Mental Illness

I suffer from just about everything,including a bunyion on my right foor- little toe. I caught all these illnesses while I was travelling in Northern Africa in 1972. I died in 1974 but was reincarnated in 1975 and am still suffering from mental illness, bunyions and a lot of other things. I feel terrible most of the time and am getting old as well. It's horrible but as I am afraid of death I am not planning on dying again in the near future. I itch all the time.
yours truly
Pia ;)

OK, if you're asking in all seriousness and you're genuinely interested.

I've recently recovered from depression which affected me for the biggest part of twenty years. It began when I was eleven and ended when I was thirty-one. I'm pretty sure it's over now, because I've stopped feeling any emotions whatsoever. Happiness seems to be about caring about little. It seems to be about not being attached to many things or people. It seems to be about avoiding feeling anything.

So I no longer feel emotional pain. Or anything else. I have become an emotional shell of my former self, which is probably for the best.

Depression began when I started secondary school and was bullied. The bullying eased off around fourteen but I still felt depressed through feeling socially and emotionally isolated from everyone around me.

At sixteen I started college and the isolation and depression continued. I didn't feel as though I fit into society in any way. I didn't really get other people, and they didn't get me.

At twenty I was chased through the streets of New Malden by a gang of baseball-cap-wearing chavs swinging bars at me, kicking my head in and laughing. A week later I started university.

This became the least depressing phase of my life, as I had new experiences, found new things to do with my life like writing and performing poetry, and made lots of friends (or acquaintances leastways, 'friends' is perhaps too strong a word). It was an exciting time, but I still felt isolated from people in social, cultural and emotional ways. There were dozens of young women around, but I never had a girlfriend. I had lots of mates who were women, but no lovers. I looked in the mirror and saw a reasonably good-looking bloke staring back at me, so came to the conclusion that there must just be something unattractive about my personality, about me as a human being, even though I judged myself to be basically a good person with lots of love to give (which nobody ever wanted).

I spent my mid-twenties adrift living in the countryside, working in supermarkets and doing very little with my life. Then I moved back to London, carried on doing shit jobs in shops and pubs, remaining single and lonely, and thinking that performance-poetry would never get me anywhere and I was wasting my time.

The depression intensified dramatically towards the end of my twenty-sixth year, for specific reasons that are described here:

http://www.abctales.com/story/archie-macjoyce/end-my-youth

By this point I had lost all my faith in the human race and felt complete alienation from it. Over the next three years I lived in a state of total unbelonging and detachment from humanity and thought about suicide pretty much every day.

At the age of twenty-nine I began taking ketamine regularly and getting completely out of my head. This was the only release from the constant and unrelenting depression.

Then I met someone who'd qualified as a counsellor and who told me he strongly suspected that I had Attention Deficit Disorder. I researched this condition and found that the description of ADHD-PI (Predominantly Inattentive) fits me very accurately indeed. The idea then struck me that all the shit in my life was ultimately due to this disease that had gone undetected and untreated for many years. This idea intensified my depression to the point where I disappeared in a ketamine-induced haze to try and get out of it.

In the months around my thirty-first birthday, as a result of finding true friendships (most of them within the Bristol squatting community) and finding for the first time the love of a decent woman, which lasted for five months, I finally came out of depression, where I have been for over a year now.

I wouldn't say I was truly "happy" now, but I'd settle for "content" and "stable".

Sorry I made fun of it Archie- I can't take my mental illness too gravely anymore as I have been suffering since I was about 7 years old when my parents split up and I was then sexually abused for years thus developing paranoide schizophrenia. It is a very harsh label and I have no idea how I have survived to the ripe old age of 57 but I don't expect to survive much longer as I am worn out from years of dilusions and psychotic periods. I haven't been on the work force for 22 years and that is an awful feeling not contributing.

I was bullied right the way through school, which led to a lifelong preference for social isolation - and a chronically low sense of self-worth.

I began being treated for depression in 1992 - that being 'keep taking the tablets and you should feel better'.

I had a major breakdown in 2004, following the death of my father, the collapse of my marriage and the loss of my then job. The bottle became my friend at that point. I've struggled, on and off, ever since with 'dark times'. I had another major, suicidal breakdown 2 years ago - mainly due to work stress. I had to leave my job and haven't had any paid employment since (I currently do voluntary work, teaching computer skills). That whole time has been devoted to a long-overdue recovery, during which - with the help of my current therapist - underlying symptoms have been identified, of which the originally misdiagnosed 'depression' is just a symptom. I show most of the major symptoms of Borderline Personality, plus many of the major ones of Schizoid Personality. My therapist is recommending a referral to the Maudsley so that I can get a proper diagnosis... and, hopefully, the correct course of treatment.

I don't want to sound fanciful, but I wonder if it's all part of a predominantly 'creative' temperament. My therapist is convinced there's a strong correlation. I found Anthony Storr's book 'Churchill's Black Dog' quite enlightening in that respect, particularly the chapter on Kafka. On the level of personality and behaviour traits, I have a lot of identification with him. I like people and can get on well with people, and most people I know would probably say I'm friendly and sociable. Warm, even. But I prefer not to be around people for too long. I live alone and wouldn't want to live any other way. I simply cannot cope with cohabitation - even with someone I loved as much as my ex-wife.

I'm obsessive-compulsive, and have an addictive personality. I register quite high on the autistic spectrum (36 against an adult average of 16). I'm not what you'd call a 'control freak' - but it's vital to me that I'm in control of any situation (i.e. that I have the opportunity to walk away from it, if necessary - which is why I've often had problems in the workplace). Although I've had treatment for drink problems, I don't drink alcoholically. However, drink - even in relatively small quantities, such as half a bottle of wine, can have an extremely adverse effect on my personality. I can become very aggressive on it, and often suicidal. Drink would kill me via my brain first rather than via my other organs. I'm better off without it.

