Cake Theory, The
£12.00
The Root Cause of Mental Illness as Discovered by a Patient.
By Alessandro Prian
ISBN: 978-1-84747-003-4
Published: 2006
Pages: 97
Key Themes: anti-psychiatry, humour, comic strips
Description
Never far from controversy, The Cake Theory is a fascinating autobiography and critique of current thinking on mental illness. Alessandro sets out to find the root cause of his own, and then other peoples', mental ill health with often humorous and surprising results. Prian writes with sensitivity, maturity, vigour, intelligence and brilliant comedy in an enlightening, refreshing and intriguing fashion.
About the Author
Having a history of mental illness and being diagnosed with manic depression (which I dispute) I feel it only right that I contribute with my own ideas on mental health. I call my idea 'The Cake Theory', this is because schizophrenia and other mental disorders have more than one contributing factor and there are a variety of ingredients needed to develop it just as there are a number of ingredients that make up a cake.
Book Extract
In early Egypt mental illness was believed to be caused by environmental factors like the loss of status or being made destitute. The treatment involved talking about your problems and turning to religion and faith. It was acceptable to commit suicide at the time. Later the ancient Egyptians changed the theory and decided all illnesses have physical causes. They thought the heart was the root cause of mental illness.
As history progressed, the notion that the victim was to blame became the accepted norm. Explanations like evil spirits and moral decline created the stigma that is still evident today. In the 13th Century in the United Kingdom one of the first mental institutions was established. The infamous Bedlam was a place where the mentally ill were chained to walls and society conveniently forgot about their existence. Patients were later referred to as 'inmates' and there was no distinction between the mentally ill and the criminally insane. Patients were crowded into dark cells sometimes sleeping five to a mattress near damp floors, firmly chained in position. There was no fresh air or light and they were regularly whipped and beaten. It's important to remember that this was a period when the Church governed and dictated society. This only strengthened the theory that the mentally ill were the work of the devil. Some of the mentally ill were even put to death.
An American colonist referred to the mentally ill as 'lunatics'. This word comes from the word lunar meaning moon because it was thought the moon had something to do with the root cause of mental illness. Methods of treatment involved submerging the patient in iced baths until they lost consciousness, induced vomiting and the notorious bleeding practice. This procedure involved cutting the patient and draining the bad blood however it usually resulted in the death of the individual.
The first mental asylum in America opened in 1769 founded by Benjamin Rush. He also became known as America's first psychiatrist and other asylums were opened all over the country. Rush decided to abolish whips, chains and straitjackets, however he introduced his own method of keeping control of the patient. The chair which can be seen below was his personal favourite and at the time it was considered a lot more humane than being chained to a wall. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was the founder of the psychoanalysis movement. Freud introduced the theory that patients classified as hysterics might have purely psychological factors contributing to their illness rather than organic brain disease. Freud was born at a time when most of Europe was changing from an agricultural society into an industrialized one. This was an era of new inventions and technological developments and he decided that the mind of a man could be just as complicated and as intricate as a machine. He developed the theory that the mind has many hidden and deep layers which are all governed by the unconscious. He concluded that people with chronic mental illness have a fixation and obsession with the anal region. He believed this fixation originated from a childhood desire of getting pleasure from going to the toilet and a perversion from an infantile age. The mental person's deep dark hidden secret of the unconscious mind.
In the 1930's a new cure for the mentally ill was discovered called lobotomy, and Walter J. Freemen developed the trans-orbital technique. This procedure was performed by sedating the patient and applying quick shocks to the head. One of the eyelids was rolled back and a needle the size of a thin pencil was inserted into the patients head. The device was hammered in to position after which a swinging motion of the needle was created within the patient's skull. Lobotomy became common practice and it was only after the death of many patients that it was abolished. This period also saw a rise in the number of patients undergoing electro convulsive treatment (ECT). Because the level of electricity was so high some patients died or suffered brain damage. In the 1950's the medical profession introduced an anti-psychotic drug called Thorazine for the treatment of the mentally ill. Anti -psychotic medication helped shorten the length of time patients spent in institutions. In fact there was a decline in asylum populations and though patients are no longer physically detained many feel imprisoned within their own minds.
Showing posts with label Manic Depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manic Depression. Show all posts
Friday, 21 September 2007
Burning Candle by Terence Beresford
Burning Candle
£12.00
By Terence Beresford
ISBN: 978-1-84747-108-6
Published: 2007
Pages: 173
Key Themes: poetry, manic depression, bi-polar disorder, grief
Description
Terry Beresford's Poems describe the experiences of manic depression and the range of emotions that this illness brings. A consistent theme through the poetry is Terry's experiences as a fire fighter and how this has shaped his view of the World and events such as 9/11. Terry is an accomplished poet, his poems are heartfelt, assured and full of pathos.
About the Author
Terry has been married for 36 years and has 3 children. He grew up in Rainham, Essex and in 1966 joined the Fire Service, serving in the East End of London for nearly 20 years. In 1985 Terry suffered an accident which forced him to retire. Since 1990 Terry has been diagnosed with manic depression, he was prompted to write poetry to come to terms with his illness. Many of Terry’s poems were written while he was in the depths of depression. Terry is a volunteer with Basildon Mind where, for 13 years, he has helped with their counselling service. Terry’s hobbies include collecting Fire Service memorabilia and writing. He has written four books to date, ‘Burning Candle’ is his second to be published.
Book Extract
GLAD AND SAD
Winter comes, we are sad
Summer here we are glad
Raindrops on our face
The sun within your heart
Go with the flow, at your pace
Stick with nature, don’t grow apart
Butterflies, they come and go
Buds flower, they have made a start
Birds duck and dive in the skies
Bees and wasps fly around the flowers
Pollinating and feeding all day
It comes and goes, glad and sad
Sit down; relax in sun’s warm rays
Imagine the sun is all around for days
No winter in your heart.
GO WITH THE FLOW
It came upon me in a different way,
It ripped my guts away
Damage done, for all to see,
So powerful, fearful, just not me.
Perhaps next time I’ll kill
No way – not on – time to change
It caught me out, no time to run,
But my memory stays intact.
To recall, Assess and plan defeat
Return the compliment that’s what I’ll do
Surprise, Change tack, beat the bum,
Fight, keep on, it’ll soon come.
Albeit a different way.
Boundaries 'amust, to save defeat
Others must guide me though.
If we are to gain our goal
In cotton wool I’ll win the war,
Is that a lot to ask?
Prove myself, no need for me
An open book I feel.
Slow down, take nothing on
GOING TO THE DOGS
Oh sister dear, I have a fear
It’s money down the drain, no less,
Traps one to six, oh what a fix,
The form, the odds, the silly sods
They know not head from tail.
Winners, losers, join the club,
Friday comes, you’ll need a sub
Have a drink, a bite to eat,
Tote is open, bookies to beat
Second last race! – it’s 9.30
A fiver? Bus fare home!
Honour Cheryl, A lively bitch,
Let’s put it on, I’ll have to hitch
In hot pursuit my dog leads,
It takes them all by storm,
Quids in now! A slap up feast,
Chicken legs and diet coke, oh no!
A Chinese, A drink and a bone for the beast!
£12.00
By Terence Beresford
ISBN: 978-1-84747-108-6
Published: 2007
Pages: 173
Key Themes: poetry, manic depression, bi-polar disorder, grief
Description
Terry Beresford's Poems describe the experiences of manic depression and the range of emotions that this illness brings. A consistent theme through the poetry is Terry's experiences as a fire fighter and how this has shaped his view of the World and events such as 9/11. Terry is an accomplished poet, his poems are heartfelt, assured and full of pathos.
About the Author
Terry has been married for 36 years and has 3 children. He grew up in Rainham, Essex and in 1966 joined the Fire Service, serving in the East End of London for nearly 20 years. In 1985 Terry suffered an accident which forced him to retire. Since 1990 Terry has been diagnosed with manic depression, he was prompted to write poetry to come to terms with his illness. Many of Terry’s poems were written while he was in the depths of depression. Terry is a volunteer with Basildon Mind where, for 13 years, he has helped with their counselling service. Terry’s hobbies include collecting Fire Service memorabilia and writing. He has written four books to date, ‘Burning Candle’ is his second to be published.
Book Extract
GLAD AND SAD
Winter comes, we are sad
Summer here we are glad
Raindrops on our face
The sun within your heart
Go with the flow, at your pace
Stick with nature, don’t grow apart
Butterflies, they come and go
Buds flower, they have made a start
Birds duck and dive in the skies
Bees and wasps fly around the flowers
Pollinating and feeding all day
It comes and goes, glad and sad
Sit down; relax in sun’s warm rays
Imagine the sun is all around for days
No winter in your heart.
GO WITH THE FLOW
It came upon me in a different way,
It ripped my guts away
Damage done, for all to see,
So powerful, fearful, just not me.
Perhaps next time I’ll kill
No way – not on – time to change
It caught me out, no time to run,
But my memory stays intact.
To recall, Assess and plan defeat
Return the compliment that’s what I’ll do
Surprise, Change tack, beat the bum,
Fight, keep on, it’ll soon come.
Albeit a different way.
Boundaries 'amust, to save defeat
Others must guide me though.
If we are to gain our goal
In cotton wool I’ll win the war,
Is that a lot to ask?
Prove myself, no need for me
An open book I feel.
Slow down, take nothing on
GOING TO THE DOGS
Oh sister dear, I have a fear
It’s money down the drain, no less,
Traps one to six, oh what a fix,
The form, the odds, the silly sods
They know not head from tail.
Winners, losers, join the club,
Friday comes, you’ll need a sub
Have a drink, a bite to eat,
Tote is open, bookies to beat
Second last race! – it’s 9.30
A fiver? Bus fare home!
Honour Cheryl, A lively bitch,
Let’s put it on, I’ll have to hitch
In hot pursuit my dog leads,
It takes them all by storm,
Quids in now! A slap up feast,
Chicken legs and diet coke, oh no!
A Chinese, A drink and a bone for the beast!
Black Magic By Suzannah Knight
Black Magic
£12.00
By Suzannah Knight
ISBN: 978-1-84747-007-2
Published: 2007
Pages: 152
Key Themes: self-harm, drug abuse, eating disorders, sectioning, mental health services, schizo-affective disorder, bipolar disorder, manic depression, alcoholism, the occult
Description
After a year travelling around the World Suzannah comes back to England to start university. Things start to go wrong as she is tempted into experimenting with drugs. She drops out of university and during her first spell of mania and depression starts to believe in black magic. This is the start of a long and winding journey for Suzannah as she loses all her friends and former lifestyle and leads a dubious existence - self harming and trichotillomania plague and her psyche as she battles with an eating disorder.
Suzannah is eventually sectioned and finds herself in a secure unit battling psychosis. She will not admit to herself she has a problem and refuses to take medication. Lonely and cast adrift she tries to forge a career for herself, but she can’t escape the taboo of being labelled 'mental'. Some time later she finds herself in the slums of Darlington, in poverty, and a chronic alcoholic. Overcoming her demons and fighting her schizo-affective disorder Suzannah takes life by the balls and gets herself back to university to finally finish her degree only to once again fall into mental illness, bad relationships and brushes with the law.
