Rings around the moon.

I was about to quote from my essay, but if I did, could I be accused of plagiarism by the dreaded 'Turnitin' bot? If that's out, I'll just have to describe what happened instead. The day of the appointment. Ex service user sat on the sofa. That's what happened. I locked myself in the bathroom to cry uncontrollably and write (the two have to go together, that's my recipe for sanity) . Meanwhile husband left the house to take son's appointment at the doctors, as an opportunity to say how it is. Through my tears I heard husband outside bathroom door saying, 'I can't do it'. Basically, given our philosophical view point, doing anything that shifts ex service user closer to the mental health team, and sectioning, feels like contacting the Gestapo. The rational view point that he needs meds, is fine and dandy except reality is, he wont take them = sectioning. Strangely enough, he does care about that, since it haunts his present hysteria about ...

My daughter asked the hospital to send her a 'welcome pack'. I haven't seen it yet, she explained what it contained over the phone. To be honest it didn't seem to say very much. And one particular word used in the pack caught my attention. Alliance... Alliance is a noble aspiration, and something a set of people dedicated to caring for others shouldn't have too much difficulty in creating. So what went wrong? First thing, the psychiatrist we saw when we attended via the A+E drop-in, looked like a man who had been outside standing in the rain without a hat or umbrella for too long. That is how I summed him up at the time. This was our first experience of 'how a psychiatrist talks' to a 'patient'. Perhaps I categorized him as bored, annoyed, had enough...because of the way he spoke? It must have contributed? Anyway, a psychiatrist asks a person about recent events. The psychiatrist is interested in factual content. He is open to you...

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  ...

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...

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...

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...

This is worse than I thought... Section 3 made sense to me - detaining someone because they could be at risk of serious harm to themselves or others. Section 2 is about accepting treatment. I personally believe if a person with a mental health problem wont take medication, but there is a plan in place to work on their cognition and feelings, even though this is a long term treatment, the Service User has a right to be listened to. Service User equated SSIs with poison. And getting him to take it was in effect like asking him to practice suicide. The only honest way to get him to take them was to say that he had to do it for us... It's funny, despite all the mistake I've ever made in my life Taking my son to the psychiatric hospital is the worst mistake of my life... Transcript of dialogue between me and psychiatrist. Dr: Service User, I've got to tell you, so this is your last chance I don't want to but I have no choice but to put you on a section 2...

The drop-in center is a part of A+E Despite what you may have heard, it was not packed to the gunwales... We moved smoothly through the system. From nurse practitioner Towards neurological tests To a psychiatric nurse... Then in the car again To a psychiatrist In the psychiatric hospital. By this time I was feeling disoriented, upset, lost, in need of someone to tell us something... Josh - now Service User just kept on talking about his brain tumors and degenerative disease, and this time he was telling a psychiatrist whose listening skills were aimed with laser accuracy to answer 'is this a person a risk to themselves, or to others'? and 'what else shall I proscribe with the SSRI?' Towards the end, the mental health nurse picked up on my despondency. I said that we needed to talk to a counsellor. I didn't say it because I thought it could happen. I said it because it was true! I wasn't surprised that he didn't say, 'Certainly, we...