A Fond Hello.

Some of you may recall that almost a year ago I was delighted to hear from my old friend Ros. We met in the summer and had a fantastic day rolling back the years.

Fast forward to today and I'm still struggling with my recent downturn in my mental health. I managed to get away to Cambridge for a few days. It was good although I remain dead tired. My mind is stirring again but not in a position just yet to face my normal Monday morning world.

Intent of updating my colleagues I found my inbox clogged with more than 60 e mails. I didn't open much. What I did open was a delightful surprise. For there was another voice from my past.

I left Bernie Rosen's world of arrogance 20 years ago. Today a voice from those days came back in the form of an e mail. Huge shout out hello to Vanessa, so pleased you too found your way in life. It is wonderful to hear such a voice and to know that not all was bad with those long ago. Recovery clearly exists in my life and hers. Bernie got it very wrong with me. Some no doubt he helped but not me. Yet I did find my way. And despite the last couple of weeks I will bounce back and continue on that journey.

Tomorrow brings December. Time ticking by. Things to be done but as yet I can't face doing much. I will stay home tomorrow and take each day as it comes. I will call again for a Doctor appointment but won't be holding my breath. Take care all of you out there.

I Heard a Voice.

A Flicker of Emotion.

Having spent the best part of 3 days alone in my flat I briefly ventured out last night. For just a few minutes talking to my friend Di about what a great Christmas we had last year I felt a flicker of emotion. It was good emotion. Sadly it did not last. This morning it was back to that empty deserted feeling of nothing. Yet that glimpse should be a sign of improvement.

I had no luck getting a Doctor appointment-nothing available to pre-book until Tuesday. The arrangements to get to see GPs set up by the previous government really are shambles for Doctors and patients alike. I do not consider myself an emergency. I may have fallen but I have not slipped inside the gates of hell. But it would be quite nice to get to see someone. I will try again later and see what I can get.

I ventured forth today as well for a little lunch and to shop. Worn out now so just listening to The Marriage of Figaro. Think I might have made a mistake glancing at e mails-the world certainly doesn't stop because I'm ill. It is a day they want me to provide a miracle. Well someone else will have to do that-I'm too tired for miracles.

And so on Thanksgiving Day I give warm support to the many people in the USA who read my blog. I will watch the football later and in the depleted state think of you all. Enjoy the turkey.

I Heard a Voice.

PS Amazingly yesterday's offering was post 500, so many in 4 years.

A View From Nowhere.

During the academic year 1998/99 I taught myself A Level Philosophy. A task I set myself as a pre cursor to my return to Cambridge it was very hard going indeed and I didn't do very well. Remember that that was in the days prior to Risperidone so I was more prone to relapses back then. A set text I had to read was Thomas Nagel's A View From Nowhere. An exceedingly hard book to understand I made a tactical decision not to answer a question on Nagel in the exam.

As I struggled to wake up this morning in my heavily medicated state that phrase seemed so apt. It was so late I didn't make it to work. I'm not in a fit state anyway. The Risperdione has emptied my mind. I have no thought or feeling. Just a lost emptiness. A view from nowhere. Where am I? I have lost a semblance of a compass.

Desolate as that feels I recall from last time that that is part of the recovery process. When I first took Rsiperidone all those years ago it sent me on the most splendid high for months. Now it slows me down, dampens that feeling of being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of chaos, and allows me to get back on an even keel.

I will take that time and will aim to see my Doctor tomorrow. Maybe he signs me off maybe he doesn't. I have arrested the precipitous fall and am hanging on. Let us hope I start climbing soon.

In the meantime despite not being at work I'm making work calls and e mails. The world doesn't stop as I'm ill and having unique job there is no one else to pick it up. The best I can do is brief those I can rely on and ask them to hold the fort until I'm back.

Now an afternoon of The Magic Flute will be my guide. I'm too tired to even read my book.

I Heard a Voice.

Feeling as Mum Did.

It is hard to believe that 2 and a 1/2 years have passed since mum's funeral. I have looked back on the blog many times to that period of our lives. I repeated myself often and talked incessantly on my fear of delivering the eulogy. Apart from some of the older brethren struggling to hear it was a spine tingling performance, maybe amongst the best public talks I have ever given.

As I sit in my flat fighting off overwhelming anxiety I am constantly reminded of mum's desperate battle against crippling anxiety. Life has all become too much for me in recent weeks. When I awoke to try to get up for work about 7.30 this morning I quite literally could not get out of bed. Some 45 minutes later I struggled to the phone and see the blurred diary I called in sick.