With four different diagnoses along the journey and various different forms of medication Suzannah denies her mental illness for a long time and therefore the psychiatrists were unable to help. She loses all her friends through mental illness and any form of normal life until she confronts the problem.
Remarkably and with great character Suzannah's book ends on a high note as she falls in love and marries the man of her dreams to live happily ever after with her son Domini. It is through her own determination and the support of loved ones that Suzannah has changed her life. She will never be totally rid of her illness but with sensible management she has succeeded in finding euilibrium. This is a fascinating and empowering story which should be a great positive influence to those who find themselves in a similar situation to Suzannah.
Book Extract
When we returned home the drinks cabinet was locked and I was locked in the house, but I was so high I didn’t need anything to aid it .My parents were worried and were watching me carefully. It’s never been discussed whether or not there is mental illness in my family tree but I know a great aunt committed suicide years before using paracetamol. My mania continued, my parents tried to talk to me about my future, I didn’t want to know I thought great thing wee going to happen to me without me doing anything to help it. My mother dragged me down to the University of Leeds, to continue my studies there. I said no, I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t stand the stress of going back to university, it didn’t interest me. She then dragged me to the chamber of commerce where I had an awful meeting with an old man. He knew I wasn’t interested in the course on offer and he told me so. It was an awkward and embarrassing moment. So I signed on the dole, and when I had to go for job interviews I messed them up.
I’d ruined my family’s annual ski trip. They thought I was just being a brat they didn’t know there was something wrong with me and they didn’t want to admit to themselves there was anything wrong with me. I was still manic and my parents knew it, my father had turned my room upside down looking for drugs, he thought I was taking heroin. The front door was always locked and the back so that I couldn’t escape like I had done in Morzine, it was for my own good I always seemed to get into trouble when I escaped. And all the time my parents were trying to protect me from myself, and keep me away from the authorities. When I was sat in my room I thought I was with members of the English SAS who then developed into members of the elite group made up in my mind of the Belize soldiers. I stole some cans of lager from the fridge and drank them with my new soldier friends. It was the same feeling of military that I had had whilst skiing. It wasn’t as though I came from a military orientated background but the connection with the army reigned right through my illness.
When I wasn’t in my room imagining whatever I imagined I was down stairs in a massive row. I was taken into the kitchen with my parents and my brother, who had stuck his nose in and was questioned about things I didn’t want to be questioned about. A huge row would peruse to which I didn’t understand why. It seemed that my parents were constantly rowing and I was in the middle, although I was the cause. I wish I could remember what the rows were but I can’t, although now I know they were over my strange behavior. I remember being very objectionable and talking about weird things at dinner times, I would cause a row to erupt after I’d caused trouble, usually by being very nasty and rude. I was still under the illusion that this family was not mine and all I wanted was to be with my made up fantasy family. I wished this family was dead. Life wasn’t exactly perfect I had no close friends especially as Alice wasn’t talking to me after the ski trip. I never bothered to ring her, as far as I was concerned she was a piece of shit still. I had new friends; they were all that mattered now. I was going nowhere fast.
It was a dull January day; the view out of my bedroom window was as lonely as ever. We lived in a village yet I knew no one in it, I often thought that wasn’t very normal yet there were a lot of things about my family life that I didn’t find very normal, and they were thoughts I had since being a little girl. I hated my family for what they had made me, for the things they had made me do. I’d never excelled at anything and I blamed them for that too. I blamed them for never buying me the best pony, for sending me to boarding school, for not having enough money, and for everything that had gone wrong in my life.
Alice came around one day with her mother. I expect my mother was very embarrassed as to what had gone on holiday although we have never discussed what she said to Alice’s mother that day. Alice came up to my room to talk. I was sat on the bed waiting for the great things to happen to me. We spoke, me with authority and delusions and she normally. Then she went, if I’d only realized I would see her four more times in my life I might have been different towards her. I just sat on the bed and regarded her as trash; I had not the faintest bit of interest in her and was really quite rude. At this time there was no rationalizing with me, nothing mattered to me and nor did I care. I was completely selfish in my objectives, nothing was important except me. I think I really upset Alice and hurt her although she’s hurt me more since. I suppose looking back though I didn’t deserve to have her as a friend I got rid of her as if she was indispensable I pushed her away and our friendship in favor of my mind’s tricks.
The time I spent in my room was consumed by spending time with my make believe friends, people I had met around the world. I was having conversations with them in my head. I could feel them all around me. Then god came one afternoon and told me in my head, I wasn’t hearing voices yet, to get my address book. He then told me to pray that every body in the book should die and that I would never speak to any of them again. Well he was right although it was that none of them would speak to me again. I tore up the address book at his command. It was at this time that Leonardo’s spirit also entered the room; he sat besides my pine wardrobe and watched me, telling me he was coming to see me. I could see the faint outline of his body, he was such a large man, his spirit was black, and sometimes it brushed my body.
I was still pining for him and that’s when something miraculous happened.I lay in the bath each afternoon soaking up the bubbles and smoking cigarettes I had nothing else to do and it was very relaxing, when all of a sudden I found myself connecting with a spirit or rather a person. In my head I began talking to a man who at first reminded me of the bad guy in Bangkok Hilton. He had very dark hair and was very much a James Bond figure. He was incredibly beautiful; I knew exactly what he looked like as a picture in my head was visible. You see when I closed my eyes I could hallucinate and his image came to me on this wonderful afternoon. He was full of life, and also very rich. The first thing he said to me was that he would never fall in love with a girl like me. I was talking to the imaginary character for ages. He said he was in the Kings Head hotel in Richmond watching me.
He was with the navy and was going to be an ambassador of Morocco one day. He swore to send me a package of cigarettes and booze. Every day I waited by the door for the arrival, it never came. But he came back to my mind every day. He made my life worth living and I got to know him better and better. At first he had seemed quite evil but now he was nice. I could sometimes feel his spirit in the house moving around, the house had become haunted. Dark shadows would appear on the hallway and on the stairs. I could hear things in the loft and in the next door rooms. Black shadows fell and rose throughout the house. Every night Piers told me that there was a helicopter coming for me to take me away as I was so special. Every night I waited by the window ready to climb out when it came but it never did. Piers told me to do naughty things, he spoke to me when I was doing things and made me laugh. It was like having an imaginary friend. There was that film once with Rik Mayall as the illusionary friend it’s title was Drop Dead Fred, Piers was like that to me, he was every where I went and he affected everything I did.
£12.00
By Suzannah Knight
ISBN: 978-1-84747-007-2
Published: 2007
Pages: 152
Key Themes: self-harm, drug abuse, eating disorders, sectioning, mental health services, schizo-affective disorder, bipolar disorder, manic depression, alcoholism, the occult
Description
After a year travelling around the World Suzannah comes back to England to start university. Things start to go wrong as she is tempted into experimenting with drugs. She drops out of university and during her first spell of mania and depression starts to believe in black magic. This is the start of a long and winding journey for Suzannah as she loses all her friends and former lifestyle and leads a dubious existence - self harming and trichotillomania plague and her psyche as she battles with an eating disorder.
Suzannah is eventually sectioned and finds herself in a secure unit battling psychosis. She will not admit to herself she has a problem and refuses to take medication. Lonely and cast adrift she tries to forge a career for herself, but she can’t escape the taboo of being labelled 'mental'. Some time later she finds herself in the slums of Darlington, in poverty, and a chronic alcoholic. Overcoming her demons and fighting her schizo-affective disorder Suzannah takes life by the balls and gets herself back to university to finally finish her degree only to once again fall into mental illness, bad relationships and brushes with the law.
With four different diagnoses along the journey and various different forms of medication Suzannah denies her mental illness for a long time and therefore the psychiatrists were unable to help. She loses all her friends through mental illness and any form of normal life until she confronts the problem.
Remarkably and with great character Suzannah's book ends on a high note as she falls in love and marries the man of her dreams to live happily ever after with her son Domini. It is through her own determination and the support of loved ones that Suzannah has changed her life. She will never be totally rid of her illness but with sensible management she has succeeded in finding euilibrium. This is a fascinating and empowering story which should be a great positive influence to those who find themselves in a similar situation to Suzannah.
Book Extract
When we returned home the drinks cabinet was locked and I was locked in the house, but I was so high I didn’t need anything to aid it .My parents were worried and were watching me carefully. It’s never been discussed whether or not there is mental illness in my family tree but I know a great aunt committed suicide years before using paracetamol. My mania continued, my parents tried to talk to me about my future, I didn’t want to know I thought great thing wee going to happen to me without me doing anything to help it. My mother dragged me down to the University of Leeds, to continue my studies there. I said no, I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t stand the stress of going back to university, it didn’t interest me. She then dragged me to the chamber of commerce where I had an awful meeting with an old man. He knew I wasn’t interested in the course on offer and he told me so. It was an awkward and embarrassing moment. So I signed on the dole, and when I had to go for job interviews I messed them up.
I’d ruined my family’s annual ski trip. They thought I was just being a brat they didn’t know there was something wrong with me and they didn’t want to admit to themselves there was anything wrong with me. I was still manic and my parents knew it, my father had turned my room upside down looking for drugs, he thought I was taking heroin. The front door was always locked and the back so that I couldn’t escape like I had done in Morzine, it was for my own good I always seemed to get into trouble when I escaped. And all the time my parents were trying to protect me from myself, and keep me away from the authorities. When I was sat in my room I thought I was with members of the English SAS who then developed into members of the elite group made up in my mind of the Belize soldiers. I stole some cans of lager from the fridge and drank them with my new soldier friends. It was the same feeling of military that I had had whilst skiing. It wasn’t as though I came from a military orientated background but the connection with the army reigned right through my illness.
When I wasn’t in my room imagining whatever I imagined I was down stairs in a massive row. I was taken into the kitchen with my parents and my brother, who had stuck his nose in and was questioned about things I didn’t want to be questioned about. A huge row would peruse to which I didn’t understand why. It seemed that my parents were constantly rowing and I was in the middle, although I was the cause. I wish I could remember what the rows were but I can’t, although now I know they were over my strange behavior. I remember being very objectionable and talking about weird things at dinner times, I would cause a row to erupt after I’d caused trouble, usually by being very nasty and rude. I was still under the illusion that this family was not mine and all I wanted was to be with my made up fantasy family. I wished this family was dead. Life wasn’t exactly perfect I had no close friends especially as Alice wasn’t talking to me after the ski trip. I never bothered to ring her, as far as I was concerned she was a piece of shit still. I had new friends; they were all that mattered now. I was going nowhere fast.
It was a dull January day; the view out of my bedroom window was as lonely as ever. We lived in a village yet I knew no one in it, I often thought that wasn’t very normal yet there were a lot of things about my family life that I didn’t find very normal, and they were thoughts I had since being a little girl. I hated my family for what they had made me, for the things they had made me do. I’d never excelled at anything and I blamed them for that too. I blamed them for never buying me the best pony, for sending me to boarding school, for not having enough money, and for everything that had gone wrong in my life.
