Not Every Breakdown Stays Tragic

Not Every Breakdown Stays Tragic

Some times there are little victories. A reader found my blog while looking for a picture of the Moon. His story:

I live in Fife in Scotland.

I was looking for large and interesting desktop wallpaper images with Google and I found your blog by accident.

I'm a psychiatric day patient. I certainly don't carry a 'gun'. But I wanted to describe my last ten or so years:

In 1996 I was in London. I had a newly pregnant girlfriend. It was too much for my poor wee brain to take so I spent the year gradually going down the slippery slope til in early 1997 I was admitted to psychiatric hospital near where my parents live.

I had twenty months in-patient treatment then my first discharge into the local community. I had temporary accommodation for a while and took a local authority (public housing) tenancy in 1999.

To be honest, I really had a hell of a time, not in a good way. I walked out on the whole thing in 2000 and went off to find some peace travelling the country. On my return I made an attempt on my own life. New Year saw me back in the acute admissions ward.

In 2005 my neighbour murdered a young woman in his flat and I felt lucky to avoid losing my sanity.

Since then I've been in recovery. I attend the day hospital in a small town and I've learned how to use the system wisely. I have been in some very, very dark states of mind undoubtedly. Whether the medical folk ever considered 'throwing away the key' I don't know. But I'm now 99% certain that institutional care is no longer necessary for me. I think that the idea of community care is not new but that it takes a LOT of working out both from the staff side and from that of the service user.

There are cases of mad people doing bad things. Tragedies every one. But the freedoms we aspire to (American's above all, surely) are not really possible in a hermetic, clinical environment. Long-stay patients have an easy time of it which is as it should be. But all human beings have the capacity to engage more fully in society although as I've said it's a long journey to reach the destination. And even then it's simply a new beginning.

I have a friend in Cincinnati I met through the Internet site 'schizophrenia.com'. She lost a son. He shot someone and then himself. Terrible. She has another son who she helps care for at home, who is going to a programme of some sort. With the little I've got to know him seems like a nice guy.

As psychiatric patients we suffer a lot of stigma as it is. Centuries-worth of it in fact. Don't let's be hasty to stifle the current drive for increased inclusion and opportunity. Sh*t happens, as I'm sure you will be well aware. Dangerous situations arise that tax the best and worst of us. In my opinion the way forward is forward, not back.

I do wish you well in your political life and I'm glad I found the web stuff. As it happens the image I downloaded for my desktop is a lovely full moon just as there is in the sky this evening. Perfect for lunatics and Republicans alike!

God's blessings. Happy Easter. Life is for living. Together we can do it, that's my belief.

Some people recover after treatment. By his own admission, he's not completely recovered, but he's well enough to live outside a hospital--an admirable aspiration for anyone struggling with schizophrenia. Certainly, if there is a way to make community level treatment work, that's the best possible choice. For some, it works, for others, it does not. His web page is here.