Other things... I'm suffer from chronic lack of self-confidence, and tend to compensate by putting on a front of knowing more than I actually know, and being cleverer than I actually am. I'm also a bit of a show-off. However... the teensiest bit of criticism or the tiniest challenge can send me hurtling down the tubes for a long time.

Phew! I don't know what that makes me... but I guess it's not what most people would think of as 'normal'.

I'm not too sorry about that, though.

...and I try not to take it too seriously. It's part of who I am, and I just try to get on with my life around it.

Archie, touching...fascinating, and FTSE, thank you for posting.

I was also bullied at school to a degree but I was never sure, and I'm still not, how badly, as I'm ashamed to admit it. Yuck. It was never physical really, only nasty comments, but it seems to have pervaded everything from then on. Isolation, perennial dissatisfaction, no women. Certainly all social contact tainted to some degree; always feeling unworthy, believing without a second thought that to make friends with anyone meant ingratiating, which translated in my mind as coming way down from a position of inferiority.

I made no issue of it, so everything went on as abnormal.

It took me years to realise and I've only just allowed myself to approach people from the same level. It's hard to break the habit. I think it's changing though.

It's good to hear you're over it. It's interesting you see; I've popped out over the parapet just enough now to see quite a bland, joyless life where you need a lot of tenacity, thick-skin and hardwork just to keep you content on a day-to-day basis. If you're lucky to get a few people to care about you, that helps enormously.

So I write, I run and I snuffle my cat. It's ok for now.

H

Stan, from here you've always seemed like a very likeable person and a very good writer. Just wanted to say.

I am a Schizophrenic and mad, self-concious and paranoid about everything and everyone (including myself)! I hear voices (dunno where they come from). My brain keeps misfiring neuron transmitters or summat like that. I am on depixol 100mg injections every fortnight at the local mental health clinic, and have been sectioned under the mental health act, three or four times now, with long spells in a mental health ward, where all the loonies have been once in a while... Sometimes I think I am God, an angel, or the devil. When I die, frankly I don't care which direction I'll go up, down, left, or right.. who cares anyway?

Harveyjones - thanks. Nice of you to say so. I do my best.

It's strange... with all the damage I've had done to me at the hands of other people, I should by now have a psychopathic hatred of the human race. But I don't. I cling on to a faith in the fundamental goodness in human nature. I don't believe anyone is born evil (I don't like using that word at all, anyway), but are made that way by a combination of circumstance and biology. I seem to have a large - possibly, some might say, naive - capacity to forgive and to try to understand. I know the damage that resentments can do - mainly to the individual holding them. That's why I have to stay away from drink - because that lets the beast out of the cage. It stokes aggression. It's led me into some very difficult situations. So it shows me - as my therapist has pointed out - that the capacity for 'hitting back' is there. Drink doesn't change my behaviour so much as enable a part of me that I'd sooner was left dormant. The Jekyll and Hyde thing.

I'm in a situation at the moment in which I'm assailed on all sides by some of the less endearing aspects of human behaviour: basically, thoughtless people who couldn't really give a damn about the rights and peace that others wish to enjoy. Why are they like that? There has to be a reason. Ignorance. Lack of education. Dysfunctional home life.

I think it's looking for those reasons - looking for the grey areas - that fuels my desire to write. I can't think of a better reason to do it, really.

Persaud (2003) Biographical studies...47 British writeres and artists...38% treated for mood disorders. 1995 survey of 1004 people judged to be influential in the twentieth century observed high rates of alcoholism, schizophrenia and mood disorders. 1996 investigation of 291 eminent British and American achievers found that episodic psychiatric conditions had occurred in the majority. 1987 study of members of University of Iowa's writers' workshop and their families found a very high rate of mood disorder and psychois compared to controls. 1993 investigation of award winning European writers, poets, painters, sculptors...half had suffered from a major depressive episode, and that nearly two-thirds exhibited recurrent severe mood swing tendencies.

I suffer from a delusional belief that I've something to say and other folk will, eventually, want to hear it. I'm just plain nuts.

I don't know. I'm mentally stable, I guess. Though I'm pretty young, so yeah...
I think my biggest problem is trusting that there is some good in the world :)

'Persaud (2003) Biographical studies...47 British writeres and artists...38% treated for mood disorders. 1995 survey of 1004 people judged to be influential in the twentieth century observed high rates of alcoholism, schizophrenia and mood disorders. 1996 investigation of 291 eminent British and American achievers found that episodic psychiatric conditions had occurred in the majority. 1987 study of members of University of Iowa's writers' workshop and their families found a very high rate of mood disorder and psychois compared to controls. 1993 investigation of award winning European writers, poets, painters, sculptors...half had suffered from a major depressive episode, and that nearly two-thirds exhibited recurrent severe mood swing tendencies.'

Apropos of this.... saw this film again last night. Good film for writers/depressives to watch! The first bit of the trailer is relevant...

Lonesome Jim (directed by Steve Buscemi)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXJ114gtiWY&feature=related

Ftse- when I read 'whom should you trust' I thought you were taking the piss and I'm very sorry about that. I've been a depressive since I was about ten, mainly due to the fact that I am a complete and utter sack of shit and a criminal waste of the air I breathe. I spend quite a lot of time each day trying to think of considerate ways of committing suicide that won't upset or inconvenience anyone else. But of course there aren't any so I just keep plodding on. A few years ago I got quite ill and became convinced I was going to die. I was very pleased with my 'get out of jail free' card, tied up all my loose ends, apologised to everyone I thought I may have hurt. Three years later I'm still bloody well here, so I'm obliged to conclude that my conviction was nothing more than a delusion caused by prolonged and excessive use of amphetamines. Don't I feel silly. And in the meantime everyone around me is getting sick and dying. Reminds me of that book, was it called 'The Beast Within?'