Alice came around one day with her mother. I expect my mother was very embarrassed as to what had gone on holiday although we have never discussed what she said to Alice’s mother that day. Alice came up to my room to talk. I was sat on the bed waiting for the great things to happen to me. We spoke, me with authority and delusions and she normally. Then she went, if I’d only realized I would see her four more times in my life I might have been different towards her. I just sat on the bed and regarded her as trash; I had not the faintest bit of interest in her and was really quite rude. At this time there was no rationalizing with me, nothing mattered to me and nor did I care. I was completely selfish in my objectives, nothing was important except me. I think I really upset Alice and hurt her although she’s hurt me more since. I suppose looking back though I didn’t deserve to have her as a friend I got rid of her as if she was indispensable I pushed her away and our friendship in favor of my mind’s tricks.
The time I spent in my room was consumed by spending time with my make believe friends, people I had met around the world. I was having conversations with them in my head. I could feel them all around me. Then god came one afternoon and told me in my head, I wasn’t hearing voices yet, to get my address book. He then told me to pray that every body in the book should die and that I would never speak to any of them again. Well he was right although it was that none of them would speak to me again. I tore up the address book at his command. It was at this time that Leonardo’s spirit also entered the room; he sat besides my pine wardrobe and watched me, telling me he was coming to see me. I could see the faint outline of his body, he was such a large man, his spirit was black, and sometimes it brushed my body.
I was still pining for him and that’s when something miraculous happened.I lay in the bath each afternoon soaking up the bubbles and smoking cigarettes I had nothing else to do and it was very relaxing, when all of a sudden I found myself connecting with a spirit or rather a person. In my head I began talking to a man who at first reminded me of the bad guy in Bangkok Hilton. He had very dark hair and was very much a James Bond figure. He was incredibly beautiful; I knew exactly what he looked like as a picture in my head was visible. You see when I closed my eyes I could hallucinate and his image came to me on this wonderful afternoon. He was full of life, and also very rich. The first thing he said to me was that he would never fall in love with a girl like me. I was talking to the imaginary character for ages. He said he was in the Kings Head hotel in Richmond watching me.
He was with the navy and was going to be an ambassador of Morocco one day. He swore to send me a package of cigarettes and booze. Every day I waited by the door for the arrival, it never came. But he came back to my mind every day. He made my life worth living and I got to know him better and better. At first he had seemed quite evil but now he was nice. I could sometimes feel his spirit in the house moving around, the house had become haunted. Dark shadows would appear on the hallway and on the stairs. I could hear things in the loft and in the next door rooms. Black shadows fell and rose throughout the house. Every night Piers told me that there was a helicopter coming for me to take me away as I was so special. Every night I waited by the window ready to climb out when it came but it never did. Piers told me to do naughty things, he spoke to me when I was doing things and made me laugh. It was like having an imaginary friend. There was that film once with Rik Mayall as the illusionary friend it’s title was Drop Dead Fred, Piers was like that to me, he was every where I went and he affected everything I did.
Bi-Polar Dreams By Frederic Benson
Bi-Polar Dreams
£14.99
By Frederic Benson
ISBN: 978-1-84747-164-2
Published: 2007
Pages: 230
Key Themes: bi-polar disorder, manic depression, poetry
Description
This book comprises of creative poems and coherent prose, which give you an honest insight into manic depression. This book is a very honest, real and therefore a, sometimes disturbing account of bi-polar disorder. It gives you an emotive insight into Frederick Benson's life.
About the Author
Frederic Benson has written this book as a form of empowerment. His manic depression is expressed in a frank way to give you a clearer understanding of mental illness. It is a combination of fiction and non-fiction.
Book Extract
I am the castle on the mountain,
The spire on the church,
I fly like the lightning,
Standing atop the Earth,
And with my fists I can smash through planets,
Plunging through the core,
Tearing at heat itself,
I am the fiery lightning, the electric beast,
I can paint with the stars,
And wield the sun,
Blazing through time with fire and hate,
I can build, I can destroy,
I can create, I can crush,
I can trample the Earth,
And everything in it,
I am the dragon, the demon,
The flaming eyes of God,
I see all & I know the Earth,
The world is mine in my werewolf state,
And I pine for the thorns,
As I crush the rose that dies,
I am the devil warlord,
The screaming banshee of blood,
I am the manic monster,
And the Earth is mine!
As I fly with the flame,
Up to the darkened sun filled sky,
And I fall back to Earth,
Crashing through Darkness,
Plunging through shadow,
Till I smash on the rocks below…
Then there is darkness,
The bitter light is gone,
And I am left melting,
In the stabbing acid glare of a citrus bulb,
My mind is dripping through a sieve,
What was once a tight knot is unravelling,
I can feel a damp coffin around me,
I am decaying alive.
Melting into the foul earth,
My eyes, once flame are now liquid,
Warmly dripping down my cheeks,
I am blind and cold,
The light is gone and my blood is stale,
I am the squashed insect between your fingers,
I am the miserably failed road kill,
Crushed,
Void of smiles,
Void of life,.
I slither in the mud.
My skin is leaving me,
Unshielded as the birds peck at my bloody flesh,
Trodden by the snail crusher,
Weak at the neck,
Hanging from the cliff,
Nailed to my grave,
Trapped inside my hole,
Prisoner to my mind,
Melted into darkness,
Where God is left behind,
Truly alone and abandoned to hell,
There is nothing but gloom,
And death from the well,
So crushed and beguiled,
I cry with my blood,
And then I tear myself up from the ground!
As I fly up again,
The diamond kite,
The electric firework charge, soaring through the starry bleak,
Blazing through the sky again,
Tearing the air asunder as I wail,
I am the reaper’s fiery blade,
Beautiful & crazy,
With a hunger,
For Death,
And Blood.
£14.99
By Frederic Benson
ISBN: 978-1-84747-164-2
Published: 2007
Pages: 230
Key Themes: bi-polar disorder, manic depression, poetry
Description
This book comprises of creative poems and coherent prose, which give you an honest insight into manic depression. This book is a very honest, real and therefore a, sometimes disturbing account of bi-polar disorder. It gives you an emotive insight into Frederick Benson's life.
About the Author
Frederic Benson has written this book as a form of empowerment. His manic depression is expressed in a frank way to give you a clearer understanding of mental illness. It is a combination of fiction and non-fiction.
Book Extract
I am the castle on the mountain,
The spire on the church,
I fly like the lightning,
Standing atop the Earth,
And with my fists I can smash through planets,
Plunging through the core,
Tearing at heat itself,
I am the fiery lightning, the electric beast,
I can paint with the stars,
And wield the sun,
Blazing through time with fire and hate,
I can build, I can destroy,
I can create, I can crush,
I can trample the Earth,
And everything in it,
I am the dragon, the demon,
The flaming eyes of God,
I see all & I know the Earth,
The world is mine in my werewolf state,
And I pine for the thorns,
As I crush the rose that dies,
I am the devil warlord,
The screaming banshee of blood,
I am the manic monster,
And the Earth is mine!
As I fly with the flame,
Up to the darkened sun filled sky,
And I fall back to Earth,
Crashing through Darkness,
Plunging through shadow,
Till I smash on the rocks below…
Then there is darkness,
The bitter light is gone,
And I am left melting,
In the stabbing acid glare of a citrus bulb,
My mind is dripping through a sieve,
What was once a tight knot is unravelling,
I can feel a damp coffin around me,
I am decaying alive.
Melting into the foul earth,
My eyes, once flame are now liquid,
Warmly dripping down my cheeks,
I am blind and cold,
The light is gone and my blood is stale,
I am the squashed insect between your fingers,
I am the miserably failed road kill,
Crushed,
Void of smiles,
Void of life,.
I slither in the mud.
My skin is leaving me,
Unshielded as the birds peck at my bloody flesh,
Trodden by the snail crusher,
Weak at the neck,
Hanging from the cliff,
Nailed to my grave,
Trapped inside my hole,
Prisoner to my mind,
Melted into darkness,
Where God is left behind,
Truly alone and abandoned to hell,
There is nothing but gloom,
And death from the well,
So crushed and beguiled,
I cry with my blood,
And then I tear myself up from the ground!
As I fly up again,
The diamond kite,
The electric firework charge, soaring through the starry bleak,
Blazing through the sky again,
Tearing the air asunder as I wail,
I am the reaper’s fiery blade,
Beautiful & crazy,
With a hunger,
For Death,
And Blood.
Behind A Glass Wall By Dorothy Schwarz
Behind A Glass Wall
£12.00
The Anatomy of a Suicide
By Dorothy Schwarz
ISBN: 978-1-905610-20-4
Published: 2006
Pages: 348
Key Themes: suicide, depression, grief
Description
This book is the gripping and emotional portrayal of one young woman's ultimately unsuccessful battle against chronic depression. Zoe, was Dorothy's fourth daughter, born in New Delhi in 1972. When she threw herself under a train at the age of 27 in August 2000, Zoe was suffering from deep depression following a bout of mania. After her death Dorothy found her diaries, poems and other writings which she used to build her portrait. Dorothy wants to tell her daughter's story both as a tribute to this beautiful and talented young woman, who succumbed to a terrible illness and also to chart the passage of grief for a family after suicide. Dorothy wants to help remove or lessen the stigma attached to mental illness. Zoe fought hard and long but lost the ultimate battle. Dorothy hopes that the honest account of her life may help other sufferers and their families. Zoe herself would have wanted that.
About the Author
Dorothy Schwarz was born in London in 1937. She married Walter Schwarz, a journalist, in 1956 and had six children. The family lived in many countries where Walter was stationed. Dorothy brought up the kids, taught a bit and wrote children's books and short stories. She now lives and teaches creative writing part-time in Colchester. Her main hobby, now that the nest is empty, is a growing collection of parrots and parakeets. She and Walter have written two books on ecology together, Dorothy's collection of short stories entitled 'Simple Stories about Women' were published by Iron Press in 1998.
Book Extract
PROLOGUE
After you died, we found on the top shelf in your bedroom six cardboard boxes crammed with papers in no particular order or dates, diaries in hard and soft covers, notes on loose sheets of paper, dated and undated, birthday cards and postcards, souvenirs. Business letters, bank statements, certificates won at school, medical records, letters received and letters you’d written. Maybe sent, maybe not. A box of several hundred photographs, mostly of people and animals, a few places, some of which I recognised; many I didn’t. I had no idea that you’d kept this stuff; you were such a private person. Your elder sister Habie knew. So did your friend, Kelly; I didn’t. Reading those papers brings you alive again.
You wrote two months before your sixteenth birthday:
Sunday 18th October [1987]
Woke up at 8.30. Read Lawrence’s criticism in the morning. It was a lovely day. Had lunch. …. The family was all together. The lunch was delicious. Mum & Freddie chatted in the greenhouse. Dad, Bups and me had coffee and some of my cake. We went for a walk around the reservoir. It was stunning. Two swans crossed the sunray upon the water.
I brought the horses in. Diana came. We had more of my cake and some of Dad’s bread. We talked, had tea and went to bed. It was a lovely, magical family weekend.
One month after your birthday, you wrote about your school friends:
Friday 6th January [1988]
Saw everyone again and we talked a lot. We had a really funny conversation at lunch about who was going to lose her virginity first. Everyone is either in love or going out with someone so we can talk about it a lot which is really nice and fun.
A few years later, recovered from your first breakdown and back at university, the diary entries are matter-of-fact, whom you met, what you ate, what pleased you, proud to win games of pool, happy with your friends.
