Violence and Frustration: Coping with disappointment and the humiliating limitations of Mental Health problems.

It's so easy to get  frustrated nowadays. Some more cynical types, myself included, would argue that disappointment is built into the very fabric of modern life: after all, were something to prove to be a bottomless well of happiness, were the satisfaction to last uninterruptedly, then it wouldn't need replacing, and the consumerist wheels would start to come off the materialist cart. If exciting new experiences didn't eventually normalise into the mundane and unnoticeable, then we wouldn't feel compelled to invest in new ones. We have to believe, upon a purchase or contemplation of an upcoming event, that it will be simply awesome! Otherwise, why bother in the first place? Advertisers know this all too well; when was the last time you saw a car marketed with the tag line "The new Citroen Temporal - you'll have to replace it someday"? 

Notwithstanding, when you are coming to terms with or trying to move past a Panic or an Anxiety disorder, you do still need things to look forward to. I also feel as though I need to see progress on a daily basis. For the sake of those around me, I wish to make great leaping bounds on the road to recovery, such is the counter-ballancing distress caused by such an infuriatingly ephemeral illness. No single obvious cause can be held down and owned as the preceding factor or underlying catalyst for the fear and overwhelming terror that can leave many people, myself included, house-bound and unable to function in public/social situations. This is very frustrating, and like most, my first instinct is to lash out at the 'unfairness' of it all. Occasionally, I just drown in it. Rarer still, I accept my recent limitations and put the kettle on.

In the last week, I have had two really distressing experiences involving this paradox, namely that we need to be brave and optimistic in our planning of fun things to look forward to, but we also need to be realistic and not set up situations which are way beyond our current limitations. The need to balance self-preservation with self-motivation has never been more poignant than when I inadvertently found myself stranded in Liverpool's Albert Docks last Saturday, intending to see a gig at the arena, but instead had a catastrophic melt-down and was unable to leave the car! The rest of our party went off to have a bite to eat in a Pizza Express before taking their seats, whilst meanwhile I was curled foetal in the Fiesta's footwell with my face buried in my hands. I couldn't even bring myself to look out the windows, so overwhelming was the endless stream of humanity which swamped the footbridge and immediate surroundings. I felt trapped, as if stranded on a solitary outcrop of rocks with a rising tide cutting me off from safe passage to the shore. I also felt completely freaked out and paralysed by the simple fact that I was in Liverpool itself, so far away from my "safe place" (home) in the Peak District. Worse still, being at the mercy of the show's itinerary, I was unable to leave and go back home of my own volition, such is the cost both mental and monetary of public transport on me. Finally, to top it all off, the local pubs and bars were rammed - it was after all Saturday night in a major European city centre. I'm not sure what I expected. It certainly wasn't this.

It was horrible! I cried panic-stricken for much of the five hours I was there, and felt just cold and numb for the rest. On a few occasions I was forced to make a dash for a nearby hotel lobby to use their bathroom facilities, and my anxiety was so intense I literally couldn't even look up and around me but instead found my gaze rooted to the red paved brickwork from under a large hat pulled low over my trembling brow. I wanted to scream as people veered across my path, brushed shoulders or on a few occasions walked straight into me. I have a panic disorder which can make being out in public an unreal, overwhelming experience at the best of times, but this time I really had to fight the urge to scream and lash out at them in a very public fashion. This was "fight or flight" at it's most basic, and the last thing I need right now is criminal charges being brought against me for an essentially unprovoked and unjustifiable attack on random members of the public, simply because they are unaware of my albeit temporary spacial requirement and social limitations. This urge to throw out kicks and punches scared me. I am not an aggressive person (quite the opposite) and days later when reflecting on the episode I feel deeply ashamed. My overwhelming experience was one of a hair-trigger primeval and bestial violence, a surreal and disturbing disassociation with reality and even writing about it now, days later, I'm shaking and fighting back the wobbly throat-lumps of indignation. Were it not for the kindness of one of our group who gave up her gig and stayed with me in the car, I would have had to go through it entirely alone, and probably have wet myself too.

Everyone is different. I know I am not the only one who has violent thoughts, compulsions and urges when it all gets too much, like a rat backed into the corner, hissing and ready to lunge forth with blazing red eyes and vengeful fangs. At the end of the day I am but human, and most humans, when pushed far enough, will resort to unthinking, red-misted violence. What happens when we get pushed further than that though, I wonder? Some clearly act out their frustrations, and sadly the media is only to quick to pounce upon stories of unbalanced people (perhaps not getting the help and support they deserved) who ended up committing the most atrocious and unprovoked acts. A quick 'google' will be sufficient to exemplify the pushing of pregnant mothers or other such innocent and oblivious bystanders into the paths of oncoming traffic or onto railways lines etc. when someone snaps. I know all humans have a dark, violent streak in them, buried deep beneath the layers of social artifice, but it doesn't make it any less distressing when these unsolicited urges arise and attempt to take control. It's this type of behaviour which has given schizophrenics and persons of a somewhat unhinged bent a bad name over the years; for me, the stigma and association of mental health problems with psychotic violence contributes to the deep-rooted fear that I am losing my mind, exacerbating my problems as I worry that my grip on reality is becoming ever more tenuous. That almost certainly is not the case, but still the thought that I am slowly drifting apart and away from everything I am or was is a inhumanly terrifying prospect.