'Three years later I'm still bloody well here'

Me too, sid. Booze was what deluded me.

Stick around, mate. There are always reasons to - even if there might also always be reasons not to :)

Inexplicably reminded me of a song from my yoof...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvviaA4YmFw

sid, reasons to be cheerful:

1. you write a bloody good poem; and
2. you ain't half bad looking for a bloke.

3. You write a cracking story, too...

Ah Shoit. Thanks Stan, Harveyjones, for your kind words. But I didn't really say that so people would say nice things to me, I just wanted to give a frank contribution to the discussion and for ftse not to feel alone. I googled 'the beast within-' it definitely wasn't that!

Might be the Bible. Lots of people got sick and died in that.

It was 'the beast in the jungle'- henry james

Blimey... I think I'd get sick and die before getting to the end of a Henry James novel! Actually, I did enjoy The Turn of The Screw. A very clever novella, that, and genuinely frightening.

The beast in the jungle was boring and reaches a thought-provoking but nonetheless disappointing anticlimax. A bit like my private life ;D

Doesn't he meet a version of himself with too many fingers?

I don't remember anything that exciting happening, though it was a long time ago I read it. As I recall he just sits around procrastinating a lot until it's too late. And his lady friend dies before he's even so much as ogled her ankle

Sounds like me :s

I'd add, though it sounds trite, that the best way I've found of dealing with miserable thoughts is to be mindful- catch youself in the middle of mentally beating yourself up, tell yourself not to be such a pathetic self-pitying twat and get the fuck on with it. Also grafting that fucking hard you are too knackered to mope. Doesn't stop you feeling like a piece of shit but it helps to get from day to day. also realising that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference how you feel, it don't change anything, so you might as well have a laugh and a wash. The only thing worse than a misery guts is a stinky misery guts with smelly breath

I don't mentally beat myself up. I mentally beat other people up. Unfortunately it's only mentally.

Yeh I've noticed that about you archie

Do you think you can erase nasty memories that have affected your whole life, but other folk say l should move on and l am depressing about it. ( my financially and emotionally secure sister told me l live in the past)
I want to know where l go to feel at peace xx

If you could find a way to erase bad memories you'd be a billionaire :D but I think it is possible to detach yourself so that they feel like someone else's memories

How do you do that .. l work hard and have conversations, l think l look ok, but they live with me, the demons. If anyone knows how to shift them, l would appreciate help xx Denise

Gah! People who say you should move on! It almost comes from the same place as 'Try to look on the bright side' or 'Things aren't as bad as they seem'. If you have a mental illness other than just 'feeling a bit off colour or down in the dumps', it isn't always that easy. There are tactics you can learn, like sid has said. But I seriously try to avoid these wankers with their 'pair of curtains' solutions: pull yourself together, mate! I wouldn't dare say to someone with cancer, for instance... 'Come on. Look on the bright side. At least you're still here, for the time being.'

As for people who tell you to simply "move on" and suchlike dismissive expectations, I think the poet Aoife Mannix puts it very well:

"Some doors just aren’t so easy to walk out of,
and if you think you've got the answer,
you don’t understand the question."

If l felt l had a little empathy from my sister, it would be better. I aways want her approval, and l feel like a naughty child when used to be around her. Anyway, she can't deal with my hanging on to the past. My mum killed herself in front of me, then my young sister who l brought up was killed in a house fire on Xmas day with her lovely bloke. My sister in France has a gorgeous life, but when l used to see her, l felt inadequate and stupid. Now my dad died, in France and she had said theeist horrendous things about me. I am in bits as l try to be a good person. I feel like l have burdened folk, including men, with my pain and lbw made a mess of my whole life. How on earth do l escape my memories .. l would love to move on.

Your sister expects you to just "move on" from the fact that your mother killed herself in front of you? What the fuck? What kind of planet does she live on?

No-one should have to face that alone. Have you tried therapy, counselling etc?

Your life-experiences are horrendous. No-one should ever dismiss them like that. Was your sister there when your mother killed herself? Even if she was, that's no reason for her to tell you to be strong just because she is.

Thanks for that. My mum had a mental health thingy herself but l only realised recently. I wrote about it here. My sister has stories about how mum treated her. So sis ran off to London when she was 17. I was 12. I remember beggin her nit to go. I suppose l thought of my big sis as my mum well, that's how she feels, burdened by my need. My mum drank and l was the only one who knew what happened, as my dad said to tell the police there were no pills. He chucked them on the fire. So. All my life, l thought l was the only one who knew the truth. I think l remind my sister of too much pain, and she is protecting herself. It's a loooong story, as all of our's are. I also have just been dumped by a man who has PTSD. Ans k now see l was 'caring' for him to feed my need to be needed! If l meet someone normal, l am jealous of his family life! Anyway. We all have demons, don't we ?? Thank you all for reading this. I'm sick of dwelling on it, as lm now 57. Sick to death of thinkin about these deaths and their repercussions. Why has my sister cut me dead. There's that d word again ..

Hmmm. Like you say, I think she's just been protecting herself. You have to remember that there's very often a dramatic emotional/psychological difference between siblings because of birth order. First-born children tend to feel the need to be strong and ignore emotional crisis, because they are often like parent-figures to the younger siblings. First-borns often come across as cold, dismissive, uncaring, unemotional. My older brother's very much like that. It's the way they have to be, the way they cope with life.

Siblings born further down the line have more room to emotionally manoeuvre, and are usually a lot more open and in touch with their feelings, because they're just being themselves, they're not trying to lead a family.