At twenty-two, you wrote about them and us:
Saturday 4th May [1994]
Mylène [oldest friend] and I had a chat in the end sitting room. Zac [brother] came home. We went to Vagabonds and I asked to work there. Mylène and I had dinner at Monty’s…. We came home and watched the end of ‘Revenge’, which is unbelievably sexist. Completely happy to find Tigger purring on my bed. Nothing melodramatic – just content with your life and loving the people around you. Sunday 5th of May Mylène and I woke up late. We spent the afternoon chatting in the Peldon Rose. After dropping her at the station did some typing. … Tigger sleeping in my bed. Being close to Mum and Dad. Mylène being happy. Adnan kissing me on the cheek. Zac showing me his design projects.
Out of many entries that read, ‘chatted with Mum,’ I can’t recall whether the chats were fruitful and loving or whether we argued. And during your last illness, when we brought you back to Greenacres in the spring and you died in the summer, the first summer of the new century, during those five months you spoke little and wrote almost nothing.
You left those boxes on the top shelf in your bedroom where you knew they would be found. Your Dad believes you were too modest to think anyone would bother to examine them and we’d just throw them away. None of us would have done that. One of my oldest friends, Heather, and one of your closest friends, Kelly, came to help me. We sorted the papers into foolscap folders – in rough categories - letters, love letters, diaries, notebooks, mementos. We didn’t keep every single birthday card and postcard (there were hundreds). Although it hurts to see your handwriting, I have no qualms about reading your diaries and letters or even publishing parts of them. You did not die in a fit of florid madness or rage; you planned your suicide with care and left a hand-written list of forty friends whom we were to contact.
Perhaps those papers represent an unconscious sort of last present to us as well as a rebuke; we did not understand you well enough and not everything you wrote was complimentary. From a young age, you had a wickedly sharp way of slicing through pretension. At least one person, amongst those few to whom I’ve shown some of your writing, has said, “don’t print what she wrote, it’s too hurtful.” And in so much of what you wrote in your twenties, when outwardly you seemed happy and successful, inwardly you were grappling with demons. You gave them human faces; they resemble people you knew including your parents.
Two days after your death, we found an Internet site that claimed that one in five manic depressives eventually kill themselves. That statistic isn’t a classified secret, although we never discovered it during your lifetime. Were we, as well as you, afraid? You wanted to believe that your illness at eighteen was ‘cured’. You didn’t want the label of ‘someone suffering from mental problems’. We accepted that and went along with the idea; easier to refer to Zoë’s breakdown NOT Zoë’s first episode. Easier to let our pleasant life slide on. .
£12.00
The Anatomy of a Suicide
By Dorothy Schwarz
ISBN: 978-1-905610-20-4
Published: 2006
Pages: 348
Key Themes: suicide, depression, grief
Description
This book is the gripping and emotional portrayal of one young woman's ultimately unsuccessful battle against chronic depression. Zoe, was Dorothy's fourth daughter, born in New Delhi in 1972. When she threw herself under a train at the age of 27 in August 2000, Zoe was suffering from deep depression following a bout of mania. After her death Dorothy found her diaries, poems and other writings which she used to build her portrait. Dorothy wants to tell her daughter's story both as a tribute to this beautiful and talented young woman, who succumbed to a terrible illness and also to chart the passage of grief for a family after suicide. Dorothy wants to help remove or lessen the stigma attached to mental illness. Zoe fought hard and long but lost the ultimate battle. Dorothy hopes that the honest account of her life may help other sufferers and their families. Zoe herself would have wanted that.
About the Author
Dorothy Schwarz was born in London in 1937. She married Walter Schwarz, a journalist, in 1956 and had six children. The family lived in many countries where Walter was stationed. Dorothy brought up the kids, taught a bit and wrote children's books and short stories. She now lives and teaches creative writing part-time in Colchester. Her main hobby, now that the nest is empty, is a growing collection of parrots and parakeets. She and Walter have written two books on ecology together, Dorothy's collection of short stories entitled 'Simple Stories about Women' were published by Iron Press in 1998.
Book Extract
PROLOGUE
After you died, we found on the top shelf in your bedroom six cardboard boxes crammed with papers in no particular order or dates, diaries in hard and soft covers, notes on loose sheets of paper, dated and undated, birthday cards and postcards, souvenirs. Business letters, bank statements, certificates won at school, medical records, letters received and letters you’d written. Maybe sent, maybe not. A box of several hundred photographs, mostly of people and animals, a few places, some of which I recognised; many I didn’t. I had no idea that you’d kept this stuff; you were such a private person. Your elder sister Habie knew. So did your friend, Kelly; I didn’t. Reading those papers brings you alive again.
You wrote two months before your sixteenth birthday:
Sunday 18th October [1987]
Woke up at 8.30. Read Lawrence’s criticism in the morning. It was a lovely day. Had lunch. …. The family was all together. The lunch was delicious. Mum & Freddie chatted in the greenhouse. Dad, Bups and me had coffee and some of my cake. We went for a walk around the reservoir. It was stunning. Two swans crossed the sunray upon the water.
I brought the horses in. Diana came. We had more of my cake and some of Dad’s bread. We talked, had tea and went to bed. It was a lovely, magical family weekend.
One month after your birthday, you wrote about your school friends:
Friday 6th January [1988]
Saw everyone again and we talked a lot. We had a really funny conversation at lunch about who was going to lose her virginity first. Everyone is either in love or going out with someone so we can talk about it a lot which is really nice and fun.
A few years later, recovered from your first breakdown and back at university, the diary entries are matter-of-fact, whom you met, what you ate, what pleased you, proud to win games of pool, happy with your friends.
At twenty-two, you wrote about them and us:
Saturday 4th May [1994]
Mylène [oldest friend] and I had a chat in the end sitting room. Zac [brother] came home. We went to Vagabonds and I asked to work there. Mylène and I had dinner at Monty’s…. We came home and watched the end of ‘Revenge’, which is unbelievably sexist. Completely happy to find Tigger purring on my bed. Nothing melodramatic – just content with your life and loving the people around you. Sunday 5th of May Mylène and I woke up late. We spent the afternoon chatting in the Peldon Rose. After dropping her at the station did some typing. … Tigger sleeping in my bed. Being close to Mum and Dad. Mylène being happy. Adnan kissing me on the cheek. Zac showing me his design projects.
Out of many entries that read, ‘chatted with Mum,’ I can’t recall whether the chats were fruitful and loving or whether we argued. And during your last illness, when we brought you back to Greenacres in the spring and you died in the summer, the first summer of the new century, during those five months you spoke little and wrote almost nothing.
You left those boxes on the top shelf in your bedroom where you knew they would be found. Your Dad believes you were too modest to think anyone would bother to examine them and we’d just throw them away. None of us would have done that. One of my oldest friends, Heather, and one of your closest friends, Kelly, came to help me. We sorted the papers into foolscap folders – in rough categories - letters, love letters, diaries, notebooks, mementos. We didn’t keep every single birthday card and postcard (there were hundreds). Although it hurts to see your handwriting, I have no qualms about reading your diaries and letters or even publishing parts of them. You did not die in a fit of florid madness or rage; you planned your suicide with care and left a hand-written list of forty friends whom we were to contact.
Perhaps those papers represent an unconscious sort of last present to us as well as a rebuke; we did not understand you well enough and not everything you wrote was complimentary. From a young age, you had a wickedly sharp way of slicing through pretension. At least one person, amongst those few to whom I’ve shown some of your writing, has said, “don’t print what she wrote, it’s too hurtful.” And in so much of what you wrote in your twenties, when outwardly you seemed happy and successful, inwardly you were grappling with demons. You gave them human faces; they resemble people you knew including your parents.
Two days after your death, we found an Internet site that claimed that one in five manic depressives eventually kill themselves. That statistic isn’t a classified secret, although we never discovered it during your lifetime. Were we, as well as you, afraid? You wanted to believe that your illness at eighteen was ‘cured’. You didn’t want the label of ‘someone suffering from mental problems’. We accepted that and went along with the idea; easier to refer to Zoë’s breakdown NOT Zoë’s first episode. Easier to let our pleasant life slide on. .
Accidental Recklessness by Ruby Holmes
Accidental Recklessness
£12.00
By Ruby Holmes
ISBN: 978-1-84747-025-6
Published: 2006
Pages: 228
Key Themes: manic depression, bi-polar disorder
Description
With post-modern wit and pre-Raphaelite passion Ruby Holmes tells how mental illness can be survived without sacrificing the adventures of youth. This book is about mental illness, the ways in which it has manifested itself throughout Ruby's life and the extraordinary times she has had along the way.
About the Author
I am ginger and in need of therapy - the two are intrinsically linked. I love the ocean and big, big waves. Lighthouses! I love lighthouses. Toffee cheesecake with zopiclone sprinkles. Wild horses. Writing my second book and taking laziness to new levels. I miss Vancouver. I also miss California. While we're on missing places I guess I miss Kosova. Marmalade cafe in Malibu does the best breakfast in the world. Strangely I know the prices of bananas in every shop in a ten mile vicinity of home. I want to move back across the pond so I can yell 'road trip' and not drop off the top of Scotland 10 hours later. Perfection is an afternoon nap. Restlessness breeds adventure. My cat will one day take over the world. I find people in scrubs rather attractive. When hell freezes over I'm going to be busy.
Book Extract
I was in my Granddad’s chilly house in Surrey on Boxing Day, 1987. I was six-years-old and wrapped up like a pile of knitting to contain the teeth in my chattering jaws. Central heating took the form of two open fires in the draughty 1920’s detached property in the wealthiest county in England. Granddad, after years of practice, had managed to get everything into the living room that could possibly be needed so that nobody had to move more than two feet from the hearth. The toilet was upstairs and thus out of reach of the warmth but, if he knew we were coming, Granddad would fill the bath with hot water from several kettles to raise the air temperature and thaw out the loo seat. The long run up the stairs from the front room to the bathroom was something of a frosty gauntlet that, although shiver-inducing, rewarded the conqueror with a renewed appreciation for the heat from the fire that roasted the toes and pinked the cheeks upon their return. It was suggested every year that Granddad travelled to Devon and stayed with us for the festive season but this, he reiterated annually, would run the risk of the pipes bursting on account of his absence from stoking the coal fires.
This Boxing Day was typical in every way: the huge roast at lunchtime, the scones and mince pies at tea time and the gorging on chocolate tree decorations that made me hyper well past bedtime. The living room at home was a scene of a wrapping paper massacre and Granddad’s was about to become something similar. My sister Sarah, three years older and slightly calmer than I, would wind me up by hiding each of my stocking filler presents behind her back until I could guess what they were which, given that I couldn’t even see the shape of the gift, was a tad unfair. The regulatory soaps, socks and snow-shakers were strewn across the hearth as I was waited for the final present. I have always thought that, no matter how pressing the curiosity, the last present should be the biggest but Boxing Day meant the presents that were small enough to fit in the boughs of the Christmas tree. When you’re six years old it’s hard to find anything that doesn’t pale in comparison to being given your first My Little Pony Fairy Castle. But there it was…the final present…I peeled the sellotape off the corners, savouring the moment in the hope of shortening the time left of the next three hundred and sixty four days of the year. All eyes on me. And then it was over, I had in my hand a Rubics Cube. The amount of sarcasm gushing into my young mind made me breathe sharply, which in turn was interpreted as delight by those around me. ‘Thank you!!’ I gasped overcompensating for the utter disappointment at a four inch box not containing a real pony. Now I’m not sure if this is universal but I learnt the unspoken rule that one must show interest in your presents for an undesignated length of time so as to ensure you have expressed lavish amounts of gratitude, no matter how sparsely genuine it may be. So there I was. Me and a Rubics cube. Wow. Where to start? More to the point how could I discard this as soon as possible to return to the Pony Palace? Luckily my bladder thought faster than I did and graced me with the need to leave the warm spot and dash up the stairs at record breaking speeds. As I waited for nature to finish I twiddled and twisted the quadrants of the puzzle. Apparently it took most people about a year to figure it out. It took me three and a half minutes. This included one minute of staring at it, one minute of trying to wiggle the cubes into lines and the final minute and a half re-sticking on the coloured stickers that had unpeeled themselves in the steam from the kettle filled bath. I returned to the living room a genius.
