There's a benefit to losing one's mind

Regular readers of this blog will notice that I haven’t written anything for quite a while and the answer is that I haven’t had anything I thought was worth writing and I haven’t been very well psychologically.

I lost my second cat, Blossom, on 26^th October 2017 and it completely destroyed me.  I went into a spiral of depression and grief that damaged my resistance to a bout of influenza in mid-December that turned into pneumonia over the Christmas and New Year period that didn’t fully subside until late January/early February this year.

The result of all that has been that I have lost what little empathy I had for the human race and have isolated myself as much as possible from the outside world.  It seems that I was correct in my assertion that having a cat to look after kept me human and allowed me to retain my humanity and empathy.  I do still have the same emotional range that I had but it only manifests in relation to animals and fictional film and TV characters (so much so that any sad events portrayed in those visual amusements can reduce me to tears).

Since Blossom’s passing I have found that I can’t be bothered in writing about politics, social injustices and the cruelty of the current UK ‘government’ because I feel that people just don’t care or that they’re not listening in the first place so what’s the point in wasting my time?

There is also another development that is more worrying.  I cannot seem to concentrate for more than an hour or two at a time and I am becoming increasingly forgetful.  I forget what day it is on a more regular basis than I am comfortable admitting and my train of thought can derail in an instant so that I can forget what I am saying (or writing) in the middle of a sentence.  I have noticed that I can make a shopping list for my rare trips out of the flat and find that I have forgotten to buy something that was on the list because, for some reason, I didn’t see it on the list.

I can’t concentrate on the movies and TV shows that I try to watch so they have become more of an exercise in visual and auditory distraction from the silence than the enjoyable journey into a fictional world that they should be.

I still have days where my concentration returns and I’m not as forgetful and I can have periods of clarity on even my bad days.  I even wrote a review of a movie for my Vault From The Abyss blog but it took me four weeks to complete the review to my satisfaction and the movie is only about 64 minutes long.

I suppose it could be that I’m succumbing to ‘senior moments’ but it seems a little too early for that to be happening given that I’m only 47.  I’ve mentioned my forgetfulness to my Mum but I haven’t shared with her my concerns that this could be more than just getting older as she is going through her own age-related decline given that she’s in her early 80s.

I don’t seem to have reached the level that Mum has reached yet but I can’t help thinking that we’re in a race to see which of us is going to lose our mental faculties first.

Am I just suffering from a decline in mental health due to isolation and grief?  Am I having trouble with my memory due to the years of trying to repress all the bad memories?  Or am I just losing my mental acuity due to the onset of age-related illness?

I don’t know and perhaps I don’t want to know because, as my ‘government’ is trying to kill me and my fellow disability benefit claimants, it may be a blessing that my mind is going so that I won’t feel so betrayed as I just won’t know what’s going on.

PIP Assessment Hell part 12 - Days 15-27 & D-Day

PIP Assessment Hell part 11 - Days 11 & 12, Assessment Day and Day 14

PIP Assessment Hell part 10 - Scared, angry and ashamed of myself

PIP Assessment Hell part 9 - Another bad day

PIP Assessment Hell Part 8 - Worries

PIP Assessment Hell part 7 - Not everyone at Atos is bad

PIP Assessment Hell part 6 - The system conspires against a fair hearing

PIP Assessment Hell part 5 - A better day but still not great

PIP Assessment Hell part 3 - The search for evidence and an advocate begins

PIP Assessment Hell part 4 - Good news and bad

PIP Assessment Hell part 1 - The Letter Arrives

The battle for Humanity’s soul has begun…but I’m out

In 2005 I started to actively do work that would make the world a bit of a better place.  I started out helping individuals with their efforts to better themselves through education by becoming an adult learner support volunteer and, from there, became a Student Governor on the Board of Governors at my local adult college whilst bettering myself with several courses at the same establishment.

In 2009 my efforts went one step further to encompass the betterment of my local community by organising and presenting a depression awareness event that aimed to dispel the myths surrounding depression, give people a better impression of those with the condition and build a sense of community within the depressive community and beyond.  This was followed up in 2010 with a more generalised mental health awareness event which, although didn’t get the community bums-in-seats I was hoping to get, did smooth the way to inter-organisational referrals that helped a number of individuals.  I will never know how many people were truly helped by that second event because figures weren’t kept.

Back in 2009, I also became the Chair of the Thurrock Mental Health Service User and Carer Forum which had, due to the uncertainty of its support systems, was in a poor state and in the following 22 months tried to build it up into something that could sustain itself if the members wanted to do so.  I wrote a constitution and tried to run the group in such a way that maximised its effectiveness (whether I was successful I will leave others to judge).

