Suicide is not an answer. That does not mean it is wrong to consider it nor wrong to do it.
Often though the circumstances are not as bad as they seem. They are changeable.
Time is a healer and pain will reduce. The experience that leads to suicide will change.
Beyond this point it will get better. It will also get worse. This is the truth. But the truth is that the next time it gets worse you can be prepared.
If you're ready to die then truly you're ready to live. It may not feel that way when you are thinking of killing yourself though. If you can manage to live a little longer you will see what I mean.
Its ok to thinking about killing yourself. Lots of people do. Don't dwell on it too much.
Talk to someone you trust. If you don't feel ok doing that then speak to the Samaritans. Sometimes its good to talk. Try to do that before you try to kill yourself. Even if its what you're sure you're going to do its nice to speak to one last person before you die.
There is another option to suicide. Give your life to the world. Since your life is over let it become of use to the greater good. Maybe whatever is making you want to die you can make better for someone else even if you can't make it better for yourself.
Take it from someone who has tried to kill themselves before and will undoubtably do so again, and secretly hopes the next time will be the last, don't do it. But if you do do it then I think I understand. I wish I help you more.
Saturday 29 August 2009
Psychosanology, psychopathology and genius
Geniuses are invaluable to society. They are the diamonds amongst the mass of coal. They stand out in history because their achievements significantly impact the consensus. They are always different and original, though this may be a factor of recognition as much as difference (geniuses that work within the construct and impact it significantly but within the paradigm of consensus thought, systems and methods may be less likely to be recognised in history). Their value to society is without measure.
But they are usually mentally ill. Geniuses show the traits of a number of psychiatry disorders. Different ones in different catgories and to different levels of severity. It may be that their eccentric behaviours are allowable because of their talent but it is probably that their eccentric behaviours are part of their talent.
The loneliness of genius may be a factor. It takes a lot of time working and usually working alone for the work of genius. Perfectionism can lead to depression, anxiety and low self esteem however it is a necessary trait for certain areas where genius is expressed, for example in art. The dogged pursuit of their own ideas in the face of the consensus truth is almost a personality disorder in itself.
Upon diagnosis using the cluster of symptoms approach of modern psychiatry the behaviours, thoughts and moods become treated. This is the paradigm of physical medicine. An individual might therefore recieve medication or psychotherapy or another form of therapy. These will solve the illness, but will they spoil the good.
Very simply put the question we are discussing here is whether good things comes from bad things or bad things have a purpose.
Can the experiences that are pathologised by psychiatry have importance and value. Could treatment of the experiences observed by psychiatry to be illness and unwantd be part of genius? Could treating these experiences, changing them and reducing their intensity, without understand of their purpose and potential be detrimental and inhibit the development of indivudals, society and civilisation? Could psychiatry be reducing the production of better people through life's experiences? And is that also true of human compassion in general?
But they are usually mentally ill. Geniuses show the traits of a number of psychiatry disorders. Different ones in different catgories and to different levels of severity. It may be that their eccentric behaviours are allowable because of their talent but it is probably that their eccentric behaviours are part of their talent.
The loneliness of genius may be a factor. It takes a lot of time working and usually working alone for the work of genius. Perfectionism can lead to depression, anxiety and low self esteem however it is a necessary trait for certain areas where genius is expressed, for example in art. The dogged pursuit of their own ideas in the face of the consensus truth is almost a personality disorder in itself.
Upon diagnosis using the cluster of symptoms approach of modern psychiatry the behaviours, thoughts and moods become treated. This is the paradigm of physical medicine. An individual might therefore recieve medication or psychotherapy or another form of therapy. These will solve the illness, but will they spoil the good.
Very simply put the question we are discussing here is whether good things comes from bad things or bad things have a purpose.
Can the experiences that are pathologised by psychiatry have importance and value. Could treatment of the experiences observed by psychiatry to be illness and unwantd be part of genius? Could treating these experiences, changing them and reducing their intensity, without understand of their purpose and potential be detrimental and inhibit the development of indivudals, society and civilisation? Could psychiatry be reducing the production of better people through life's experiences? And is that also true of human compassion in general?
Antimalware 2009
3 free packages provide antimalware protection that's almost as good as a pay-for package like Norton. They're updated the same way just like the premium software so they should keep you protected. In fact two of the free packages are part of premium integrated suites.
AVG Free
www.avg.com
Antivirus. Just get the basic edition which is free.