Ok. But l also have 2 older brothers who she was jealous of, and she doesn't speak to them either. They don't know my lovely wee dad has died. I us ed to not speak to them cos she didn't. One if them was an affair we found a letter recently to him from dad. It's a huge drama, and l can see by talking with you, she is really trying to put a barrier up. I'm so glad you understand, and l feel kind of, better! Going to see doc later to see a bereavement counselor. My sis always poo poo's counselling, so l never went. Thank you, Archie xx

I agree with Archie, Denni. We all react to things in different ways, and no one has any goddamn right to say how anyone else should be feeling, or how they should behave. I have an older brother who's a little like that: incapable of understanding, and unwilling to. Full of the old 'pull yourself together' routine. Everything I've ever been through, of course he's been through it and come through it and gotten on with life - which is absolute and total bollocks. He was never bullied at school, he's always been popular, the only breakdown he's ever had was in a car... and he's one of those people who can just turn his hand to something and make money out of it - which is a way of throwing it back at me for not being able to do the same. It's always like 'See... this is what you can do if you just try.' He's even had the gall to say to me that he 'used to be an alcoholic', until he came to his senses and started drinking normally again. I'd go so far as to say he's too fucking dull to have a mental illness... without wishing to trivialise things.

When I was in the midst of shit - after dad died and my marriage was failing, and I was drinking too much - he came over one night with his 'get your act together' homilies. I picked up a full wheelie bin (somehow) and fucking threw it at him. Shame I missed, I sometimes think.

The brutal truth, Denni, is that you don't need people like this in your life. They'll never be able to see your side of things, no matter how you try. It's just wasted effort. Stick with the ones who know. x

I read your account of your mother's death, Denni I can't believe how much else you've had to deal with aswel. Just the fact you're still here is testament to your strength. Good luck with your counsellor, I hope it goes well and you get something out of it. Stan and archie are right, anyone who tries to deny your right to grieve doesn't deserve to be in your life.

Something I found helpful- though it's a painful process- is writing memories from an outside perspective, making them the experiences of a fictional character. It seems to take me a step away from things, but I must admit I'm trying to do it at the minute and it dredges up a lot of bad feeling. But then you pass them on to an imaginary person and it all seems easier to understand.

Best of luck, denni. many a lesser woman would have thrown in the towel

I can vouch for what sid says. I wrote an entire novel that way! It was a truly cathartic experience, and it enabled me to put so many things into perspective - living my life through someone else, so to speak.

Power to ya, lass :)

Thank you all xx god bless xx

Denni - reading what's been said here has prompted me to dig out a short piece from my novel. It's the main character having a bit of an argument with himself. I don't know... you may identify:
http://www.abctales.com/story/stan/day-internal-monologue

Stan xx l read it as l was waiting to see my doc about my stuff. When l was called in, a was aw blubbin n she asked me loads questions. For once, l wasn't offered anti depressants. I am bein sent to a counselor. And get blood tests. I wouldn't have done this without all you guys help. Any time l can, l will help you xx

Glad to hear you're getting somewhere, mate. We all try to help each other - not just with writing! I hope the counsellor can help. I've always found talking therapies better than chemical ones.

tc x

With regards to birth-order psychology, another variable is gender, so despite the two brothers, Denni, your older sister is still the first-born girl, of three girls, which means she will still have a lot of the first-born attitude and emotional framework. Your brothers way well have seemed like rivals to her. Maybe she wanted to be the one who was in charge. Either way, I think Stan's right and you don't need people like her in your life. Blood isn't always thicker than water. You certainly shouldn't hold back from having counselling just because she poo-poos it. Why should you give a fuck what she thinks? Do what YOU feel is right, not what she thinks is right. (And there's a big difference between thinking and feeling. Your head plays tricks on you all the time, but your heart can't do that).

Stan, your relationship with your older brother sounds exactly like my relationship with mine, which is why I don't have one anymore. I don't see why I should have to listen to his simplistic idiotic inexperienced pompous emotionally-detached ignorant fat-headed platitudes just because he's my brother. Fuck him.

"incapable of understanding, and unwilling to. Full of the old 'pull yourself together' routine. Everything I've ever been through, of course he's been through it and come through it and gotten on with life - which is absolute and total bollocks. He was never bullied at school, he's always been popular, the only breakdown he's ever had was in a car..."

Yeah. Unfortunately the world seems to be full of cunts like this.

Dead pleased for you denni best wishes x

Oh, l wish l could give you all a hug xxxxxxx lots love xx

I am a sometime depressive, and ever since I can remember I've had a feeling of not being as good as everyone else in any way, shape or form. Why, I really don't know. In my opinion I'm borderline bipolar, because on occasion I soar on ridiculous, world conquering highs, but I've never been diagnosed with that condition.

I suffered my nastiest downer some eighteen months ago, which lasted over a year. It's a long story and I'm not comfortable about going into detail, but basically I had been out of work for over a year, I retrained in social care and got a job in a home for severely disabled folk. Some scrawny woman made up a load of shit about me because I spurned her advances and refused to hump her bones. I was sacked because of those allegations, at which point I went swiftly downhill. I wanted to kill the fucker, but thankfully I did nothing. I felt as if I would never be trusted again.....

I really can't describe what I felt like at my lowest. Stan, you said you feel like a useless sack of shit not worth the air you breathe at times, well that's close. When I'm really down I feel dirtier and more worthless than the lowest murderer or kiddy fiddler, though I'm basically a decent bloke and I've never done owt to be ashamed of. I have a wife and two kids, and their love keeps my head above water most of the time, but when I'm really down I just want to crawl under a bush and die.

I'm still out of work now, but thankfully my darkest hour has passed. I'm off my anti-mad medication and most of the time I feel fine and dandy, but I have mini dark spells that last for days or weeks when I can't function very well at all. At times like that, if I read someone'e poem or story and I really want to say how much I enjoyed it or if I have an urgent need to make a (hopefully) helpful comment a nasty little voice inside me says "Fuck, what you wanna comment for - what's your opinion worth, you stupid, useless, ugly cunt?" At times like that, if I'm silent for a few days please forgive me, folks, I really can't help it. I'm on such a mini downer right now - yesterday I couldn't see the point of commenting on this post because I felt that my post wouldn't be of interest to anyone, but I feel a bit brighter today.

