CHAPTER ONE.
A history of a condition from the twelve steps
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I have been developing aspirations through the instruction of a spiritual program which is based upon a twelve step program.
This program is a spiritual master which will guide my aspiring consciousness to a golden shore of tranquility.
It pays to have an island of calm in a sea of trouble rather than be beset by waters of a sea of ignorance.
A spiritual master is a bridge across troubled waters.
I will outline a history derived from working the steps of a twelve step program.
Having become powerless over a condition means that my perception has had to own up and I have checked myself into a twelve step program to assess my needs in relation to the condition.
The first three steps are outlined as follows:
Step one states that we have become powerless over a condition and that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step two is we came to believe that a higher power could restore us to sanity and step three is we came to hand the care of our lives over to the will of a higher power.
The fact that drug abuse was rife and that I had been using certain drugs in Bristol was used as an opportunity for an assault on my character. This experience labeled me as a drug addict and was used to defame my character which is a polite form of murder.
Buying cannabis for myself and my clients would involve riding a motorbike, I used to have a Honda 400/4 supersport, which I would ride to different areas and was called scoring.
Smoking would take place after a nights drinking in pubs when the pubs had closed and inevitably involved drinking and driving. In Henleaze cannabis smoking would accompany drinking vodka, watching videos and taking L.S.D. 
On a visit to a pair of friends for a smoke of some cannabis, I was was offered a meal by someone who was later that night to become my girlfriend. She had been to the same girls schools in Grantham as Margeret Thatcher. I found her personality rather coercive. As I was homeles a meal and a bed for the night seemed liked an attractive proposition. She took took to trying to mother me which I felt was destroying my personality. This is the great mother archetype as described by Jung.
I began to feel that I understood myself less and less and felt disturbed.
I took to drinking and late night using of drugs with friends to to forget how I was feeling. I found that if I had drugs I could bribe my way into peoples company. I very much felt like an outsider. Peoples company helped me to forget this. When I felt bad or guilty from drinking and drugs I would take more to forget these feelings and memories as well.
I had applied to do an M.Sc. course in Information Technology to make a geographical move to get away from my situation in which I felt shame, and also to enter university again which I thought would be a return to a sheltered environment. I thought a return to study would be e return to the fold.
Before the course started I was arrested for pulling a wheeley while drinking and driving.
I was in a poor disappointed state when I started the course in Aston. It was out of the frying pan into the fire. I was diagnosed by a consultant on the campus as having schizophrenia.
After handing in blank papers in my exams and failing the course I returned to Bristol. While celebrating a friends birthday in the Dugout night club  and drinking seven pints of Dry Blackthorn cider on top of psychiatric injections of Modicate. I ended up receiving a puntured liver from being stabbed. While I think of it, it occurs to me that this wound was inflicted as a gesture of hostility with the spirit of voices from old haunts. I think the resentment may have been the previous visits to score cannabis from these premises.
As it is I remember even now a popular television soap series Grange Hill which afterwards was seen as just  saying no drugs as part of a national campaign.
Next came a job with the Dickinson Robinson Group. This company had a collection of subsidiary companies such as D.R.G. hospital packaging and Basildon Bond stationary.
As a result of the injury I had recieved in the Dugout night club I had become even more neurotic on top of the symptoms of my condition. I took two days holiday, once taking a taxi from Bristol to Bridgewater to see some relatives and escape an imagined threat of further hostility after rioting.
On another occasion while working for the same company I took some more days off and took a train to Bristol to Barnstaple and then a taxi from Barnstaple to Burrington. This was a farm house in the process of restoration on one of the highest points between Dartmoor and Exmoor, It was very isolated and felt very secure. The place reminded me of the setting for Wuthering Heights a book by Emily Bronte which I read at school. 
My psychiatrist called these feelings a state of heightened sensitivity.
On one occasion after a night shift at D.R.G. as a trainees computer operator, I visited the central police station to make a confession to the police about vandalising vehicles after drinking.
This became one of a couple of visits to the police to make a number of confessions to the police on the advice of a psychiatrist. These include stolen parking meters and driving abroad while under a ban. It was to become the basis of what was later to be my step four which states that we take a fearless moral inventory.  My inventory included indolence, promiscuity, as well as theft, being belligerent, and destructive behaviour. Today after repeated step fours with my psychiatrist here in Barnstaple I have managed to unravel enough of my personality to uncover the following defects of character: indolence, idiocy, vanity, gullibility, envy (wanting to be part of a university life again), arrogance and pride.
