Monthly Archives: September 2013

Jell-O

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I had the pleasure of taking part in a community meal here in London. Those with little are a community within a community out of necessity and survival.

I cut loaves into bread for the meal and to place in bags to be brought home. I also divvied up Jell-O for 180 people. There were four of us serving desserts so I ended up outside talking with some of the guests. I noticed one young woman coming in late. After I went back inside I was witness to three plates of food in her hands. I did not stare but she stood out because there were few others remaining while she ate. I assumed she didn’t like the whole experience and through repetition knew, seconds were only served late. It can be hard to comprehend when a person’s stomach and situation have such an agenda.

I’m not much of a police officer but people were walking out with three buns when they were only given one. Someone had the nerve to ask for a bag for their taking. Someone else was cheeky enough to place a loaf of bread in a backpack while walking away with another in hand. And in a church!

I had to marvel at the absurdity of trying to cut Jell-O into equal pieces with a balanced dollop of whipped cream. These guests are familiar with inequality. Fair for them is something that comes to town once a year delivering rides and candyfloss. Equal to them is a sugar substitute.

One of the gentlemen I spoke with was once a realtor with properties of his own at one point. Another does roofing after a local factory closure. I think not everyone fits our ideas of poverty. I also think we could be as they are. Many were what we are.

It is unfortunate there is not an App for empathy. We live in fear of not having enough all the while choking on more.

Mental Illness Is Next Semester

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It was brought to my attention from a learned friend that the University here in London has run into some publicity. The University of Western Ontario newspaper, the gazette, published a cartoon with words to the effect “Why are you so happy?” “My brother was really depressed, but he finally hung himself.”

My neighbour hung himself as did his sister. I had a relative commit suicide. Two good friends from my hospital years killed themselves. There were more but I was less familiar with them. Therein lays the problem, familiarity.

I can recall coming out of my 30 hour coma and my brother saying quite the opposite.

One of my first thoughts to this was why this was not considered as offensive as the chants condoning non-consensual sex with a minor that we have come to know through other places of higher learning. Are there actually people on talk shows defending this cartoon and its publication?

The defense of or minimization of this cartoon is in fact stigma. We don’t condone sex with minors but we condone making fun of minors who commits suicide and therefore infer those who have similar thoughts are laughable at best.

I read a comment in response to the cartoon from someone claiming to have suffered from depression. They saw humour in it. It can be a blessing to have depression that does not involve suicidal ideation. It is also a blessing to be on the side of mental health that has you on a message board making opinions. We need to consider the student in her room. The one who although beautiful and bright is unable to see her place, success or happiness in this thing called university. To her friends seem to belong to others and her isolation is found in crowded hallways. This young woman needs our help not our laughter. When she sees a publication representing her peers and the university community in general making light of the very thoughts in her head, she can only hang it in shame. She keeps quite, she masks, she isolates and her wounds become infected by our very words.

Crazy, out of it, best let be, she internalizes our attitudes and they become fuel for an ever unfavourable opinion of self. She becomes slang, she becomes a put down, she becomes a joke.

For those who see no error; no foul, it may be constructive to self reflect. It is possible your attitude of indifference or acceptance is stigma itself. To not be offended about this cartoon raises more questions about the self than about any larger argument. A joke is not funny because someone calls it a joke. If it was a race, a sex or even a sexual orientation, students would have signs about the campus. Mental illness is next semester or an elective at best.

You can call me thin skinned but as likely we have grown thick in apathy. It was only a cartoon, there must be larger fights; maybe so but you have to stop the dog from digging before you can fill in the hole.

There was humour in the underage sex chants, no one meant any harm. A nation said no. An institution said no. If we are to combat one of the worst side effects of mental illness we must again say no.

We can be forgiving of all this. We are all learning, students more so. We need to impress on our students that the pages they write on are empty if not saturated by their humanity and the fine things they already know. To make grades is a worthy aim but if respect, love and compassion are left in lockers they are only ink on a page. We all make mistakes but if compassion, love and respect are woven into them, they can never be called failures.