Walrus... you and me both, mate. You've described me to a T.

Advice for new-borns:

1. Fit in
2. Pretend
3. Lie
4. Manipulate
5. Take
6. Don't ask
7. Don't think
8. Don't rely
9. Be rich;
10. (and) Smile

Walrus. Stan. how amazing you both are. Good night, and thank you for today xx

It's been bugging me as to whether or not creative people are more prone to depression and related mental problems than the rest of the population - I seem to recall reading about someone who thought that was so, but I can't remember any specific references. I think creative folk are no more prone to such problems than anyone else, but they are perhaps more likely to communicate their angst, particularly if they are writers.

It's funny how the daftest little things can send you spiralling down into the dumps when you're of, shall we say, a delicate persuasion. I'm in the process of selling a litter of six kittens (I'm having the she cat sterilised when they're gone, but I thought it would do her good to have a couple of litters first.) I sold four of them today, maybe because they're unusual colours.

We've had a massive flea problem this year despite spending a fortune on spot-on chemical treatments for both of our adult cars and the kittens - the wet weather has encouraged the little buggers to breed at a phenomenal rate. I've found from bitter experience that many vets are bastards determined to get as much money out of their customers as possible, and I'm convinced that they flog you treatments just strong enough to control the plague for a while but not strong enough to keep them away for long.

We've sprayed the entire house from top to bottom with chemicals and treated the adult cats and kittens three times in the last couple of months. A woman bought two kittens this morning and I told her the trouble we've had and that it's important that she gets her kitties Frontlined again as soon as possible, because our adult cats spend a lot of time with a fleabitten old tomcat and they keep bringing in new parasites.

Anyway, she sent me a text this evening saying that her vet said that the kittens were crawling with parasites, their coats were full of flea poo, they had ear mites too and she was thoroughly disgusted with me, but I can't see how that can be true, as Frontline is supposed to control all external parasites. Maybe they had the odd couple of fleas, which I gave her fair warning about, but they certainly were not infested. Her vet has pulled a fast one so that he or she can sell her loads of crap that only half does the job that it's supposed to do, as per usual, but I have taken the brunt of the woman's wrath and it's really made me feel down. I used to breed bull terriers, but I packed it in years ago because of the number of idiots looking for fighting dogs to abuse, and now I feel the same way about breeding cats - never again.

Walrus - sorry I can't help on the animal front.

Check out these books, though, on your first point:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Touched-Fire-Manic-depressive-Artistic-Temperame...

and

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Churchills-Black-Dog-Anthony-Storr/dp/0006375669...

Good luck.

Cheers Stan. A while back I read a report about Winston Churchill's black moods, but I've never heard of the other book. I'll order it on the inter library lending scheme if my library doesn't have it in stock. I don't know if you've ever used that scheme, but it's pretty inexpensive and you can get hold of a whole lot of really obscure works, so this one should be a cinch for them to get their hands on.

I am the only one of 4 sisters who has had a fucked up life- the other 3 are in such good shape I am often ashamed. So I prefer to keep to myself. Everything that could ever go wrong did with me short of being shot. The best thing I ever did was to have 2 sons. I knew I would secure myself some love that way and that is true. I have loved them all the time. When I was 15 I didn't want kids, nor when I was 22 but when I turned 26 I was ready but my life was already pretty fucked-up by then. My kids have suffered because of me and still do at times. All I ever wanted was a normal life but this was not to be.I never regret being born but just wish none of this had ever happened and that I was somebody else. Now adays I live simply and appreciate simplicity. Can't handle anything too complicated, like friendships. I should have had therapy years ago but never did. I have a vent in writing poetry and reading novels- I lock myself away in reading. I am a bit of a misanthrope too. Too many disappointing relationships- disappointed in myself mainly. I think I suffer from multiple mental illnesses at the same time- I am pretty sure of that- a general fuck-up.

Pia.... you're just who you are and what life has made you, which doesn't mean you're a general fuck-up. You react to things differently to other people - which doesn't make their reactions either better or correct. Like you, I can't handle complications very well - especially things like friendships. I'm hopeless at maintaining them - even with people I like. It's a complicated thing: I find it difficult to understand why people would want to be friends with me; I feel embarrassed when people show affection for me; and I fear losing control in a friendship - especially of my privacy. My worst nightmare would be my brother's absolute dream: a constant stream of friends, always there, always being in the midst of them, never being alone.

It's easy, too, with disappointing relationships, to always blame yourself. I took most of the blame on my shoulders for the collapse of my marriage. It's taken me some years, and some therapy along the way, to realise that there were faults on both sides. She had problems, too. We were compatible in so many ways - but incompatible in the fundamental ways. It could never have worked. We were like two lost souls who combined to become one big lost soul, rather than two people who'd found each other... if that makes sense :) Try not to be so hard on yourself. People fuck us up - and then we take the blame for it. How fucking fair is that? If I lose a race, it's the other guy's fault for being faster than I am - not my fault for being slower!

Walrus... the Storr book is very interesting. As well as Churchill, it looks at other people who've suffered mental illness problems, like Isaac Newton, Jung, and - most enlightening for me - Kafka. What a complex character he was: warm, friendly, imaginative - but social isolated, in a life cluttered with dysfunctional relationships. There's also a chapter on 'Why Human Beings Become Violent'.

Thank you very much for the comforting words Stan- they are truly wise. I am never able to analyse my emotions and just feel off track because I couldn't possibly make my world as my sisters have and that gives me an incredible inferiority complex. Not that they try to remind me of it- on the contrary they are really nice to me most of the time but they don't 'look after me' noone does- I look after myself and that drains me. I tell you- you and I are very similar as to relationships with others- I always think others are so nice and what would they want with me and on the other hand I just want to be left alone- I really appreciate my solitude and seldom feel lonely, just uncared for- the story of my life in reality and I was never 'cared for' in my childhood and youth so I have become very independant. Like you I never can maintain relationships- something always goes wrong so now I have learnt my lesson and shy away from them and am quite content. I don't wan to sound blasé but other people often disappoint me hence the misanthrope in me.I suppose it is really me disappointed in myself. Most of the time I feel I really don't need other people and they give me claustrophobia and that makes me feel as though I am very selfish and egotistical, conceited- I can always see faults in others and that part of me I hate but at the same time I admire others for all their accomplishments as social beings. Mostly I feel a freak as well as a fuck up but reading through this thread I can see that I am not alone- this is good about Abc- we connect without getting too close. Really I have no social competences- I have no idea how to get along with other people. That is why I have so many broken friendships/relationships behind me and finally I know to keep away.No great loss-ø the world keeps turning doesn't it and I have no illussions of making my mark, am just sorry to leave 'things' behind-someone has to tidy up when I'm gone-sometimes I wish I lived in a cardboard box but that would be too anonymous, wouldn't it- then even I wouldn't care.

I really appreciate my solitude and seldom feel lonely, just uncared for...

Pia that's exactly how I feel. I have one friend and I don't think I could get rid of him if I tried, other than that I'm completely alone.

When I ran: I cleared my facebook account, new life, new start (again) and all that. Apparently two separate prongs of my extended blood family (one cousin's lot and my brother's lot) were devastated that I deleted them. I got rid of anybody that I hadn't spoken to in six months. I really didn't see the big deal. Jesus, the drama I left in my wake. I haven't see or spoken to my brother in eight years this time, fifteen last time. And I did this terrible, unforgivable, bad thing and deleted them all from a social network site that they never contacted me on.

My friend had a letter from my cousin's daughter saying. 'I am sitting here breaking my heart, I can't stop crying. What's going on with our Sooz, nobody knows where she is. Why's she deleted us from FB?'

God, talk about drama.

But I do feel very guilty about one of them. My cousin's mother. That's because she's linked to my mum, obviously, my mother's sister. I haven't been to visit her for about eight years. And that makes me feel bad. But for six of those years I lived within five miles of her. Yes, she's old, but she drives, she goes line dancing twice a week and goes out to a social club every Sunday. She's far from housebound or decrepit. She could just as easily have visited me and didn't ... but I feel guilty about her.

I don't speak to my eldest sister Sooz and you know that gives me a bad conscience because I feel I just 'have' to get on with others. I say that if others are hurt/offended when deleted from Facebook etc tough luck- it's so silly if that is the only place you ever communicate. My 'friends' on FB are friends because we don't have to be in the same room- that would never work out for me. I also have a beautiful 'acquaintance' email girlfriend and I know I would blow it if we ever met in real life. I just have to keep my distance. I am very critical of other people and not very empathetic- I can't stand others having problems that they do little to solve and I am certainly not going to solve them for them even though

only half the comment worked- cont.
I have tried to solve their problems (my controller genetics) and when they don't see that I am right I leave them. Just as many have left me before when I didn't even see my own problems let alone solved them. I have now little patience with others and seem to have resolved most of my problems and prefer solitude. I don't care to debate or discuss. I am getting old. I feel secure when there is a distance- I am lazy and unsociable and feel pretty brain dead sometimes- unstimulated but this is a choice I have to make as I feel secure this way. others make me feel insecure and I always feel I have to live up to others. I guess this is my 'problem' . I can control my life. Everything else is secondary to me.

You know Sooz- about your Aunt- It has to be a two-way thing with friendships and if she never contacted you and it was always on your initiative it just doesn't work in the long run.

I have no idea why this has become italics

My brother has a lovely house, a devoted wife, three grown-up children who are all happy and who've between them given him 5 fine and healthy grandchildren. He can turn his hand to almost anything and make money out of it. He doesn't appear to have any hang-ups or worries (apart from the fact that his pension pot will be significantly lower if he retires now, which is why he's hanging on until he's 65). They have everything they need. As he often says - he's entirely content with his life.

And I wouldn't have that life for all the tea in China! I'd still sooner put up with what I have to put up with than live in that fucking bubble.

But then, I guess it's all relative. Horses for courses and all that. If he's happy, then that's good. I'll never be happy... but I'll settle for a form of contentment, which is less about privation and more about peace of mind.

I think we have a similar independent gene, Pia. I wasn't brought up in a nuclear family. I've been Independent since my mum died when I was five. People have come and gone throughout my life,until, now (again) I find myself alone. I am a sociable person and I like having friends but I don't need them. It's unnatural for a mother to say, but I don't need my children, which is just as well because one has gone and the other hangs by a thread in my life. We are socially conditioned to cling to our family and then extend tentacles of need to a friend network for security. I don't need anybody. I comfort myself in employment, I work, I read, I write, I lose myself in other people's lives through television soaps and reality TV. I never get bored and would prefer to live alone than with the housemate that I have because neither of us can afford to move out. I don't want anymore man/woman relationships (though in the future, I probably will and again it will end badly) And I honestly don't care that I'm on my own, in many ways I prefer it and could be content with it if it wasn't for the fucking guilt. I've lost my eldest son and his family, they hate me and the guilt of that eats away at me, daily. Youngest son, has taken out three grand's worth of credit in my name and I'm having to fight creditors daily about that. I had to drop all legal proceedings when I found out that my own son was at the bottom of it. He has a baby, I couldn't send him to jail. Because of that I pulled back even further from our already tenuous relationship. And I'm constantly being nagged for not being a tentative enough grandmother. 'Oh, it's just like last time, you've lost interest. You're doing what you did to my brother. You don't care.' Clearly I don't ... not enough.

