Comments on: Swearing, cringes and crazy talk.

By: Phil B

Phil B — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:07:11 +0000

It’s interesting that you only mention meds as what alters your personality, which is tosh. You could equally wonder “is this me” when hungry, or tired, or stressed from over-work. Or when receiving a blowjob, eating a great trifle, seeing a beautiful sunset- is that you, then?

And that’s something people of all levels of mental fitness can appreciate. I wish we didn’t, as a society, only consider it worth treating when Mental Health Act assessments start being on the cards. No-one has a perfect level of mental fitness, and just as I can’t run to the shops without being a bit out of breath, I, and everyone I know, could do with doing mental exercise too.

Maybe I’m biased, but I do think that meds, when used appropriately, let people use their minds more perceptively- but even if that’s not true, it helps people get more (useful) things done, keep friends, roofs over heads. Having a brain that works well enough to be able to ponder the nature of personality ought to justify it enough.

The worst use of meds these days is not doping people up to zombie status, as used to be the case in the bad old days, but handing them out to people who really, as I mention above, just need to go for the mental health equivalent of a regular jog. They are taking them to sort out what is an appropriate level of sadness/anxiety as a reaction to their lives. Improve the life, don’t try and mask the symptoms.

By: Byron vincent

Byron vincent — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:01:46 +0000

Yeah I waste hours pondering which elements of personality are inherent (if any) and which are products of experience, The whole nature nurture thing fascinates me.

Glad you’re enjoying the site.

By: Jesse

Jesse — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:50:34 +0000

I enjoy the idea of inherent character – I often wonder how odd I am. Or whether everyone has oddities just like me.
I only heard about myplaceoryours the other day and so far I love it.

By: Byron Vincent

Byron Vincent — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:09:26 +0000

That’s great quote and an pretty accurate assertion I reckon. Maybe I should have persevered with the labouring; I might have saved a fortune in prescription fees.

Hope you enjoyed the garden gig.

Cheers Alan, top stuff.

By: Byron Vincent

Byron Vincent — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:44:54 +0000

Well that’s very sweet of you to say Lucy but the only courage I have comes from a brewery near Reading.

Hope our paths will cross over the summer x

By: Byron Vincent

Byron Vincent — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:40:33 +0000

Ha ha, mad pride? Really?

We could get Reverend Run to re-appropriate a RUN DMC hit for our cause. Like Elton John did for Diana with that candle song.

I’m proud to be cracked y’all,
and that’s a fact y’all.

Maybe not. Pass the Vodka indeed.

Be well x

By: Byron Vincent

Byron Vincent — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:30:20 +0000

ZEB-RAH ZEB-RAH ZEB-RAH etc.

By: Alan Buckley

Alan Buckley — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:03:06 +0000

Inspired to check in again on MPOY after compering the garden gig that Jay performed at last night… Byron – I’ve spent 16 years working in the fields of mental health, substance misuse and psychotherapy (and more years than that in and out of therapy myself), and there is no single word that I know of that accurately conveys my experience of living; that genuinely captures the combination of curse and gift, the ability to move from feeling crippling anxiety and near-suicidal despair to being gloriously enraptured by the simplest things around me, often within the space of a single day. I could put a title on it all (schizoid personality disorder, or certainly a good way long that spectrum) but that’s more of a personal map than a public statement.

A brave post Byron – mental health (or the lack of it, or its impossibility to define) is still a ridiculously taboo subject. If you haven’t read it, I thought you might be interested in this quote from Don Paterson, in his TS Eliot Lecture “The Dark Art of Poetry”:

“Incidentally, the systematic interrogation of the unconscious, which is part of the serious practice of poetry, is the worst form of self-help you could possibly devise. There is a reason why poets enjoy the highest statistical incidence of mental illness among all the professions. Your unconscious is your unconscious for an awfully good reason. If you want to help yourself, read a poem, but don’t write one. Then again I think maybe 5% of folk who write poetry really want to write poetry; the other 95 are quite safe, and just want to be a poet. If they knew what the dreams were like, they wouldn’t.”

By: Lucy Lepchani

Lucy Lepchani — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:37:22 +0000

Byron, your talent is awesome and so is your courage.
Good luck with the next thing, and the next…etc…

By: Anover Bloody Mental Poet

Anover Bloody Mental Poet — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:37:40 +0000

Re * I also hate the term condition, I tend to use the catch all of “since I am a mentaler” which apparently isn’t PC, but it is kind of liberating because no one believes it when u say you are a mentaler, if u say you have a “Condition” they side step towards the door.

The lovely, but slightly bizzare ‘Mad Pride’ people would probably say it’s a gift. Clearly they have a different thing to me. Many a time I would have rather had cancer. Hurrah for the meds. But yes, where is the line between what is plain old me and what is the meds. Fuck knows. Pass the vodka…