Zone Alarm
www.zonealarm.com
Firewall. Again, just get the free basic firewall.
Spybot S&D
www.safer-networking.org
Antispyware.
NB - the protection of these three packages isn't as total as Norton 360 or other suites. There are other pieces of free software that fill the gaps the three listed programs don't cover and I'll list those at a later date.
AVG Free
www.avg.com
Antivirus. Just get the basic edition which is free.
Zone Alarm
www.zonealarm.com
Firewall. Again, just get the free basic firewall.
Spybot S&D
www.safer-networking.org
Antispyware.
NB - the protection of these three packages isn't as total as Norton 360 or other suites. There are other pieces of free software that fill the gaps the three listed programs don't cover and I'll list those at a later date.
Taking photos without a camera
This is a technique for learning photography. It can be done anywhere. Its partly about learning to see differently and partly about practicing thinking.
Look for photographs. See the beauty around you. Think how you would capture it. Think how it would come out. Imagine what might work and not work.
This can be done while waiting for a bus, walking to work, walking around in a park, at a wedding. Just take a moment to look around for a photograph. Think about how you would compose the shot. Think about the focal length, the aperture and shutter speed. Think about how the light is working. Think about what you might have to do to compensate for the camera's light meter getting it wrong. Look for the angle to capture the shot: is it best shot close up or portrait format.
Look for photographs. See the beauty around you. Think how you would capture it. Think how it would come out. Imagine what might work and not work.
This can be done while waiting for a bus, walking to work, walking around in a park, at a wedding. Just take a moment to look around for a photograph. Think about how you would compose the shot. Think about the focal length, the aperture and shutter speed. Think about how the light is working. Think about what you might have to do to compensate for the camera's light meter getting it wrong. Look for the angle to capture the shot: is it best shot close up or portrait format.
Living with suicide
This is about living while wanting to die.
For many years I've wished I was dead. Sometimes this was daily thoughts of wanting to end it. Sometimes it is simply a wish to be dead rather than alive. Most times it is just the wish or the hope that death will come soon, that the eternal peace of nonexistance - my only hope - will finally come. Sometimes I've done something about it.
Its a difficult thing to live with. There are times when I need to talk about it but I'm scared of scaring people. People have mixed reactions to the discussion when I've broached the subject in the past.
The reasons I've attempted it in the past have been varied. The last attempt was because of my unshared experience of consciousness. My experience of consciousness has changed over the last few years. Its become an strange and unusual place. I think it is described by the word psychosis. I experience my thoughts not as my own and I feel the influence of a separate consciousness(es). This discovery and the change in my experience was distressing. There is a feeling of being controlled and the idea of free will shatters through this experience, which is perhaps why it often ends up with the cluster of symptoms described by the diagnosis of schizophrenia. My last attempt was for the reason that life with this experience wasn't worth living. There were other factors involved as well of course and the reasons for previous attempts have been different.
Its gotten much better over the last few months and has become a general desire for death or non-existance or sleep unending. I just gaze at train tracks occassionally, wishing I had the courage or energy to step forward a couple of steps.
But I carry on. I've lived with this for such a long time that its become part of me. I'm used to living with a low state of mind so I just get on with living. The brief moments of intense experience or emotion that rise above the sea of ennui keep me going. The misery isn't constant and when it returns it is like an old friend now.
Few would know on the outside. I have gotten better and better at hiding behind a social mask of cheerfulness and good humour. It was not something I was happy to use but it serves a purpose that allows me distance from others and social acceptability. The trade off is I hate myself a little bit more and I'm not authentic. It seems this blog is where I show my self.
My choices are affected by living like this. I care not for my future. I make decisions that are self-harming and will hasten my demise. An example is my legendary drinking that is functional alcoholism and a way to die sooner. Its lucky that I love drinking and it makes me feel so much better. I smoke as well and I smoke cannabis. I eat poorly and irregularly.
It is not only misery though. There is a positive aspect that's helped. Its liberated me from worrying about living a long life. My choices are short term and of the moment.
This may not make sense but I feel like its helped me to be closer to happiness than anyone I know. This make not make sense either.
Wanting to die helps me to live. It helps me to see the true value of life. My life has changed a lot through it because through this process I've found a way to live that is motivating and invigorating. I live to change the world for the better. Since I'd rather be dead my life becomes 'given' to that purpose. It is a way of thinking that allows me to cope.