I've got pretty italics too.

I used to have a very close relationship with my niece (there's only five years between us and we became like sisters)

My mother was killed when I was five.
I spent most of my childhood in care
I was abused.
I married a violent gypsy
and I've spent my life flitting from one place to another, one man to another. Going where I want, when I want and doing what I want.

My brother was twenty when my Mum was killed he was already in the army.

He married a nice woman.
Got rich
came out of the army and became the top man in the Post Office in Cumbria.
Bought a big house.
Stayed married and had two kids, no more, just the two.

My niece was brought up properly.

She had a huge wedding

She married a man for money and soon came to despise him.

When they had money worries she ran to daddy.

She never had a family upset or trauma

She became the PA to lord Cavendish and like her father bought a big house. Her kitchen alone cost thirty grand.

And yet, she envied me. I did all the things that she wanted to do. She'd never had passionate sex in her life. She'd never hitch-hiked. She'd never just upped and offed when she decided that she didn't like her life. I do it every few years. Like Stan mentioned about bubbles, she was terrified about stepping out of hers.

She once said to me, 'What's it like to not have enough money to pay the electricity bill? I'd love to experience that, just once.' Hell, I experienced it every three months. She wanted to experience struggling but couldn't because she never needed to and even if she did in the early days, dad was always there to protect her from it.

And like Stan, I wouldn't have thanked her for her loveless life and heavy family responsibility to relentless Sunday dinners.

Just dug out an essay by Anthony Storr, published in The Indy in 1999 (and saved by prescient me!) entitled 'The darkness that has brought humanity light'. Basically, it's about the debt we owe to men and women of genius who've suffered from mental illness.

There's one quote in it that I find particularly reassuring:

"If we could extinguish the sufferers from manic-depressive psychosis from the world, we would at the same time deprive ourselves of an immeasurable amount of the accomplished and good, of colour and warmth, of spirit and freshness. Finally, only dried-up bureaucrats would be left. Here I must say that I would rather accept into the bargain the diseased manic-depressives than to give up the healthy individuals of the same hereditary cycle."

Good man!

Sooz, the song 'common people' by blur springs to mind. Fits your niece perfectly!

I thought that was by Pulp, sid.

Here's a good cover of the old Jeremy Taylor song about such people. Always makes me chuckle..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIoxdFqPdfs

Perhaps we should all be hung, drawn and quartered and tied to stakes and burnt by the state for non-conformity. Perhaps we should allow the vatican to bugger our babies and remove our genitals for non-compliance. Why not let the male establishment and their smug, complacent,dull-of-brain subjects shoot our grandparents before they were born and deny our very existence.

There is no mental 'illness'. The problems are all out there and it is that that needs to be dealt with.

(You can trust me, I've had two brain scans and the results couldn't have been more positive.)

oh and, correct me if I'm wrong, but Kafka's entire family were rounded up and slaughtered for being Jewish were they not? He was the only one left.

The word 'illness' doesn't really do it justice or even adequately describe it in that particular case.

I had, as far as I can recall, a happy, stable childhood until I was 12, at which point something unpleasant happened to me while I was in Wales on a two week school trip. I don't wanna talk about it, as the song goes; sufficient to say the incident was pretty awful. I told no one until I met my missus, then I blurted it out. It was OK, or as OK as it was ever going to get. I guess I survived because I was strong, I had somehow resprayed myself and changed my number plates, but neglected to replace my struggling engine.

We never had much money when we were kids, but we had each other, which I guess is the most important thing. I spent five years on the dole after I did my A levels because I didn't have a fucking clue what I wanted to do, I had no idea where my niche in life was. I read an awful lot of books. I watched my friends go through relationships, marriages, fancy jobs and whatnot while I had nothing.

I had a couple of girlfriends during this time, but nothing lasting, nothing important, and I was more interested in running and weight training. I refused to give my all until I met Miss Perfect. "That might be never," a friend once said, "which will leave you old and fucked with nothing, as opposed to where you stand now - young and strong, with nothing but hopes and dreams. Act now, mate, before it's too late. Get what you can, rape the world, because the world is a bastard that owes you nothing, the world is an evil monster that will hurt you however and whenever it can."

Then I decided that I wanted to be an artist, so I worked my way up from part time classes, through a foundation course and on to a BA at Wolverhampton, where I specialised in sculpture - I left with a 2:1 in 1989, and I still had nothing. Apart from a broken two year relationship with a woman that I loved desperately, but who was never particularly good to me. She taught me how to be a sexual tyrannosaur, but she never loved me, not even a tiny bit, and that bloody hurt.

I drifted into a job in a local forge where my brother was a manager, I hated it but I stayed there for 18 years until I was made redundant in 2009 when the recession bit hard. While I was working in the forge I bought a house, met my missus, got married and knocked out a couple of kids. We've been married for 17 years now, we have our ups and downs and the kids think we hate each other when we argue, which is frequently, but we don't - we love each other very much, but we both have very strong personalities and powerful, often opposite opinions. We're struggling financially, because I'm still out of work, but thankfully we're not starving.

Though I met and somehow hanged onto my Miss Perfect I still feel that I'm an outsider, I feel like an oddly shaped piece in a jigsaw puzzle that doesn't quite fit anywhere in the big picture. All I want, I keep telling myself, is to make enough cash to get by on, enough to be happy and content, enough so that we don't have to struggle all the time. How happy I would be if I suddenly found myself in that position (or if I won a few million quid on the lottery) I don't know, but right now I seem to drift between a vague, semi-contentment and a sort of medium dark depression.

