by mental illness. It’s more
pain than a person can imagine. I understand that for some people, the
creativity and the ideas and the passion and the motivation and the
intelligence and the daring can mean the world to them. I know that there are a
lot of people who wouldn’t come back without their illness.
But I would give anything not to have these regrets, these
memories, these scars. I regret my youth, I don’t have many good memories about
my past, moodswings were so profound in me that I struggled to cope with
everyday living. I feel like I have literally dragged myself through my life to
be here, where I can say that I am no longer manic, and I am no longer
depressed. I miss that tiny window of opportunity when I was high but not over
the edge and I could write, and boy could I write. Every week I wonder what it
will be like if I don’t go for my injection. I imagine myself full of life and
wit and inspiration and writing a new book. But in reality I would be
hallucinating, sleep deprived and suicidal.
So they can take my mental illness and shove it up their
arses, just for the record.
I know people who would argue that for the highs alone it’s
worth all the misery and the depression. But I don’t buy it. Even when euphoric
I wouldn’t give anything for a life of euphoria and elation. The highs damage people, if
not yourself then the people around you. You can’t function like that, you
become out of step with the world. I suppose with me the highs used to come on
so fast and when mania hit it wouldn’t be long before I spilled over the edge,
and my symptoms became mixed, which is worse than mania or depression because
the world can’t keep up with you but you’re in agony, not happy, not productive
just wild and suicidal.
If only we could take the parts that we like and if only our
medication would only medicate to a point and still allow for glimpses of
brilliance. But life’s not like that. Now I have to suck it up and take the
medication so that I can give me and my children a calm, structured and
wonderful life. I never want to be ill again. My triggers are stress and sleep
deprivation, so I take sleeping pills every night and I build my world around
the strong foundations of my family and dig my heels in. I’m a lucky girl, and
a stubborn one and I would not go down without a fight. But that’s what it has
been; a fight. I’ve won for now.
I used to say, I just want to be left alone, be ill and just
have people accept that that’s who I am, but you’re not allowed to be crazy,
even if you’re not hurting anyone. I was young, and I didn’t realise how much I
had hurt people. I often stopped my medication and I often became too depressed
to do anything at all. I thought that I was myself, that there was nothing
wrong with me it was all them. That
it was unreasonable for people to want to medicate me. I felt like this for
years and the price I’ve paid for it has been severe.
I know people and have seen people with their lives
completely ruined. So many people. I would hate to think that a message should
go out to people that people with mental illness have somehow more creativity
and amazing experiences and would want
not to change. To celebrate madness as though it were desirable, exotic in some
way. Because I believe that only a minority of cases would want to celebrate it.
Maybe I am wrong, I would love to know what other people think; not just about
bipolar. I’ve had this whirlwind life, full of drama and pain, and I wouldn’t
wish it on anybody. If I had to do it again without the illness I feel I would
have achieved more. Now there’s a deep dark well inside, which I’ve climbed,
and it has taken me years. But it’s still there, and I know if I slip I’ll fall
back in. All those years I’ve been fighting I could have done so much more. To
even imagine that at some point in the future I might have to go through it all
again is unbearable to me. It’s horrifying.
I don’t think it’s a part of who I am, it’s a separate
entity, a ghost, a shadow, it tags along sometimes, it trips me up. Who I am
remains more or less intact when you take it away. I’m sensitive, I care about
people, I love, I have compassion and empathy, I can express myself through
writing…I’ll celebrate that instead. I’m not a genius, or a high-flier or a
great success in life, but I’m here. Part of me still plays devil’s advocate: maybe
it has made me stronger, maybe it has made me more mature, more empathic, maybe
it’s given me the ability to write at all. When I look in the mirror I see how
the stress has aged me. I feel how the stress has aged me. What I wouldn’t give
to be young again without moodswings, able to enjoy my life. I’m an intelligent
person, I could have done a lot more with myself. It makes me sad.
I’d love to hear your story,
Thanks for stopping by x
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What’s Hot What’s Not July 2011
11 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
Going Up
Carson McCullers
Carol at the clinic
Lukewarm beverages
Krzysztof Kieslowski films
Discovering Lucie Brock-Broido
Being Birthday Girl
Hospital dramas
football and flowerpicking
pedro almodover films
running races on the field track
skipping down the street
re-reading favourite novels
CD albums
anna calvi
C’Mon
old book shops
best friends
reminiscing albums
hardbacks
Writer Interviews
riverside walks hand in hand
new swirly dresses
Albert Camus
R.D Laing
homemade birthday cake
making wishes
new shades
spoiling children
big school
La Locanda in Gisburn
Nanna
playing Luke’s World
pina colada
not sleepy after a glass of wine
family visits
frisbee
lemon pepper marinated salmon
my hero
Going Down
Being 28
forgetting names
arthritic handwriting
phone hacking
floods of tears
scissors paper stone
fighting angst with angst
hormones
bad hair days
sleigh bells
itunes
dog walking strangers conversations
Keano Reeves
Hollywood movies
ironing piles
putting together new toys
cooking meat
general stroppiness
being too honest
backache
early nights
tellings off
meeting old teachers
being caught in the rain in sandals
no good exhibitions
batteries
going out without me
sudden memories of Hard Times
not knowing what to say
moth infestations
bad dreams that the house is on fire
chickenpox
hair appointments
eggs
the smell of bug spray
microwaves exploding soup
math
On ‘Choosing to Die’
21 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
After watching the documentary ‘Choosing to Die’ and the Newsnight
debate about Assisted Suicide, I was left with very mixed feelings. I have
always believed that if someone is suffering unbearably and they are going to
die, they should be allowed help to die. I always remember hearing a story
about a woman with a brain tumour, whose doctor told her to have someone take
her outside in the cold with wet hair and walk around all day because catching
pneumonia would be a far better way to go. Doctors are helpless, patients and
relatives are helpless. I know a great many people with terminal illness would
not consider AS, and a great many who would seek AS wouldn’t be able to do so.
On the Dignitas website they point out considerably that they will only go with
a green light if they are sure other avenues have been considered, such as
better pain relief. It also interests me that a percentage of people who get a
green light never go to the clinic at all. They say it is a comfort merely to
know AS is possible.
I don’t like the term Assisted Dying. It almost romanticises
the act – no, it is suicide. There is no getting around that. I felt that we
were witnessing people who could live but chose not to. And chose not to early.
I felt for them, Peter and Andrew, and I felt relieved for them. And I did
believe that they should have the right. But what bothers me is that they are
not just taking matters in their own hands but soliciting the help of other
people to die, so that their death is also the responsibility of others. I’m
not sure I could feel as though my conscience would allow me to die with the
aid of another human being. I can imagine that even if you thoroughly believe
in your convictions, if you see people go to die regularly, or you give them
the green light to die it must weigh heavy on your mind.
One thing I can’t understand is that at Dignitas, your
mental state is assessed and you are asked whether you are or have been
depressed. Obviously people who want to die say no, but realistically, how can
you want to die and not be depressed on some scale. Who is being turned away?
Who is being accepted? Who can choose, you can go, but you can’t? It seems
ridiculous, when I take a step back and look at it, that some people are
allowed to die with the aid of another and yet others are being denied. What if
the person is going to commit suicide anyway? There are something like 4,000 -5,000
suicides per year in this country and something like 150 British people have gone
to Dignitas in the last nine years. 5,000 people wanting to die and taking
matters into their own hands. I’m sure all of them would have preferred a quiet
sending off at Dignitas. On the website there is a case history of a nineteen
year old boy who tried to commit suicide by jumping from a multi storey
building and did not die but was paralysed. Now he would not be able to take
his own life, and there is the problem of his mental state, which must have
been severe to have tried to commit suicide in the first place. I do not know
if he was allowed to die. I don’t envy the doctor who has to make that
decision.
What about people with severe enduring mental illness, non
responsive to medication for years on end and no hope for the future? Should
they be allowed to die? They would never be allowed to die. Yet people with a
‘weariness of life’ are allowed to die at Dignitas. Recently, a press article
of a woman with arthritis who did not want gradual decline with old age went to
Dignitas for their help. It seems that there need be better guidelines, but how
do you assert rules onto something like this? I think that first and foremost a
law needs to be introduced which allows AS for the terminally ill in this
country, in their own homes. The majority of people would not need to go
through with this should palliative care be keeping on top of pain.