My visits to the police station  were also to be the foundation of my step five, ' We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another person the nature of our character defects.
Confessions entailed making statements about vandalism, kleptomania a symptom of schizophrenia, for which I was being treated and belligerent behaviour.
The next two steps after the previous two outlined steps are step six being we became willing to have our higher power remove our defects of character and step seven which is we humbly asked our higher power to remove these defects of character.
Steps eight and nine involve making a list of all persons I had harmed as a result of these defects and then making amends wherever possible. I am still in the process of doing this today.
After the confessions of step five and the amends from step nine, I have felt freedom from nightmarish guilt trips and their feelings of depersonalisation or feelimg like an actor.
I lost my job with D.R.G. after several months possibly because of the time I had taken off from work at short notice.
The Dugout was closed down and  D.R.G. was taken over by a hostile takeover bid after a syndicate had bought a controlling interest of all the shares on the board of directors.
More change and more instability making me more neurotic, a kind of disappearing world. It compounds my feeling of being an actor in a cardboard world.  It is as if I am playing a part in the film the invasion of the bodysnatchers with alien pods taking over the souls of sleeping people. This has thought to be a metaphore or proganda undermining communism with its reds under the beds scare. 
The healing to be found from making amends and the ensuing change in my life is very important.
I can remember several times cycling to Barnstaple , Bridgewater and Glastonbury often travelling overnight when it is quiet often resting on the moors.
The idea to of cycling to these areas was to go somewhere quiet to get detachment from the feelings of being hunted. This may have been frustration with my circumstances resulting from from my traumas from drinking.
I remember on one occasion cycling towards Glastonbury and coming to the end of my journey I could see the beautiful sight of Glastonbury Tor in the Sunrise. On another occasion I awoke from a hedge near Sedgemoor to watch the sunrise praying for the warmth from the rising suns rays. I later drunk a pint of milk for breakfast and slept on the kerbside in the morning sunlight.
In both these experiences time was without past and future and again I had a feeling of heightened sensitivity and of being in touch with my higher power.
Another memory which now seems as a memory of a memory or an experience of touching God is of cycling down a hill in a valley surrounded on each side with tall trees, country hedges and fields on the far side of Barnstaple watching the sun about to set.
A similar experience occured abroad in Cyprus after driving up to the Trootos mountains in Cyprus which is the locality of the tomb of president Mikarios. I saw a donkey pull a cart full of local oranges and melons up the mountain road and watched the sun about to set among the pine forests of the mountains.
Before being dianosed as having schizophrenia at Aston university I had several similar tranquil experiences in the Devon farmhouse. On one occasion I drove to a hump back bridge on my motorbike and meditated and cogitated in the countryside.
Other journeys included driving into Barnstaple every couple of days to buy the next in an anthology about sword and sorcrery. I would sit up and read them in the quiet of the countryside night in the middle of the moors.
After being arrested for drinking and driving and before going to Aston  I remember travelling from Bristol back to Barnstaple by train and reading a book on existentialism called Knulp by Herman Hesse. After losing my transport from drinking with a massive dependancy on motorbikes for scoring and feelings of freedom and independance, this book seemed rather fatalistic although it proved to be an interesting philosophical exercise. Existentialists believe that they are held accountable for their own personal development.
The argument boiled down to self-will and self-determination versus Gods will or higher power and a philosophy for living. 
Step ten of is we continued to take a moral inventory and when we were wrong promptlly admitted it.
To help me with this I have adopted a program which I call the nine Ps. They are listed as follows
1. People
2. Places
3. Prejudices
4. Personality
5. Political and religious
6. Personal history
7. Personal lifestyle
8. Program
9. Profile
Step eleven is we sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a higher powers praying only for his will for us?.
Meditation for me seems to be based upon reflection upon postive experiences.
Communion with my higher power suggests to me that I be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible remaining in peaceful places reading to research various things to develop insight into my experiences  and realise my potential through my higher power.
As a result of positive feelings I feel indebted to people that have provided assistance in obtaining some of my goals. As a means of reimbursing these people I aim to pay my debt to society by imparting my message of hope to other people who need help.
This is the twelfth and final step, ' As a result of our spiritual awakening we sought to show gratitude by passing the message on'.

