The Battle

What is mental health?

Perhaps it's best defined by what does it mean to lack mental health. This will be different for everyone, but I suspect there are some common elements, one of which is the feeling that you can't ever really relax or 'let go' because it means being vulnerable and open to inevitable stresses. These can come in waves, like a periodical kick in the gut; a gnawing feeling of bereavement. The death of peace of mind.

This is before we factor in society, which is something I think medical professionals ignore. This cannot be ignored. This includes a lack of any kind of therapeutic community or holistic attitudes toward wellness. It includes the notion that work is the grand panacea (for everything) - without discussing the work itself and the conditions thereof. It also includes the bootstrap, "pull yourself together" mentality that denies people the opportunity to understand what is happening and drives them forward with no thought for the consequences. In fact a lot of the wellness 'programmes' that I have come across seem to be more interested in getting as quick a result as possible. A few sessions, at the patient's expense, a brief toolkit and then out the door. Quick turnaround, quick profit.

There is also the media. We don't have a free press; we have a tyranny of opinion printed to be framed with pictures of young women in their lingerie, or celebrity actresses' sex tapes. These parasites pick on the most vulnerable in society and they know full well they cannot defend themselves, meanwhile the press is its own moderator. This is not journalism, it's state fuelled oppression; print fascism.

The most fundamental issue is that people who don't have direct experience of  anxiety/stress/depression have no way to understand the individual's experience. For sufferers life can become a daily struggle where every breath is drawn hard against feelings of negativity that threaten to overwhelm. Where can these feelings go? Can they be resolved? As someone living isolated from what meagre help is offered this becomes even more difficult as the battle is fought solely internally. One can walk the streets and see an entirely different life. The battle never ends to maintain a healthy balance of finding joy and peace and experiencing things such that those qualities are bereft. This is not a choice that people make and it is not a battle I am currently winning.

This is not to say that more serious and/or life threatening psychological conditions (such as bipolar or schizophrenia) are not equally important if not more so. My philosophy is simple: whoever needs or wants help should get help.

Anarchism 1

What is the way forward?

Since the riots of 2011 - such as they were - the government has made sure that people are afraid of standing up and fighting back. But that is what it will take.

I do not condone burning down other people's houses and belongings, that's just divide and rule. Working class people should not be fighting each other. 

Unfortunately it seems increasingly clear that we have a government that wants to do nothing more than assault ordinary people, laughing like the cruellest bully as it gets away with this in plain sight. People stand back while the poorest are kicked and punched by a vicious bully that revels in the spotlight as it does so, daring itself to go even harder knowing that we, apparently, lack the spine to do anything. 

On the fringes of our society, people are falling apart. Mental health problems born of pressure split families, increasing workloads and social stresses and isolation induce those problems into a nightmare feedback loop. Yet the media looks the other way, painting a selective picture of a Britain unrecognisable to anyone with a conscience. 

It is painfully clear that our systems have failed us. They are controlled by a neo feudal capitalist aristocracy; middle men for corporate bottom lines and trans-national agendas that only ever exploit. Yet people seem to be waiting for a solution that never comes. They look to old men like Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders (a 74 year old white man ffs). These people are still participants in a system that, by virtue of that participation, will persist. That system needs to be torn down. There is no other way.

The most common response is: what do you replace it with. This is actually irrelevant. If you are sick and your doctor has prescribed a medicine that is exacerbating the problem you do not stick with that medicine if an alternative is not readily available, you get off that medicine. We are sick, our society is falling apart. 

It is predicated on unsustainable principles that set people against each other: in a society that compels people to believe in 'winners and losers', what provision is made for the loser? None of course, since that would be the antithesis of this system. 

Anarchism calls on people to question the authority that is imposed upon us, without consent. People are trained to believe that voting - parliamentary democracy - is that consent. They are told that not voting is akin to surrender to fascism; people are abused by propaganda that positions fathers and grandfathers, as soldiers in the wars (equally exploited), against them, shaming them into compliance. We must question these ideas and reject those that are found wanting. 

It is of paramount importance that we reject and remove capitalism, but the argument is not based on what to replace it with. I am not an authority and I do not seek to be. I seek only to be part of the discussion and to offer an equal voice in the effort to remove capitalism and instil a better system. It is not about replacing capitalism, it is about empowering people to have control over their lives and their aspirations and removing those systems that have no legitimacy: the sorceries of finance for example. Do we even need money?

The greatest mischief that has been done to us is to convince us we need others to tell us what to do and how to live, and to profit from that position. I do not grant that chinless wonders in Westminstershire are expert over my needs and I do not legitimise their efforts to control me, and neither should you.

End of the Line?

I think I have reached the limit of what our system and indeed our society can offer. Speaking with a CMHT nurse yielded nothing; they are only prepared to get involved if you are about to throw yourself under a bus - or someone else. The GP just doesn't get it at all; it's one step forward and two steps back. One time they seem to understand, the next they do not and it's as if you were talking to someone else entirely. All she can recommend it seems is the same old groups and organisations, completely ignoring the fact that these people do not offer what she thinks they do or that I have dealt with them before.

Clearly GP's and the like are given a sales pitch from these people as to how they can help, when in reality that's not what they actually do. But what can you expect from those that align themselves with corporate filth like ATOS?

I have been told to go back and speak to the likes of Friend, a drop in centre largely run by volunteers (with all their faults - including not being very welcoming and racist). They have rebranded themselves to be called '1in4', though I imagine the same people work there. I notice they offer such evidence based and efficacious therapies as Reiki and Reflexology. That dpesn't inspire confidence. Not least of all, visiting them involeves expensive bus travel.

The other alternatives follow the same lines. There is a place in town called the Carlton Centre which offers courses in 'life skills', which is going to be similar to the CBT approach that's all the GP can offer. Again it costs to travel, and there's a course fee. Unfortunately the courses aren't running at the moment. Whether any of these schemes or places offer anything that has long term practical value I do not knpow. My feeling is sceptical; these places are never geared that way and so when you explain the difficulties you have, particularly in respect of the DWP/employment, they wilt. They have nothing to offer in that area.

This I think is what needs to change. Unfortunately the best the government has to offer is the Work Programme, which they think does exactly this. We all know it doesn't, my experience of that on this blog proves this.

We shouldn't need governments to provide these solutions, and part of this is because we know they don't. The Work Programme serves the wishes of the likes of the CBI, not the individual. The lack of a holistic approach that allows individuals the freedom to explore not just how they can heal themselves in a world gone mad, but the freedom to explore what they can do in society. Capitalism curtails this dramatically, limiting people to whatever the capitalists want, often according to the aspirations they programme and the demand they manufacture in people. Jobs are only created when there is demand for the commodity involved, and we have no say in what we want.