I drive by the University of Western Ontario most days. Hope walks past my car when I wait at the light. The young men and women I see carry the cures, the solutions and they are being carved to make the decisions that will shape a future that I may reside in and surely my blood. We can be disappointed in what is instilled in a generation but the responsibility belongs to us all. How can we expect our children to have the discretion to not make light of the suffering of an illness when we laugh at the same jokes?

I suspect this news will not hit the funny bone of the roughly 4000 Canadian families who are affected by suicide each year. We can only hope they are too busy running fingers over old photographs to see this story.

It is not my place but it seems to me if resignations were in order at universities where chanting was heard, the same might be in order at a broader distribution of offensive utterances. As a solution to the very stigma they spread, those responsible should step aside. Your peers can only have respect at your active acknowledgement that mental health stigma is wrong; unacceptable.

Lend Me Your Ear

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I was thinking about idioms. Fair game for an idiot. I thought maybe mental health stigma is a series of idioms. We all have little messages floating about in our heads. It could be “a dime a dozen” or “a picture paints a thousand words” but it is as likely to be “schizophrenia equals dangerousness” or “depression is anger turned inwards.”

It’s all nonsense if you shift your perspective. A dime a dozen means easy to get but scarcity can be just as costly. Ten cents for a dozen seeds would seem precious to a man feeding his family. Why do we cling to only the one meaning?

A picture paints a thousand words insinuates the visual is more descriptive than words. As a writer I am biased but I put forward the challenge for any artist to paint what I say with these 600 words. Take your time.

“Schizophrenia equals dangerousness” is statistically false.

And “depression is anger tuned inward” only makes: “happiness is anger turned outward” as true.

We assume the world is full of absolutes as our very bodies swim in flux upon a spinning object.

Impressions and ideas are filtered through knowledge, experience and emotion but we assume it drops cleanly in our laps. Many of our ideas are fouled by knowledge, experience and emotion. It is often only a version. I share my life with a Doberman Pincer. It is usually with me 24 hours a day. If anyone knows her, I do. My favourable opinion of her is clouded by my emotions such as love…I literally kiss the mess. Others see her differently. People sometimes cross the street and I had one couple following us stop in their tracks as she did her business. They could have passed but that would have lessened the distance. Their ideas of a Doberman were filtered through what? A photograph, a movie, TV show or headline? We can stand back and see who is more informed as to what a Doberman is. I have lived with her, taken food from her mouth and had her obey only a motion or noise I make. She is More Bark Than Bite.

Watch a film with a character suffering from schizophrenia next to a real person also afflicted and it all seems like a cartoon. I wonder what is worse, to live with the illness or have a world blind to your humanity and very feelings. You wonder about the idiom and why it is not called a contradiction.

There is a large difference between an idiom and mental health stigma. Only one hurts. Only one bestows suffering upon those who suffer, only one demeans and only one pushes people away. When we see someone with a limp, we notice. When we see someone with mental health symptoms we form opinions and ideas. Pity is replaced with prejudice. We rarely gossip about, point at, laugh at or discount the person with the limp. What slows us from learning that it is offensive to do so with a mental symptom? We must see more than consonants to make sense of a word as we need more than a word to make sense of an idiom. Schizophrenia, depression, bi-polar, OCD or ADHD are not idioms. We are not meant to take meaning from only these single words. They must be linked with descriptors such as son, daughter, aunt, father or sister. These illnesses are deserving of a shift in perspective, they are worthy of more consideration and expanding respect.

I apologize as this was written Against The Clock. It is probably All Greek and like Beating A Dead Horse but we’re All In The Same Boat and are equally vulnerable to having the same Axe To Grind. If I have offended, keep in mind there is a Method To My Madness.

Miley Cyrus

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I sometimes go to YouTube to search a lovely song.

When I see what is popular, it seems something has gone wrong.

Silliness and humour I completely understand.

When I see Miley Cyrus, it’s a little less than grand.

Among the popularity: numbers and views

Children; sons and daughters are given cues.

You twist and suggest, little left to imagination.

Life for the young is often imitation.

Little more than sexual; gaining popularity and fame,

I don’t want my daughter becoming half the same.

She is beautiful, intelligent, kind and caring.

To me at least she has so much more worth sharing.