I also became a columnist on my local news website, Your Thurrock, in 2009. Starting off with mental health and spreading to more general topics, it was only in 2010 that I set my focus on politics.  The debates between the leaders of the main parties awakened my political interest and, when the worst happened and the Tories got into power helped by the treacherous Lib Dems, I used my column to highlight the injustices that were to follow from that victory.  I highlighted the injustice of the Bedroom Tax, the lack of a true mandate for the Tories to govern and other issues but all I got was abuse from the Right-wingers who branded me, at one point, a “communist” because I’m a supporter of the welfare system and hold the bankers who caused the world banking crisis in contempt.  I got very little support from Left-wingers, who should have rallied to my defence, and what I did get was rather lacklustre.

Despite the fact that many of my columns seemed to be Left-wing, I am, in fact, non-partisan and try to remain as impartial as possible as people would have seen if Labour had re-taken power and the ferociousness with which I would have attacked Labour for any mistakes or hateful policies they tried to enact.  This was something that I didn’t have a chance to show given that I only started talking about politics in the aftermath of the Tory victory in 2010 and something that my Right-wing critics seem to ignore because it would weaken their position.

2010 was an especially busy year for me as I joined a mental health service user involvement project that sought to train service users to go out and obtain the information required by the Mental Health Commissioners of Essex to put the money where it was most needed in terms of the services it commissioned.  For the three years of the project, I and many others travelled Essex to get the information we needed to improve the services for the mental health community of Essex.  After three long years and many broken promises by the Commissioners later, the project failed spectacularly, resulting in no improvements and giving the service users who did the work in good faith a bad reputation within the mental health service user community.  We did good work and got burned for it.

In 2012/13, I became involved with a local university’s service user and carer involvement programme for their Social Work Faculty.  I did good work trying to improve the readiness of the social work students for the ‘real world’ beyond their lecture rooms and to give them the sufferer perspective on depression.  I was praised for the work I did by lecturers and students alike and then I got dumped by the programme in 2014 for daring to use an expletive in one of my sessions which was, in fact, a direct quote from a social worker about his or her own service user which led to her suicide.  A Left-wing, nanny State policy was used to stop me from participating in work that would have improved the service provided to thousands.  I was burned, discarded and left psychologically devastated at a time when I was also in the middle of a teacher training course I was taking to help me underpin the work I was doing at the university whilst also going through a divorce and in imminent danger of losing my disability benefits.

Due to the circumstances I found myself in back in 2014 with all my good work left behind me in ashes, I disappeared from public view not wanting to waste my efforts on an increasingly hostile world.  I would return to my isolation to observe Humanity’s fall from grace.

I have watched the UK get torn apart by the Tory insistence on chipping away at every fault line, pitting one group against another, until the whole edifice of UK society started to crumble.  Demonising groups of individuals is their method to make their draconian policies palatable for the gullible masses and they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

The EU Referendum was the final nail in the coffin for the UK’s soul because it chipped away at the one fault line left that even the Tories couldn’t control and allowed the Ultra-Right-wing to get a foothold in the country.  Hate fuelled by the Tories between different groups led to a nasty campaign that has allowed race-hatred to flourish alongside hatred towards the sick, the disabled, the poor and the jobless.

Despite my decision to isolate myself from the rest of society, I did get involved in a couple of marches in London and I have spoken out through my blog but what I have done has been largely ignored so I returned to my isolation and my role as the observer of The Fall.

The Tories are now going towards the Ultra-Right despite what some commentators say and they are now more openly fascistic than they were, bolstered no doubt by the rise of the Ultra-Right forces and sentiments within certain groups.

The one glowing beacon of hope was the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party but, scared by the danger he poses to the status quo, he is being systematically attacked by elements outside his party and from within.  Corbyn may have huge support but I’m afraid that, in such a hostile environment, he may not be able to turn things around.  Without a significant miracle, the UK’s soul is already lost to the Ultra-Right.

Having been abused by the Right and burned by the Left, I now sit outside the battle and have no reason or inclination to get involved again.  Should the future of an Ultra-Right-wing UK become a reality, I will surely be one of those who will be earmarked for the UK’s version of ‘The Final Solution’ because of my depression and I will die (as this is my fondest wish since the age of 11, I don’t see this as a negative thing) and so I see no reason to fight.  If a miracle happens and Corbyn’s supporters turn the tide, I will be safe but remain depressed.  I have no stake in the future as I have no children and I will be either dead at the hands of British Nazis or safe but forever depressed so, again, no real reason to get involved in what I increasingly see as your fight as I no longer feel a part of the human race.

The problem is, the threat to Humanity’s soul has spilled out into other countries and it could have been avoided if people had learned the lessons of history.  The Ultra-Right is in ascendance and Humanity has only itself to blame.

I tried to warn people and they ignored me.  I’m not a crank who believes he can see the future; I’m a man who tries to learn the lessons of history.  I could see history being repeated and can extrapolate the future that will evolve from current events if they are not changed.