Now I’d like to point out the foreboding and auspicious meaning of that story about working on a problem and then say something profoundly thought-provoking about overcoming adversity but I won’t. I was six and couldn’t have cared less how it was done just so long as I could get it out of the way and carry on with more pressing matters, such as which plastic pony to put in which plastic stable (before either or both were melted by the fire). I still believe that the Rubics cube was intended for my sister who had a longer attention span than me. In fact the only time I’d spent more than ten minutes on one activity was when Mum took the spring out of my Buckaroo and I spent a tense two hours piling things on the saddle and ears. But Sarah never had a chance. I had completed the puzzle in a flash and that was that. Now, where had I put that pony brush?
£12.00
By Ruby Holmes
ISBN: 978-1-84747-025-6
Published: 2006
Pages: 228
Key Themes: manic depression, bi-polar disorder
Description
With post-modern wit and pre-Raphaelite passion Ruby Holmes tells how mental illness can be survived without sacrificing the adventures of youth. This book is about mental illness, the ways in which it has manifested itself throughout Ruby's life and the extraordinary times she has had along the way.
About the Author
I am ginger and in need of therapy - the two are intrinsically linked. I love the ocean and big, big waves. Lighthouses! I love lighthouses. Toffee cheesecake with zopiclone sprinkles. Wild horses. Writing my second book and taking laziness to new levels. I miss Vancouver. I also miss California. While we're on missing places I guess I miss Kosova. Marmalade cafe in Malibu does the best breakfast in the world. Strangely I know the prices of bananas in every shop in a ten mile vicinity of home. I want to move back across the pond so I can yell 'road trip' and not drop off the top of Scotland 10 hours later. Perfection is an afternoon nap. Restlessness breeds adventure. My cat will one day take over the world. I find people in scrubs rather attractive. When hell freezes over I'm going to be busy.
Book Extract
I was in my Granddad’s chilly house in Surrey on Boxing Day, 1987. I was six-years-old and wrapped up like a pile of knitting to contain the teeth in my chattering jaws. Central heating took the form of two open fires in the draughty 1920’s detached property in the wealthiest county in England. Granddad, after years of practice, had managed to get everything into the living room that could possibly be needed so that nobody had to move more than two feet from the hearth. The toilet was upstairs and thus out of reach of the warmth but, if he knew we were coming, Granddad would fill the bath with hot water from several kettles to raise the air temperature and thaw out the loo seat. The long run up the stairs from the front room to the bathroom was something of a frosty gauntlet that, although shiver-inducing, rewarded the conqueror with a renewed appreciation for the heat from the fire that roasted the toes and pinked the cheeks upon their return. It was suggested every year that Granddad travelled to Devon and stayed with us for the festive season but this, he reiterated annually, would run the risk of the pipes bursting on account of his absence from stoking the coal fires.
This Boxing Day was typical in every way: the huge roast at lunchtime, the scones and mince pies at tea time and the gorging on chocolate tree decorations that made me hyper well past bedtime. The living room at home was a scene of a wrapping paper massacre and Granddad’s was about to become something similar. My sister Sarah, three years older and slightly calmer than I, would wind me up by hiding each of my stocking filler presents behind her back until I could guess what they were which, given that I couldn’t even see the shape of the gift, was a tad unfair. The regulatory soaps, socks and snow-shakers were strewn across the hearth as I was waited for the final present. I have always thought that, no matter how pressing the curiosity, the last present should be the biggest but Boxing Day meant the presents that were small enough to fit in the boughs of the Christmas tree. When you’re six years old it’s hard to find anything that doesn’t pale in comparison to being given your first My Little Pony Fairy Castle. But there it was…the final present…I peeled the sellotape off the corners, savouring the moment in the hope of shortening the time left of the next three hundred and sixty four days of the year. All eyes on me. And then it was over, I had in my hand a Rubics Cube. The amount of sarcasm gushing into my young mind made me breathe sharply, which in turn was interpreted as delight by those around me. ‘Thank you!!’ I gasped overcompensating for the utter disappointment at a four inch box not containing a real pony. Now I’m not sure if this is universal but I learnt the unspoken rule that one must show interest in your presents for an undesignated length of time so as to ensure you have expressed lavish amounts of gratitude, no matter how sparsely genuine it may be. So there I was. Me and a Rubics cube. Wow. Where to start? More to the point how could I discard this as soon as possible to return to the Pony Palace? Luckily my bladder thought faster than I did and graced me with the need to leave the warm spot and dash up the stairs at record breaking speeds. As I waited for nature to finish I twiddled and twisted the quadrants of the puzzle. Apparently it took most people about a year to figure it out. It took me three and a half minutes. This included one minute of staring at it, one minute of trying to wiggle the cubes into lines and the final minute and a half re-sticking on the coloured stickers that had unpeeled themselves in the steam from the kettle filled bath. I returned to the living room a genius.
Now I’d like to point out the foreboding and auspicious meaning of that story about working on a problem and then say something profoundly thought-provoking about overcoming adversity but I won’t. I was six and couldn’t have cared less how it was done just so long as I could get it out of the way and carry on with more pressing matters, such as which plastic pony to put in which plastic stable (before either or both were melted by the fire). I still believe that the Rubics cube was intended for my sister who had a longer attention span than me. In fact the only time I’d spent more than ten minutes on one activity was when Mum took the spring out of my Buckaroo and I spent a tense two hours piling things on the saddle and ears. But Sarah never had a chance. I had completed the puzzle in a flash and that was that. Now, where had I put that pony brush?
AARGH! By Joss Smith Weston
AARGH!
£12.00
By Joss Smith Weston
ISBN: 978-1-84747-085-0
Published: 2007
Pages: 246
Key Themes: manic depression, bi-polar disorder, poetry
"The writing is a fascinating blend of wry, contemporary social narrative (a la Nick Hornby), yet conveying a message about the divisive South African culture reminiscent of JM Coetzee. Some of the brutally honest accounts of Joss' early sexual encounters would probably shock if taken out of context but he somehow manages to make them seem wholly acceptable as he struggles to come to terms with his many desires in an Apartheid-governed world." - Rupert Reid
Description
This eccentric book is an attempt to make manic depression more widely understood given the stigmatism that it is usually associated with. The illness creates a jaundiced perception of people and reality and it is probably for this reason that the characters’ names are changed; otherwise it is a real story. However, there is no distinction between reality and dreams. It is not a story about success, victory or triumph, although equally given the circumstances it is also not one of failure either. It is a journey that starts in normality and ends in the opposite corner, beginning with a disturbed and violent dream. The book charts the experiences of Joss through Africa and Australia, marriage and running a business. On a few occasions the narrative fails and the author expresses his nightmares, secret thoughts, imagery and disbeliefs in poetry. The sudden loss of control, or sanity and his arrival in a mental asylum and the view from inside is both very distressing and strangely humorous. It ends on a note of poignancy, recalling Joss' supposed recovery and his attempted assimilation back into society. A fascinating and thoroughly engaging read, a must for anybody who wishes to further understand the thoughts and actions of a manic depressive.
About the Author
Joss has been a Company Director and is now a student at the Open University. Joss is a republican who does not use products that have been tested on animals; prefers to buy second hand clothes from Oxfam; reads the Telegraph and listens to Radio Four. His experiences include; seeing a UFO; scratching a white rhino and a tarantula's stomach; riding an ostrich and he has been in a high-speed police car chase. Joss has run the Comrades Marathon (89 kilometres) in 7 hours 29 minutes and 59 seconds. For nine years Joss was a vegetarian, did not eat chocolate, or drink alcohol. He is a one-time member of Greenpeace, votes Labour, is a pacifist, asthmatic, left hander, bow-legged, has one kidney and suffers from manic depression.
Book Extract
…one of my many adolescent, repeating, disturbed dreams…
“They’re lifting the last few bales, are you ready lads?” Pitchforks and spades raised above shoulders. The question hardly needed answering as the few remaining parts of our previously safe home were toppled over. Exposed, and surrounding us, were our enemy and their dogs. They were huge, barbaric, merciless killers. For milliseconds we stared at each other before… “Get ‘em!” The barbarians shrieked. About twenty yards to make it to the long grass, and then another ten to the barley, Ben and I were running, breathlessly desperately together. He was young and powerfully built, and if anyone could make it, he would. The men-of-war were stamping and beating the ground with sticks and blades and screaming when they killed one of us. The dogs were yapping, howling and baying incessantly. Those bastard, evil terriers - tearing flesh, maiming and killing us.
Ben was slightly ahead of me, nearly there, almost safe, when a pitchfork, seemed to hang in the air before plunging into his side. He immediately whirled round, screaming, and breaking his teeth on the cruel steel bar that had brutally pinned him to the ground. At the grass verge I stopped. A very ugly violent man stood over Ben grinning, then his steel-heel crashed heavily down. Ben had been screaming in agony, the bar tearing through his kidneys, his liver and his gut, now lay still, his race over. Others lay dead and bleeding as the now insane dogs tore at our bodies. Mad-men ran after those of us who were wounded, some with legs broken, and some even with broken backs and were mercilessly killed.
I knew I was not yet safe. The sea of pasture only gave little cover so long as I remained still. Caesar was an old bull terrier. I knew him well and had managed to stay one step ahead of him in the last four years. He had seen me get to the grass and had come to within five yards of me before I smelt him. I sprinted for my life for the taller, deeper barley field. Caesar did not yap as he came up behind me. He may have been old, but not slow. I hurled myself to one side as his hot, rancid, poisonous breath passed over the terrified hairs of my back. I made it to the high barley just before having to side step again to avoid him. Now Caesar slowed down as he crashed loudly into the field. Fifteen yards in I stopped. The bad-men who had been watching our race had lost interest. Their dogs did not usually catch us in there. Caesar was not breathing and he was down-wind now and in a different row. And suddenly he was there again, crashing down on me. Three. Two yards to go! I leapt frantically to the right and ran for my life once more! Suddenly to my horror, I was out of the barley and on the concrete loading bay again. I knew that the old hole in the far wall was my only hope. Only too late as I sprinted towards it I realized it was boarded over. Breathless and terrified, I turned to face Caesar. His tongue flashed in and out of his horrible-pointed, evil head, his glazed eyes staring in triumph. He had time as he had me cornered. He had to be careful though; cornered and terrified, I could still give a nasty bite. He lunged and I sank my teeth deep into his lip as he crushed my back right leg in his jaws. He howled as he hurled me in the air. He was going to snap me in half!