Let us see you swimming, playing tennis, any kind of sport.

Show the world some modesty not a skirt which covers short.

Let us see you learning and reading from a book.

Intelligence is longer lasting than the places you have us look.

Miley: we like you for your voice and the words from in your heart.

Do the world a favour and cover up from where it is you fart.

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Volunteers

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It was my honour to be the guest speaker at Elgin Middlesex Detention Center this evening. It was a dinner and awards banquet for the many fine people who volunteer there.

For me it was like entering jail for the first time in a way. Everything was pleasant but I had never been in the front door. It was full of the same uncertainty. What’s beyond that door? How long before this one opens?

The gymnasium was decorated and had a theme; there was live music and great food. A lot of time and enthusiasm went into honouring the volunteers. When I went up to speak I felt somewhat small. Prior to my words, awards were given for years served. Thirty-years are a tough act to follow.

I had intended to write some words specific to the volunteers but had a speech land in my lap weeks before. A family friend returned a stack of letters I had written years ago from a correctional facility. I spoke words I wrote years ago with a voice I hope conveyed the same gratitude.

October 19th 2002

Dear friends,

I am including a copy of a speech I delivered. I ended up speaking in front of 200 people. The Volunteer dinner was an even bigger deal than I imagined. It was all amazing to me. I was among people who don’t dress in orange but more importantly didn’t seem to be bothered that I did. I was eating olives, deep fried veggies, bacon wrapped pineapple and sausages. It was a smorgasbord of special foods I won’t see again for half a year. They even brought in the Honour Guard. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I first saw them. I thought it was six OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) wading through the reception area.

How is it that a jail becomes a place of contemplation, transformation and insight?                Volunteers.

What astounds or confounds me most about volunteers is that we are not judged. You give your time to the barely sober, the unsuccessful, the lost, the poor, the uneducated and the lonely; there are no exceptions. You include us in your lives and share your experience, strength and hope with people who sometimes have none.

Why do you give of yourselves? Is it some moral duty or obligation? I can only guess it is a form of love; a love and respect for yourselves, a love and commitment to your community and love and compassion for us here at Ontario Correctional Institute.

Volunteers break our isolation from the world and give us a glimpse of what we can look forward to. You provide a link with normalcy and the outside as well as with reality and the future.

Collectively what goes on here is amazing. Lives are saved and many more are changed to a point where we can progress in health within society. What you do here has no ending. You will never see how I am with my children or how I treat family and friends. To those of you who have spent years as volunteers I am very much inspired. To have not grown tired of our stories, to see the same attitudes once again and yet walk forward with hearts to help. As a group we are in dire need of an example – thank you for providing one.

With your help I am not ashamed of myself or discouraged by my mistakes. I can see that these mistakes have been an important factor in my life`s progress. I would have loved to forgo some of my journey. I would have gladly turned away from my problems and denied their existence. You have helped me confront myself, to see myself. To see the warts on the man I was and the light on the man I am becoming.

By talking and sharing I heal. You make my experiences more real by listening to them, and give me something to contrast them with. You lead me beyond myself. Equally important you show me. You show me what it means to give, to be human. You lead me with your example. I can see now that my purpose in life is collective, it is community not individual. You have helped me with a new view of life; insight by insight.

I`m not sure how you view yourselves but I think a principle of physics applies here. It is that the greatest effects come from the smallest causes. We are in critical moments of our lives and some days everything hangs on what to you may appear to be a mere nothing but from which great things spring. Volunteers are the hidden sources, the smallest causes. I have had the good fortune to find my own guilt and have gained a sense of spiritual dignity from it; a sense of acceptance. I now believe the saying `Nobody can fall so low unless he has great depth. I am inspired to do my best.

I have some peace in here that I never had on the outside and am free in ways I never have been before. How is it I can find this in jail?      Volunteers.

The greatest gift to give a man is to give him Grace to live again.

Thank you for your time; thank you for your efforts; thank you for your Grace.