Choosing to die is complex. The deep sadness with
Alzheimer’s is when the illness is fully manifested you would not be eligible
for Assisted Suicide, as you are not considered mentally capable of making such
a decision. Terry Pratchett would have to die early, if he so wished. Everyone
is afraid of death, and if you anticipate dying in an undignified way, a
painful way, for you and your loved ones, Dignitas offers complete relief from
this. You must have to be brave to go through with it but if you feel you have
no other choice, or that this is your best option, then it must a comfort in
all the difficulty and the illness and despair to know you can go there and go
in your sleep. Who am I to say that is wrong or right? I know what I would want
for myself, should I ever be in a helpless position where death was the best
option.
I don’t think that people who do not wish to grow old or
live with arthritis should be enlisting the help of another human being to
commit suicide. It seems to me, unreasonable. If you are going to ask someone
to help you die, you need to be damn sure you are comfortable with the thought
of someone else’s conscience bearing the weight of your untimely death.
Lots and lots of unanswered questions, but I still believe
Assisted Suicide needs to be looked into
in this country, even though it is for a small minority. If we strive to cure
pain and save lives then equally we should do everything in our power to help
the passage through to death be peaceful and less traumatic for everyone
involved.
I believe it is too difficult to really have an opinion
without being in that situation. I’m sure there are people who have died too
soon at Dignitas, or who have died and could have lived. But I am not against
what they do. I think that Peter and Andrew knew their own mind and wanted out,
and Peter was very brave. The Bishop on Newsnight thought that there was an air
of coercion and a moment of hesitation. I didn’t see that on the film; he was
helped through his decision. He was comforted. I couldn’t help but be
sympathetic to his plight, even though part of me knows he didn’t have to go.
We are all afraid of death. Like Esther Rantzen says, it is
possible to have a good death. There is such a thing. In some circumstances, AS
is nothing but humane. I don’t think, if anything changes, that we’d be looking
at a clinic like Dignitas in Britain, but I hope that at the very least a law
is brought in to help the very, very ill and the dying. The argument is wide
open, and I can appreciate what is being said on all sides of the fence but I
know I couldn’t watch someone I love die horribly in pain if there was the
option of holding them while they fell asleep.
Interview With Michael Egan
31 May 2011 1 Comment
in Interview, Michael Egan, Penned in The Margins, Poetry, Writer
I have invited fellow poet, Michael Egan to my site, to answer a few questions about his inspirations, his approach to writing & his poetry which is highly vivid, with a flare for the grotesque and finds its own place somewhere between the everyday and the absurd.
I wanted to know about his impressive debut Steak & Stations, and about his newer projects, one rather romantically involving handwritten poems….
Michael, your first full poetry collection, Steak & Stations was released in January this year, how would you describe the book?
The best way I can think of describing Steak & Stations, is that it’s a mix of The Movement’s idea of every day anecdotes coupled with a loose modernist structure. The book varies from personal narratives, distorted and written to be read at a fast pace, and more loose poems that work with interconnecting ideas, but are based in an Imagist idea of relaying the seen, of almost sifting the seen and experienced into words.
I don’t write about the big ideas or have any need to express my personal views in poetry. I like the idea of playing with language and syntax to relay images and moments.
Typically, what are your poems about? Are there any themes that you come back to?
I think, looking back at Steak & Stations there is a sense of place that I was almost unaware of when I was writing the poems. The first section and the Motivist section, deal with Liverpool and the North West, but it’s strange because I’ve always gone away from that and yet here is my first book, full of poems about place.
You’re a prolific writer, what other projects have you been working on…
I was prolific. I’ve slowed down recently in poetry terms because I’ve been working on a novel. I’ve written a grand total of two poems in the last month and I need to start writing again. I’m working on an anthology of Motivism though. I’ve invited poets I really like to write in the form and I’ve just started putting together the manuscript. There are poets as varied as Ross Sutherland, Robert Sheppard and Jon Stone involved.
I’ve also been, slowly, putting together my first issue of Envelope. Envelope is a reaction to being skint but wanting to do a magazine. It’s six poems by six poets, handwritten on the inside of an Envelope.
I’ve also recently finished a libretto for the arts agency Mercy. It’s based on the legend of Spring Heeled Jack and it’s kind of a loose, prose-poetry style play for voices. It feels good but, I’m not sure how people will take it as I’ve not done anything similar before.
