When you’re writing a blog – and this is something I hadn’t anticipated- it is good to have some kind of running thread. It lets the readers know (I say ‘readers’ hopefully) that they are engaged with a genuine person with some kind of cohesive personality and ‘back-story’. It is for this reason that I chose not to do a posting on climate change, my original idea of the day, because I thought a dry as dust exposition on the science behind global warming might be a little out of keeping with my previous postings.
Obviously the most interesting thing in this blog so far is the admission that I am ‘mentally ill’. Mentally ill! I hate the expression; it licenses a world-view that treats unusual belief systems as somatic disorders that can only be controlled by indefinite treatment with heavy-duty pharmaceuticals. Of course, one can understand that the point of the term is that it brings madness into the doctors’ domain. If I could choose my label however, I would prefer the term ‘touched’ as in ‘touched by God’. The term even for an atheist suggests something of the spookiness of the experience.
On the other hand, at least the term ‘mentally ill’ suggests that it is something from which one can recover. Does anyone really recover from schizophrenia? I remember when I first became ‘ill’. I was twenty-seven; my family plucked me from the flat in which I was living and took me into the local Mental Health . It was quite traumatic. In that first week, I had a dream in which I was put on a stretcher, taken on board a helicopter and flown away. It was probably one of the few true dreams I had at the time. I was in denial, and the dream was informing me that my life had completely switched tracks.
It seems sometimes that everyone I know has been ‘mentally ill’ at least once in their life. Recently I spent time with a cousin of mine who I’d always found confident and charming – the word ‘vivacious’ I believe was coined to describe her. She confided to me that she’d been suffering from post-natal depression. She’d been prescribed Pristique and had once week visits from what she called ‘her crazy lady’. Unsurprisingly she found it easy to talk to me about it. “I’m only half-bonkers,” she’d tell me, “You’re full bonkers.” This was first hand evidence of the stigma attached to mental health issues. She did reassure me though that “It wasn’t true what they say about you.”
I wish I knew what They are saying about me or who They in fact are.
For a run-down on the history of the climate change research by the way, I recommend the site www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm.