Schizopanic

2011-12-18T15:29:00.000Z

Still reading - in particular "Where good ideas come from" (Steven Johnson) and "Working effectively with legacy code" and to a degree "Grails in action". Mongoose's latest Traveller book is "Supplement 12: Dynasty". It's not restricted to aristocratic dynasties - all sorts of Dynastic Entities are catered for e.g. Conglomerate, Media Empire, Merchant Market, Military Charter, Noble Line,

2011-11-23T19:57:00.000Z

Still reading. Read "Pragmatic thinking and learning". Interesting. Currently reading "The Windermann Incident", a scenario for the Mongoose Traveller game. Listening to music helps with voices as well. Been watching some Cadfael DVD episodes. It's easy to see how people can be seduced by the easy comfort of TV as opposed to the more demanding (but more rewarding) literature world.

2011-11-02T18:07:00.000Z

Instead of staring into space battling with voices and visions, I'm reading more (just restarted reading fiction again - Interview with the Vampire). Am watching far less TV these days. Watched "As you like it" (Shakespeare, DVD) today and it was enjoyable. Am now running Ubuntu 11.10 on my NetBook! It takes a bit of getting used to but, overall I like it although a tweak here or there would be

2011-09-17T15:23:00.000+01:00

A few words on films... Jane Eyre. Chick Lit Flick. 8/10 Illustrates Jane's turbulent life. From rags to riches, she finally finds true love on her own terms. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Brit Flick. 8/10. A slow moving cold war spy drama. Some good acting.

2011-06-01T15:54:00.000+01:00

I have bought a sublime blues CD - Hugh Laurie - Let them talk. According to the CD notes, Charles "Buddy" Bolden is credited as being one of the fathers of Jazz. Born in New Orleans in 1877, he succumbed to schizophrenia before he was 30.

2011-05-29T17:08:00.002+01:00

It is time for Humanity to unite. We have an Old Testament. We have a New testament. It is time to start work on a Modern Testament, with a view to 1) having commandments that exhort ("thou shalt be generous" etc) and 2) have a built in mechanism for reviewing and revising the Modern Testament.

2011-02-12T17:17:00.000Z

He's coming home, He's coming home, He's coming :- Ri***rd's coming home :)

2010-11-29T17:11:00.000Z

I am trying to enable comments on this blog.

2010-11-24T15:39:00.002Z

Developing Inner/Emotional strength on top of character. You start off in life with Inner Strength - aka Character. Then if, you are lucky, you develop one or two out of Emotional Strength or Intellectual Strength which in turn wrap themselves around Inner Strength – like vines around a pole. The inner strength is drawn from childhood experiences (nurture) and sheer luck (nature). Different

2010-11-04T20:36:00.002Z

Still doing computer stuff. Trying to get an old PC working again instead of scrapping it. Looking for a way to use an ipod with Ubuntu Linux - apparently the smart money is on Banshee.I have scrounged an old PC from Contact - bought some replacement hard disks for it from Joe's. I like it. Have christened it "berners-lee".Still playing Traveller. Currently running a 10-parter campaign and its

2010-10-03T17:29:00.001+01:00

I recently found out a friend from Otterburn ward died recently. My sympathies to her family. They will be playing Radiohead in heaven tonight.

2010-09-10T20:25:00.002+01:00

Adopting F/OSSHere's a thought about the adoption of Free/Open Source software from a Gandhi quote:-First they ignore youThen they laugh at youThen they fight youThen you win.ProgressAfter a lot of effort, I'm getting my concentration back. I still have to pace myself, I still have to sleep a lot. But it is a start.

2010-06-03T19:07:00.002+01:00

3rd June 2010 Learning programming languages. In some job interviews, the candidate is asked “given a rating from 1 to 10, how do you rate yourself given that Bjarne Stroustrup is a 10?” Here is a breakdown of that scale:- 0 No knowledge 1-3 Novice 1 Done a “Hello World” program from a magazine/web site article. 2

2009-10-04T17:10:00.002+01:00

I'm still running a Traveller RPG. Just finished one campaign book - Project Steel. We're quite short of players.I bought a new Traveller universe / supplement book and a campaign book. Its the "Judge Dredd" RPG which builds on top of the Traveller core rules. And the adventure book is "Bad moon rising".On the computing side, my (7 year old) PC started developing reliability problems. I thought

2009-08-16T20:31:00.003+01:00

Right now America is arguing over health care reforms. Some of the opinions voiced criticise the NHS.Well, as a long time user of the NHS I would like to state that while the NHS isn't perfect, I would rather be an NHS patient than a patient in America.

2009-04-26T17:13:00.002+01:00

Unsuccessful slogan from the 1990's:-Go to work on an egg-head.Unsuccessful love poem from the 1990's:-Men are from MarsWomen are from VenusWe could have had the starsBut fate came between us

2009-01-29T19:33:00.002Z

Today, after months of preparation, I ran a game of Traveller using a pre-release of "Book 2 : Prison Planet". It is quite an achievement to get my thought processes going - enough to run a RPG.