I've recently started painting again (I'm a semi-abstract aboriginal art inspired surrealist), and when I'm emotionally stable enough to work reasonably hard either on my pictures or my writing I reach a plateau of happiness in the foothills, but I don't often feel any ambition to climb into the mountains and I'm never exactly blissful, if you get my gist. I very rarely feel that anything I've created has a fat lot of merit - sometimes I think 'that's a bit of all right,' but never 'that's definitely, indisputably fucking A1.'

I suppose what I need most of all is a job, because having a job provided me with financial stability and held me together mentally for a long time, it gave some sort of structure to my life around which I squeezed in all of the other things I needed and wanted to do instead of having an eternity that I don't use anywhere near its full potential. And that's about it.....

Sounds like you are like the rest of us-Walrus. I guess we are a bit sensitive. Blissful no- content -yes. We have to rid ourselves of our guilty feelings. Where do they come from? Who has the nerve to give us guilt complexes? They can go to hell. I think Jung was right (was it him) with the collective consciousness (is that right?)- we are all very busy- at least some of us- with passing on guilt. But I think the more sensivtive of us, the ones who rely on emotions and who know that happiness/bliss/content is a synthesis of body and soul, mind and spirit are the ones,less prone to pass on guilt and on whose shoulders the guilt of the world often lies. I think,like Tan, that the defintions of mental illness are often misunderstood.But on the other hand there is a differnce Tan between a regular sociopath/psychopath than someone actually SUFFERING a mental illness. I wish we could get rid of these guilt feelings.

Yup, wouldn't it be lovely to wave a magic wand, sprinkle ourselves with Pound Shop fairy dust and watch all the guilt and angst and pain evaporate? I don't think there are any complete solutions to the complex problems some of us suffer, though. We just have to take it as it comes, soldier on, be as positive as we can, do the things we enjoy doing whenever possible and complete the stuff that we don't like doing as well as we humanly can with an as near as damn it smile. I have a mountain of washing to put away, and I'm not looking forward to it. Oh, and it's rumpy-pumpy night, all being well, and I sincerely hope I can cheer myself up a bit and muster some enthusiasm.

As I said before, it's silly things that send me spiralling downwards. I've got this cat flea problem bugging me, so I've spent most of the day hoovering and shampooing cats, and tomorrow I have to nip to the vets for more Frontline (it's criminally expensive, and in my opinion nowhere near as effective as it was when it first went on the market). Hopefully then, once I've took those positive steps, I'll crawl laboriously out of the gloom and start to feel a little brighter.

Yes Hh, I'm sorry if I sounded dismissive about the term mental illness.

Mental or emotional or intellectual, whatever you want to call it, anguish, can be a terrible thing. I just don't like the word 'illness' to describe something as intangible and massive as the mind. It's quite a recent development. Even with a physical illness, to have someone describe you as ill on a daily basis doesn't help. A part of the body may be ill but if the rest of it's strong it can compensate or fight back. Doctor Gutmann at Stoke Mandeville didn't get the amputees out of bed by focussing his patients' attention on those parts that were missing but on what they had left.

I agree the psychopath doesn't feel guilt and doesn't suffer. We do. That makes us different, good.

I hope you sort out that terrible flea business Walrus- sounds most stressful.. I'd go down too if it were me. Nice to know you can see a solution to your down feeling- that is positive- think about that.

Tan - which is why it's more helpful and pertinent to talk about 'mental health' rather than 'mental illness'. I don't consider myself to be mentally ill, but that's how I'm framed in the context of society at large. If you have a physical problem, like heart disease or liver cirrhosis - in other words, if these organs aren't working properly, and require medical treatment - then we naturally think in terms of illness. But is it a 'mental' illness if our reactions, emotions and perceptions aren't the same as the norm (whatever that is)? When I'm told I have personality disorders, I think 'disorder by whose standard?' Surely my sense of order is just that: my sense of order. If it doesn't tally with that of the majority, does that make me ill? Why doesn't it just make me different? We humans, though... we love to pigeon-hole, compartmentalise, nail down, because then we think it gives us a framework for understanding. But it's just laziness. And probably ignorance, too.

In his essay, Storr acknowledges that Kafka was not 'ill', but was behaving in a way conditioned by his life experiences. The essay is more about exploring Kafka's unstable sense of identity. He cites RD Laing's example of a patient who has to withdraw from an argument because he felt that his very existence was being threatened. "If one has always felt oneself to be in the wrong, and then tries to assert one's separate existence by gently putting forward an opinion of one's own, anyone who rides roughshod over that opinion is a threat to that separate existence. It is not surprising that people whose childhood experience was like that of Kafka tend to withdraw into an ivory tower of isolation where interaction with others cannot threaten them." (I completely understand that. It's how I behave. So, it's a 'disorder', I'm told, because we're naturally such gregarious and social creatures). This explains, according to Storr, Kafka's problems with intimate relationships: "Kafka perfectly exemplifies the schizoid dilemma: a desperate need for love nullified by an equally desperate fear of actual proximity.... Kafka is looking for a relationship in which he is not required to adapt to the other person, since, all his life, he has tended to lose his sense of identity by never asserting himself and by striving to comply with the demands of the other." (This explains to me, in a way that nothing else does, why I was hopelessly suicidal after my last relationship ended. I was with a controlling, manipulative woman, who shaped every aspect of my life to suit her own ideals. I literallly 'lost' myself in the relationship. She devoured my identity. So, when we finished, I felt completely empty and worthless. Death seemed the only option left - total negation of identity and essence. It astonishes me now that I could ever have been brought to such a juncture... and also that I managed to survive it.)

Writing for Kafka was a means of survival. And because of his experiences, and the way they shaped him, it is through his writing that he was able to articulate the fears that lurk in the minds of all of us, but which - Storr again - "in the ordinary course of events, only become manifest in those whom we label 'psychiatric patients.'"

I like you're personality Stan, at least you've got one.

And what on earth would be an orderly personality anyway. A very dull, obsequious, unimaginative and obedient one probably.