A wheelchair ramp for the mind

Today I was walking past a bank and saw an employee trying to set up a ramp so that a lady in a wheelchair could enter the building. 

It struck me how she wasn't embarrassed and in fact was directing the uninformed man as to how he should set it up.

Then I reflected on how uncomfortable I become when dealing with anything to do with - what you could term my wheelchair ramp to life - benefits.

I'm told by my care team that I am fully entitled to all I receive and yet I always feel like I am doing something wrong.

When I was first ill I didn't even recognise that there was something wrong in the way that someone who's legs had stopped working would have done. 

I ended up affecting all kinds of illnesses that I thought my parents would believe, because how could I say "I can't go to school but I don't know why", and expect them to believe me?

Surely it shouldn't be this way - and yet if even I as a sufferer am feeling guilty, then I can only imagine how a person with no experience of my invisible illness would view me and my difficulties!

Ignorance and discrimination

A few weeks ago my freedom pass stopped working so I ordered a replacement. The bus drivers were all kind and allowed me to travel despite it not scanning (the pass has a picture of me and the date of expiry on it).

Unfortunately when I ordered the replacement the payment was taken but - unknown to me - the order not put through. I waited the ten working days that it could take but it never arrived.

My wife had a hospital appointment so we hopped on the bus to get there and I asked the driver if I could get on though my pass had stopped working.

It turned out I the same driver had allowed me onboard with my broken pass two weeks ago.

I have a freedom pass because I suffer with mental illness so need the support where I am unable to afford things like travel due to not being fit for work. 

You'd have thought a bus driver would understand the vulnerability of someone needing a freedom pass but this one obviously didn't.

He accused me of not ordering a new pass and then told me to surrender the faulty one so that I'd have the motivation to order a replacement.

He then went on to tell me I'd be breaking the law if I refused to hand the faulty pass over.

I became very distressed at this point and didn't know what to do. I ended up getting off the bus but was in such a state that the voices in my head were yelling at me to hurt myself.

I didn't do so but ended up breaking down in the high street in an effort to try and contain myself.

Of course the driver wasn't aware of the administrative error that delayed my new pass getting to me; but to treat someone who is clearly vulnerable (a young person with a freedom pass is bound to be) like that  is plain ignorant in my book. 

Vulnerable members of society & housing

The council found us a place to live due to my vulnerability as a sufferer of mental illness when we were facing homelessness nearly a year ago. The flat looked good when we first moved in but it’s now clear that all the problems were literally painted over.

It wasn’t long before mould started re-growing so we alerted the landlord and he told us to open the windows in order to get air circulating. This was fair enough in the spring and summer but now that we’re in autumn it isn’t so simple.

As it turns out our building has no damp course and instead of putting one in the landlord has opted to attach six inch fake walls to the existing mouldy walls in what seems like a quick fix.

Unfortunately there is now mould in every room so the house reeks of it; plus to compound the issue both my wife and I have asthma which is especially affected by mould.

The bit that gets me though is that we have informed the council of the mould situation and yet they still want to house people here when we move out, which I think that is deplorable.

It's a struggle for a young, vulnerable couple to deal with a landlord who behaves like this. It causes a lot of stress, which has gone on to exacerbate my condition and prevent me from proceeding any further with my recovery. 

There is no first strike in karate & justice

“No first strike” doesn’t mean waiting to be attacked and then retaliating. It goes further than that and can mean avoiding a situation that is dangerous or harmful in the aid of self-preservation.

But what if seeing the state of the world and what people are doing to each other and to themselves is causing you mental distress? Should you then take steps to stop the crap that goes on?

Then there’s the indirect effect something like people over-eating has on you; in the future more money will have to go towards treating the illnesses they will develop as a result of their obesity and this will have a knock on effect on taxes.

And what about global warming? Can you help but be pissed off with the oil companies for engineering politics to their own gains whilst destroying the planet and damaging our health and well being at the same time?

So what's the answer? In a way you're already under attack so you need to take the initiative in the name of self preservation.

The problem is there seems to be a lot of ignorance around; and people who are too caught up with the trivialities of their daily lives to stop and think for themselves.

Others are told they are mentally ill for thinking and put in a medical straight jacket to prevent them from telling the truth.

What do you do? - Schizophrenia - Claiming benefits

I am in still recovery after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia nearly a decade ago. As of yet I have been unable to hold down a job – though not through lack of trying. I hate having to rely on benefits but I have no choice except to do so at the moment.

I don’t deal very well with stress because, as a mechanism for coping, I have shut myself out of my head so that I can only process things by talking to others or sitting down and writing them out. Couple this with the emotional and thought numbing effect of the anti-psychotic medication and you can see my problem.

At the moment stress comes in many forms but the funny thing is that it affects me without it consciously playing on my mind. By this I mean I find myself getting so worn out that it feels as though I’ve crashed into a brick wall but I have no idea why.

When I get into this state I have no energy left to deal with the barrage of intrusive images and thoughts that accost me, telling me (amongst other things) to harm or even kill myself.

Having to be extra cautious not to get into such a state means I am severely limiting what I do day to day. I want to be capable of doing a job now but the reality is my recovery is what’s most important at the moment. 

Sell sell sell your art

Obviously making money is important (how else can you buy food/clothes/shelter/etc?) but when it comes to art the money comes second.

I do not sit down with my pen and paper and think "hmm, I wonder what'd look good on a persons wall" (you can probably tell this from the unpalatable nature of much my work of course). 

It's all about rattling cages for me - jerking people from the stupor of the lives that they've come to accept as normality. 

I realise that this desire stems from my wanting to appear altruistic for selfish gains. But somewhere in there as an annoyance at corruption and inequality.

The funny thing is that people are being corrupt for the same reason that I am being altruistic at the end of the day. 

Heaven, I'm in heaven

I used to have the idea that everyone who was ever alive now, then and in the future is able to see everything you are doing (including what you are thinking). 

This is because, once dead, a person will go to heaven and, once there, be free to pick any point in the whole of history that they fancy and watch it. 

No wonder I developed paranoid delusions! 

Galleries, minds and exploration

I like walking around an art gallery. Some people struggle with them but the white walls don't bother me - I don't find them stark or harsh. It feels like I am walking around the artists mind and seeing their imagination at play.

There is no pressure to rush (except of course when closing time comes around) and it is strangely quiet like a church.

There's something wonderful about people walking around musing on and being stimulated by the ideas of others. I think it's because these people are keen not to accept things as they are, but instead to explore.