Benefit Street, Brighton.

  Apart from a rather cryptic post on my Twitter a/c that I had finally found a shrink, I've been in retreat for a couple of months. But this time it's not just because of the usual bi-polar incident. It's because I can't write. I can't read either. Ergo I'm not able to research. I'm unable to do anything creative. It's impossible to leave the house before the early afternoon. Time became fluid & has now slipped out the door; and I can't do anything creative to occupy my mind. In other words, I've lost the plot on how to, well, live my life. Now, managing bi-polar since I was a child, I've learnt that every so often there comes a point I'm unable to live a normal life & need a bit of help: this is the point at which one is admitted to hospital.  That point arrived about 6 years ago. And since then my meds have not been reviewed or altered; I've not had access to a shrink, and was only able to have 6 counselling sessions. I lea...

People paid good money to go and see the inmates of Bedlam.  I'm thinking of charging for personal appearances on the bus, in the shops, etc. (Imagine if we all did that! They'd soon see how many of us there are and be bellowing for Something To Be Done.)                                   One of the most common comments people make  since I left The Regency Town House is "You're so brave." Not, I hasten to add, because I've left the Town House, but because I tell people why I left. I also hasten to add, to anyone who has said those words to me, that I appreciate what you're saying, and the spirit in which it was said. But it just isn't true. I never have been. Oh, I don't deny that I've done things which might seem brave: dragging my kids from one continent to another with a couple of private detectives one step behind might seem brave - but it wasn't. I was petrified the whole t...

                                          My parents were of the school - rather as if they were straight out of a Wodehouse chapter - which quite naturally used the phrase "Navel gazing". It was an eclectic grouping of everything from deep psychiatric therapy to "finding oneself" to "meditation"...well any form of prolonged thinking about oneself. Not that my parents were averse to spiritual or metaphysical contemplation. Just not about oneself. As the nuns confirmed that paying too much attention to oneself was the very epitome of vanity, I think I've always thought of it at least as self-indulgent.  As if putting too much thought into why I'd been so upset about something someone had said to me, would be like wolfing down an entire, £1.00 slab of chocolate. Oh, I've done it of course. Just as I've wolfed down an entire, £1.00 slab of chocolate from time to time. And ...

I expect what I mean is: what is it that stops people from seriously  doubting that they are anything other than "normal". People are constantly shrieking things like "AGgghh! You're driving me Mad!" "Hell! Now I'm losing my mind!" "I'm going insane!" They might even legitimately feel that they are - the levels of stress they've gone through are overwhelming their thought-process. It's madness-for-a-moment. They accept that the human condition is to do mad things, and behave in mad ways, but that this doesn't define a person as "mad". So then, how does one know when one has just enough eccentricities? phobias? aberrations? How many of the afore-mentioned are the tip-over point into lunacy? How do we - you - me  know   what the acceptable "norm" is? Lest this sound for a moment disingeuous - it's prompted by genuine feelings: I'd thought I was starting to get though the fog and, ...

Since I've been on Twitter I've rather let this side of me languish. The Dark Half. (Cue Dexter theme tune). Because I keep both my Follower & Following numbers down I've been able to tailor my Twitter-feed down the paths of all the things which give me the deepest pleasure and interest in life. I was once told by a colleague that my Twitter page was a "mish-mash" of non-associated subjects; it was "all over the place" and "really boring stuff". (A trait a follower once referred to wryly as my being a "polymath".) But the main point about why I've swung more over to that side of me than this side is because it's exhilarating. Every single time I click on I'm confronted by stuff I didn't know before; or things I'd often pondered over, looking for a 'why'. Or beautiful art. Or a horrible - but-funny -pun. And the thing is - I can talk to people about it all and they can respond knowing just what I...