Rings around the moon.

Valiant husband phoned the nurse back and complained. Then the doctor phoned husband and husband complained some more. Upshot is, we are to come in to the retaining pen that is called a hospital, to see the psychiatrist in the morning. We will be allowed out....and we are asked to return in the afternoon so Service User can talk to a psychologist... After that? Service User is ' on leave' their term not mine. So they consider him to be an in patient. If we are told he is to stay in...then we stay in with him.  Living on the streets is better than the holding pen ( hospital). It really is that bad in there. And no one can know how bad it is unless they have had a friend or relative taken in, and gone there themselves. The patients won't be believed, plus a month of play school level activities, locked in with ' florid psychotic men', and given drugs that affect your thinking and feeling...you wouldn't believe yourself! The hardest part is find...

At 4:14 the phone rang. Unknown number But I knew... The nurse explained There had been a mistake The psychiatrist had not authorized Service User's 'leave' I was asked to bring him back.. So he could See a psychiatrist tomorrow... As I said no In any and all manner of middle-class, well spoken, polite ways.. As I spoke  I began to shake with rage. The nurse was adamant My refusal was absolute. She said she would send transport At which point I made it clear that we would be out of the house. When the call ended I screamed with fury The way we have been treated is appalling. We naively went to that hospital expecting help. We were made to feel useless, helpless and disempowered. Told that if he didn't take his SSRIs he would be sectioned... And now we really know what their help is....We are going for full discharge.  This experience has profoundly challenged my comfortable assumptions about mental health prov...

We were in a positive mood. Determined to be surprised. I ignored the difficulty in parking...usually parking a motorbike is fairly simple...it was difficult to see where we could park without getting a ticket. I ignored the parking problem because I was focusing on how I didn't have to concern myself over Service User's care. After all, why should I care, I don't know anything... As we waited for someone to open the door, we could see Service User beyond...looking towards us. And once inside the room, I allowed all the impressions and memories thst assailed me collide as I watched my self contract and become rigid. Happy and smiling on the outside. Inside I'm distraught because this moment is too appalling for words, and expressing my feelings wouldn't help anyone. Service User was white. Appearing traumatized. The air was full of random screaming and sudden jolts of violence. The people there were psychotic, and unwanted. Some shu...

Yesterday was the first day since this began That I had a feeling of space. The first day I had been alone since Service User tried to kill himself. In the silence of the house my feelings came through my skin as an unbearable discomfort. Stress ran through each nerve like a dull red electricity. The noise of the ordinary drowns this out The damage is shoved into a gap between thoughts, and isn't felt... Contrary to the NHS advice I didn't go for a walk or a run.. Nor did I drown out the silence in music I lay flat out on the floor for an hour or so Feeling muscles cramp and uncramp And let it be... I can see why running to use adrenaline sounds sensible, but this is something I can't run from. Stress in my case is a symptom of not processing, rather than not running..I'm getting into this 'Fourth Force' stuff. The manifestation of emotional and psychosomatic symptoms is the beginning of a healing process through which the organism is tryin...

A system that steam rollers over the emotional truths of those it cares for is displaying cruelty... Discharge this day means Service User is going to the place he fears the most. I'm not with him because I'd fight. Literally. In Service User's reality he is bound for Hell Heading into to the heart of terror. Over forty years ago, psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers, in his  seminal work General Psychopathology pronounced that the content of  madness (in particular delusions) were ‘un-understandable’ and therefore  worthy of little consideration except as a sign of an underlying primary  disorder. At the start of the twenty-first century, this is still the majority opinion  in mainstream psychiatry. [Link] The dream-logic of his belief system is not chaotic or random Reality for him has become highly symbolic It is as if there is simply too much of a read-out... I vividly recall the case of a professor who had a sudden vision and  ...

The effect of stress is a taste like metal in my mouth, all the time. I'm fortunate, my course finished last week - beginning again in September - so there is time for the highs and lows to balance, to reach an equilibrium. I hope. Visiting hangs over the day. The journey on the motorbike [free parking otherwise it would be £5 a day] The waiting for the lift up to the ward. Too many people and the lifts are elsewhere... The corridor walk to the ward seems really long because it is! Then pressing the buzzer and waiting... Then we have no idea what state of mind Service User will be in. The night with the bloody finger nails and the scratching at wounds was particularly hard to take. Last night was a very good visit though. Service User was dressed and though slightly drugged up and out of it, he was there enough, and able to go on towards the next step in dealing with what has happened... He is sure that he opened a door to hell by talking drugs And it had b...