What did it teach me though? Last night I was supposed to see one of my favourite artists at a big gig in Manchester. After the trauma of Saturday in Liverpool, and knowing I wouldn't be able to handle the noise, heat and crowds, I sold my ticket and spent the night at home alone. It's really painful admission for someone who himself has been a musician on stage for most of his life, yet another fine blow to my already-crumbling conceit. Granted, I booked the ticket months ago when I wasn't having any of these problems, but my failure to attend just makes me feel like an even bigger freak and fuck-up. I need to be more kind to myself, but hey, that's how it feels, this bitter sting of disappointment. I was kicking out against something beyond my control. and the only one it hurt was me. How much more useful would it have been to have celebrated my good sense, rather than rail against my perception that once again, I was missing out on all the fun? It's all so unfair, isn't it? Maybe not... Another question for another time, perhaps...

At college this week I saw a fellow student on my course punch a wheelie bin in anger at something an antagonist had said (I think it was homophobic comment, I am sad to say) and as a result the lad had to abandon his day to go to hospital and treat suspected broken fingers. For a painter/decorator, you only get one set of hands, and so this is tantamount to a chef cutting out his tongue in a rage at a sub-par soufflé. Reading an essay by the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne this morning (I can't recommend his stuff highly enough), I was struck by something he said: "Do those who tear out their hair at life's injustices realise that baldness is no cure for adversity?" When we thrust the spear of anger or pent-up frustration, to whom do we direct our embittered lunges, if not our own already weeping minds? 

Somehow, we need to become aware and practice stepping back when we are feeling the frustration of frustration, of anger at anger. Some say that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, but for people like me, on occasions, the fear of fear is more crippling still. Either way, we need to set small, realistic goals that will enhance our faltering self-esteem, not decimate it. At the same time we must remember that lashing out in frustration and hurting the ones we love is of no use whatsoever, and just makes life worse. How much more true when bearing the brunt of vengeful, petulant lashes from our own trembling and resentful hands?

Feel free to comment below if anything in the above article has affected you, 
Your friend, in love and understanding,
The Dharma-Farmer xx

*Poem Post: "The Toes that Bind Us - Lines for Armistice Day"

"The toes that bind us

- Lines for Armistice Day"

Outside, in the dead of night,

The rain hammers the 

Ostentatious decking

Around this half-penny whistle

Of a house I call home.

Hunched over, 

Perched on the edge 

Of the oak-tabled ledge

The flames roar before me

As tentative 2K toes 

Splay naked, eager for warmth.

But how much luckier 

Mine that theirs

Who served a century ago

On western fronts

Entombed in snow?

Their penury now is digitised 

But surely a heart familiarised

With trenched-trauma, 

Rhyme and verse,

Could not but be 

Moved to converse

With something stirring

Stark within,

(Well past the reach of faith or sin)

As through the loam and 

Blood and fear 

Did many,

Far younger that I, dare.

Alas! Such debts one 

Can't repay, 

And never will I get to say

To those whose 

Ghostly memories bade,

And conferred to me 

A century hence;

Your lice weren't given 

For diffidence.

Poem Post - "Bumping Uglies (Consensual Lines on Sex)"

In a world in which all

Proverbial cogs are

Lubed with industrial KY,

Dripping with the foul raw stench of sexuality,

Am I wrong for reaching for the

Warm wet-wipe and hot towelette,

Or the porcelain phone?

Often it feels as though a

Scaly, dark engorgement is being

Forcibly inched turgid

Down my non-consensual

Spasming gullet,

Choking me blue with

Throbbing ignominious desires,

For the mundane, the profane,

The commercial,

As I wide-eyed claw for terrified air:

Buy this watch.

You'll have great sex

- Or at least be able time yourself.

Lightly spritzed in perfumed delights,

Designed by pop stars

You'll smell all the better for sex!

The clothes, the car,

The come-fulfill-me tinsel

With which we

Lavishly adorn ourselves,

In which pre-pubescents parade;

All the better for

Pounding hard-on up to

Fellatial summits and across

Sensual plateaus,

(Where everyone is fabulous),

To slake the lip-cracked thirst

For bestial congress.

Animalian weildings above the din,

The flailing of tears,

The betrayal of flesh,

The heaving of rain onto

Indelible hearts and

Saddened, eternally ungratified sheets...

The next day?

The half-denied concessions

Half-brushed almost aside,

Framing Platonic differential

With tomorrow's sadness.

The black-worm ambrosia

Wiped afresh from our chins,

We shuffle back to it,

Aware in our gardens of

A vacant space

Where something fertile

Used to reside, but now

Abject lies in the

Half-truth-half-light of

Morning's shadow,

Like a long-depotted plant's

Sill-sought stain.

Nevermind.

We hide resentment

From downcast eyes,

For knowing that the little death

Shot the messenger,

In their chalk outline

We see all too clearly, all too late:

Interned to gag on fetid bait!

Yet still I crave and burn, irate.

Use your sex wisely!

People treat people as if

Something more than genitals

Will ever be found in the

Yawning chasm between

Spread legs and closed minds.

Yet like ice to Eskimos we

Gobble frozen fallacies

- Spit them out children!

As the rising protuberant swell of the

Rich and powerful invade, their

Endless mascaras,

Fanciful creams and

Cherry-lipped enticements

Numb overwrought senses.

We all pay for sex now.

iCrave and iThrob, iRate!

To buy into the lie

Of corporeal station

We pucker up in great queues,

Pressing palm-slickened wads

From desperate trembling hands

To kiss vulgar brown rings!

The swooning Twitterati will

Soon enough be

Laid prostrate,

End to end,

Top to Bottom,

Penetrating the

Fog of neutral antipathy which

Hugs the ground of the

Suck-seeding day.

Far easier will it then be

To poke out our eyes and

Skull-fuck us over:

Perpetual endless oscillations:

iCrave, iThrob, iSate.

iRepeat -

iSate, iCrave, iThrob...