As well as all that, I’ve just decided to set up my own publishing house, Holdfire Press, and I’m hoping to publish pamphlets by the best young/new UK poets.
And of course my novel is being continuously rejected by agents and publishers.
How often do you write?
My writing varies, but it’s a constant thing. If I’m writing poetry I’ll usually write more when I’m out, on a bus or train, then spend a couple of hours in the evening working on those poems.
I take a more ordered approach to fiction whereby I plot and plot and plot and write notes and write more notes then spend months writing the drafts. Something like the libretto was more organic. I sat down and just wrote for hours. I think my approach to writing is hectic but constant.
I probably write something every day.
Who are your favourite poets?
There are certain poets I come back to; Tom Raworth, Christopher Middleton, Roy Fisher, Ezra Pound, WH Auden, Ted Hughes. The poet I read the most is probably Pound.
What inspires you most?
I think reading inspires me most. I’ll read for a few hours and then I’ll want to write. People-watching and listening inspires too. I’ve far too many poems written on the back of beer mats.
Any tips for upcoming poets?
I think the best tip is to just write and read. I remember early on in my poetry, thinking I knew my style, but that style has changed because of what I’ve been reading and my exposure to the whole world of poetry; readings, new poets, blogs, magazines, etc. Also, send work out. I’ve met too many poets who never send their poems out. It can really encourage your writing to have just one poem in a magazine.
Finally, if you could arrange an evening with four guests, poets and writers past and present, who would you choose?
Hmmm. I wouldn’t pick Ezra Pound because he might try and convert me to Fascism. I think I’d choose writers that I’ve always read and thinking
now, none of them would be poets (unless I suffer Pound).
They’d be; Kingsley Amis (because of Lucky Jim), Ernest Hemingway (my favourite book is Fiesta), Michael Moorcock (I ‘ve probably read his Hawkmoon books more than any other book) and Raymond Carver (I have tried too many times to write a Carver-esque short story).
Is there anything you would like to add…
I’d like to invite any of your blog readers to submit to Holdfire. Pamphlets, 32 pages max, to holdfirepress@yahoo.co.uk. I have my first 10 poets
but I’m aiming for 30 pamphlets in the first year.
Michael Egan is from Liverpool. He has had 4 pamphlets published, most recently After Stikklestad by the Knives Forks and Spoons Press.
His first full length collection, Steak & Stations is published by Penned in the Margins.
He is the editor of Envelope and founder of Holdfire Press, an exciting new platform for upcoming experimental poets.
On Suicide
25 May 2011 9 Comments
For the majority of my life, every day I have lived with thoughts of suicide.
This isn’t something you can bring up in conversation. This isn’t something everyone can understand. It’s not something people know how to or want to talk about. There are many millions of people out there stuck with this burden and some of them won’t make it. All of them can be reached if they’re just allowed, encouraged, to talk.
I wanted to write about this because it has been a huge part of my existence, it has been something I have fought lifelong to not give into.
For me, the thoughts really kicked in when I was about eleven, though I remember thinking about ‘not being there’ younger than that.
I have been plagued and tormented by suicidal ideation ever since, which has in my twenty-eighth year almost completely petered out with the help of some particularly strong medication.
I always wanted to live, don’t let’s misunderstand that. I wanted to enjoy my life. I felt I had a lot to give, but these tendencies were so strong in me that they took hold. Also, it’s not a case of ‘wallowing’ in misery or being a miserable person or wanting attention or being selfish or self pitying or any of the nasty, nasty things people can say. This happened to me as a result of mental illness, and could not be helped by medication alone for years. I have had to work hard to recover from that dark place, but I now have the strength to do so.
I think it’s also important to add that although my experience has been due to mental illness, people can become actively suicidal for many other reasons including chronic pain, terminal and non terminal chronic illness (I knew a woman who tried to commit suicide because she had chronic tinnitus and couldn’t sleep), bereavement, trauma and abuse, relationship breakdowns, drug and alcohol addiction etc. Feelings of hopelessness and having ‘no future,’ financial crisis, unemployment are all factors that can contribute to a suicidal person’s state of mind.