CHAPTER TWO.

Is there an unstable emotional foundation in the community or is it a case of feeling like the devils footprints?
As someone who hears accusing voices as part of a mental illnes, I aam reminded of ghosts from the past from old haunts. My waking ours are memories of sins commissioned from an overconfident youth of which the accuser is unabatedly voicingto me.
I feel like an Antichrist or a false prophet with the mark of the beast on my hands. I have infered from somewhere that all the patients in a local mental hospital are people driven there by a fearful community as they possessed a character defect, such as kleptomania in my case and destructive drinking.
Maybe these communities have their ghosts from the past or skeletons in their cupboards to do with ostercising people.  
In the Saint Paul's civil disturbances in Bristol in 1985 violence was aimed at specific targets and avoided others such as local shops and houses.
In Handsworth in Birmingham,another port of call of mine, a post office was petrol bombed killing the owners. In Brixton a policeman was killed. These are both state agencies.  
As a result of the economic decline and subsequent urban decay it is evident that more and more jobless will break the law to satisfy their needs. Once this element of the population become convinced that the democratic process is not working for them, they will resort to violent means. This problem is added to by drug users who commit burglaries to pay for their drug habit.
The rioters developed a new sense of pride in their community produced by their activities (Brown 1988).
Due to Marxist undertones robbing the workers of political strength with meaningless jobs, robots and computers destroying skills and creativity thus dividing the classes. The emphasis becomes that of striving material wealth wich seems the only thing worthwhile as a means of compemsation. 
In crowds the perceived similarity of the members of the group or population increases and less attention is paid to individuals as they engage in unhinhibited behaviour (Brown 1985).
Under these conditions and possibly those of targeting material gain as a a goal, self-awareness and self-evaluation is reduced and the members of a crowd undergo uninhibited behaviour (Zimbardo 1969). THis is called de-individuation.
An interview of a reresentative of a random sample from a local map mentioned that the riots started in poor ethnic inner city areas where there had been social deprivation and a lack of equality and access to resources.
It is possible that political goals of material gain have alienated members of the community away from the community spirited extended family to a nuclear family with more narcisistic attitudes as opposed to the common good.
This has become a two edged sword with individuals breaking away from the collective, with inordinate pride, and on the other hand exhibiting hostile uninhibited behaviour in crowds. 
It was suggested that the riots were precipitated by a less than even handed approach by the police.
A policeman from my old haunts commited suicide by shooting himself and locally a policeman took the lives of his family and then shot himself. Also in the community there have been four suicides in one local day care centrefor mental illness and four heart attacks in one local church.
An individual was found deceased in a car in an area of Bristol after having been left unnoticed for some time. Maybe he stayed in his car to prevent a pursuer or assailant from following him to his family.

CHAPTER THREE.
After being picked up by the system after being screened for a problem I felt somewhat reduced as a person and more than a little emasculated.
One symptom that was noticeable as part of the paranoia of my condition was thought broadcasting or the idea of some kind of shadow or collective hiding both good and evil.
Thought broadcasting and being in touch with some kind of shadow or larger entity would be manifest as attaching significance to news broadcasts on the television or radio.
The first such incidence of this paranoia occured during a stay in Glastonbury.
I had awoken early to enjoy the change in scenery and to have a cigarette and coffee when I heard on the television that a secretary's body was found on a public footpath nearby. The milkman rattled the milk bottles as he left with slightly hurried steps. Was this to be supportive on the part of the milkman or was it intended to produce more paranoia.
Were my circumstances important or disturbing enough to warrant a premeditated murder.
I walked down to the local newsagents only to find the shop attendant being whispered to by his wife.
I later found out that the secretary had been murdered by another woman and had made it look like it had been done by a man to create a larger disturbance.
Had I been ego fodder and made to feel even more emasculted and trapped.
On occasions I have seen news flashes on the television of local news and observed what appears to be the perpetrator of the crime at the scene in front of the camera dressed in drag or incognito.
They have returned to the scene of the crime to watch the reporter and the emergency services.
This serves to allow their fantasies of control to surface.
The setting for the crime is as I have just mentioned is in Glastonbury with its reputed posession of ley lines giving out field forces.
This is reminiscent of  The witches of Loudon by Aldous Huxley which is about ley lines or geomancy affecting the community. The idea of an extranious force acting on people causing them to commit a crime gives me some detachment from the shock of the crime itself as on a news flash some of the details of the crime are mentioned but not any of the motives or reasons., 
Once I attached significance to a piece of computer software I had received from a neighbour. It was a cookbook all about insurgency. I associated this with seeing the picture of a local vicar on the television who had been murdered. It was as if the picture of a vicar, a holy person as a victim of crime was intended to comical. Was this part of my condition experiencing thought broadcasting on radio and television.
I have even heard theories about transmitting radio waves to stimulate the pineal gland to trigger an inner vision and also bed springs which act as receivers for radiowaves which produce E.S.P. of some kind.
It is hard to talk about these conspiracy theories when similar ideas are thought of as paranoid delusions or depersonalising agencies. 
Part of an earlier wave of fear which had gripped regions where I had stayed overnight was in Barnstaple where after I left the area a woman was found drowned in a pond. Similarly in Gloucester where I had stayed a woman was found drowned.
These occurrences felt as if they were part of the shadow and I felt as if I was connected to them.
To mitigate for feelings of guilt or paranoia I adopted the theory by T.C. Lethbridge who believed that field forces from water can contribute to these happenings. For example when vistiing Ladram beach he experienced an aura or a premonition of some kind and had to leave in a hurry. When he returned several years later he discovered that there had been a suicide in the area. Again water had been involved.
Alternatively geomancy may again be involved with each site being a hotspot for accidents much like a black spot on the road except other forces are involved.
Whenever I have presented to a consultant complaining of harassment, I have been told that it it is projection or that I am imposing patterns upon circumstance.
My friends also believe that I am paranoid and deluded and have told me so. This just serves to deepen my feelings of helplessness. I am usually convinced that there is no smoke without fire.  Although I am drawing inferences from what is happening around me, it is with a previously learned frame of reference and I am unable to grow in the situation because I am missing a piece of the picture.  Everything is called incongruent.
I have found that a better self concept and an understanding of the situation is called for to deal with the complex behind the projection. The better the self concept, the better a channel is produced for thwarted or frustrated feelings.
I am treating my states of consciousness as a grail or detective story with meaning and understanding taking time.
I suspect that there are one or two deep seated complexes situated in my psyche which are difficult to resolve.
I have also been told that my projection arises because I am harbouring old resentments and cannot change to accomodate new situations. 

CHAPTER FOUR.
CAMPAIGN FOR DISABILITY AWARENESS.

Dear reader,
the reason for this blog is to draw attention to the idea that disabled people, either physically disabled or mentally impaired are vulnerable and are more susceptible to abuse and oversights concerning their welfare or health.

Here are some case histories which have happened over recent years.

 July 2007.
1. Kevin Davies was an epileptic who had been kept hostage locked up in a garden shed and fed potato peelings. On his death it had been discovered that he had been given weedkiller.

2. Steven Hoskins, a person with a learning difficulty had been kept prisoner in his own flat. The authorities were notified about suspicious noises coming from his flat, but nothing was done. He was beaten and tortured. He was also made to wear a dog collar and kept on a lead. Steven was left hanging from a viaduct where a woman stood on his hands and he fell one hundred feet to his death.

January 2008.
3. Brent Martin was murdered by two youths who bet each other five pounds that they could knock him out. It was quoted that he was a gentle giant and that the youths took advantage of his better nature. Also, it was reported that there had been a spate of crimes against disabled people who were targetted for their disability.

July 2008.
4. An investigation was held concerning NHS treatment of people with a learning disability.
A case was quoted where it took three days for a person with a broken leg to see a pain team. He died eight weeks later.
I think the conclusion from this case is that people with a mental handicap / impairment including the elderly are more at risk from neglect because they are unable to state their needs.

November 2013.
5. Bijan Ibrahimi was a person with a learning difficulty. His interest was flowers. On photographing the damage done to his flowers he was called a paedophile and  to his disbelief was arrested.  After a man killed him by stamping on his head while another provided white spirit which was then used to set his corpse on fire.

About the author of this blog:
I myself received a stab wound after being assaulted and provoked.
I took up martial arts classes to learn some more self defense. I had a feeling that there was a bit more to these classes than sport concerning the instructors but that could be down to my paranoid illness or projection after my stabbing.
A number of years later I was assaulted with a bottle and was punched and then kicked when I was on the ground. I got up and ran off but my assailants gave chase until my left knee which had been repaired after a road accident, suddenly gave way and I hit the road sustaining further injuries to my knee.
These assaults to my person may have just been by opportunists, but with a mentall illness (paranoid schizophrenia) it is a struggle not to strengthen my negative feelings to the community. As it is I have relocated to a rural area.
I have asked for respite care as as a day patient at the local hospital but due to recent cuts there is only access to hospital facilities as an in patient.
I am unable to get an appointment to see my psychiatrist until next year. I recent have only been able to average about two appointments a year.
I fear slipping through the net where family and friends and the police have to take on the burden for a lack of support by the health service.
Before I relocated from Bristol I had been a disability advisor with Bristol City Council for a year and believe in a policy of social inclusion.

CHAPTER FIVE.
Wotan operates in situations which cannot be dealt with in familiar ways. Archetypes are innate images in the collective unconscious, for example grandma and the wolf and the moral of wandering off of the beaten path in the story Little Red Riding Hood. These images refer to groups which are very old. The race takes on a specific behaviour and is directly influenced by the archetype. The shadow an archetype, which is produced by constraints on the personality are the negative feelings such as jealousy which can incite behaviour. The shadow can hide good and evil. The feelings form the needs, musts and aughts parts of the person being symbolised as Wotan. Wotan gives conscious expression to the collective unconscious through group behaviour and gives rise to the emergence of racial memories. It has had far reaching consequences for our culture today. It is a tribal god and became manifest in Germany as National socialism by removing factions and uniting a nation hence the word national.
Trevor Ravenscroft believes that the hard core of Nazis were satanists. Supporting Hitler in the black arts were Eckart, Haushofer and Heilscher. Luciferic principality inhabiting Hitler's mind saught by racist doctrine to lead man away from the recognition of the individual human spirit. Another reference to the collective and nationalism again.
As Wotan is an archetype which comes into play during mass movement this facilitated the expression of the god of the collective unconscious still further. In the abscence of a leader or a recognised behaviour pattern for members of a crowd to enact, chaos and confusion ensue. There are contagion theories to cover crowdb ehaviour. According to Le Bon (1897) Isolated man may be a cultured individual; in crowds he is a barbarian. Crowd behaviour is an irrational and uncritical response to the psychological temptations of the crowd. If suggestion is made in an authorative manner, people may be led to react readily and uncritically (Lang & Lang 1961). The conscious personality vanishes and the racial or collective unconscious such as Wotan takes over. Crowds permit the expression of behaviour that would otherwise be repressed. Heightened suggestibility does make rumour an importantan factor in collective bhaviour.
Apart from other horrors of World War Two, the catastrophic events of the holocaust were caused by the Germans identifying with a a super race, the Aryians.
In 1909 Hitler made contact with Jorg Lanz Liebenfels, a former Cistercian monk who in 1907 had opened a temple of the 'Order of New Templars' at Werfenstein castle near Grein in Austria. Liebenfels was a disciple of Guido Von List who had used a Swastika as his emblem. Guido Von List was a son of a leather trader in boots and goods. At the age of fourteen he renounced his Catholicism and vowed to build a wooden temple to Odin.
Later the Thule society was formed and took over the organisation of Guido Von List. This society took its name from Ultima Thule, a mythological paradise. Viking helmets and swords were used in ritual ceremonies. The Thule society, a Nordic occult based freemasonry was employed to counter an imagined Jewish conspiracy backed by occult practices.
Decadent traditions were destroyed aand aspects of a true past were employed to herald a new dawn.