A loud near explosion and my battered body was racked with an even worse agony. One of the killer enemy men had seen me come out of the field and dart for my hole. It had been boarded it up. As the fearful dog threw me in the air, he lifted his rifle and fired. The bullet tore through my skin, throwing me into the fertiliser stack.
That autumn when the men took down the last bags of the fertiliser stack, they were ready again with their sticks, flailing and dogs yapping. Most of us rats were killed although one with only three legs, and some of my sons somehow made it through…
£12.00
By Joss Smith Weston
ISBN: 978-1-84747-085-0
Published: 2007
Pages: 246
Key Themes: manic depression, bi-polar disorder, poetry
"The writing is a fascinating blend of wry, contemporary social narrative (a la Nick Hornby), yet conveying a message about the divisive South African culture reminiscent of JM Coetzee. Some of the brutally honest accounts of Joss' early sexual encounters would probably shock if taken out of context but he somehow manages to make them seem wholly acceptable as he struggles to come to terms with his many desires in an Apartheid-governed world." - Rupert Reid
Description
This eccentric book is an attempt to make manic depression more widely understood given the stigmatism that it is usually associated with. The illness creates a jaundiced perception of people and reality and it is probably for this reason that the characters’ names are changed; otherwise it is a real story. However, there is no distinction between reality and dreams. It is not a story about success, victory or triumph, although equally given the circumstances it is also not one of failure either. It is a journey that starts in normality and ends in the opposite corner, beginning with a disturbed and violent dream. The book charts the experiences of Joss through Africa and Australia, marriage and running a business. On a few occasions the narrative fails and the author expresses his nightmares, secret thoughts, imagery and disbeliefs in poetry. The sudden loss of control, or sanity and his arrival in a mental asylum and the view from inside is both very distressing and strangely humorous. It ends on a note of poignancy, recalling Joss' supposed recovery and his attempted assimilation back into society. A fascinating and thoroughly engaging read, a must for anybody who wishes to further understand the thoughts and actions of a manic depressive.
About the Author
Joss has been a Company Director and is now a student at the Open University. Joss is a republican who does not use products that have been tested on animals; prefers to buy second hand clothes from Oxfam; reads the Telegraph and listens to Radio Four. His experiences include; seeing a UFO; scratching a white rhino and a tarantula's stomach; riding an ostrich and he has been in a high-speed police car chase. Joss has run the Comrades Marathon (89 kilometres) in 7 hours 29 minutes and 59 seconds. For nine years Joss was a vegetarian, did not eat chocolate, or drink alcohol. He is a one-time member of Greenpeace, votes Labour, is a pacifist, asthmatic, left hander, bow-legged, has one kidney and suffers from manic depression.
Book Extract
…one of my many adolescent, repeating, disturbed dreams…
“They’re lifting the last few bales, are you ready lads?” Pitchforks and spades raised above shoulders. The question hardly needed answering as the few remaining parts of our previously safe home were toppled over. Exposed, and surrounding us, were our enemy and their dogs. They were huge, barbaric, merciless killers. For milliseconds we stared at each other before… “Get ‘em!” The barbarians shrieked. About twenty yards to make it to the long grass, and then another ten to the barley, Ben and I were running, breathlessly desperately together. He was young and powerfully built, and if anyone could make it, he would. The men-of-war were stamping and beating the ground with sticks and blades and screaming when they killed one of us. The dogs were yapping, howling and baying incessantly. Those bastard, evil terriers - tearing flesh, maiming and killing us.
Ben was slightly ahead of me, nearly there, almost safe, when a pitchfork, seemed to hang in the air before plunging into his side. He immediately whirled round, screaming, and breaking his teeth on the cruel steel bar that had brutally pinned him to the ground. At the grass verge I stopped. A very ugly violent man stood over Ben grinning, then his steel-heel crashed heavily down. Ben had been screaming in agony, the bar tearing through his kidneys, his liver and his gut, now lay still, his race over. Others lay dead and bleeding as the now insane dogs tore at our bodies. Mad-men ran after those of us who were wounded, some with legs broken, and some even with broken backs and were mercilessly killed.
I knew I was not yet safe. The sea of pasture only gave little cover so long as I remained still. Caesar was an old bull terrier. I knew him well and had managed to stay one step ahead of him in the last four years. He had seen me get to the grass and had come to within five yards of me before I smelt him. I sprinted for my life for the taller, deeper barley field. Caesar did not yap as he came up behind me. He may have been old, but not slow. I hurled myself to one side as his hot, rancid, poisonous breath passed over the terrified hairs of my back. I made it to the high barley just before having to side step again to avoid him. Now Caesar slowed down as he crashed loudly into the field. Fifteen yards in I stopped. The bad-men who had been watching our race had lost interest. Their dogs did not usually catch us in there. Caesar was not breathing and he was down-wind now and in a different row. And suddenly he was there again, crashing down on me. Three. Two yards to go! I leapt frantically to the right and ran for my life once more! Suddenly to my horror, I was out of the barley and on the concrete loading bay again. I knew that the old hole in the far wall was my only hope. Only too late as I sprinted towards it I realized it was boarded over. Breathless and terrified, I turned to face Caesar. His tongue flashed in and out of his horrible-pointed, evil head, his glazed eyes staring in triumph. He had time as he had me cornered. He had to be careful though; cornered and terrified, I could still give a nasty bite. He lunged and I sank my teeth deep into his lip as he crushed my back right leg in his jaws. He howled as he hurled me in the air. He was going to snap me in half!
A loud near explosion and my battered body was racked with an even worse agony. One of the killer enemy men had seen me come out of the field and dart for my hole. It had been boarded it up. As the fearful dog threw me in the air, he lifted his rifle and fired. The bullet tore through my skin, throwing me into the fertiliser stack.
That autumn when the men took down the last bags of the fertiliser stack, they were ready again with their sticks, flailing and dogs yapping. Most of us rats were killed although one with only three legs, and some of my sons somehow made it through…
A Can of Madness
£12.00 £11.00Save: 8% off
By Jason PeglerFifth Edition
ISBN: 978-0-954221-82-9First Published: 2002This Edition: 2005Pages: 246Key Themes: bi-polar, manic depression, depression, alcoholism, mania, drug abuse, recovery
“A Can of Madness does what it says in the… er can. A brilliant memoir of mania; all the pain, humour, fear and despair is chronicled here in prose of clarity and distinction. Unforgettable and important" - Stephen Fry
“This book will help people to understand one of the greatest issues of our time, how to treat those who are mentally disturbed, as human beings” – Rt. Hon. Tony Benn MP
“The author has done all of us a service by writing about how it feels, not just to be manic depressive, but to have a life of fraught and edgy encounters with just about everyone” – The Times
“A Can of Madness takes you as close to the manic experience as you can get, it makes ‘Prozac Nation’ look like a walk in the park.” – The Big Issue
Description
A vivid, honest and sometimes disturbing memoir about the experience of having a diagnosis of manic-depression. It was written using extracts from a diary written at the time of the author's flights into mania and his descents into depression. Like other books in this genre, the author is often painfully honest about his experiences. He recounts a dizzying, dark and sometimes euphoric journey through a world of elation, despair, binge drinking, drugs, raves and psychiatric wards. As well as attempting to educate the reader, the book also provides optimism and hope, showing that it is finally possible to learn to live with, and accept, having a mental health problem.
About the Author
Jason Pegler is 31 and lives in Vauxhall, South London. Jason was diagnosed with manic depression in 1993 and wrote 'A Can of Madness' to stop other seventeen year olds going through what he went through. Graduating from Manchester University in 1998 he founded Chipmunkapublishing and Equal Lives, non-profit making organisations which aim to help mental health sufferers. he then set up The Chipmunka Foundation (registered charity number 1109537) in 2004. Pegler is a mental health activist, journalist, rapper, public speaker and consultant on anything that promotes a positive image on mental health. In 2005 Pegler won the New Statesman's Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is a key figure in the mental health movement.
Book Extract
As I was being driven off in the back of a police van in a space suit, I thought I was Donovan Bad Boy Smith being driven to a rave. I could hear music in my head and flashed back to another night at The Brunel Rooms in Swindon. The Brunel Rooms, a hard-core Mecca for druggies from Gloucester and surrounding areas in the early to mid nineties. Donovan was so hardcore when I saw him there that he'd refused to turn off his set at 3. He'd carried on until 3.30 when someone finally turned off the electricity mid flow.
Talking of flows (as opposed to stable mindsets), just how the fuck do you live with a mental illness? Don't ask me, I'm still trying to find out now. After all, it's not something you plan, let alone something you'd ever expect to have. As we all say: it won't happen to me. But it can. And in this case, it did.
And if Hercules and Ajax couldn't hack it, how the hell could I? Unsurprisingly, I didn't - and that's why I wallowed in self-pity for so long.
So, do you want to know what it's like to be crazy, mad, loopy? Well I'm about to tell you. I'm also going to tell you how it feels to be suicidal for months on end - the fate of the manic. One thing, however, is for sure: The sooner you kill mania the better. For you're a danger to yourself and other people when you don't know what you're doing. The longer mania is allowed to continue, the longer and more severe the inevitable depression will be.
The problem is that mania is a unique and sometimes beautiful experience, even though its genius is flawed and must be quelled. The irony is that it draws strength from imperfection. Think of the Mona Lisa without her eyebrows. She's more appealing because there's something that's not quite right. She is in some way different, contrary to the norm and thus fascinates the observer.
I also draw strength from Van Gogh, as I imagine him painting just down the road from me in Stockwell. Slipping in and out of consciousness when writing, I try to summon up his own 'madness'.
Finally, I take comfort from the poet and composer, Ivor Gurney. Like me, he was manic, and like me, he came from Gloucester and moved to South London. Apparently, he would often walk from one to the other, singing folk music and sleeping in barns along the way.
Hucclecote, one of the more pleasant areas of Gloucester (although still with its fair share of pingheads and run-of-the-mill crims) is about a mile, mile and a half outside the town centre, on the Cheltenham side. We moved there because my parents were keen that my brother, Harvey, and I did well at school - Hucclecote is a bike ride away from the renowned Grammar school, Sir Thomas Rich's, in Longlevens. The plan was that we would each would pass our 11+ and get in.
Green Lane, where I lived, was quiet, (lower-) middle class and had a huge green at the end of it. Because it's right on Hucclecote Road, access to either Gloucester or its more upmarket neighbour Cheltenham, located only seven miles away, is easy. But that's enough on Gloucester for now. Let's meet the family.