A few things have fallen into place today that I hope will stave off this terrible feeling. Yet I remain desperately tired. Beka thinks I should go and see my Doctor but I know he will sign me off. I don't want that.

So as I crawl through each hour my guide is the Messiah. That features in my eulogy too. Apart from that I have achieved nothing all day. My friends give the best advice but still it comes at me in waves. I know it will right itself sooner or later but right now I feel it will never pass.

I Heard a voice.

Seas of Mud and Lakes of Water.

Hello from a very wet Hertfordshire. It has been hammering it down all the day, the grass has turned to mud and there are great lakes of water all over the place. Rather put paid to my plan for a walk in the country via a quick pint in the Cowper Arms. So it has been a day of reading and listening to Handel.

Another week beckons. Christmas is drawing near and I've made no preparations at all. It's not even certain when I will be going down to Kent to see dad. The powers that be seem to require us to open on 22nd, 23rd and 24th-ludicrous. I think I don't have to do that but maybe will have to another year.

I haven't even looked at the diary barring meeting my supervisor tomorrow morning. I'm off on Friday to catch up with an old school friend in Cambridge and thinking of staying the weekend for the Varsity Bowl at Grange Road on the Sunday. Hoping to catch up with Jayne too.

Yet on this Sunday afternoon I'm just living in the moment. A gammon joint is roasting filling my flat with the wonderful aroma of cloves. Let tomorrow be tomorrow, I'm living in today, the here and now. See you all soon.

I Heard a Voice.

Stepping Back From the Brink.

As I wrote my last post on here on Thursday evening it felt as if I was teetering on the edge of a cliff. Yes it was that bad. Thank God for Risperidone and a couple of days away from my office. As I write now I'm tired but no longer overwhelmed by anxiety. I do not feel myself but much safer than then.

Being away gave me time to think. Birmingham was fun although we had far less time for our workshop than we were told so most of my part was culled. The conference theme of peer support was I suspect challenging listening for those from statutory services. The local people from HPUFT were there but silent. The groundswell was that peer support belongs to us not the professionals. The risk of professionalising it is that it loses its essence. Maybe but if people want careers after madness it does provide an opportunity. I talk extensively about them and us and changing sides in Charon's Ferry.

There is no easy solution but I suspect that in the unlikely event I apply for and get the job I'm mulling over I will have to find a solution. I had a conversation with a friend about that job. His response was more or less I assume you have applied and if not why not? I remain undecided though.

On another front I finally managed to meet with my tutor. She told me to stop researching and start writing. I now know I have the information I need and a structure I can use. So hopefully I am back on track.

Off now to cook lamb chops with some mint jelly. Might have a nice glass of Chianti with it. Then roast gammon tomorrow. Now all I need is more sleep.

I Heard a Voice.

Close to the Danger Zone.

Very little remains in my mind of yesterday or the day before. I was in zombie. The crazy pace, expectation and series of everything that could go wrong did go wrong left me in a terrible place. Exhausted, overwhelmed with anxiety and seeing no other way out with some reluctance I increased my risperidone and trimipramine last night. I intend to keep it on higher levels for a while.

After 9 hours sleep, a day away from my office and the prospect of a trip to Birmingham tomorrow I remain tired but no exhausted, anxious but not overwhelmed, and hanging in there a little better than of late.

Learn my limits. I must keep telling myself that. Yet still I try to fight on. What happens when I'm not at the coal face of madness at the University? Good question. As I write I'm trying to stave off taking some time out via my Doctor. To stay functioning I need to look at what is expected, what can be put off and what can I do that is feasible. I don't know the answers to that but if I don't the choice may be taken out of my hands. I know if I see the Doctor he will tell me to slow down. Better avoid him?

Today was not without merit. I have done more on my studies than I realised. My tutor said stop working and start constructing it. I have all the materials and finally a direction on structure. I also had some encouraging advice from a friend and colleague about a job I have been weighing up. Views have been mixed and I have reservations. The worst that could happen is they don't short-list  me. Harder though is the sheer terror in the unlikely event they give me the job. A fine challenge but what anxiety could it bring? Nothing changes without taking risks. Should I do it?

I Heard a Voice.

Not Much Study Today.

It's Saturday evening. A chicken is roasting in the oven. Mozart opera gladdens the heart. England lost at rugby again. And I did almost no study at all today. Not quite as I envisioned it this morning. Saturday good, Mozart good, chicken good, no study no good. Considering the lack of lectures-there have been none-lack of resources and the sense that I'm floundering around in the dark is not as bad as I feared it might be. I am getting things read and done but I have no idea if they are the right things. So the anxiety will prolong for some time.