Talking saved my life, and it can save someone else’s. It’s loneliness and ignorance that makes the unbearable fatal.
There are different shades to suicidal ideation:
- The casually thinking of death; fleeting thoughts,etc.
- Then there’s the beginning to think about how and where.
- and then there’s The Plan.
Once a person gets to this point people around them need to know.
If a person is so depressed they can barely get dressed or get out of bed then it is far less likely they will act upon the plan.
If a person is capable and still has the energy to go ahead, then at this point there needs to be someone who can gauge the situation and contact services.
If a person is ‘making threats’ then that person needs to be listened to, not reasoned with. They will need non-judgemental care. If a person is being impulsive and has made any attempt at self harm or has expressed a wish to commit suicide, that person needs to be with someone while they get through the worst of it. If there are things you need to do and they can wait, then let them wait. Being there for someone in their darkest days might save their life.
When I was a teenager I was encouraged to write a Survival List. It is useful to put down on paper all the things that might prevent you from self-harm and suicide attempts. Start with small things that you might be able to do for the next few hours as distraction, and add phone numbers of friends, family, GP, Samaritans and your social worker or carer or nurse, if you have one. Keep hold of this list, write down on it things you can remind yourself when you are in despair, add photographs, and look at it every time you feel as though the situation is hopeless.
If a person is very suicidal they will not just think that their life is not worth living, they will believe it. They won’t just think or imagine that they are worthless, it will be the very definition of them. You can’t change a person’s mind just like that, but you can coach them through by keeping communication wide open. You want the person to be able to divulge even The Plan to you in confidence. Once that is out in the open, it is a good deal harder for the person to follow it through. Someone expressing thoughts of suicide in this way is actually doing a bloody good job of taking care of themselves, by engaging. Someone who is very suicidal will do well just to get through a morning, an afternoon, a day. A good day will be having survived.
When I was in a state of mixed mania, that was when it was at its worst for me. Mixed mania is like being ‘high’ with racing thoughts, excessive energy, physical agitation, wanting to talk and talk, but having with it negative thoughts. Pessimism, rage, anger and psychosis: voices, hallucinations and paranoia can also manifest. Someone in this state needs to have someone on hand night and day. I survived because of the hospitals and then my husband. In this state I have made very serious suicide attempts in the past and I am haunted by them.
Sometimes people find it hard to believe someone could go through with it or think the person is after ‘attention,’ and not really serious. Making a bad call on this might cost a life, so take it seriously and contact a GP for Crisis Team services or a referral. Sometimes people threaten suicide to emotionally blackmail other people. That in itself is an entirely different thing and I would suggest that if someone is doing that to you, then contact the police.
If you are a carer for a person with actively suicidal thoughts then being in touch with mental health services also gives you a chance to access support and counselling. It’s important that you talk to somebody too, you need support to help this person as it is extremely harrowing for you too.
If you are someone who is currently experiencing recurrent thoughts of suicide I would like to say, first and foremost, if there is anyone in the world who loves you, you must not go through with it. If there is but one person, bereavement by suicide is a burden too great to bear. There is no getting over it. Nobody will be better off without you. You will have told yourself that they will. They will have nightmares, they will blame themselves, they will not be able to come to terms with why you did it. They will suffer for life. If you are going to commit suicide in public or outside people will see you and that will traumatise someone for the rest of their life. If you are going to do it at home someone will find you, and in what condition. If you make an attempt and it goes wrong, you could end up with brain damage, disfigurement, a disability, on life support. That happens. You may die painfully. You will die alone.
Those are the facts, there’s no getting around them. If you are going through this you need to remember and keep in your mind that situations and moods change constantly.
We are charging through our lives at such velocity, and for most people, what is unbearable now will be bearable again at some point.
We all have a future, there is always endless scope for change.
You won’ t be in this same position in a year or two years from now.
You will find yourself in good situations and bad, but you will be alive.
You are a long time dead. The people that love you will have to piece everything together in your wake. They will mourn, they will be tempted to follow you. If you feel you have no-one in the world, then understand you are not on your own. So many people today, tonight will be in a similar position.
If you are in desperation right now, you need to take yourself to your nearest A & E department, where there will be someone you can talk to. I have had to do this in the past. The staff at A & E were kind and were more than happy to talk, to get the doctor up and to sort out the mess I was in, even though it took all night.