© J.J. Bardsley aka The Dharma-Farmer

November 2014

*POEM POST* - "Lost in my Head (with The Negative Fuck)"

Twitter-twatter's chitter-chatter
Sometimes leaves me feeling flattened
Under a tumult of
Ponderous turds;

The neurotics, psychotics and

The poets in turn

Are all having a go at 

Expressing the souls 

And I do what I do, 

As and when I feel bold.

But all their saccharine verses 

Congeal in the ear 

Their sad hearts seem filled 

With black honey, not tears. 

But I'm tongue-tired and cynical, 

Long in the tooth

Through negligent dental care

Stoned in my youth. 

Bitter and jealous, 

Always pointing the finger

Dark forces arise, and 

They don't so much linger

As waltz into my head 

Like an old family friend,

Availing themselves of 

The Master Suite bed:

The wine in my cellar,

My slippers.

The lot.

And then fuck off home suddenly

For a wallet forgot.

It's puzzling and weird when I read back my verse

Malevolent scrawls as if under a curse

For who's spell I so 

Fervently wish I could break;

Like a fairy princess from a coma awake

And walk up to the door

Welcome in different guests:

An inner robustness and 

Smile that attests

To a new resolution

To escale Eency's Spout

And whatever the weather 

Feel loved from without

I've been to a place

Of a stillness so kind 

And I know alone 

How it feels in my mind

So although it's not always how I wish it could be 

I forget that the secondary suffering is ME

Simply heaping it on with industrial machines

Getting lost in my head of critique and dark dreams.

At times my mind's rent a 

surreal and sad space 

And in spite of the blockers and levellers I take,

I still lock myself in 

to be sure, to be safe...

That I cannot harm others or 

fuck up their lives.

I recall Robin Williams alone. 

And I cry...

It's too easy you see

To get angry at dreams and 

The vain prophesy

I espoused as a teen, 

But flat-out on the canvas

With the count going up

I still know I'll gain not

From The Negative Fuck

Who at times grabs 

The Cat-o-Nine, 

Salt and the limes

And splashes and slashes 

This raw brain of mine... 

"Who took life for granted

And pissed on his luck?

This is what you deserve!"

Fuck The Negative Fuck!

So I'll put down the trowel,

Stop piling pain on, 

(As there no coming last 

In the race left un-run)

Stagger back to my feet

Stumble into the Sun

Because whatever the weft 

Of this life that you've spun,

If your reading this now

It could be so much worse,

And whether by Heaven or 

Starlight on Earth

Your death can't be stopped

Any more than your birth:

So perhaps shrug and smile,

Have a wank?

©The Dharma-Farmer 

Oct 19th 2014

How to fix/uninstall "Palmall 2.1" unauthorised advertising/pop ups on your browser! FIXED IT! EPIC WIN FOR THE LUDITE!

I DID IT!! I FIXED IT!! HAHAHA! *swears gratuitously at the screen, middle fingers raised*

Sorry. Ahem.. Where was I? Oh yes, this evening someone in the household accidentally downloaded some kind of trojan advertising virus onto the Mac, and since then I've fought off with clenched teeth an avalanche of enquiries: how my penis was looking, how I was for cheep flights and whether I might be in the market for a Thai bride or a per chance a Granny who likes to do many unspeakable things not readily associated with the over-70's! Apparently, she is is in 'my town' tonight and wants to meet me. She never ever called! How was I to know?

On a serious note, I don't know about you, but I am exposed to a lot of advertising and temptation during my many waking hours, TV, radio, even in films, and whilst I have my own opinions on advertising and conditioning now is not the place... Oh, but boy am I going to enjoy THAT article! As I mentioned in my previous post, from time to time I just need to air my frustrations in a decidedly audible manner, and those "Nafforisms of a Pith-Head" can be found on my other blog, where I am free to as opine as is my want when vexed. The joys!

I find pop ups maddeningly infuriating at the best of times, and in addition I'm mid-way through a tramadol detox (which is what I'm supposed to be writing about now), so forgive me for being a tad tetchy earlier. I get really stressed when that unsolicited, insidious nonsense starts bursting uninvited into my consciousness. NO - I DON'T WANT A NEW CONSERVATORY! I LIVE NEXT TO A RIVER!!! I really do, it's splendid the way it is, and just fine without an underwater recreation space, trust me.

ANYWAYS - after much wiping of brows (mainly mine, but the dog look unsettled too), earning a few more grey hairs and non-descript, muttered threatening noises, I finally figured it out. Don't bother going to the software developer's website, it just sends you in a giant convoluted circle and creates more on-screen digital chaos... I was getting seriously would up and stressed out, and living with an anxiety condition, I was about 15 minutes from punching the wall. With another wall.

I'm no computer expert, and couldn't explain what I did if my arse was on fire, so here some inexpertly taken screen-shots to assist Mac users:

For Windows users, simply search for it in your "Add/Remove Software" thing on your control panel. Forgive the lack of technical jargon, but I'm not the PC whizz-kid I used to be in 1998. Honestly, you turn your back for five minutes...

I really hope this helps and saves a few otherwise rational people from hurling their laptops/Macs/PCs/iPad/Ataris/selves through the nearest open (or more dramatically, closed) window, into distant lakes or self-immoliating in protest. 

The internet can be very stressful thing if you feel at all out of your depth, and although I'm no Alan Turing, I hope this helps. At the very least, I'm DELIGHTED that those awful highlighted links have disappeared from the text in my blogs. How vain of me...

And now, if you forgive me, I'm off to find a harpoon...

Yours, with his blood-pressure returning to normal, your friend,

The Dharma-Farmer xx

Unauthorised advertising/popups: "Palmall 2.1" - Please read!