£12.00 £11.00Save: 8% off
By Jason PeglerFifth Edition
ISBN: 978-0-954221-82-9First Published: 2002This Edition: 2005Pages: 246Key Themes: bi-polar, manic depression, depression, alcoholism, mania, drug abuse, recovery
“A Can of Madness does what it says in the… er can. A brilliant memoir of mania; all the pain, humour, fear and despair is chronicled here in prose of clarity and distinction. Unforgettable and important" - Stephen Fry
“This book will help people to understand one of the greatest issues of our time, how to treat those who are mentally disturbed, as human beings” – Rt. Hon. Tony Benn MP
“The author has done all of us a service by writing about how it feels, not just to be manic depressive, but to have a life of fraught and edgy encounters with just about everyone” – The Times
“A Can of Madness takes you as close to the manic experience as you can get, it makes ‘Prozac Nation’ look like a walk in the park.” – The Big Issue
Description
A vivid, honest and sometimes disturbing memoir about the experience of having a diagnosis of manic-depression. It was written using extracts from a diary written at the time of the author's flights into mania and his descents into depression. Like other books in this genre, the author is often painfully honest about his experiences. He recounts a dizzying, dark and sometimes euphoric journey through a world of elation, despair, binge drinking, drugs, raves and psychiatric wards. As well as attempting to educate the reader, the book also provides optimism and hope, showing that it is finally possible to learn to live with, and accept, having a mental health problem.
About the Author
Jason Pegler is 31 and lives in Vauxhall, South London. Jason was diagnosed with manic depression in 1993 and wrote 'A Can of Madness' to stop other seventeen year olds going through what he went through. Graduating from Manchester University in 1998 he founded Chipmunkapublishing and Equal Lives, non-profit making organisations which aim to help mental health sufferers. he then set up The Chipmunka Foundation (registered charity number 1109537) in 2004. Pegler is a mental health activist, journalist, rapper, public speaker and consultant on anything that promotes a positive image on mental health. In 2005 Pegler won the New Statesman's Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is a key figure in the mental health movement.
Book Extract
As I was being driven off in the back of a police van in a space suit, I thought I was Donovan Bad Boy Smith being driven to a rave. I could hear music in my head and flashed back to another night at The Brunel Rooms in Swindon. The Brunel Rooms, a hard-core Mecca for druggies from Gloucester and surrounding areas in the early to mid nineties. Donovan was so hardcore when I saw him there that he'd refused to turn off his set at 3. He'd carried on until 3.30 when someone finally turned off the electricity mid flow.
Talking of flows (as opposed to stable mindsets), just how the fuck do you live with a mental illness? Don't ask me, I'm still trying to find out now. After all, it's not something you plan, let alone something you'd ever expect to have. As we all say: it won't happen to me. But it can. And in this case, it did.
And if Hercules and Ajax couldn't hack it, how the hell could I? Unsurprisingly, I didn't - and that's why I wallowed in self-pity for so long.
So, do you want to know what it's like to be crazy, mad, loopy? Well I'm about to tell you. I'm also going to tell you how it feels to be suicidal for months on end - the fate of the manic. One thing, however, is for sure: The sooner you kill mania the better. For you're a danger to yourself and other people when you don't know what you're doing. The longer mania is allowed to continue, the longer and more severe the inevitable depression will be.
The problem is that mania is a unique and sometimes beautiful experience, even though its genius is flawed and must be quelled. The irony is that it draws strength from imperfection. Think of the Mona Lisa without her eyebrows. She's more appealing because there's something that's not quite right. She is in some way different, contrary to the norm and thus fascinates the observer.
I also draw strength from Van Gogh, as I imagine him painting just down the road from me in Stockwell. Slipping in and out of consciousness when writing, I try to summon up his own 'madness'.
Finally, I take comfort from the poet and composer, Ivor Gurney. Like me, he was manic, and like me, he came from Gloucester and moved to South London. Apparently, he would often walk from one to the other, singing folk music and sleeping in barns along the way.
Hucclecote, one of the more pleasant areas of Gloucester (although still with its fair share of pingheads and run-of-the-mill crims) is about a mile, mile and a half outside the town centre, on the Cheltenham side. We moved there because my parents were keen that my brother, Harvey, and I did well at school - Hucclecote is a bike ride away from the renowned Grammar school, Sir Thomas Rich's, in Longlevens. The plan was that we would each would pass our 11+ and get in.
Green Lane, where I lived, was quiet, (lower-) middle class and had a huge green at the end of it. Because it's right on Hucclecote Road, access to either Gloucester or its more upmarket neighbour Cheltenham, located only seven miles away, is easy. But that's enough on Gloucester for now. Let's meet the family.
Monday, 3 September 2007
Jason Pegler Introduction
Jason Pegler is one of the most inspirational mental health empowerment speakers in the world. He is probably unique in his openness about using his own mental illness as a positive force, in order to lead a generation of people to be empowered. They can do this by confronting their mental illness and therefore taking the first steps to recovery.
Jason has had a fascinating life, from being the captain of his school chess and rugby team and a potential Oxbridge candidate to being diagnosed with manic depression at the age of 17. He masterminded the leading autobiography on mental health of his generation "A Can of Madness", published in 2002.
Quickly realising that he could encourage others, Jason set up Chipmunkapublishing "The Mental Health Publisher", as a social enterprise, to give a voice to the mental health service users that had not had a real voice before. This led to selling and marketing opportunities in the Mental Health and Corporate Sectors as well as national and international media coverage. In just 5 years Jason has become a living legend in the world mental health survivor movement creating the world's first mental health brand Chipmunka. Jason Pegler is recognised as the leading thinker and activist of his generation in the world of mental health empowerment. Jason Pegler ground-breaking autobiography on living with manic depression "A Can of Madness" has been given a five star review in the Times Literary Supplement. He regards meeting people and public speaking as his forte. He is a dynamic public speaker, lecturer and consultant on a myriad of mental health and related issues. He has written for more than one hundred newspapers, periodicals, magazines worldwide. He regularly appears on television, radio and documentaries discussing mental health issues.
What clients say:
Jason Pegler is a great example to many people. He has a presentable manner and is always inspiring. The Right Honourable Tony Benn
We applaud Jason Pegler's motivation, endeavours and his determination to succeed in this difficult area". Marjorie Wallace Chief Executive of Sane Wow what an inspirational speaker. Makes you feel that you can help the whole world by being a humanitarian. Paul Brandwood - Corporate Social Responsibility at KPMG UK.
Pegler speaks with honesty, openness and integrity. He is revolutionary in the world of mental ill health. Book him now. Andrew Latchford - Co Founder of Chipmunkapublishing, Co Founder of Chipmunka Foundation and European Business Consultant
I regularly advise my students to go and hear him speak. Pegler has a gift that many aspire to. He fundamentally believes that you can change your life and cure yourself from mental illness and he is living proof that you can prove it. Dr. T. Davies - Consultant Psychiatrist and Editor of ABC of Mental Health
A truly amazing speaker. I wish everyone could hear Jason speak. It would change the way they think about people with mental illness. G. Taylor - Astra Zeneca
Having heard Jason Pegler speak I had the confidence to write my own story, which began as a suicide note and ended up a celebration of life. He has helped me more than anyone. Dolly Sen - Film producer and author of four books including the "The World Is Full of Laughter".
Jason Pegler is inspirational to a great many people in the UK service user movement. I am amazed how he does it. Paul Farmer - Chief Executive of Mind
I highly recommend Jason Pegler as a social entrepreneur and public speaker. Fantastic.John Bird - Founder of the Big Issue
One of the most forward thinking and inspirational motivational speakers in the world today. The leader of a new breed of empowerment thinking. Professor Sir Harvey Crichton - Founder of the Crichton Group.
For further information on this speaker, please call: 0870 766 9535
MORE ABOUT THE FOUNDER OF THE WORLD's FIRST MENTAL HEALTH BRAND !
His expertise is mental health. When he was seventeen years of age he spent six months in a psychiatric ward in Coney Hill Mental Hospital in Gloucester in the United Kingdom. After six weeks of mania where he thought he had taken 5 billion Ecstasy tablets to create world peace, Jason's first realisation that he was actually not well and in a mental hospital. He had a vision. He knew that one day he would have to gather enough strength to tell the world how he felt. By doing this he could stop the pain and humiliation that he and everyone else with a mental illness felt. His immediate thought was that his experiences and feelings needed to be recorded as they happened- on the largest platform possible. Then and only then would other people understand and therefore empathise with the "loonies" in Coney Hill. It took Jason four manic episodes before he was bold enough to change his thought processes and act on his vision. Jason graduated from Manchester University with a 2:1 in Classical Studies in 1998 before writing his autobiography on living with manic depression (1998 - 2002) "A Can of Madness", and setting up Chipmunkapublishing with co-founder Andrew Latchford.
Released on April 13th 2002 with help from the British Government's Mind Millennium Award Programme "A Can of Madness" was immediately recognised as a ground breaking text and compared favorably to Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation and Kay Redfield Jamieson's An Unquiet Mind. It also became an underground text symptomatic of saving the ecstasy generation from its own "mental illness" and continues to spread its influence over the globe.
In October 2002 Chipmunkapublishing launched its second author Dolly Sen who was inspired to write her autobiography The World Is Full of Laughter after reading A Can of Madness.
"My goal in life is to tell the truth about my life, tell the truth about how people with mental health issues are treated by society, the mental health system, the state and the status quo. I want others to follow in my footsteps and help me break down the taboo on mental health once and for all." Jason Pegler.
Various documentaries, film versions and scripts featuring Jason Pegler and his related projects are underway. The ultimate goal is for the story to become a feature length blockbuster movie. Then the widest audience will be reached.
Jason Pegler knows from the letters he and other Chipmunkapublishing authors have received that their mental health publishing is making a positve impact in society:
"By telling the truth about one's mental health issues, sufferers are able to deal with the humiliation and carers are able to see how best to help their loved ones. Writing and reading books about mental health users is a cathartic processes that is crucial for the reduction of stigma and discrimination and for the improved state of mind for service users. The books also help give insight to mental health staff as they reveal how thier patient's feel and are a morale booster for staff showing that people do get better".
Jason Pegler has worked recently with:
ITVBBCEMISONYBMWSimon and Schuster MicrosoftUnltd The Big IssueMen's Health MagazineKPMGCommunity Action NetworkEC3 SolutionsRethinkMindSaneThere There MagazineThe NHS Tree EventsDisability Rights CommissionThe European ParliamentThe World Health OrganisationMPs and Lords on The Mental Health BillLondon Development CentreNIMHENHS
Vision: Words from the CEO Jason Pegler:
"The ultimate vision of Chipmunka Group is to prove that everyone on earth has a mental illness at some level. Then and only then will we have normalised mental health so that in fifty years someone with a mental illness will not have to feel humiliated for being mentally ill. At the age of seventeen I was diagnosed with manic depression and my world was turned upside down. After living in a mental hospital for six weeks I suddenly realised that I was not playing the football manager in the computer game. It took me months to realise that a nuclear war was not going on and that I was not God.
The moment I realised I had a mental illness I had a mission and a dream.
My mission was to one day tell the whole world about the humiliation and guilt that i had for having had all those idiotic manic thoughts. Celebrating my madness was the only way I could psychoanalyse myself and become better. I saw my story as a Hollywood movie not for my own ego but because being in a psychiatric ward changed me as a person. It made me more sensitive, I wanted to help people and stop another seventeen year old from going through the same pain that I went through. Until I was living in a mental hospital I couldn't have cared less what is was like for people who lived in places like that and experienced 'mental illness'.
For me then and still today Hollywood was the greatest medium to change the way people thought about the internet. This was in 1993. We are fortunate now that we also have the internet to enable people for the first time in history to be producers and not just consumers of information.