Trying to gather my experiences, fold them up and place them on the shelf. The anti-psychotics Are just the way it is. Medical treatment of any kind is constrained by money, and policy Ultimately truth seeking is  expensive,  and truth preserving is normal. Messing with a person's dopamine improves things for some people. It also gives others Parkinson's And there is no way to compare and contrast different approaches. To be honest, the best treatment for immediate improvement, was giving him the prayers and the crucifix. The accidental synchronicity of a reference having his ward number in it, helped. The gold standard for this kind of interaction is in Valis [P K Dick] in Valis P K talks about the psychiatrist who discusses the Nag Hammadi (early Gnostic texts) with him. This psychiatrist enables P K to feel that he isn't mad...and P K does a lot better (suicidal thoughts go away...) while the psychiatrist is on his side. P K Dick eventually placed his e...

Can't sleep. The evening visit was awful. His gums were bleeding [he has been hurting himself, and scratching his wounds]. He was shaking. His face went into spasms. His neck, too Because he had just been given 'more medication'.. Akathisia - is an effect of the drugs. Dopamine... There isn't anything, any aspect of this part of his journey now, that is OK. Medication follows a 'diabetes' model (the theory illness is due to a too much or too little of something) without any test to show if a person needs less dopamine in their system. The degree of powerlessness I feel is immeasurable, it is abysmal - as in the deepest, blackest depths. I was so angry as I sat calmly in the hospital by his side, crushed between his madness and  the madness of 'my culture' which is dissociated and split....and is inadvertently cruel, actually. Madness is the pus from a wound, being treated as if 'the pus' is the cause.. I'm witnessing the ef...

Since the symbols a troubled brain uses to understand internal chaos lead to the person feeling that there is meaning, and ultimately a way to navigate the conflict between internal and external realities... I need to get a grip on religion... Service user symbolises his sense of threat and danger as demons. The paradox is, the demons don't affect me. I explain this to him as proof that they can be shut out. I guess he needs prayers to recite. I've also promised to search for his soul, since he feels that he is the dead-shell and his real-self is elsewhere. 9.The traumatic event changes everything, it is as if the good self died (often represented by a fellow victim of the traumatic event who did not survive). Other than that, when we saw him yesterday he was in mild panic - mild by his standards - because he fears being attacked (raped is the term he used) when he is moved to the psychiatric hospital. As he has a fractured pelvis and can't run...and as he ha...

Everything has been made immeasurably more difficult... Unpack that... Keeping my emotional balance has been made immeasurably harder because I'm in replay. The only good thing to say about this is that I've had years of experience in dealing with my own stress levels, and have accumulated quite a lot of useful theory. Replay - from my point of view as a sufferer -  has to be considered as if it is a type of migraine. There will be mood disturbance Vision cannot be trusted And thinking about anything will hurt. Self medicate with meditation and visualizations that address the wound. So it goes... After what has happened I considered deleting Rings Around The Moon. After all... Why write. As I said - mood disturbance, vision and thinking are affected. But last night the mental health nurse sat well within our circle around Service User's hospital bed last night - usually they go out of the room or sit by the window... I was thinking, is this because of...

Sometimes Only a re-frame can help. In theory you can re-frame anything Take your dearest, most precious belief... And give it a go! Link... The important part to realize is... You can't know what is true. A re-frame works on the principal that if you can think it, it exists. Somewhere If you feel your mind begin to bubble and boil at this idea... Well yes... Of course... Beware your grip on reality..why believe what hurts you? Why, as the Stoics would have told you...be upset when bad things happen, just re-frame them.. All the world is relative. All truth subjective Black is only black in relation to white. Regardless of my use of the re-frame, I believe that being able to re-frame is the art of the politician, the liar and the survivor. A re-frame is how to repackage the inedible - add enough fat and sugar and anything can be made to taste if not good, then at least ok.. I use it as a survival tool. Distress is expensive in terms of energy and b...

Yesterday was for sure my worst day. Having my daughter splurge her own fragile feelings everywhere In effect accusing me As her father accused me of 'Being a danger to my children' Is causing the PTSD I'd dealt fairly well with I thought I'd managed to disarm most of it...actually. Is causing it to echo around my belly and chest, the blades of it slicing into my heart each time a bounce takes it high enough... It is at times like these when the definition of mental health strikes me as shallow. Well meaning But ultimately shallow.. The World Health Organisation definition: "Mental health is not just the absence of mental disorder. It is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community." Good mental health means a person is 'self actualizing' as Masl...

Riding back home... Possibly the worst day Since the other worst days Made so difficult by my daughter who splurged her view of our parenting skills all over the ward... This is the first post I've tagged with #anger She had wanted him sectioned immediately I think... And she wasn't here to see what that could actually mean. Our attitude To be pretty bomb proof To keep on with the talking through... To seek testing where possible. To be there Not to abandon no matter what.. And to refuse to act against a person's will... Based on DBT - dialectic behavioral therapy. My daughter prefers her mental health issues to be treated as a brain problem and happily takes drugs. I've no idea what she thinks therapy is, but what ever it is, there isn't one way fits all. Service User was convinced taking medication would kill him. It wasn't something he could be rational about. And the mental health team could only focus on drugs. Service User did no...

Brain fog.. I'm dubious about stages of anything. A map helps... Something that shows Other people have been here. They may have got out Or Remained lost. Probably. The hard part is My heart gets broken over and over. Last night as I sat by his bed I wrote: I can't take this.  The feeling that we are not doing any good. Isn't as important as the probability that we are not doing any good. How to get this to spin the right way? I don't know... A feeling of utter despair - waves of pain. I have no idea how long he will be in hospital. I don't think I'm able to cope with the waves of anger he gives off... His pathway so far has been a mirror image of his aunts - even down to the RTA - she walked in front of a car. His aunt can act sane... But she doesn't feel. There is no empathy. No care for self or other. When asked if he would have her back, father-in-law saw his little girl, and said yes. Then left her to wand...

Perhaps worse is the wrong title for this post... I can see some good in this.. What happened yesterday evening shifted my world on its axis. My son told me that he had been sexually abused by some kids in our street. Bullied and made to feel that he had done wrong. He felt that he had done wrong because his need for social acceptance, contact and friendship over-rode the recognition of betrayal he was experiencing. And this is the wound I believe That dragged him down into self-hatred, self-abandoning And to parasuicide. So... Here I am again, questioning the drugs based routines of psychiatry. If he had been sectioned... In effect treated as if there is something wrong with him.... When actually the wrong is the behavior of his abusers... How would 'the self' recover from that? The message he was given: 'if you don't put this drug into your mouth, into your body. If you don't do what we tell you...' Same message as the abusers. ...

I don't have any words.. ...is how I feel. Back today at the hospital. His brother drove down from London... Service User - now J.Trauma - had lost the sparkle of last night. The recriminating madness is creeping back. It broke my heart... Only I haven't really stopped since coming home. Busy doing stuff. Not thinking about, or feeling my wounds. Sitting here now, tears fill my eyes And I just want to plead with someone, something to Please just stop it! Let him go. I want my son back before he was drowned in heart-break, disappointments, feelings of not being good enough...drowning into the Vantablack void Like the light inside him Shattered Leaving only something that wants nothing more than to see pain. Inflicting pain upon itself. Upon anyone who loves. Upon anyone in its vicinity. I understand why possession is a compelling narrative. The inner force to step in front of a bus came from himself... Likewise the times when he has said things ...

He said he had done this before Just walked out Into traffic. Last night Josh hit me and tried to bite. Became fixated, rigid and moving if you can imagine? He suddenly hit me on the forehead, hard. It was almost like something you would see in an exorcism, as if he were the preacher? But then he did it again, with obvious aggression. I told him he must take his medication for at least a month, in front of me. He seemed to take this in. I told him I would call the crisis team if he did not do this. In truth I really felt I should be calling them. I asked him if he would agree to go to hospital, but he said no. .  I didn't phone because I'd felt so alienated by the hospital process when we had gone to them for help before. This stopped me from just phoning.... I didn't feel they would help. By 8pm he seemed better. He was calm, more rational. Took his medication. His pupils were really dilated. He went out into the garden. I answer...

Almost worse than last night. We saw Service User this morning. Very smashed up. Wearing a wrist band that called him Jack Trauma, DOB 1/2/1900. it is a good name. He told us he wanted to die That this is the Underworld, and we are not his parents. Also that he should have gone to the sea that day... I followed his bed out of the ward as he went down to surgery. Six hours later we were back. J. Trauma was lost again. The nurse said, ' he's gone to intensive care section two. The hospital has critical care, and no section two. People made phone calls and typed requests. J Trauma had vanished. This was too close to what happened last night I was beginning to come apart at the seams. Eventually he was supposed to be in the brain injury section of Critical Care.. I thought of all his fractures. Imagined the intracranial bleed... He was still in theatre. We were still waiting to hear at 8:25 pm... But then, we we...

