Capt SpaceBat

A really useful site that I trawl for news relating to Borderline Personality Disorder is David Oliver’s “Borderline News” which he describes as “Your One Stop Source For Information On Borderline Personality Disorder.” It is an aggregation of articles that he has come across.  He is quite unapologetic that many of the stories do seem to be negative - put it this way, apart from my blog, how many positive BPD articles have you read recently? - but, to his credit, he does usually include at least one link each week to a scientific or academic paper on some aspect of the subject.

What does this tell us? It is hard to find uplifting stories about BPD and probably fairly tough to get them published in the first place and that there is some ongoing research on BPD but much of it seems to be within the wider social remit of “mental health” issues.

The latest campaign “Time To Change” with the avowed intent to inspire people to work together to end the discrimination surrounding mental health, is a breath of fresh air. “Time To Change” is a programme of 35 projects is led by Mental Health Media, Mind, and Rethink, funded with £16m from the Big Lottery Fund and £2m from Comic Relief, and evaluated by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, London.

There are links on challenging discrimination: how to do it, how to get involved, what others are doing, support, experience and views.  With a bit of luck, their social networking badge is below:

I, for one, will be finding out how I can “do my bit.”  I urge you all to follow suit.

Borderline News
http://www.borderlinecentral.com/borderlinenews.shtml

Time to change
http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/

In July 1790, Baron von Grimm wrote, “We are obsessed by the idea of regulation, and our Masters of Requests refuse to understand that there is infinity of things in a great State with which a government should not concern itself.” [Inappropriate emphasis, mine.]

Today has been a prime example of this for me, as the deadline for submitting tax returns draws ever closer.  Without revealing too much detail, our attempts to interact with the Inland Revenue’s successor - HMRC - over the past few months has been quite Kafkaesque; especially with regard to registering for and accessing the online wealth-sharing system.  The process was further complicated by the fact that supposedly unique numbers were not, in fact, unique; rather unsettling for a person with a diffuse personality to find they are considered the same entity in both singular and multiple forms.

To top this off, I have spent some days tracking the progress of an item of jewellery that I had purchased about a fortnight ago from the United States.  According to the tracking data available, an attempt was made to deliver it at a quarter to five this morning: an unlikely circumstance.  It transpired that it has been delivered into the hands of the person responsible for collecting the excise duties due to - guess who?  - none other than HMRC.

What is the Borderline lesson in all this, I hear you ask.  Dealing with bureaucracy - and not being stressed out doing so - is the answer.  Trying to so unsupported is a minefield which many prefer not to attempt to cross, or even think about, which is why so many people with mental health problems have their affairs in a terribly confused state.  Getting diagnosed, accepted for treatment, registered with the necessary governmental and support services and one’s financial affairs in order is really hard work, even for those with perfect mental acuity; trying to do so whilst hanging on for dear life is a near impossibility.  One of many reasons I suppose why the care and treatment rates are so abysmally low and the attrition rates so high, as I highlighted in recent posts.  Support is vital, but so hard to find if it is not already there.

I have even more bureaucracy to deal with tomorrow; I am almost looking forward to it, which is some form of progress, I suppose.  Today’s machinations made me miss my Art class, so it had better have been worth it.  It will be, I know, but it’s one of those “Daddy or chips?” situations

Links etc.

Baron von Grimm:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Melchior,_baron_von_Grimm

Mental Health among Adults in England, 2007:
 http://captspacebat.today.com/2009/01/27/mental-health-among-adults-in-england-2007/

Self-help groups:
http://captspacebat.today.com/2009/01/23/self-help-groups/

“Act on CO2″ said the voice from the television and so - easily-led person that I am - I went to a search engine and entered that very phrase.  Over 24,000 results matched my query, the majority of them on the first page were UK government sites giving advice on reduction of one’s carbon dioxide footprint.  This is itself is very gratifying, showing that the Government is starting to get its message across and that its search engine optimisation strategy has been pretty successful so far.