If you don’t feel safe, then do see someone, ring someone, talk, ask for help. Talk about the thoughts as much as you can, the burden will get lighter.
Someone who is suicidally depressed won’t just be ‘cheered up’ by things, nothing will shift their perspective. The depression and the thoughts will still remain.
Recovering from depression, whether clinical or brought on by external events such as a bereavement, takes a good deal of time and patience on the part of those whose loved one is struggling.
If the person has previously self-harmed or attempted suicide the situation is even more fragile. Blame will only worsen the situation. Sometimes when you’re dealing with someone who is suicidal, it is tempting to get angry with them, to try and make them ‘see sense.’ The very depths to which someone goes to, in thinking about ending their life are unimaginable. It is the darkest place. It is suffocating, and it is frightening.
Even people with ‘happy’ lives can become depressed.
Even people who appear to have ‘good’ lives can become depressed.
Even mums and dads, and people from every walk of life can have suicidal thoughts.
Internally a person goes through so much, and suicidal ideation is an internal struggle. People will often demand to know why a person is unhappy.
But the fact is, they may not have a ‘reason’ but are inexplicably depressed.
They are ill, and need nursing.
Be consistent. Be level-headed. Don’t panic. Don’t be afraid. Be patient.
The most important thing is that the person sees a psychiatrist via a GP who might make a referral, and possibly prescribe some medication.
Antidepressants have been proven to be successful and will help. If you have a mood disorder or psychosis you will need other kinds of medication which will stabilise you.
Many people don’t like the thought of taking medication and I hear so often that people want to stop taking it, but I believe we’re seriously lucky in this country to have anti-depressants and mood stabilisers and anti-psychotics, because although they are all imperfect and don’t ‘cure’ anything, they can give relief from the pain and can manage symptoms including suicidal ideation very, very effectively.
It is something you can’t just give up on, there will be medication right for you, even if you have to go through a dozen to find the right one.
Medication saved my life.
I would do anything to be without it but I don’t have a choice, it’s either this way or dead.
I hung on and on and on, and before I began the right medication I was unrecognisable from the person I am now.
I never believed there would be any respite, sometimes the thoughts themselves, the fact that they wouldn’t go away made me wish I wasn’t here anymore, just to stop the nagging. I was constantly preoccupied at times, over the years. When I made plans and didn’t tell anyone, I was a serious danger to myself.
I never thought I would be sitting here writing this, I only ever imagined a life cut short by my own suicide. My brain traced this idea over and over until I only ever thought of how I could. But even at my most acutely ill state I knew that I would devastate other people’s lives. I didn’t want to leave my children without a mother, though every fibre in my body told me I needed to be dead. That nothing could ever make the pain go away. I even told myself people would understand, because my suffering was obvious. I thought my husband would be relieved. I was very wrong.
When you’re working against every survival instinct in your body, you need help.
You need people around you to see that you can’t help it, that you need the support of your loved ones, that you don’t want to hurt anyone, you just want an end to the situation. If you need to talk to someone and you feel there is no-one listening do try the Samaritans, who will be there for you night and day. They can’t change anything, but you can confide in them and they will listen. Go through every available avenue before you make those steps toward suicide, there are so many people who you can reach out to. You are not helpless.
There are reasons to live and reasons to die and all of these are subjective and personal. If you want a person to live, you tell them at every opportunity that someone loves them. I lost somebody I love, and the last thing I told them was ‘I love you babe’. That I will always be comforted by. But there are plenty of things I didn’t say and things I didn’t do which I will always regret.
Ten Reasons To Live
1. You are unique in this world.
2. The very nature of life is endless possibility.
3. You are strong in ways you never imagined.
4. You are loved.
5. Some part of you still wants to live.
6. It is possible to recover from this.
7. You have good memories. They can be matched with further good experiences.
8. You care that other people don’t suffer.
9. You have overcome so much pain already, you can go on.
10. Somebody, somewhere needs your love.
Move On Up
10 May 2011 1 Comment
in Bipolar Affective Disorder, Dance, Elizabeth, Poetry Salzburg Review, Suicidal Thoughts
The warm weather is breaking with the thunderstorms and rain and I love it. I love the capriciousness of it. Yesterday I got caught in the rain and the raindrops were massive, heavy and the sky was this gorgeous shade of grey, grey that saturates you. Rain that soaks you, though it’s still to warm to wear a proper coat.