Many people have said that I should see a doctor about this. I think I would say that to myself if I didn't know myself like I do. My desire to die is a choice and a choice I maintain is mine to make. Its a selfish choice but its my right. There will come a time when I take my own life and that is my intent. This may change but it will change 'organically'.
This long period of wanting to die is part of my journey through life. This journey we are all on and we take different paths. There is always value to the paths taken and there is value to my death wish.
Resilience has also built up. Resilience to the deepr reasons I want to end my life. Resilience to the life stuff that makes me want to die. Resilience to the unshared experience that is core to my desire to kill myself.
For many years I've wished I was dead. Sometimes this was daily thoughts of wanting to end it. Sometimes it is simply a wish to be dead rather than alive. Most times it is just the wish or the hope that death will come soon, that the eternal peace of nonexistance - my only hope - will finally come. Sometimes I've done something about it.
Its a difficult thing to live with. There are times when I need to talk about it but I'm scared of scaring people. People have mixed reactions to the discussion when I've broached the subject in the past.
The reasons I've attempted it in the past have been varied. The last attempt was because of my unshared experience of consciousness. My experience of consciousness has changed over the last few years. Its become an strange and unusual place. I think it is described by the word psychosis. I experience my thoughts not as my own and I feel the influence of a separate consciousness(es). This discovery and the change in my experience was distressing. There is a feeling of being controlled and the idea of free will shatters through this experience, which is perhaps why it often ends up with the cluster of symptoms described by the diagnosis of schizophrenia. My last attempt was for the reason that life with this experience wasn't worth living. There were other factors involved as well of course and the reasons for previous attempts have been different.
Its gotten much better over the last few months and has become a general desire for death or non-existance or sleep unending. I just gaze at train tracks occassionally, wishing I had the courage or energy to step forward a couple of steps.
But I carry on. I've lived with this for such a long time that its become part of me. I'm used to living with a low state of mind so I just get on with living. The brief moments of intense experience or emotion that rise above the sea of ennui keep me going. The misery isn't constant and when it returns it is like an old friend now.
Few would know on the outside. I have gotten better and better at hiding behind a social mask of cheerfulness and good humour. It was not something I was happy to use but it serves a purpose that allows me distance from others and social acceptability. The trade off is I hate myself a little bit more and I'm not authentic. It seems this blog is where I show my self.
My choices are affected by living like this. I care not for my future. I make decisions that are self-harming and will hasten my demise. An example is my legendary drinking that is functional alcoholism and a way to die sooner. Its lucky that I love drinking and it makes me feel so much better. I smoke as well and I smoke cannabis. I eat poorly and irregularly.
It is not only misery though. There is a positive aspect that's helped. Its liberated me from worrying about living a long life. My choices are short term and of the moment.
This may not make sense but I feel like its helped me to be closer to happiness than anyone I know. This make not make sense either.
Wanting to die helps me to live. It helps me to see the true value of life. My life has changed a lot through it because through this process I've found a way to live that is motivating and invigorating. I live to change the world for the better. Since I'd rather be dead my life becomes 'given' to that purpose. It is a way of thinking that allows me to cope.
Many people have said that I should see a doctor about this. I think I would say that to myself if I didn't know myself like I do. My desire to die is a choice and a choice I maintain is mine to make. Its a selfish choice but its my right. There will come a time when I take my own life and that is my intent. This may change but it will change 'organically'.
This long period of wanting to die is part of my journey through life. This journey we are all on and we take different paths. There is always value to the paths taken and there is value to my death wish.
Resilience has also built up. Resilience to the deepr reasons I want to end my life. Resilience to the life stuff that makes me want to die. Resilience to the unshared experience that is core to my desire to kill myself.
Sunday 23 August 2009
Is antistigma mental healthcare for the social model
Mental healthcare has traditionally focused on change of the individual.
It is only in recent times that antistigma has become part of mainstream mental healthcare. It is over the last decade that we have seen the increase in programmes that aim to change the construct, i.e. society and its view of 'normal' and stigmatised 'ill health'.
This seems a shift in the paradigm that will have impact on mental health and illness. Reducing the stigma of extreme or unusual experiences of consciousness can reduce the suffering caused by the stigma and discrimination. It can reduce the isolation and maintain support networks in times of crisis. It can reduce the social exclusion that often results from mental crisis or ill health. It can reduce the time to detection and increase insight by education of the public.