Having an enquiring mind and a keen devotee of wordplay, the permutations of the words I heard ran through my head: “Acton CO2″ was thee most obvious pun, then I thought “that’s not Acton’s postcode, it should be Acton W3.”  This, I realised was in last in part to the mass of geocoding that I have been working on recently. CO2 seemed familiar: then it struck me that it was my sister’s root postcode.  Having spouted on recently about the importance of accepting onesself and one’s seiblings and valuing the importance of having living relatives, it was with some joy that I answered the phone to my sister this evening.  Without going into details, we discussed her forthcoming joint birthday & reunion party: the whys, wheres and wherefores were mulled over and I confessed that I would be unlikely to make it - distance, alcohol, other people and my paranoia militating against such adventures into the darkest corners of southern eastern England.

My wife, having heard a rough analysis of our conversation and spotting 4 of my areas of cowardice, suggested “why don’t we go? it would be fun to meet up at a party!” - a brilliant idea as we would meet at a happy event without any pressure on any of us.  So, I hope that it will still be a surprise for her, a joy for all of us and a good starting point for future meetings and a developing relationship.  Which is nice.

The latest news - from Medical News Today - shows approximately one person in four had some psychiatric disorder in 2007, according to NatCen (National Centre for Social Research) in collaboration with the University of Leicester for the NHS Information Centre for health and social care.  The figures seem to be broken down into those with a common mental disorder (such as depression or anxiety) and those with a “more severe psychiatric disorder”.   Personality disorders (well, borderline and antisocial, at least) did get mentioned- at 0.4% & 0.3% prevalence respectively - but the abstract seems to cloud more than it reveals. There seems no breakdown between psychological and psychiatric disorders, although PTSD is mentioned in passing.

What is quite shocking is the rate for treatment:

Problem                    % Treated     
psychotic disorder        65%           2 in 3
neurotic symptoms       32%           1 in 3
mixed anxiety                15%          1 in 6
and depression

These figures are quite shaming: how so many people who have been through the psychiatric sausage machine and diagnosed but have not been deemed worthy of treatment is scandalous.  Either the Health Service is so massively underfunded that one of the most common causes of ill-health has to be rationed to many on grounds of cost and a large number of suffers consigned to an unsupported, bleak and frightening future, or those diagnosed with mental health difficulties are not considered worthy of treatment or even treatable.  These figures only show those who have actually been diagnosed and took part in the survey - how many more are suffering in silence is unknown.

I shall try to find the raw data, as these findings appear to beggar belief.

Sources:

Mental Health Among Adults In England, 2007
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/136746.php

National Centre for Social Research
http://www.natcen.ac.uk/

More reports at
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/PublishedSurvey/ListOfSurveySince1990/Surveylistmentalhealth/

Tonight I watched the concluding episode of “Unforgiven ” by Sally Wainwright on television,  which, despite a few apparent non sequiturs for the purposes of dramatic continuity, was quite captivating.  The closing moments, when Ruth (the lead character) started to realise the implications of her actions some 16 years previously and how it had affected her life and that of her sister, with whom she had just been reunited, was extraordinarily moving and thought-provoking. 

Desperately wanting to catch up with all the missed years, Ruth had to accept and keep secret from her sister the truth about the actions that had forced the separation so many years before in order to hold out any hope of any future relationship with her idolised sibling, whilst accepting that neither she nor her sister were responsible - nor without blame - for the original fell deed.

This proved quite a useful starting-point for exploring my own feelings about my siblings. To cut a long story short, we did not all meet up until I was 33, my brother 35 and my sister 24.  My expectations were so high that they could never have been met, in whole, part or any other bit.  Likewise, my failings as an ideal brother have proven - to me at least - ever a cause of personal consternation.

I realised, watching the conclusion of “Unforgiven”, quite how unrealistic my hopes had been and that I should be thankful for the relationship with my siblings - especially given the chances against any of it ever happening - and that the three of us were so lucky ever to have known each other.  My polarised outlook, symptomatic of BPD, whilst notionally being a “defence mechanism” has proven so counter-productive in my hopes and expectations. 

Perhaps I should learn to forgive.  Forgetting is another matter altogether.