Link

Solitary Confinement

Please read the included link regarding the use of solitary confinement in prisons.  I can’t speak about prisons as I have only been incarcerated in jails. Most were Detention Centers. They are basically holding facilities for people before the courts or awaiting sentencing. My experience was that there was little done to, for or about me. Both prisons and jails have areas for prisoner segregation. I have heard it referred to as solitary confinement, the hole, administrative segregation and the digger. When I raised my voice to one of the jail nurses at being denied a medication that my mental health hinged on I was asked if I wanted to go to the digger. “What’s the digger?” “The hole, you were in it your first night.” I understood the threat when it was referred to as the hole. I was quite sane on that first visit to the hole and had my fill of it in mere hours. My next visits were while I was psychotic. I can’t substantiate my length of stay as a whole but I have a couple of letters which refer to five day stays. I was moved between the medical cells and the three isolation cells. My sense of time during this period is basically nonexistent. While in the hole I was subjected to a 24 hour light. I would awaken at different times and be surprised to find it was night. I was for certain periods oblivious to the hour, day of the week or date. I do measure my exposure to this period of isolation as a season.

The medical cells were larger or the bars and their spaces included something beyond. The hole was near 5 feet by eight feet with all concrete minus the toilet in the corner and the solid steel door with a window smaller than a fist so it couldn’t be punched out. My view beyond that was a concrete wall as the hall turned leading to another steel door. The guards sat 15 feet beyond that point. Silence. The only noise was the industrial flush of your cold, hard, seatless toilet. You might catch a piece of a face but mainly you see hands as your meals are slid through a slot in the door. Faces are common until they become uncommon. To see eyes was an interesting phenomenon when my only reflection came from said toilet. Isolation made navigating simple requests next to impossible. It seemed the jail bureaucracy barely made it to the area. In a regular area you could call a guard. In isolation you could ask for a request form. I was unable to use a phone, had little access to a shower and my mattress was removed from my cell during the day.

 Corrections Canada’s response to my psychosis was isolation. My psychiatric care often consisted of taking my temperature and weight which though important are usually not correlated to psychosis. When I was isolated in the medical cells another inmate had a broken hand from a jail fight. He wore a cast which I surmised to be beyond the abilities of most guards. He was isolated with a bed, the ability to interact, an area telephone and an area shower. He also received the best modern medicine has to offer.  As a society most would be aghast had he been denied medical technology, treatment or emergency care. This is my question: why when an inmate has a “mental” condition do we prescribe administrative segregation with its 24 hour light and total deprivation outside of nourishment and sanitation. If only we could distill such treatment into a pill. Is this discrimination or is it merely stigma on its hind legs?

 A dog runs in circles after being left alone for a few hours. Are we not as social? I think it’s time to let mental illness out of isolation. It’s the least we can do. An easy solution shouldn’t be considered the only one when it is nowhere near best medical practices.

Desiderantes meliorem patriam

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I understand the attraction to re-election but I’m growing tired of the Conservative government advertising to me.

I sometimes skip the news so you could even be doing a good job Mr. Prime Minister but I find it astonishing that everything you do wrong can’t be uncovered by the fourth estate whereas when a job surfaces all I can see is some pension prone Conservative grinning in front of flags and microphones. The words I hear from this government remind me of tuna. They’re both out of a can.

Why should a government advertise to its citizens that they’re doing a good job? Shouldn’t we know that without being influenced by propaganda? Forty-two thousand seven hundred and eighty nine military personnel died fighting to end a system that advertised to its citizens. Outside of that insult to all Canadians, it simply appears stupid. If anyone else spent as much time and energy telling their employer that they’re doing their job they would be fired. I’m surprised we don’t have road construction crews carrying signs with the prime minister’s picture on them. Without those “Action Plan” signs I never would have figured the government was working on highway 401. I would have just assumed it was Communist China. They do that don’t they?

I’d like to roll over and just let you and your cronies figure out what’s best for you but that’s what the Senate is for…please Stephen, not on the green carpet. If you worried less about the next election and just did your job you would have more signs to put up and you could use the money you saved cutting low-income co-operative housing to purchase more TV commercials to tell us about the Conservative Action Plan.

If you don’t know what to do with yourself when you stop covering your ass, try reading the Latin on the Canadian Coat of Arms. Desiderantes meliorem patriam; they desire a better country.