Guys, I don't know what in shitting crikey is going on with Blogger/Safari, but I've just spotted that someone at Google has changed one of the advertising settings, and for some reason this is highlighting keywords like 'KITCHEN', 'PANIC ATTACK' or even something innocuous as 'BONUS', and set them up as advertising pop ups. 

This is NOT my doing, I am furious, and am working as best and fast as I can to rectify this. I can only apologise to those who might have seen it already. I won't deny it would be a much splendid thing to be one day able to put food on my plate and a roof over my head through my literary or poetic endeavours, but this is NOT how intend to do so. Advertising and pop ups are the bane of my life, and I will get to the bottom of the matter ASAP. 

I am so sorry for this, or any offence caused.

Again, please do not for a second think that I would have the temerity and ignorance to try and capitalise on people reading my work/thoughts in such a way. I feel physically sick just thinking about it...

Please bear with me, and I hope it doesn't spoil the work I have toiled over, or your reading pleasure, if any ;-)

Love and peace always, you are stronger than you think, never forget that!

DF xx  

P.S Thank you for reading the heavily edited version, family friendly version of this post.
You should have seen the expletive-laden, version I nearly posted. If I ever find out who did this, they're going to feel the thump of a harpoon in their thorax. Bastards. But that is a rant for another day, another blog even... Click HERE for some of my more vitriolic and lively rants... It's good to get stuff off your chest at times. Be well :-)

The Stoptober and Go Sober October Challenge: Day One - Eeek!

Hey, you made it here, excellent! I wasn't intending to write so soon after yesterday's panic attack post, but I think this may be of interest. A week ago, whilst chatting to a good friend over a Sunday afternoon beer, he announced that he would be doing the "Stoptober challenge", whereby thousands of people over the UK (and hopefully wider afield too) will pledge abstinence from their beloved cigs or alcohol (or possibly both, you exceeding hardy types) for the entirety of this month in order to raise both awareness and money for charity. I really want to get behind it, on the basis that they encourage people to push themselves and well as setting realistic goals and achieve them, a vital skill for those living with a mental health condition. I sincerely hope that it will engender folk to consider the needs of others as greater than their own and ultimately, do themselves a multitude of favours in the process. "Stoptober" and it's more recent sibling, "Go Sober October", have been running successfully for several years now as an initiative of the charity "Public Health England", with the former founded on the belief that if a person can quit cigarets for 28 days, then they are five times more likely to stay off them for good. Sparing untold thousand from a potentially horrific slow death seems to me a worthy enough cause to write about, at the very least. Over 200,000 people all over the world have signed up so please consider taking a few seconds to check it out.

Aside from the obvious merits, the money raised and the countless lives saved as a result of hedonic and chemical restraint etc, it's also a great opportunity to brings one's own notion of self under the 'me'croscope for a short time and peer down it with curiosity. We all have fixed views of ourself - in my case, for instance, I see myself as a moderate drinker and evening/social smoker. Boil away the excuses, siphon off the self-rationalisation, and at the bottom of the beaker two facts remain: I drink and smoke, and when I do, I enjoy it. It's this kind of honesty we need if we are to muster the strength and garner the courage to stand up to our often unhelpful habits, thought-patterns and peccadillos.

If we are currently unwell and wish to get better, to support our ongoing battles in the most effective way, we would be doing well to make naked honesty and self-compassion our starting point; the last thing anyone wants to do, especial people living with a mental health condition, is spark of a cycle of low self-esteem or self-flagelation. In the crucible of our minds and hearts, we must forge the twin-edged, diamond-tipped sword of Wisdom and Insight if we are to stand a chance in Hell of cutting through our own bullshit, of piercing the heart of Truth. In short, we need to be able to discern fact from value-judgement. 

But why complicate matters? Why the poetic idioms? I hear you ponder this aloud, and you have a point. But please bear in mind that real change comes from within, and more specifically, from deep within the depths of our own being. To plumb these depths, to dredge up rank filth and discard it from our psyche, we must engage both the rational and the emotional, the factual and the imaginative, unifying our conscious and subconscious minds. Change is tough, but worth it. The seeds of our emotional response to change are very deeply sown, and we must therefore utilise every tool in the shed if we are to weed out our old unskilful habits and ways, roots and all, from the verdant gardens of our lives.

If we are brave enough to chose to change ourselves, or to do something worthy for a noble cause, wouldn't it be lovely that was all there was to it? No self-importance, egotism or conceit. People doing things not out of a desire to be the centre of their own personal psychodramas, or for attention, but merely out of a simple, clear synthesis of rational, intellectual reasoning with a deep emotional response to the infinitely greater web of suffering to which we are all a part of . We must establish the empirical facts: smoking harms you and others around you, even those yet to be born! Smoking is also expensive, anti-social and places increasing demands on an already over-stretched healthcare system. In addition, most mental health medication (SSRI's, Beta-Blockers etc) have their effectiveness hindered and hampered by alcohol consumption above a very meagre level. This we all know. 

Simultaneously, we need to become increasingly aware of our value judgements: I smoke therefore I am a bad, stupid, selfish person, and worse if I fail. This negative reinforcement gets us no-where. Sentiments whereby we judge someone (including ourselves) as better or worse, or something (depression, drinking etc) as absolutely and fundamentally good or bad often create more suffering in this world, not less! If we can stop this overly-simplistic, dualistic, limiting way of seeing our endeavours, then we can start to implement change safe in the knowledge that our attempts will be less ego-driven, less out of fear of being seen a certain way, less self-referential i.e. doing things to look good and gain favour with our peers. Our attempts to better ourselves tend to become more balanced, more for the benefit of others with a bonus of it benefiting us too. We start to focus outward, becoming more other-orientated, which is no bad thing at all. If we struggle with anxiety or depression, then this could be just the ticket...!