In reducing stigma and the barriers it creates this modern movement can actually reduce illness by helping make society more accepting of it and able to see the positive in the people who were once view as pariahs.
There are always dangers in these changes, the same as the changes achieved through mental healthcare focused on the individual. Simply put, there is always negative outcomes through change and often it is not accepted or noted. CBT is akin to brainwashing in that they both attempt to reprogram an individual by changing thinking patterns and behaviours; clearly CBT is done with an ethical approach, however this does not mean it is not without some of the dangers of CBT.
Through that line of thought there may be dangers in the antistigma movement that are unforeseen and perhaps unforeseeable. An example of destigmatisation gone awry is the example of personal debt that become rapidly destigmatised over the late twentieth century. This has lead to pervasive debt as a need of the economy and only recently has the misery of this come to the fore. Its links with mental ill health and suffering are beginning to be explored. During the recession the impact of bad debt will be affecting more of the population and bad debt has also been partially causal in the recession itself.
The risks of the antistigma movement are hard for me to see. Is it simply that the world will become more mad or more accepting of madness and eccentricity and laziness (to use old terms) and there will be no repercussions? I doubt that. Those behaviours may have been stigmatised for a reason, however I believe those reasons have passed. Homosexuality may have been stigmatised for a reason that procreation was necessary for the continuation of the species and a basic need for centuries. Things changed and people who were different from the norm could be accepted because the need for the stigma no longer existed.
What need is there for the stigma of mental ill health? Perhaps nothing today. But before....
--
....I tire of this line of thought. Its quite hard to think like this and communicate it. I also wonder are these musing really worth the effort they take?
Saturday 22 August 2009
A link to fundraising podcasts
http://www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk/events/nationalconventionandconferences/conferences/conferencepodcasts.htm
The Institute of Fundraising produces regular conferences on the hot topics in fundraising. In this series of podcasts conference speakers share their knowledge on their areas of expertise.
The Institute of Fundraising produces regular conferences on the hot topics in fundraising. In this series of podcasts conference speakers share their knowledge on their areas of expertise.
- Corporate Fundraising Conference Podcast 2009
- Strategic Fundraising Management Conference Podcast
- Fundraising in an Economic Downturn Conference Podcast
- Working with Volunteers for Community Fundraising Success Podcast
- E-Media Fundraising Conference Podcast
- Legacy Fundraising Conference Podcast 2008
- Global Perspectives on Major Donor Fundraising Conference Podcast - Day Two
- Global Perspectives on Major Donor Fundraising Conference Podcast - Day One
- Fundraising and Campaigning Conference Podcast
- CONVENTION SPECIAL: The Six Secrets of Being a Successful Fundraiser
- Event Fundraising Conference Podcast
- Corporate Fundraising Conference Podcast
- Direct Marketing and Fundraising Podcast
- Legacy Fundraising Conference Podcast
- Major Gift Fundraising Conference Podcast
- Community Fundraising Conference Podcast
- New Media Fundraising Conference Podcast
Getting stuff cheap
www.hotdealsuk.com
Posts of deals and offers end up categorised and voted for on HotDealsUK. Its an essential place to check out for any bargains and to spread the word of bargains you find. I check it before I go on Ebay.
www.ebay.co.uk
Ebay is a tricky marketplace for the novice but with Paypal's and Ebay's buyer protection its not as risky some might say. Its cheap and that's the reason why people use it. Its not just for second hand goods. There's a lot of new products and items. There's also items from other countries so the range of products is huge. Buyers can stay safe by checking the buyer's feedback and not buying from people who have made few sales before.
Free legal software
Openoffice, Gimp, Firefox and Wordweb are all free programs I use.
Free usually means that the software isn't as easy to use though that's not always the case. Openoffice is a lot like MS Office 2003 and works well with files from MS Office 2003. Firefox and Google Chrome are better to use than Internet Explorer. JAlbum is possibly the best online photo gallery software. Spybot, Zone Alarm personal and other free antimalware programs do the job of premium suites like Norton 360. Open source software like Gimp also have a large community writing applications, tweaks and posting solutions to problems. Most of the add-ons and applications are also free.
www.google.co.uk
Its obvious of course but typing a product name into google should bring up sellers and allow you to find the cheapest price. There are also dedicated comparison websites that can save time and search more products by trying more than the first few links in Google you might find a cheaper option.
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