CHAPTER SIX.
I have been receiving psychiatric help in the form of listening and medication for the last thirty years. Since psychiatry commenced I have been left to my own devices. Before I was diagnosed mentally ill with schizophrenia I had obtained nine O-levels, three A-levels and a B.Sc. in microbiology from Bristol university. Since my diagnoses I have only obtained a city & guilds in computer programming in BBC Basic, and have only managed to hold down three jobs for a matter of a couple of months each time and two other jobs for around a month each. Admittedly I had also received a punctured liver in an assault which left my very neurotic around other people including in a working environment.
My diagnosis took place at Aston university while studying for an M.Sc. in Information technology after the campus doctor asked me to be seen by a visiting consultant. After the interview I was put on Modicate injections which were based on modified snake venom, or so I have heard. Is this what is now being referred to as toxic psychiatry. I did not not complete my M.Sc. and When I left the campus my feet kept arching and every few steps I had to sop and voluntarily place the heels of my feet back on the ground. It was a long and painful process making my way to Birmingham New street station. Was this reaction an overdose of the drug, a side affect or an allergy.
I had previously also been an outpatient at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and my return to Bristol led to me being put on a less stringent drug depixol, although this meant I was out of breath at times.
Here is a list of the drugs that I have taken for my schizophrenia :-
1. Stelazine
2. Thioridazine
3. Chlorpromazine
4. valium.
5. Pimozide
6. Melleril
7. Sulperide
8. Seroquel
9. Modicate
10. depixol
11. Olanzapine
Quite a cocktail of drugs.
I think the above are most of the psychiatric drugs I have taken.
I wonder about some of the health issues from taking these drugs. Thioridazine has effects on the heart and vision. In recent years I have developed a chest complaint and have to wear glasses for reading. It is possible though that these could be attributable to some other cause.
I took chlorpromazine without realising that it is used as an anti - emetic as well as an anti - psychotic drug. In the 70's I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance with distonia as the result of a side effect from Maxalon taken for a stomach bug. I was kept in hospital under observation for a week with some time off school afterwards. Could this drug or any of the others I have taken account for the psychological distress I have been experiencing.
I wonder if these drugs have left me mentally impaired.
The Bristol Royal Infirmary consultant told me that he did not believe in labeling people and that I had just had some kind of breakdown. I think this is a reasonable approach as most doctors these days do not take an interest in a personal history and just make generalisations based on symptoms. I certainly believe in the experiential aspect of an illness with being familiar with the pressures and family tree of emotions that precipitated my illness, i.e. 'being there'. I could branch off and go into the study of ontology and metaphysics both rationalising being but I do not wish to digress at this point.
It is possible that these conceptions and generalisations based on symptoms are moving from the objective to the subjective and involve discriminatory processes which throws the baby out the bath water. We need less of a runaway train of convergent thinking and need to step back and view the whole picture and objectify ourselves.
The BRI's approach was progressive and reminds of R.D. Laing's work with existential psychiatry where the patient is given a safe framework and presented with the opportunity to see that a situation is not necessarily life threatening and he / she has a chance to resolve his / her defences.
On moving to Barnstaple I have been working on a twelve step recovery program with my psychiatrist. Step four is taking a moral inventory of my character defects / pathological behaviour and confessing it.  Then I make amends for the trouble these defects have caused, resulting in less guilt trips and the persecutory rhetoric that has ensued since going down the psychiatric pathway / illness, and also my stab wound.
A recent New Scientist magazine has recently contained an article on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) instead of a chemical straight jacket.
Are my drug regimes an example of toxic psychiatry. Were they really necessary or should I rationalise  it by saying we have to make progress from some starting point. will there be humility or recognition for someone like me who has gone through the system?
Richard Gross in his book Challenges in psychology states that in the past there have been leper colonies, next came the burning of witches at the stake, and today it is psychiatry.