I myself will be abstaining from alcohol, and hopefully cutting smoking back to a weekly basis, if at all. I'm almost certainly going to be coming off Mirtazapine next week, so I might smoke a shit-load from the stress, but in light of recent events (a rather undignified public episode of cerebral dysentery, see previous post), whatever happens, I need to be kind to myself. Piling the crushing weight of unrealistic expectation onto already broken shoulders will only end in beers. I know this from personal experience, but that would be another story...

Time and time again it is clearly shown that for people with mental health issues, connecting meaningfully with others is a huge part of our recovery, as is facing up to some hard truths about ourselves and overcoming old habits of thought. What better incentive could you need to sign up? But wait!! For a start, what if you don't drink or smoke? What if you are not in a position to handle such changes? What if you are so keen to be well that you inadvertently make yourself worse? 

We are all embryonic, we are all growing, changing, becoming. We just need to check our intentions every so often, that's all. Nothing to it, and remember, this is not a competition, but an opportunity to connect with other people in a meaningful way, something we could all do with a bit more of... Perhaps for the next month, you too could just cut down the cancer-sticks and ease off the ethanol? Failing that, perhaps check to see if any friends, colleagues or fellow patients/inmates are doing it, and offer to sponsor them instead. Who knows? It's up to you...

The future is unwritten, and we have no fate but that which we make ourselves. If you do decide to get on board the Stoptober Express, fear not, it will pass quickly. Be brave, be realistic and above all else, be kind to yourself. That way, your dreams can be as big as they want. Just please do us all a favour, be a dear, and leave the ego at the door when you step into the future. And wipe your feet, if you'd be so kind... ;-)

Your friend, 18 hours in,

The Dharma-Farmer xx

Panic Stations: Major Anxiety Attack on a Train and How I Coped (or didn't...)

Hey Guys, thanks for stopping by. Firstly, thanks for all the kind works and support of my poetry, I've never posted any before so it's really cool that people have got behind it and encouraged me. I've needed it. It's been a tough two weeks since I last touched base, tougher than I care to publicly admit to friends. When last I wrote I had been taking Mirtazapine for about four weeks, on my doctor's insistence, and was still waiting for the benefits which, I was assured, would be felt at around week six.  Since I started taking them in mid-August, there's been a lot of up-n-down days, one or two positive one's but sadly, most of them still featured both morning and matinee showings of "The Causeless Panic Attacks Show", featuring yours truly as the leading role.  On and off, these spontaneous, seeming unprovoked waves of fear and utter terror have been blighting me for a few years now, but since starting up again with a vengance in July (after loosing my job), they have been a source of daily irritation and upset. They still scare the living shit out of me for the first five seconds, as pain bursts through my heart centre and radiates out into every muscle in my chest, often causing me to involuntarily double over, but nowadays, by focusing on taking long, deep, slow breaths through puckered lips, I can usually stabilise within 10 minutes. I've developed this counter-measure to help me 'breathe around' the pain and fear, creating a kind, gentle and non-judgemental space in which it may reside until it dissipates.  A nifty trick if you can pull it off. Sometime though, I can't. 

Last week was my sixth on Mirtazapine. Like English 'Marmite' - a savoury molasses spread of an inconceivably tar-like viscosity - most people seem to either love it or hate it. I couldn't work it out. I didn't really feel....anything. I still had the sudden mood drops, the suicide ideation, and the slow-sinking, gut-wrenching lows. The Mirtazapine test was, in short, not a conclusive one, and I've decided to speak to my doctor about alternative medications. When it comes down to it, they were just not dealing with the anxiety. This is what prompted my decision.

During the week I suffered a major panic attack on an evening commuter train, causing a complete meltdown upon alighting at Piccadilly station. It was so horrible, I struggle to identify with the person I was that night. I wonder if anyone else experiences this trauma induced dissociation?

Another question is what triggered it? How important is it for one to know the underlying causes? Furthermore, how important is it to share it with you? This is one of the rare occasions whereby I can attribute a conscious thought or stimuli as the root cause of the innitial anxiety attack, so I share, but with the following caveat: This issue is waaay bigger than any one person's experience. This blog is neither a vanity project nor a soapbox from which I can force upon the world my unsolicited opinions. Opinions are like arse-holes; everybody's got one! Interestingly, we find that a high percentage of arse-holes love their opinions! It's uncanny, huh? My entirely subjective opinions have no place here; it's my experiences and reactions that interest me, and on this occasion it was a shocking picture in a newspaper that set me off. 

I shall never forget it. Tattooed indelibly onto my retinas is the haunting image of a western hostage seconds before having his head sawn off by a religious fundamentalist of middle-eastern descent, feeling every hateful slice, slowly and manually, with little more than a large kitchen knife. He knew how this was going to end... He knew he was fucked. And he knew that this was about to happen to HIM. He KNEW that HE was about to die, and in about the most public and horrific, degrading ways as it's conceivable. Being a Buddhist is usually seen as a positive thing, but with the medication and my poor mental health of late, I am sometime left over-sensitive to certain things, and my reactions often end up completely disproportionate. I've always been a sensitive chap, emotionally articulate and never that squeamish, but on this occasion hideously graphic images, feelings and thoughts spawned and proliferated newer, even more disturbing ones faster than I could stop them...

"That's someone's HUSBAND! Someone's SON! Someone's DAD OR BROTHER! What if it had been my own father, or my little brother in that orange shirt? With that same look of utter defeat and terror as he kneels there weeping openly, pleading for his life? And this is ok to show in newspapers now? To make money off a man's final moments? Is nothing sacred any more? It's all about money and deluded human greed. This is the world we live in, and it's only gonna get worse... Oh shit, I think I'm gonna puke!"

