Sep 21 2009
The name of a mythical (i.e. made-up!) Indie Rock band from London in the 1990s. Contracted to provide the soundtrack for the forthcoming book, movie, , musical, mime show and online experience known as “Between The Cracks” (2010)
Inspired by repeated traipsing home after a long night’s cruising and other unwise ingestion.
After a decade, I am finally able to acknowledge my near-autobiographical creation
Jul 03 2009
Apologies to my followers and readers for being out of the loop for so long, but I have been - finally - working on my autobiography.
“Between the Cracks” is a bit of a (so far!) life-long work in progress, having undergone a range of name changes, abortive starts, diversionary tactics and writers’ blocks.
Synopsis: I am an adult survivor of extended childhood abuse. I only started addressing these issues in 2005, undergoing psychotherapy and taking legal action against the local authority responsible for my childhood “care”. They settled out of court in 2008. I have obtained access to most, if not all, of my early life records and am compiling them into a book – along with my thoughts and recollections, art and photographs – to highlight how easy it is to fall “between the cracks” and be failed by the social and other services.
This is in part to encourage the others as well as to help me continue to come to terms with the pervasive after-effects of such neglect, oversight and exploitation.
May 01 2009
May is “Mental Health Awareness Month” - a fact of which I was reminded by Chato B Stewart (Mental Health Advocate - Cartoonist - and a few other things! http://www.mentalhealthhumor.com & http://www.mentalhealthcartoons.com“Using Humor to Heal and Educate with badly drawn cartoons.” - Chato B. Stewart)
Replied to as follows:
Apr 15 2009
I finally got around to hanging two of my best bits of Personality Disorder Artwork: both acrylic on canvas (50cm x 40cm)
“You DID this” and “Ain’t no cure for love”
Photographed together here for the first time. Your thoughts and comments - plus serious offers of money for them - are welcomed, as always.
As with everything else, the paintings are (c) Ian Springham - as is the photograph, natch.
Apr 15 2009
Else most assuredly we shall all hang separately.
More pictures on the wall (C) Ian Springham
Inspired by: moving out of the “50’s Soviet Psychiatric Hospital” to a wonderful flat; Wandle HA, Helen’s Art Group and - of course - Sarah.
“Salon 57″ exploratory version. Paint on Canvas. 20 x 20 cm. Signed. Yours for £184 inc. p&p
Inspired by the inability of anyone to run a train service and creative expressionism under Stalinist oppression.
Have also managed to get my online gardening shop inline on one of my other blogs http://blog.gardenlend.co.uk/gardenlend-shop/
Please visit - it’s worth a look for all your gardening and home security needs.
Mar 06 2009
Call over ‘blacklist data’ row
The Government has been urged to take immediate action to outlaw the blacklisting of workers after new evidence that the practice was “rampant”.
Are they in any way related?
Feb 17 2009
I was telephoned on Sunday by someone claiming to be helping raise awareness of the work of a UK charity against child cruelty. I said that I was not in a position to offer funds in support but the caller insisted that I listen to the sales pitch, which I did. After hearing about cruelty and exploitation of children and the uphill struggle suffered by the charity in trying to find help and support for these victims, I explained that I am an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, that it had taken me over 20 years to pluck up the courage to tell anyone, that I had taken legal redress against my abuser’s employers (a local authority) and that the post traumatic stress has left me with such mental health issues that I am considered disabled and thus unlikely to be in a position to have enough money to hand to make a financial commitment to any cause, no matter how keenly felt.
I explained that, as such, the sales patter was extremely “triggering” for myself and was likely to be too for any other adult survivor. The insistence that I listen to all the terrible things to which exploited children are prey seemed to me later to be somewhat akin to “grooming” – another experience that would be shared by many of those who had suffered in such ways and - I hope - quite contrary to the ethos of the organisation.
Being the member of several adult groups (online and ‘in real life’) concerned with mental health and sexual abuse issues, I have found it to be common practice to warn fellow members if a discussion topic may contain “triggers” that some may find uncomfortable or distressing; would not this be a sensible precaution when spreading the word of such work to people who, by the very nature of their interest, may well have been affected in some way by the issues that such charities seek to alleviate and address? An unsupported person in their own home having a stranger phone them out of the blue saying what seems like “help us to help people who have been damaged just like you were – oh, as a reminder, here’s what happened … please carry on listening” is a hardly a recipe for helping an already fragile person for whom such services are available woefully too late.
Jan 21 2009
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?
Jan 16 2009
Last night on the radio, completely unaware of context, I heard the phrase “Hysterical blindness.” I can only hope that the programme was a psychological discussion, rather than a film review. That aside, I looked up the term and discovered that it is a “Conversion disorder” linked closely to other “dissociative disorders.” More and more of my life started falling into neatly arranged pigeon holes. Whether or not this was useful was not clear, but it did go some way to explain a lot of experiences; mostly based around stress and trauma.
According to Staci Haines in ’Healing Sex : A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma’ Dissociation is a normal response to trauma, and allows the mind to distance itself from experiences that are too much for the psyche to process at that time.
This, tied in with the nature of PTSD & BPD having an unmanageable, continually re-affirmed, ever-present acute awareness of the traumata suffered, to be suffered and the danger of recurring suffering, makes for startling, autonomous intrusions into ways of responding or functioning. This can be quite unsettling, given the unexpected, unpredictatable and inexplicable nature of such dissociation; for the sufferer and those around.
I have tried to convey some of this fractured sense of identity and self in my art works: the pieces based on a single idea tend to be very simple and striking; as soon as a second influence enters the fray, the scene is set for chaos, as almost everything is let into the equation, everything being inter-related and much of it having some association of background in trauma.
My painting “You DID this” tries to express some of these aspects of “Dissociative Identity Disorder”
“You DID this” (approx 1mb)
Jan 13 2009
I think that we are pretty much all aware of the ideas that the intelligence of a group or mob is thought to be that of the lowest IQ of the constituent members divided by the number (possibly even by the number squared) and also that an emotion can be readily applied to a group - “an angry mob”, “mass hysteria“, ” a proud nation” and the like. One thing that puzzles me is whether further personality traits may be accurately ascribed to groups of people and - that having been accepted as possible - therefore could a group’s personality be described as “disordered” in the same way as an individual’s is labelled.
A few more “givens” or axioms are required: that personality disorders are the results of post traumatic stress reinforced over time and experience and that, as a result, normal external societal interaction is impeded if not made impossible for the most part. When similarly traumatised individuals are brought together, by accident, choice or diktatand the traumatic experiences are repeated before their very eyes on an almost continual basis, the only possible result is trouble.
Since mass sedation through religion, sex and TV doesn’t seem to have worked an a national - nor very well on an individual - level, I can only humbly suggest that we do what does seem to work - to talk to one another and see how our individual and group actions affect those who we perceive to be set against us whilst understanding their fears and grievances : national cognitive behavioural therapy is long overdue in some areas of the world.
The therapist is “in” - and waiting …