“Oil&Vinegar” (c) Ian Springham, 2009

I have been listening to a lot of science fiction on Radio 7 recently.  Many of the stories are originally from the 1950s and were made into films in the 1960s and 1970s, often with disastrously awful remakes in the 1990s and more recently.  Whilst the originals set questions about existence, the meaning and purpose of life and one’s position in a hostile - or at least an indifferent - universe, they did suffer by translation onto the screen.  90 minutes of radio late at night seems to be the best method of delivery in a post-literary format.

The act of listening and considering the stories - turning them over in one’s mind and interpreting them - then comparing with one’s recollection of the originals and their spin-offs is a useful diversion that, when applied to one’s own situation, makes for a free alterative to psychotherapy.

“The light of a thousand suns” by James Follett is an exploration of what might happen if a supposedly “completely secure” defence system were to go wrong, the paranoia that allows this to happen and how it could lead to complete “mutually assured destruction.”  The story is a a parable and lessons to be learnt are essential in understanding how no matter how confident one has in one’s coping strategy: its very strength may be its underlying weakness that could lead to failure and worse.  Hopefully this provides insights into what one must also need to check to ensure that one’s ‘master plan’ for dealing with the world is in fact viable and also a reminder that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, as well as listening to others when needed.

“Salon 57 v.3″
(c) Ian Springham, 2009

Today was my wife’s 57th birthday.  After a breakfast of bruschetta and goat’s cheese on potato farls and scrambled eggs on toasted farls that I rustled up, we made our way to the Tate Modern to see the Mark Rothko exhibition - due to the massive popularity of the colour field artist and it being just about the last week of the exhibition, there was a 150 minute wait for tickets.  Passing up the dubious honour of hanging around an abandoned power station for 2.5 hours, we continued along the South Bank of the Thames, watching the tourists watching everything that moved or stayed still.

Crossing the Thames, I was able to confirm that my pontiphobia - or whatever the fear and dread of crossing bridges is called* - was well and truly under control** as we made our way to a favourite pub in the area: “The Ship and Shovel” which has the unique feature of being on two sides of a thoroughfare - trust me, it really is two bars on opposing sides of Craven Passage, just up from the nightspot Heaven.

Our spirits revived, we crossed back to Las Iguanas, where we had three course meal that couldn’t be beat and thence to the Purcell Room at the South Bank Centre to see Tomas Kubinek, the “Certified Lunatic and Master of the Impossible” for 90 minutes of mind-boggling acrobatics and surreal eccentric mime.  Just about the most talkative mime I have ever seen - or heard.  Quite a life-affirming experience to be taken into the magical world of Kubinek’s dramatic diversions and cures for melancholia.

Well, I thought - if he can do all this after all the troubles he has seen in has early life (thanks Uncle Leonid!) - then so can I …

… which is why I thought his self-description was so apt for today’s blog.  More of which at some future point.

Now, for the customary occasional photographs: inspirations today for artistic endeavours

 View from a bridge and Ascending and Descending

** http://fearofbridges.com/ - Resources and Help for Those with a Fear of Bridges

Who are they? What are they? Are they any use?

The generally accepted view is that self-help groups for mental health are voluntary associations of people who share a common desire to overcome mental illness or otherwise increase their level of cognitive or emotional wellbeing.

Whilst offering a level of support by one’s peers in the absense of any useful therapy, they do - in mine opinion, have a few shortcomings:

Firstly, such groups may not really be specific enough, or far too specific.  “Personality Disorder” encompasses a range of 9 or so disorders, but as such may all be subsumed into the gereral heading of “mental health” - hardly useful when dealing with such a range of experience and interpretation of reality. The members may not feel that their issues are being dealt with and that they have been dumped into a group comprising of the mental health services’ failures, which hardly helps one’s self-image.

Apart from overgeneralisation, groups may suffer from rigid structures and forumaic approaches to their clients, making them feel further like the working material of a sausage-processing factory. Whlst those who “stay the distance” may gain quite significantly from self-help groups, research shows that high attrition rates in such groups lead to about two-thirds of the small proportion who actually take up offered membership of such groups  leave within a few months.  This low success rate may well be due to the groups not usefully addressing the issues faced by their clients or by trying to mould them into their predetermined stereotypes.  Personality disorders do not easily lend themselves to normal social interactions; this can be made far worse by having to interact only with people who are afflicted in some similar ways.  I sometimes feel that “I want to be better; not to be like these people” which is hardly the basis of a cure by double negative association.