CHAPTER SEVEN.
Recently there has been some attention given to the definitions of mental illnesses recorded in the diagnostic manual used by doctors. The verdict was there is a tendency to overdiagnose. For example, what would be considered as a case of depression by a general practitioner (GP) can be thought of as the mind's natural reaction to loss. 
Taking this to a deeper level, with regard to schizophrenia, increased levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine is thought by psychiatry to be the cause of this illness. I would consider high levels of dopamine to be a natural response by the mind to pain or stress. The dopamine levels in this case would be a symptom rather than a cause. Ontologicaly speaking, "being there" is the correct attitude. Doctors make generalisations based on symptoms without taking a personal history. A quick look at the computer, a label and a tablet often leave me feeling rejected and despondent. This approach by doctors is based on finance, i.e., it is more cost effective to prescribe for example a stelazine tablet which costs one penny, for a psychosis, than say many hours of psychoanalysis. Many times has medication been called chemical cosh or a chemical straight jacket. The aim of the medication is to keep the patient quiet. As a short term measure in a crisis this may be acceptable or necessary but in the long term it supresses the trauma, or in other words, it puts a lid on things without addressing oneself to the issues which precipitated the illness. It is possible that without taking stock of the cause of a mental illness patterns may emerge. I assume by taking a full history, rigid patterns would be broken allowing feelings / emotions to surface and to be resolved.
There is another aspect to overdiagnosing / labeling. If a healthy person makes assumptions about situations based on experience, he is thought to be making generalisations or stereotyping. If a patient with a mental health label does this he is projecting which is deemed to be a symptom and pathological. In this case it has led to me being frightened to approach a doctor or a psychiatrist for help for fear of not being believed. This I believe is a form of discrimination and alienation and has cognitive connotations, or in other words issues around understanding.
Finaly labeling or overdiagnosis can be also put in to context with the idea of gifts that a mental health patient may have. A schizophrenic has high dopamine levels but people with more dopamine have an increased susceptibility to having a religious experience. People with autism are gifted with incredible pattern recognition abilities, i.e. the idiot savante.

CHAPTER EIGHT.
 Me -  a poem .
Sheltered by loved ones
until through wine women and song 
I have followed instinct and Wanton desires.
I fall prey to the chains that have plagued mankind
since Adam ate of the forbidden fruit,
as Fenris did to the enchanted web of deceit.
The spirits that resurfaced as in an awakening and upheaval
denuding my self and laying claim to my soull.
The benevolent beauty that outshines the taint of encounter,
love that is pleasing to the senses and thus endures.
The lost soul lost in a dream
now transcends as if climbing a mountain above the clouds
to see the sun.
Now I am more than middle aged, and revitalised
I embark on the last leg of the venture with insight 
and knowledge with which to temper my needs.
Now I am one again.
I rest in the pale shadows of the moonlight.

Labeling.

Recently there has been some attention given to the definitions of mental illnesses recorded in the diagnostic manual used by doctors. The verdict was there is a tendency to over diagnose. For example, what would be considered as a case of depression by a general practitioner (GP) can be thought of as the mind's natural reaction to loss.
Taking this to a deeper level, with regard to schizophrenia, increased levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine is thought by psychiatry to be the cause of this illness. I would consider high levels of dopamine to be a natural response by the mind to pain or stress. The dopamine levels in this case would be a symptom rather than a cause. Ontologically speaking, "being there" is the correct attitude. Doctors make generalisations based on symptoms without taking a personal history. A quick look at the computer, a label and a tablet often leave me feeling rejected and despondent. This approach by doctors is based on finance, i.e., it is more cost effective to prescribe for example a Stelazine tablet which costs one penny, for a psychosis, than say many hours of psychoanalysis. Many times has medication been called chemical cosh or a chemical straight jacket. The aim of the medication is to keep the patient quiet. As a short term measure in a crisis this may be acceptable or necessary but in the long term it suppresses the trauma, or in other words, it puts a lid on things without addressing oneself to the issues which precipitated the illness. It is possible that without taking stock of the cause of a mental illness patterns may emerge. I assume by taking a full history, rigid patterns would be broken allowing feelings / emotions to surface and to be resolved.
There is another aspect to over diagnosing / labeling. If a healthy person makes assumptions about situations based on experience, he is thought to be making generalisations or stereotyping. If a patient with a mental health label does this he is projecting which is deemed to be a symptom and pathological. In this case it has led to me being frightened to approach a doctor or a psychiatrist for help for fear of not being believed. This I believe is a form of discrimination and alienation and has cognitive connotations, or in other words issues around understanding.
Finally labeling or over diagnosis can be also put in to context with the idea of gifts that a mental health patient may have. A schizophrenic has high dopamine levels but people with more dopamine have an increased susceptibility to having a religious experience. People with autism are gifted with incredible pattern recognition abilities, i.e. the idiot savante.