He said he had done this before Just walked out Into traffic. Last night Service User was really dissociated. He hit me and tried to bite. Became fixated, rigid and moving if you can imagine? He suddenly hit me on the forehead, hard. It was almost like something you would see in an exorcism, as if he were the preacher? But then he did it again, with obvious aggression. I told him he must take his medication for at least a month, in front of me. He seemed to take this in. I told him I would call the crisis team if he did not do this. In truth I really felt I should be calling them. I asked him if he would agree to go to hospital, but he said no. I knew he was getting close to being 'a danger to himself and others'.  I didn't phone because I'd felt so alienated by the hospital process when we had gone to them for help before. This stopped me from just phoning.... I didn't feel they would help. By 8pm he seemed better. He was cal...

I've just come back from wondering the streets. Husband still looking. Service User dissociated, talking about Lucifer, was in the garden and then suddenly isn't. He must have gone to the side of the house and jumped over the wall. He doesn't have a key. Left it at a friend's. Doesn't have a phone Left it in the hospital yesterday. Again the borderline between panic because he isn't in his right mind versus respecting his right as an individual... Likewise yesterday night, and this evening, the question - how bad is too bad, at what point should I phone the crisis team. There is no map for where we are. No coordinates. No landmarks... No guiding star.

Service User was away with friends. I have got him to the hospital for his MRI scan...and the time away has not been good for his mental health. He has just told me this is all a simulation. Well, that's a geek level debate within normal levels...But he says the rules are different in this version. He hardly speaks, and cannot keep still. I've no idea how he is faring with the scan, as he said the machine may be evil. I'm wondering if the SSRI is bitter, could I crush it and put it in his drink? You know if the threat of sectioning wasn't so appalling, I'd phone the health team and ask if there was a liquid form... Time with friends... You would have thought it was good... What happened?

Service User was away with friends. I have got him to the hospital for his MRI scan...and the time away has not been good for his mental health. He has just told me this is all a simulation. Well, that's a geek level debate within normal levels...But he says the rules are different in this version. He hardly speaks, and cannot keep still. I've no idea how he is faring with the scan, as he said the machine may be evil. I'm wondering if the SSI is bitter, could I crush it and put it in his drink? You know if the threat of sectioning wasn't so appalling, I'd phone the health team and ask if there was a liquid form... Time with friends... You would have thought it was good... What happened? I've just come back from wondering the streets. Husband still looking. Service User dissociated, talking about Lucifer, was in the garden and then suddenly isn't. He must have gone to the side of the house and jumped over the wall. He doesn't have a k...

So Service User didn't come back last night. Checked and all is well... But it's the feeling of massive decompression that's been overwhelming today. Total brain lag. Can't think. Forgetting stuff, and just sleeping... So this is what stress, even when I thought I'd been managing it quite well, this is how stress feels. Constant attention drain, low reward...stress.

So Service User didn't come back last night. Checked and all is well... But it's the feeling of massive decompression that's been overwhelming today. Total brain lag. Can't think. Forgetting stuff, and just sleeping... So this is what stress, even when I thought I'd been managing it quite well, this is how stress feels. Constant attention drain, low reward...stress.

What have we learnt? When we went out by ourselves and returned Service User was manic. Theory: Service User becomes manic if he doesn't get to talk about how he should not have done X, Y and Z. When Service User talks about how he shouldn't have done X,Y and Z he relives the feelings of panic and helplessness. The burning need to talk about letting oneself down has to be managed, reliving feelings of powerlessness and fear is only more powerlessness and fear. It does not lead to any answers. It deepens his anxiety, it increases the damage? Which of the above is more true? In the light of this from yesterday onward, each time Service User began to go into the pale skin, shaking, fear laden monologue about what he shouldn't have done...my husband - who has got the message about how I need back-up -  talked him down into focusing on his breath and letting the feeling sink. Each time... Don't know how many... Last time was in the car on the way home...

Not sure if it is Elysium, or Elysian...I mean the never ending flower strewn fields of eternity, in Greek mythology. After the two days of us going out alone -  not taking Service User out in the car to an 'Elysium field'.... we had been doing this, filling up the car and heading out to beautiful locations full of sun and good food....those two days when we did not, and those two days during which he was alone for the afternoon, we returned to find him manic...So yesterday we set out once more for another perfect day. This has been good for all of us, it has given us good memories. And it is both unsustainable, and mythic. Part of our heroic attempt to retrieve our lost son from the effects of the black-hole drive of The Event Horizon. Notes It is Elysium. The Event Horizon [film] is an unfortunate ship..a star ship that uses a black-hole drive to fold space to create instantaneous travel, teleportation. On starting the engines and setting the co-ordinat...