But I live in the here and now. Good things are in front of me. I have found a job I think I might apply for. Christmas is getting ever nearer and another epic lunch at Beka's is on the horizon. So not all is bad.

It was a tough week but I'm feeling more with it, less stressed and a little less tired. If I can afford the time tomorrow I may venture to the Eight Bells in Old Hatfield for lunch before watching the Hurricanes play at the University. Promised Allan the chaplain I would try to come and support. Next week looks a little different. Will not be in my office beyond Wednesday lunch time. A hospital visit will occur then, governor's meetings all day Thursday then off to Birmingham for the Mind Conference on Friday. More time away from the books but variety does help calm the mind. More soon.

I Heard a Voice.

Played Often, Rarely Performed.

Given my great passion for Mozart it may surprise you dear reader that in my years of music I have only performed Mozart on 3 occasions. We sang the Vespers on tour in Belgium in 1981. Sadly we never did record it. In the years of my retirement-which are in the main ongoing-I sang the Requiem very badly. The performance was not that bad but I was bad.

Yet the performance I recall most is of playing 2nd violin in the Clarinet Quintet in what I think must have been 1986. I'm pretty certain it was my O Level year-yes I am that old. Perhaps not coincidentally I studied the piece for O Level music. My violin playing days were marred by laziness, a lack of practice, no confidence and teachers who spent so much time dwelling on my many technical faults that I forgot that music is about playing music not bashing out notes with no emotion.

We all recall great teachers from school or university. I had a lot of bad music teachers and a great one. Neil Cox who ran the choir at Lancing occasionally delved into other realms of music too. It was him who asked me to play in the Quintet along with an upper 6th cellist and 3 professionals. And it was Neil that bollocked me when I didn't do enough work and ended up wasting the time of others. So I went away and worked hard. In the end the performance was a triumph and I recall it as very much the only public performance of me playing the violin that I enjoyed. 2 years later on the eve of my long delayed grade 8 exam he told me "forget about the notes, for fuck's sake play music". I headed the advice and breezed the exam with a mark I could never have dreamed of.

This week Mozart has featured on Composer of the Week on Radio 3. The final part of the final programme played the sublime Quintet in its entirety. It was a joy.

I have not had the easiest of weeks but had a good chat with my ever supportive friend and colleague Kym, finally got to eat my Spanish beef stew, I have a beer open and Mozart plays. That is the way to end a tough week.

I Heard a Voice.

What If?

My 24 year history of mental illness has been regularly marred by tragedy. I still remember the call to tell me of the first suicide of a friend. She had manic depression-we still called it that in the mid 1990s. We had been in hospital together. A nurse we had always got on well. All the time I knew her she seemed neither manic nor depressed. Just unhappy. I'm told the day she hanged herself she turned up to the ward, said she was bit down, went home and killed herself. By that stage I had been cast into the outer darkness of the untreatable. But Bernie's little band whose world the great genius would save were not allowed to talk about it. They were angry. We were always angry in those days.

As the years passed by I would lose 9 friends to suicide, a cousin, an acquaintance and a student. Many others died too young. In fact the dedication in A Pillar of Impotence is to my friends who died too young. Each death cuts deep and hard. But we must move on.

If it is someone I knew as a practitioner I am forever left with the what if question. I have lost 4 people I worked with. And with each I have asked the same question. If I dwell on it it is certain my madness will return. Most of the time I don't.

Today a memory was stirred that once again has made me think what if?  It hurts like hell. I'm at home trying to stay warm, listening to music and trying to switch off. I know I could have done little more but still my loneliness eats me. A great debate has been raging recently in my world about who is responsible for what. I'm not important enough to answer that but an answer will come. The question is can I and we handle that answer. And that is what drives the anxiety. What if? It probably won't happen but it is not easy. Tomorrow I must go back to the fight and put it aside. If not I am lost.

I Heard a Voice.

The Spirituality of Childhood.

Each Monday for the last 6 weeks I have stayed in to watch ITV's drama series Grantchester. I have 2 very personal reasons why I have this devotion to a programme that is not quite the Cambridge equivalent of Inspector Morse that I expected. Firstly it was commissioned by a great friend of mine Tory Fea. Tory currently holds the number 3 position in ITV drama held back only by her desire for a young family in recent years. Tory is one of those very few people who is brilliant at everything but is actually really nice. Few people get to the top by being nice. She did.