These dangers combined may heighten the risk that self-help group members may come to believe that group participation is a Panacea; that the group’s processes can remedy any problem; that all issues must be addressed to the group - the failure of the group to resolve all their perceived ills can lead either to rejection of the processes or to a cargo-cult mentality that leads to the following of pointless, empty patterns of behaviour in the belief that following them will lead - via some obsessively compulsive manner - to normal interpretations and interactions.  A somewhat illogical conclusion.

Online versions of self-help groups offer all of the above and probably more - there is also the danger of the cult of personality / moderator - but, in the absense of anything else, either one has to continue to plough one’s own lonely furrow - increasing the sense of isolation and rejection - or risk it all and take that massive leap into the unknown and untrusted.

Given all the potentials for failure, they do actually help some people and - bearing all these possibilities and dangers in mind - I am willing to try again.  To this end, I have replied to Borderline UK / Personality Plus after they got back to me after my initial enquiry, to help with the first two of my resolutions: publication and exhibition.  Progress will be recounted in further posts.

In continuation of my post yesterday about paranoia and (returning to) the workplace, after such a long time out of  full-time “proper” employment, I really sometimes feel that I have almost no idea quite what to expect.  It’s a bit like changing schools, moving house and other such life-changing events.  As such, even for the most normal person, they are rated as some of the most stressful life changes - at least,  according to psychologists and assurance experts - and who am I to disagree with them?

The only “halfway houses” back to work offered by the state seem to be either low-level occupational therapy or the use of pens, papers and telephones at the Job Centres, along with some half-hearted interview-based role-playing sessions in the “return to work” clubs.  This last notion of mine may be somewhat outdated, having proven that such a service was not necessary for me at my recent interview; the set-up looked pretty similar, only with more resources and trainers drawn from the recruitment profession rather than retired public servants.  With no sounding board or reference points to bounce ideas and experience from, the process does - to the more worried amongst us - start to resemble the cleaning of the Augean stables with only a pointy stick.

Therapy: starting, ending or changing can also leave this feeling of abyssal emptiness.  One moment, BPD does this for me already.  Oh well; as suggested yesterday. I think I’ll just have to “suck it and see.”

Wow, whilst researching this blog entry, I just came across “Masochistic Omnipotence Syndrome (MOS)” - more soon; I bet I’ve probably got it.

Have been trying to extend my reach into the outside world of late - work and its many manifestations.  This has been quite a scary proposition, as it would mean having to meet, get on with, interact with, and possibly have to cope with other people on a very regular basis.

My history of doing this either successfully or well is rather patchy at best - as you might have guessed.  Having BPD does make for somewhat hazardous working relationships - or any relationships, for that matter.  This was part of the reason that I chose I.T. as a profession: having been traumatised by people from a very early age, I thought that computing with its lack of emphasis on the soft machine would make for a safer life, but guess what - it did not, as people were still involved.

With the advent of the Internet and more especially the World Wide Web, the physical interactions with humans did look like it could be minimised, but the expansion of social networking brings people back into it - what to do, when I am sometimes terrified by emails and have paranoid fears about what others may think and share about me?

I suppose I could return “to the soil” but that is similarly tainted by the bullying childhood punishments of my foster-father in my mind,

Perhaps I should “just get over it” - now there is a simplistic answer if ever I heard one; nothing else - except psychotherapy that the NHS is unwilling to pay for and I am unable to afford - seems to work, so I might just try it.  Well, I can always pay for therapy if I earn enough; if I do not, I will probably need it even more.

I suppose I could actually set about writing my autobiography, thus doing mine own talking therapy on paper (or at least on the computer to which I once entrusted my future) - which, as I recall, was one of my New Year resolutions.  Speaking of which, I had better get on with them: getting published, exhibited, better, richer and out of here, as I recall … does anyone want to buy a brass lighter?