The moment i came down from mania a frisson went through my body that i had to help everyone else in the ward. This is a natural feeling for anyone who goes through this kind of pain. If you doubt it just ask them. It was immediately evident that society was the cause of the humiliation that these people were going through. People are alienated when they are not understood. This is how the status quo operates. Without it there would be anarchy.
The Mental Health Movement is still in its infancy even though 'mental illness' has been around since the beginning of time. People who are different have always been alienated but do not always have to be. In fact is contravenes civil liberties to assume that people are ill when they are not. People need help when they are alienated but their characters are not fundamentally flawed if they behave differently. The status quo throughout history has fed us with propaganda telling that they are 'mentally ill' as a form of social control and then clouding the real voice of those who suffer.
I set up Chipmunka to give a voice to the mentally ill. The plight of the mentally ill improves with every generation in the sense that we are not put in prison with murderers anymore. Yet the facts are that global mental illness will always be on the increase in our life times. By 2020 mental illness will be the second most common form of death second only to heart disease. Mental health is becoming part of the social norm and with this the influence of the patient will increase. We are in a transitional period in history where people who are 'mentally ill' must publically be given approval to control their own lives. There must be no hidden agenda's but an open arm policy calling for humanitarian treatment across mental health services and in society.
For me the role of the mental health patient is exactly the same as that of the civil rights activists in the 1960s. For charities, the media and governments to campaign for the mentally ill without having patients dictate the terms is irrational and ethically wrong. If Martin Luther King JNR was a white man talking about black people's experiences then no-one would have listened to him. The same is true with the history of the 'the mentally ill'.
The role of Chipmunka is to change the way people think about mental health and to treat it as normal. Some people will need to be subliminally influenced, others can be encouraged to be more empathetic or get pro actively involved. The reality is that we are all human beings at the end of the day and are all vulnerable constantly experiencing 'mental distress' or other either consciously or unconsciously worrying about a finite existence whether we believe in existentialist philosophy god, being or the after life itself.
Help us to help more people and donate your energy, time and money to becoming a supporter of the world's first mental health brand. Creating a brand is the best way to stop the rising number of suicides. Remember we feel your pain and/or indifference otherwise wwe ould be dedicating my entire life to something completely different."
Jason has had a fascinating life, from being the captain of his school chess and rugby team and a potential Oxbridge candidate to being diagnosed with manic depression at the age of 17. He masterminded the leading autobiography on mental health of his generation "A Can of Madness", published in 2002.
Quickly realising that he could encourage others, Jason set up Chipmunkapublishing "The Mental Health Publisher", as a social enterprise, to give a voice to the mental health service users that had not had a real voice before. This led to selling and marketing opportunities in the Mental Health and Corporate Sectors as well as national and international media coverage. In just 5 years Jason has become a living legend in the world mental health survivor movement creating the world's first mental health brand Chipmunka. Jason Pegler is recognised as the leading thinker and activist of his generation in the world of mental health empowerment. Jason Pegler ground-breaking autobiography on living with manic depression "A Can of Madness" has been given a five star review in the Times Literary Supplement. He regards meeting people and public speaking as his forte. He is a dynamic public speaker, lecturer and consultant on a myriad of mental health and related issues. He has written for more than one hundred newspapers, periodicals, magazines worldwide. He regularly appears on television, radio and documentaries discussing mental health issues.
What clients say:
Jason Pegler is a great example to many people. He has a presentable manner and is always inspiring. The Right Honourable Tony Benn
We applaud Jason Pegler's motivation, endeavours and his determination to succeed in this difficult area". Marjorie Wallace Chief Executive of Sane Wow what an inspirational speaker. Makes you feel that you can help the whole world by being a humanitarian. Paul Brandwood - Corporate Social Responsibility at KPMG UK.
Pegler speaks with honesty, openness and integrity. He is revolutionary in the world of mental ill health. Book him now. Andrew Latchford - Co Founder of Chipmunkapublishing, Co Founder of Chipmunka Foundation and European Business Consultant
I regularly advise my students to go and hear him speak. Pegler has a gift that many aspire to. He fundamentally believes that you can change your life and cure yourself from mental illness and he is living proof that you can prove it. Dr. T. Davies - Consultant Psychiatrist and Editor of ABC of Mental Health
A truly amazing speaker. I wish everyone could hear Jason speak. It would change the way they think about people with mental illness. G. Taylor - Astra Zeneca
Having heard Jason Pegler speak I had the confidence to write my own story, which began as a suicide note and ended up a celebration of life. He has helped me more than anyone. Dolly Sen - Film producer and author of four books including the "The World Is Full of Laughter".
Jason Pegler is inspirational to a great many people in the UK service user movement. I am amazed how he does it. Paul Farmer - Chief Executive of Mind
I highly recommend Jason Pegler as a social entrepreneur and public speaker. Fantastic.John Bird - Founder of the Big Issue
One of the most forward thinking and inspirational motivational speakers in the world today. The leader of a new breed of empowerment thinking. Professor Sir Harvey Crichton - Founder of the Crichton Group.
For further information on this speaker, please call: 0870 766 9535
MORE ABOUT THE FOUNDER OF THE WORLD's FIRST MENTAL HEALTH BRAND !
His expertise is mental health. When he was seventeen years of age he spent six months in a psychiatric ward in Coney Hill Mental Hospital in Gloucester in the United Kingdom. After six weeks of mania where he thought he had taken 5 billion Ecstasy tablets to create world peace, Jason's first realisation that he was actually not well and in a mental hospital. He had a vision. He knew that one day he would have to gather enough strength to tell the world how he felt. By doing this he could stop the pain and humiliation that he and everyone else with a mental illness felt. His immediate thought was that his experiences and feelings needed to be recorded as they happened- on the largest platform possible. Then and only then would other people understand and therefore empathise with the "loonies" in Coney Hill. It took Jason four manic episodes before he was bold enough to change his thought processes and act on his vision. Jason graduated from Manchester University with a 2:1 in Classical Studies in 1998 before writing his autobiography on living with manic depression (1998 - 2002) "A Can of Madness", and setting up Chipmunkapublishing with co-founder Andrew Latchford.
Released on April 13th 2002 with help from the British Government's Mind Millennium Award Programme "A Can of Madness" was immediately recognised as a ground breaking text and compared favorably to Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation and Kay Redfield Jamieson's An Unquiet Mind. It also became an underground text symptomatic of saving the ecstasy generation from its own "mental illness" and continues to spread its influence over the globe.
In October 2002 Chipmunkapublishing launched its second author Dolly Sen who was inspired to write her autobiography The World Is Full of Laughter after reading A Can of Madness.
"My goal in life is to tell the truth about my life, tell the truth about how people with mental health issues are treated by society, the mental health system, the state and the status quo. I want others to follow in my footsteps and help me break down the taboo on mental health once and for all." Jason Pegler.
Various documentaries, film versions and scripts featuring Jason Pegler and his related projects are underway. The ultimate goal is for the story to become a feature length blockbuster movie. Then the widest audience will be reached.
Jason Pegler knows from the letters he and other Chipmunkapublishing authors have received that their mental health publishing is making a positve impact in society:
"By telling the truth about one's mental health issues, sufferers are able to deal with the humiliation and carers are able to see how best to help their loved ones. Writing and reading books about mental health users is a cathartic processes that is crucial for the reduction of stigma and discrimination and for the improved state of mind for service users. The books also help give insight to mental health staff as they reveal how thier patient's feel and are a morale booster for staff showing that people do get better".
Jason Pegler has worked recently with:
ITVBBCEMISONYBMWSimon and Schuster MicrosoftUnltd The Big IssueMen's Health MagazineKPMGCommunity Action NetworkEC3 SolutionsRethinkMindSaneThere There MagazineThe NHS Tree EventsDisability Rights CommissionThe European ParliamentThe World Health OrganisationMPs and Lords on The Mental Health BillLondon Development CentreNIMHENHS
Vision: Words from the CEO Jason Pegler:
"The ultimate vision of Chipmunka Group is to prove that everyone on earth has a mental illness at some level. Then and only then will we have normalised mental health so that in fifty years someone with a mental illness will not have to feel humiliated for being mentally ill. At the age of seventeen I was diagnosed with manic depression and my world was turned upside down. After living in a mental hospital for six weeks I suddenly realised that I was not playing the football manager in the computer game. It took me months to realise that a nuclear war was not going on and that I was not God.
The moment I realised I had a mental illness I had a mission and a dream.
My mission was to one day tell the whole world about the humiliation and guilt that i had for having had all those idiotic manic thoughts. Celebrating my madness was the only way I could psychoanalyse myself and become better. I saw my story as a Hollywood movie not for my own ego but because being in a psychiatric ward changed me as a person. It made me more sensitive, I wanted to help people and stop another seventeen year old from going through the same pain that I went through. Until I was living in a mental hospital I couldn't have cared less what is was like for people who lived in places like that and experienced 'mental illness'.
For me then and still today Hollywood was the greatest medium to change the way people thought about the internet. This was in 1993. We are fortunate now that we also have the internet to enable people for the first time in history to be producers and not just consumers of information.
The moment i came down from mania a frisson went through my body that i had to help everyone else in the ward. This is a natural feeling for anyone who goes through this kind of pain. If you doubt it just ask them. It was immediately evident that society was the cause of the humiliation that these people were going through. People are alienated when they are not understood. This is how the status quo operates. Without it there would be anarchy.
The Mental Health Movement is still in its infancy even though 'mental illness' has been around since the beginning of time. People who are different have always been alienated but do not always have to be. In fact is contravenes civil liberties to assume that people are ill when they are not. People need help when they are alienated but their characters are not fundamentally flawed if they behave differently. The status quo throughout history has fed us with propaganda telling that they are 'mentally ill' as a form of social control and then clouding the real voice of those who suffer.
I set up Chipmunka to give a voice to the mentally ill. The plight of the mentally ill improves with every generation in the sense that we are not put in prison with murderers anymore. Yet the facts are that global mental illness will always be on the increase in our life times. By 2020 mental illness will be the second most common form of death second only to heart disease. Mental health is becoming part of the social norm and with this the influence of the patient will increase. We are in a transitional period in history where people who are 'mentally ill' must publically be given approval to control their own lives. There must be no hidden agenda's but an open arm policy calling for humanitarian treatment across mental health services and in society.
For me the role of the mental health patient is exactly the same as that of the civil rights activists in the 1960s. For charities, the media and governments to campaign for the mentally ill without having patients dictate the terms is irrational and ethically wrong. If Martin Luther King JNR was a white man talking about black people's experiences then no-one would have listened to him. The same is true with the history of the 'the mentally ill'.
The role of Chipmunka is to change the way people think about mental health and to treat it as normal. Some people will need to be subliminally influenced, others can be encouraged to be more empathetic or get pro actively involved. The reality is that we are all human beings at the end of the day and are all vulnerable constantly experiencing 'mental distress' or other either consciously or unconsciously worrying about a finite existence whether we believe in existentialist philosophy god, being or the after life itself.
Help us to help more people and donate your energy, time and money to becoming a supporter of the world's first mental health brand. Creating a brand is the best way to stop the rising number of suicides. Remember we feel your pain and/or indifference otherwise wwe ould be dedicating my entire life to something completely different."
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