Are you left with a mental impairment after psychiatric intervention?

Dear reader,
I have been receiving psychiatric help in the form of listening and medication for the last thirty years. Since psychiatry commenced I have been left to my own devices. Before I was diagnosed mentally ill with schizophrenia I had obtained nine O-levels, three A-levels and a B.Sc. in microbiology from Bristol university. Since my diagnoses I have only obtained a city & guilds in computer programming in BBC Basic, and have only managed to hold down three jobs for a matter of a couple of months each time and two other jobs for around a month each. Admittedly I had also received a punctured liver in an assault which left my very neurotic around other people including in a working environment.
My diagnosis took place at Aston university while studying for an M.Sc. in Information technology after the campus doctor asked me to be seen by a visiting consultant. After the interview I was put on Modicate injections which were based on modified snake venom, or so I have heard. Is this what is now being referred to as toxic psychiatry. I did not not complete my M.Sc. and When I left the campus my feet kept arching and every few steps I had to sop and voluntarily place the heels of my feet back on the ground. It was a long and painful process making my way to Birmingham New street station. Was this reaction an overdose of the drug, a side affect or an allergy.
I had previously also been an outpatient at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and my return to Bristol led to me being put on a less stringent drug Depixel, although this meant I was out of breath at times.
Here is a list of the drugs that I have taken for my schizophrenia :-
1. Stelazine
2. Thioridazine
3. Chlorpromazine
4. valium.
5. Pimozide
6. Melleril
7. Sulperide
8. Seroquel
9. Modicate
10. Depixel
11. Olanzapine
Quite a cocktail of drugs.
I think the above are most of the psychiatric drugs I have taken.
I wonder about some of the health issues from taking these drugs. Thioridazine has effects on the heart and vision. In recent years I have developed a chest complaint and have to wear glasses for reading. It is possible though that these could be attributable to some other cause.
I took chlorpromazine without realising that it is used as an anti - emetic as well as an anti - psychotic drug. In the 70's I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance with distonia as the result of a side effect from Maxalon taken for a stomach bug. I was kept in hospital under observation for a week with some time off school afterwards. Could this drug or any of the others I have taken account for the psychological distress I have been experiencing.
I wonder if these drugs have left me mentally impaired.

The Bristol Royal Infirmary consultant told me that he did not believe in labeling people and that I had just had some kind of breakdown. I think this is a reasonable approach as most doctors these days do not take an interest in a personal history and just make generalisations based on symptoms. I certainly believe in the experiential aspect of an illness with being familiar with the pressures and family tree of emotions that precipitated my illness, i.e. 'being there'. I could branch off and go into the study of ontology and metaphysics both rationalising being but I do not wish to digress at this point.
It is possible that these conceptions and generalisations based on symptoms are moving from the objective to the subjective and involve discriminatory processes which throws the baby out the bath water. We need less of a runaway train of convergent thinking and need to step back and view the whole picture and objectify ourselves.
The BRI's approach was progressive and reminds of R.D. Laing's work with existential psychiatry where the patient is given a safe framework and presented with the opportunity to see that a situation is not necessarily life threatening and he / she has a chance to resolve his / her defences.
On moving to Barnstaple I have been working on a twelve step recovery program with my psychiatrist. Step four is taking a moral inventory of my character defects / pathological behaviour and confessing it.  Then I make amends for the trouble these defects have caused, resulting in less guilt trips and the persecutory rhetoric that has ensued since going down the psychiatric pathway / illness, and also my stab wound.
A recent New Scientist magazine has recently contained an article on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) instead of a chemical straight jacket.
Are my drug regimes an example of toxic psychiatry. Were they really necessary or should I rationalise  it by saying we have to make progress from some starting point. will there be humility or recognition for someone like me who has gone through the system?
Richard Gross in his book Challenges in psychology states that in the past there have been leper colonies, next came the burning of witches at the stake, and today it is psychiatry.