The other reason is Grantchester played a huge part in my childhood. Many Wednesday afternoons and Sunday mornings were spent in that beautiful village with its ancient church and war memorial that includes the war poet Rupert Brooke as a man of the village. Noel Brewster who was vicar at the church during the 1970s and 1980s was a great friend. Often he took us for days out, I went to the church and generally treated us kindly when others perhaps did not. There spirituality meant something to me. Not elsewhere.

During my illness I rather neglected my friendship after Noel had retired. He wrote to me but I was too ashamed of my madness to write back. He died in the late 1990s-I don't recall the year-and I attended his funeral. His memorial reads simply Noel Brewster Priest.

What Noel would have made of the crime busting vicar in the drama I'm not sure. People of his generation might not be comfortably with the searing sexuality, angst, and flaws of the character. It's intense stuff. The 1950s seem a strange world to us today. But human emotion has been human emotion throughout history.

I look forward to series 2. For now I recall the marvellous images of that place that is sacred to me conjured up for me in Tory's drama. Mixed days but great in many respects.

I Heard a Voice.

Procrastinating Saturday.

My intention this afternoon was to do some study. I downloaded and printed off 3 more academic papers to support my project yesterday. An afternoon of opera and academia never occurred though-the All Black are back in town. Shameless procrastination but they only come once a year so that is my afternoon well and truly changed.

In another change my tentative ventures into the realm of fish will continue tonight. I will sear a tuna steak-line caught of course-marinaded in garlic, cinnamon, pomegranate molasses and coriander. Nice and rare if I get it right-mum would not approve. I do need to eat more fish and cut out the fat in my post smoking world, am getting fatter by the day.

These diversions are needed after a long and at times arduous week. I'm still standing and doing well but managing 3 crises at once is really stretching resources. Sooner or later we are in danger of losing someone. Yet crises do dissipate in time. I just have to work hard to bring that about.

Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday. I have my poppy although it looks a bit battered. And in my quiet way I will remember those who gave their lives for my freedom and that of others. It is a privilege to experience the freedom on my country, sadly others may not have that in other countries. Will post again soon.

I Heard a Voice.

Silver Frost and Pale Sunshine.

A sharp silvery frost lit by a pale autumn sun greeted me early this morning by the lake. It's surface is covered in the detritus of the fall and nothing moved at all. A classic autumn morning. The cold has come, the leaves are falling, and the season marches on. By late morning that sun had melted it into a glistening dew. So started a day of much and change. It is coming whether we like it or not.

I'm still doing well with All Souls and All Saints days disappearing into the past. Life feels good if busy so on we go. I am buoyed by a rather splendid book I bought in a charity shop when I visited dad. Matthew Fort the food writer, broadcaster and journalist toured round Sicily on a Vespa some years ago. A scene featured in Rick Stein's Mediterranean Odyssey in which Fort enthused about simple fresh ingredients. The book of that adventure Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons. It is a delightful book that will remind me of warmer times in the weeks to come. I guess that means putting off other books but so be it.

The rest of the week looks okayish so far. Just waiting for calls now to send me off on another made dash. Long may it stay silent. Until soon I will leave you.

I Heard a Voice.

Portly Recovery.

On Saturday I bumped into someone I knew from back in the hospital days. I would say friend, compatriot, survivor but he was exceptionally obnoxious, aggressive and unpleasant at the height of his illness. He had few friends just people who tolerated him in limited doses. My background was different to his and my many others companions on the road of madness yet we were held together by that madness. Souls thrown together by circumstance, illness and stigma. That was a bond few could break.

Seeing him there entering my friend Mandy the butcher's shop almost exactly 23 years since I first met him showed 2 divergent path. He has lost so much weight. He has stopped drinking and using drugs. He no longer shouts at people but is polite. He takes medication. And he said he now has friends who care for him.

I have put on weight-he called me portly. I no longer live there and as the years pass have less and less contact with those from back then. I take medication. I have a career, a place to live, some influence and an independence I never dreamed I would gain. And I have friends.

So who did the best of us? In truth neither. Each recovery is as valid as the other. Recovery is not a model it is a philosophy. In the wrong hands it is very dangerous. The man I saw on Saturday is no lesser or more person than me. He may never work but he has come so far from whence he once was. Those with power should acknowledge that not just blanketly tar us all as worthy or unworthy. We have each moved on and for the better.

I feel heartened by this encounter. Back in my life now I'm reflecting on a weekend away, seeing dad, my friend's birthday, and a day's study. Yes I got round to that today as we had a tutorial. I appear on the right lines with my enquiries. Long may that continue. So with baroque music accompanying my reflections I pose you the reader the question, do we take enough out of those chance encounters and marvel at how far we have come?

I Heard a Voice.