My head started to swim and suddenly I felt very hot, nauseous and dizzy. So severe was the experience that my body and mind went into shock. I struggled to form sentences, and those few I managed were fractures and disjointed. I was frozen stiff on a warm Indian Summer's night, and everything felt distant, disconnected, unreal. My entire face was numb, I couldn't lift my head up and my thick tongue lay heavy and impotent. I was literally lost for words. My friend and I were en route to a gig together, for the first time exposing myself to the frenetic energy of the city centre in months, and this was the one thing I didn't want to happen. Coincidence that it did? Probably not. I can't really remember what happened after that... All I recall of the rest of the journey was the constant battle of man vs. his desire to explosively vomit in a lavish and irredeemable fashion over railway carriage and it's startled inhabitants. Next thing I know, my companion and I are jolting into Piccadilly station, our terminus. 

It was all so surreal. I remember coming round on a set steps away from the main crowds, aware of a uncomfortable sensation across my buttocks. Clearly, this fire escape was not build for weary legs or those of unsteady footing, but I couldn't feel anything else, and at least the pain kept me grounded in my body. At points, the discomfort felt like the only thing that would stop me floating off into the night sky or blacking out. I was confused, mumbling to my friend, who by this point had been stoiclly waiting in the cold for half an hour. She is wearing a frown of concern and a new dress. She says something, but I can't follow it. I feel like I'm trying to listen underwater. "Call the guys and explain what's happened" she gently urges again. "They will understand, they know you are not well, and I'll get you back home on the train safely, don't worry, it's all going to be ok". She really is an angel! 

Eventually, and with shaking hands, I managed to make the call, but could hold back neither pain nor fear, and as I spoke, hot salty tears of bitter disappointment ran freely over my flushed and trembling cheeks. I felt awful, like I'd failed in my 'mission' to have a normal night out. I couldn't shake the fear of what our friend might think of me. Would he tell others about my melt down? I felt I was letting him down, the band down and my companion down. All I do is ruin things! Negative thoughts and numbness kept me frozen to the steps. Just the thought of getting up and walking back onto the train was completely overwhelming. I just stare at then floor and counted the discarded, yellowed cigaret butts, trying to maintain some kind of focus. The night a write-off, there was nothing to do but go home and try and rest up. 

I have a fear of having major panic attacks in crowded busy environments, it's happened before, so re-entering the very hub of Manchester's sprawling rail nexus posed a formidable challenge. I took several deep breaths, told my self that I just had to stand up. Nothing more at this stage. By sheer force of effort, I slowly willed myself to my feet. Once fully erect (as it were), all I now had to do was to keep my head down and make it onto our waiting train, due to depart any minute now. All I'd need to do then is wait quietly with my eyes closed for half an hour. After that, a gentle downhill stroll to the main road, and so on. I half closed my eyes, mumbled "fuck it!" between gritted teeth, and went for it.

Thus my journey was broken up from a pulsating, overwhelming ball of "I can't do this" to much smaller, more achievable and discernibly less daunting sections or stages. I just took it in "baby-steps", one at a time, to quote Bill Murray in the hilarious "What About Bob?" (a wonderfully uplifting film about mental health).  A famous Zen Buddhist teacher, Tich Nat Han, once asked of a pupil "How do you eat an orange?" One segment at a time was the answer. We can get so caught up contemplating something as ostensibly straightforward as a night out, we forget that actually it is composed of many small journeys and manageable interactions. We can deal with these far more calmly. We don't have to paint masterpieces, just focus on each brush stroke, remaining fluid and flexible. Life just seems less daunting when you take each day, each hour, each moment as it arrises in our experience. 

All events are ultimately made by, filtered through and manifested in our minds. If we speak or act with a tangled, messy, agitated mind, then the dark clouds hanging over our head will never lift. Our salvation lies in the fact that speaking or acting with a gentle, compassionate mind brings untold happiness, like a shadow or a friend that never departs. It takes time to accept that we have a mental health condition; it took me an awful lot longer, years in fact, to accept that I am responsible for creating the conditions in my life that support optimum mental health. If we can work to create conditions which are conducive to inner peace, then that's half the battle already won. If breaking overwhelming challenges up into less terrifying smaller tasks worked for me, then I know it can work for you. I know you have it in yourself to take a look in the mirror, and be honest with yourself about the role you play in your own mental wellbeing - intake of caffeine, late nights, booze, nicotine, crappy diet, lack of exercise, recreational drugs etc. I think you owe it to yourself too. 

We can't control everything that happens to us, but we can learn to slowly take increasing responsibility for our mental health and our reactions to life's ups and downs. We can begin to notice our reactionary ways, and instead strengthen our resolve to lead more authentically creative lives, rather than simply responding unthinkingly, lurching violently in tears from one cranial crisis to another. In this way, it can be said, we can start to live more authentically human lives. Besides, it's always sensible to have a plan in case of emergency, an emotional parachute if you will. In this way I am reminded of the thousand different things every day I can work on and my own habitual responses to them.  By trying to sleep more, eat better etc, I can help my body to help my mind. But that is another topic for another time.

May you be well,

May you be happy,

May you prosper in peace.

Your friend, 

The Dharma Farmer xx

*Poem Post* - "In Finite Infinity" (for Ed)

Weather-worn granite, 

Hard as time itself.

Strata 'pon strata

Endless eons stretch out,

Cast across distant far-flung moors

Like discarded children's toys.

Setting suns, infinite rises.

Crag-sheltered shelters

Now thrice-centuried void,

Gaze upon reservoirs 

Night-blue and gold

As grateful heather 

Dances to my 

Companion's 

Breath.