Hitler was far from an aberration as he was once thought as.  Hitler was the forerunner of the dark times ahead for Humanity.

I will rise or fall with Humanity but I have tried to do my bit to improve lives and society and failed.  The fight is yours alone now because I’m out.

Change, hardship, sorrow and a first for me

The last few weeks have been filled with a great deal of change and they have had a seriously corrosive effect on me.  The only thing that is currently getting me through it all is the fact that, despite my earnest intention to never take on another cat, I adopted my parent’s cat following her visit to stay with me while my parents were away on holiday.  Blossom is both a comfort and a constant reminder that my beloved son and companion Merlin is gone as she is very similar in appearance to Merlin given that they are from the same breed.

My latest round of life-altering changes came about three or four weeks ago when, finally, the local council offered my ex-wife a flat of her own so the enforced living together that we have endured since our divorce came through has finally come to an end.  Not that the days between Diana getting the flat and her actually moving in weren’t stressful as there were moments when we thought the whole deal would fall through due to financial worries on Diana’s part and the amount of time it took for most of the furniture to be delivered to make the flat habitable.

Of course, when Diana signed the tenancy agreement, the enormity of the hardship I would be subjected to finally hit me as I became solely responsible for the rent, Council Tax and all the bills for the flat that was our marital home.  It has been a long time since I have been responsible for the financial affairs for the household being out of work for so long with my mental health issues so I was unprepared for the huge cost of living nowadays.  I thought that I was struggling before now but I realise that I was extremely lucky to have shared expenses with Diana for so long during this extended period of enforced joblessness.  I will certainly look back on the days of being able to order dinner from a takeaway every so often with a certain nostalgic melancholy.  My £100 a week Employment and Support Allowance is eaten up within hours and I’m not entirely sure that I’ll be able to cope.

It seems ironic that the things I have tried to inform people about – how benefits are too petty an income to live on and be expected to pay towards rent and Council Tax and the injustice of the Bedroom Tax – have now become a reality for me.  Where once I could only imagine the financial strain on someone on benefits, I am now facing a future of personal experience of those issues.

Diana finally moved out on Friday 27^th May and I was left alone with my new cat in a flat that now feels so empty.  Don’t get me wrong, it is certainly better for my relationship with Diana but the situation I’m now in should have been with my beloved son Merlin and not with a latecomer adopted daughter like Blossom.  I do love Blossom but this future was one I always envisaged to be mine and Merlin’s.

I’ve kept myself busy with housework, watching the DVDs I bought to cope with Merlin’s loss (something I can no longer afford to do so thank God for Blossom) and doing stuff on the computer.  It’s still a state of affairs that, although something I’ve been wanting for ages, is hard to cope with especially as it came just a matter of days before my birthday last Monday which is always a time of great depression for me.

My birthday depression is heightened now by the fact that the anniversary of Merlin’s death comes less than a week later on 5^th June and this year, being the first anniversary, has been particularly hard and I found myself bursting into tears from time to time and trying to get comforting hugs from Blossom who is much more active and agile than you would expect from a cat coming up to her 10^th birthday in a few months.

However, despite all the sadness and stress of my new living situation, it has opened up opportunities for new experiences such as my first attempt at cooking scrambled eggs for breakfast.  I know, it’s shocking that a 45-year-old man hasn’t done scrambled eggs before but I only had them when on holiday or Diana cooked them for me on special occasions so I’ve never had the need to cook them for myself.  However, as I am trying to live within very restricted financial means now, I have decided that scrambled eggs will be an integral part of my shoestring catering repertoire.  My first attempt was not entirely successful as, despite seasoning the eggs with pepper, they tasted of nothing and I probably over-cooked them as they were extremely dry and not at all like the scrambled eggs I have had in the past but I will persevere.

With all the doom and gloom that surrounds me at the moment, there is a slight chink of light which may offer some hope.  A couple of weeks ago I met a man who was interested in my ideas for running mental health awareness training from a sufferer’s perspective (much like the stuff I did for Anglia Ruskin University and Thurrock Council) and he seems to think that I would be accepted for a grant of £500 towards starting up a social enterprise delivering such training.  Certainly something to cheer me up if I was that easy to cheer up, knowing as I do how fleeting such chinks of light can be.

I was also introduced to a lady from Thurrock Council who helps social enterprises get started who also seems to think that my ideas for mental health awareness training could work and is currently looking into how she can help me break into such a niche vocation.

If either or both of these links pan out, I might one day be self-employed and on my way to having a fulfilling life but there’s a part of me that can’t get over the fact that I’ve been in a similar position before, where life looked as if it was finally going to be a little brighter before the roof caved in on me and left me so near to suicide it took the act of a stranger to save me from taking my own life.  While I will try to look at the future in a positive light, I think I’ll wait until the other shoe drops before I start to celebrate a positive change in fortunes.