I saw my current psychiatrist (Dr. Moosa: legend) for what will be (hopefully) the last time. I gain a new one, but I won’t see him often. My psychiatrist likes to refer to me as his ‘success story’ and in a way I am. He said I was recognisable from the girl he treated for years. He said he had to see me more frequently than any other outpatient. He said I looked good and that I’d lost weight. I admitted I have bouts of depression, maybe a week long, but I manage it. That’s about the best we can hope for and that’s a pretty good prognosis. After all this time, all the medication and the reviews and the sections and hospitalisations and the self harm and the suicide attempts and the doctors and nurses and therapists and social workers and anguish and relationship breakdowns, I am finally somewhere where I can be in control of my life. That is better than winning the lottery. Seriously. You could’ve given me anything when I was really ill, money, love, anything, it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t ever have mattered or changed anything. Almost nothing made living bearable. I enjoy my life now.
One moment of clarity I had was on Saturday. We drove to Stoke-on-Trent for the British Dance Organisation North West dance championships. Elizabeth danced freestyle, where they basically start the music and you have to make something up, and a duo and two group dances. She got a third prize for one of them, which was a huge success for them. It was so loud, and there was allsorts going on…manic, I would have been in pieces. The noise, the activity would have crippled me. Depressed, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it, but I adored watching her, she’s so beautiful, she has grace and poise, something you might not attribute to street dance but when I see her dance I get choked up. I love it when she gets into costume and I put on a bit of lippy for her. I’m so proud of her. I really enjoyed watching all the other dancers too, we were there from 9.30-7.30 and it was non-stop, the music was still in my head for hours. Not my thing, but hey…wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
I watched Shutter Island the other night, thought it would be a fairly innocuous thriller, something to dull the senses and mildly entertain the mind for a couple of hours. I thought it was average but quite enjoyable. At first. And then I sort of thought it’s basically Hollywood propagating the media fuelled myth that all ‘mentally ill’ people are violent, deluded, child killing hysterics. Yes, it was only a film, but I found the bit where they explain that the MC’s wife killed her children because she was a manic depressive hard to take, because there are some people out there whose only knowledge of mental illness comes from film, tv and news coverage, which all adds up to one big area of stigma. Am I being too sensitive?http://www.shutterisland.com/#/home
This week I am very much looking forward to The Changeling by Clare Pollard, http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/changeling_i022296.aspx her latest and long awaited new poetry collection. I shall be getting myself a copy pronto. I’ve been listening to Lower Dens http://www.myspace.com/lowerdens after seeing them on Abbey Road Debuts. I’ll be watching Stewart Lee on the tellyhttp://www.stewartlee.co.uk/ and listening to Lowhttp://www.myspace.com/low in time for their gig at Manchester Academy which I am going to next week. I seem to be writing some decent stuff and the recent ebb in mood is now breaking down, disintegrating. At least now I always know that I can be happy and I can be well. Before I couldn’t be told that there was any hope of anything better. I drag myself through the day when I’m low, I challenge myself, I make myself. It’s not easy, and I have the upmost sympathy for anyone suffering from depression. When it slips too far, you can’t function at all. I try and nip it in the bud as best I can in the early days, it seems to work. I force myself out of the house, the kids help, I force myself to eat, sleep properly (I am still on sleeping pills, they’re my routine and my only way of getting to sleep), and I go easy on myself if I can, mentally. I try not to beat myself up or be too hard on myself, which is something I used to do. So much. The suicidal thoughts come back really quickly when I get low, I wouldn’t act on them but they are there, I’ve lived with them my whole life it seems, until maybe this time last year, maybe six months ago, I’m not sure. They were a part of me. But I’ve smoked them out, I’ve prized them off me.
My poetry is upcoming in Poetry Salzburg Review.http://www.poetrysalzburg.com/ The poems are from the original draft of A Body Made of You, most of which didn’t make the book. It’s very strange to have them published, but I’m really glad. It’s a brilliant journal.
The sky is getting ready again, it’s going to collapse. I’m willing it to go.
A Salted