Dedicated to the memory of a dear friend.

You opened my heart.

© J.J. Bardsley - The Dharma Farmer 2014

*POEM POST* - "An Ignoble Effort"

I stare through my reflection 

In the bottle on the lawn,

And see a blatant disregard for 

Something once adored.

I know that I'm the cycle,

And that I 'm my yesterday.

Yet I serve no point or purpose, 

Just a corpse-to-be, delayed.

Grappling with the hungry beast;

What brought me to this point?

I capitulate on broken knees and

Spark another joint.

A smoke or line might feel sublime

But dulls the telling Truth,

As bottles keep on piling up

And days of haze erode my youth.

The corkscrew gleams alluringly;

I break and fall like snow.

As failure dawns thus conscience scorns:

"Predictable? How so?"

© J. J. Bardsley - The Dharma-Farmer™

2007 (revised 2014)

*POEM POST* - "Stumped for Words"

"Stumped for words"

Today whilst stood at platform two

A pigeon did I spy.

He fluttered, silent, beam to beam

Formed black against grey sky.

I traced his path as humans passed 

And hustled two and fro

How many of them glancing up

Espied his graceful airborne show?

Suddenly, he banked my way

Alighting at my feet

His neck burned gold, maroon and green,

Against that drab concrete.

A jealous pang I'd registered

As o'er the crowd he'd soared, Reflecting as to whether 

Do even birds sometimes get bored?

Perhaps his heart does swell and cry under that feathered breast?

Defying death and gravity 

Transcending mere bipeds.

Or maybe understandably,

He could no more comprehend,

As water is unto the fish, 

Is flight to him, my fearless feathered friend.

But wait! Alas! There's something wrong

As he pecks from crumb from crumb.

A pink-clawed foot is missing,

And he limps upon the stump.

My heart's compassion overflows, 

And when our glances meet

I catch the jealousy in his eyes

As he espies my two good feet.

© J. J. Bardsley - The Dharma-Farmer™

April 2014 - All Rights Reserved

*POEM POST* - "Lines for Melissa"

" Lines for Melissa"

Perched on the edge of her tatter-torn seat,
The girl with the curls, like Autumn's soft heat,
Asked if it would be ok to assess
Some verses of mine on depression's duress.

She handled my phone with her customary care,

The girl with the shimmer of suns in her hair. 

My heart started pounding, and not out of lust;

I just struggle to open, confide in or trust.

With self-conscious squirming I cast my eyes down,

Messed with my rucksack, and aware of the sound

Of her mouthing my lines, nearly under her breath,

The girl with a frown and a poem on death.

"That's really good Jay, but wow, is it sad -

I had no idea that you suffered this bad"

I shrug and feel bashful, self-conscious, unearthed:

"I usually go with much happier verse"

"I know that I wrote it, a note to myself,

But it feels like the author was somebody else,

Composed in a moment of darkest despair

At the end of their tether, alone, sad and scared."

"You should write about now" she implored with a grin

"To show how contrasting a head-space you're in."

"I'll expect it on Monday" she laughed as she rose

And gathered her boots with the steel-plated toes.

She departed the train, with a wave and a wink

 Whilst I journeyed on home, but I'd started to think,

And changing the meter, the pattern and rhyme

These words issued forth from the depths of my mind.

"It's strange and surreal, when we're stuck on repeat,

The negative thoughts, silent tears on our cheeks.

You've just got to ride it out, saddle and spurs,

Stay porous change and let go of the hurt."

So this is to thank her, a few simple lines.

I know I lack depth and my style's unrefined

But I gave it a shot and so what do I care?

Cus with friends you can trust 

You need never despair.

Wednesday Sept 17th, 2014

© J.J. Bardsley, The Dharma-Farmer™

All Rights Reserved

*POEM POST* - "A Reduction of Sentence"

"A Reduction of Sentence."

If I could dream a dreamless sleep

Which lasts a thousand years,

I'd gladly swap it for this world

This lonely vale of tears.

But if I knew we lived once more 

And started life again,

I'd turn it down without a pause:

I can't maintain pretence.

So every night I go to bed

And pray I don't awake

To stop the screams inside my head,

To end this sad charade.

But sadly I expect I'll live

For at least one more day.

The dreamless sleep remain a dream

Another life away.

Saturday September 13th, 2014 

© J. J. Bardsley, The Dharma-Farmer™ 

All Rights Reserved

"Bringing Ballet to the Masses" - New Poetry and Mental Health Blog from the Dharma Farmer.

Hi everyone, wow, I can't believe how long it has been since I lasted posted! The fact is, I haven't written anything for months. The factors which have lead to this being the case will be covered more thoroughly later as part of this blog, which I hope to update regularly. The aim of this new column is to raise awareness and try to de-stigmatise mental health problems. I myself have battled (that word always grates on me; do I deserve a medal or something?) depression for over 20 years and only now am I able to write about it publicly. Even as I type, my hands are shaking and I can feel my heart beating in my eardrums,  throat and arse-hole simultaneously, which is a trifle disconcerting to say the least, and nowhere near as much fun as you might expect...

How did I get here? Are the hows and whys of a breakdown important? Or should we forget about attributing blame and focus on what we can do now in order to seize the initiative and rebuild our shattered lives? I don't know if there is a right answer, or indeed any answer. We are all so different, and what I find helpful, others may not. 

Be that as it may, I hope that in writing HONESTLY and without undue over-dramatisation, I can at least resist the urge to step out in front of an oncoming train for another day. I'm not even fucking about here. It's been THAT BAD recently, and I am scared. This illness wants me dead. I don't know how, but I'm still here. For how long, I don't know, so I thought I'd share my thoughts, feelings, concerns and experiences with others, both in verse and prose. I'm not trying to glamorise suicidal or destructive thoughts, far from it, but I'm not going to water it down either. If any of these issues affect you, please share with me and others in the comments box below. You are never alone. Never.

The fact of the matter is that I am not well. Some people on here know me personally, many are fellow writers, readers and People of Letters from all over the world. Wherever you are, my confession is that I live with both Depression and an acute Anxiety Disorder. It feels weird and painful just to admit it, and I still can't believe it's me I am writing about. But there you have it; I live with mental health issues.

Crazy, mad, loco, insane in the membrane, at half mast, psycho, 'schitzo, half-cocked, missing a few pieces of the jigsaw, loopy, crackers, not all there, not the full deck of cards, a few cents short of a dollar, potty, mental, fucked, poorly, unwell, going through the wringer - the list of euphemisms is long and inexhaustive. Yet with so many ways of conveying the notion that one is tapped in the head, lying zapped in bed or otherwise just plain nuts, isn't it weird that there is still such a stigma to mental illnesses? There might be two-hundred ways to say it, but so few seem willing to go first and step forward and say "yes, I am mentally ill - so what?" Online, under anonymity, perhaps, but not in the 'real world' of everyday "Joe-Public" society anyway.

That's not to pretend that I have never spoken to friends about it or that my peers haven't had their own plates of undulating bullshit to chow down from time to time, but I know of very few people who will admit to living with a mental illness in an ongoing way. Most people I know people, in their own words, go through phases of "being a bit down" or "feeling pretty low", but very few people concede that there are any patterns which suggest a chronic condition. For me it feels like an admission of a failure on my part to "deal with it properly", a stance as counter-intuitive as it gets. Before we can reach out and ask others for help, we have to concede that right now, we could do with some help. Yet in coming out like this, it feels like I am admitting defeat, so deeply ingrained in us is the stigmatism and taboo of metal illness. If your kidneys suddenly ceased functioning properly you would undoubtedly become very aware of it, very quickly, and you would be unlikely to hesitate to enquire of a doctor as to the sudden and alarming quantities of blood in your urine. Yet so it goes with mental health. In this day and age, are we still rooted in that primitive perspective of only believing in others that which we experience ourselves directly?

I wish to ask of all of us some pretty searching questions over the coming months; How do we name the elephant in the room without fixating on it? Moreover, how  do we subsequently adjust the furniture of our lives without being crushed by it's ponderous hulking mass? Is there a sad beauty in it's eyes, and if so, what is it trying to tell us? Thoughts for another time perhaps, but you get the picture...

I am not a mental health nurse, but equally, neither am I mental illness itself. It is something which is simply part of my experience, and constantly subject to change as much as the air in my lungs. I can catch 'flu, but I don't become influenza. Why is it that when the pancreas fails us and we develop diabetes, we are still considered socially acceptable, but when an infinitely more complex bit of gear like the brain gets it's synoptical wires crossed, suddenly we become (and often made to feel like) a liability to society? In a similar fashion, are sufferers of depression the victims, or co-conspirators  and wherein lies the demarcation 'twixt the two? 

I feel strongly that we need to start looking at the world around us and how we live our lives when it comes to cerebral equanimity and a heart at peace. My aim for this blog is to try and connect with others in a meaningful way, and by sharing my inner-most trials and tribulation, I hope that this "Diary of the Demented" will serve to remind me that this can happen to any of us, at any time, and in years to come, I wish to be able to look back and understand more deeply and compassionately my fractured sense of self.

A week or two ago, I was forced to keep a diary of my ups and downs over a given week, and reading it back some time later really shocked me - it was like it had been written by someone else. Anger, bitterness, destructive thoughts, hopelessness - all flowed out in place of the tears that so often refuse to fall. Our moods, minds and motivations change from moment to moment, minute by minute, and by tracing the arc of my own free falls, maybe others can find comfort or solace knowing that they too have equally fucked up trajectories. 

Please let me reiterate my salient point here: In spite of how lonely we may feel at times, none of us ever have to face this alone...

May we all be able, someday, to see the ballet in the bullshit, the method in the madness, the beauty in the beasts of our own minds and lives. Is it better to be going slightly mad and know it? They say that if you know that your grip on reality is of a disconcertingly loosened nature, then you can't be truly mad or beyond hope. Then again, 'they' say a lot of things, some of it utter bollocks, so who knows...

Allow me to finish with an anecdote, a true story. The setting is Wessex Studios, in the scorching Summer of 1977. Queen are hard at work on their sixth album, 'News of the World', from which was bestowed upon our grateful ears the timeless classics of "We are the Champions" and "We Will Rock You" to name but a few. In a neighbouring part of the building, the Sex Pistols are putting together their now-ubiquitous 'Never Mind The Bollocks'.... 

"So you're the bloke that's supposed to be bringing ballet to the masses?" asks a sneering Sid Vicious during a brief encounter in the conjoining corridor. 

"Ah, Mr Ferocious!" pipes back Freddie Mercury, "well, we're trying our best, my dear!"

I can't promise that my verse and prose will have the sublime grace of Swan Lake, but hopefully it will at the very least allow me to feel like something positive is coming out off all this, and for the twitching, anxious, scared or numb ones out there I want you to know that you are not going through this alone. I think that in some cases it can be very useful to remind oneself that all things must pass, and to understand that it won't always be this bad; if your condition is not actually 'curable' then at least may we be able to develop our own coping mechanisms which allow us to feel truly and authentically alive, and not just breathing.

Neither waving nor drowning, your ever-faithful servant,

The Dharma-Farmer xx