2008-12-10T17:04:00.002Z

Thanks to changes at Contact, I am about to become a (volunteer) Linux Systems Administrator.2008 was the year of the Babylon 5 : A Call To Arms tabletop wargame.Been learning a programming language - Haskell - Quite Interesting.I hope 2009 will the the year of Traveller, a science fiction Role Playing Game (RPG)I am no longer a vegetarian - limited diet, too much cheese and sauces.New Year's

2007-10-07T15:31:00.000+01:00

Google.Still having problems with Google’s front end to blogs. Think I’ve worked it out for this post.Cognitive function.I’ve noticed that compared to some people that my thinking isn’t as rigorous as it could be. This has been going on for a good year or so. I’ve been referred to a specialized clinical psychologist. She interviewed me once a week for three weeks and then produced a report about

2007-05-30T14:18:00.000+01:00

I've had a bit of trouble updating my blog, now that Google has taken over. We'll see how well this turns out.Anyway, take a look at the history site of St George's Park, http://www.stgeorgeshistory.org.uk/site/ - it is quite revealing

2007-01-23T11:17:00.000Z

Back in the 1980's I had (an almost workstation class computer) called a Sinclair QL. It could multitask (via an operating system called QDOS, later on superseded by Minerva by QView), network and came with a set of free, bundled business applications (the Psion Xchange) had a vibrant user group (Quanta) which had a regular newsletter, a vast library of software available to Quanta members for

2006-11-09T15:29:00.000Z

Emotions.I didn't realise this until recently but... when you're not too hot emotionally, it can impair your ability to do things and think things through.Pixies.I've been put on Risperidone to get over a rough patch. It turns me into a pixie:)

2006-10-24T10:32:00.000+01:00

Literature - the opiate of the intellectual.When I was 20 and going through relatively minor, undetected, psychotic episodes while working at Grand Metropolitan Brewing (Systems), my coping mechanisms were 1) reading and 2) running Dungeons and Dragons games based in the World Of Greyhawk and 3) computing on a 68008 based computer, the Sinclair QL. At weekends, isolated and hundreds of miles away

2006-09-05T10:32:00.000+01:00

A city at warSchizophrenia is like being a city at war. No matter what hangs in your art galleries, no matter what is debated in your universities, a well aimed bomb (schizophrenia) can bomb you back to the stone age.Christianity and ScienceSome of my friends are scientists, some of them are Christians. Will the two ever reconcile their differences? Taking the science thing further, take a look

2006-08-31T10:28:00.000+01:00

AnniversaryI have been discharged from hospital for two years.Contact projectI started a project at Contact where we take in surplus computer equipment and pass it on to in-patients, out-patients and their carers.HolidayBeen to Windermere for a short camping break with the outreach team. It was good to go back to old haunts.Stigma and lazy reportersIf a person "with a mental health problem"

2006-08-09T14:38:00.000+01:00

I'm working hard to avoid DFCFing (Departing From Controlled Flight). People see a thoughtful, rational person but, like when watching a swan glide by, they are unable to see the webbed feet paddling frantically away.

2006-05-17T12:31:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, the new hospital staged a visiting day - before the patients were transferred - on a Saturday.The new hospital is a big improvement on the old one, even if I recall correctly it cost about £27m via PFI.However nice it is, it is still a hospital and I will be working hard to make sure I remain out of the hospital rather than in.

2006-05-09T11:09:00.000+01:00

Thursday 4th May 2006I am a creative. It took a while – reading books and writing articles – for me to work that out for myself. At school the *only* subject I was any good at was English – at least until Computer Science came along :)So what now? I'm laying down technical and story telling foundations. I've been trawling through Morpeth Library's reference section. In it I've discovered a

2006-01-18T11:14:00.000Z

Have split up amicably. Am single again. It was a valuable friendship that ended in friendship. Can't complain about that.

2005-11-11T18:39:00.000Z

My youngest sister, Katy, 31, apparently committed suicide on Tuesday morning, about 4am. Later on it was discovered she'd taken a small dose of pain killers - and with a lot of vodka, that was all that was required.Family flowers, everyone else a donation to the PDSA

2005-11-02T13:22:00.000Z

Coping strategies - battle for sanity. I’ve been having a bit of a rough time recently – the usual problems with schizophrenia. In particular, I’ve been deploying coping strategies to deal with the problems. I’ve talked to the Outreach Team about this and they are happy with the way I’m coping with things. In particular, while deploying coping strategies it is a bit like being a fireman in a

2005-10-14T19:12:00.000+01:00

Ways of thinking:There are ways of thinking that we don’t know about. Nothing could be more important or precious than that knowledge, however unborn. The sense of urgency, the spiritual restlessness it engenders, cannot be appeased.Susan SontagPeople who share with others are seldom hungry.HaitianThose of us who are forged in the crucibles of difference know that survival is not an academic

2005-08-15T11:00:00.000+01:00

Imagination:Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.Albert Einstein (1879-1955)German-born physicistExcellence:We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.(Aristotle (384-322BC)Greek Philosopher

2005-08-03T16:03:00.000+01:00

A Godly life is its own reward

2005-07-19T15:13:00.000+01:00

My rotary washing line disappeared over the weekend. So I told the police it had been stolen. Well a few hours later they came back with it, apparently someone had left it lying against a wall somewhere. That was really nice of them.Been working on the computers that Contact has scrounged. We're just about keeping up with demand.

2005-07-12T10:20:00.000+01:00

My poem is sublime because I can rhymeThe low down about my town.Berwick is big, Berwick is smallIt even has an ancient town hallBerwick has barsBerwick has carsBut I relocatedBecause it's isolatedIan B

2005-06-17T19:50:00.000+01:00

I participate in certain leisure activities and have a laminated business card with emergency contact details and coping strategies on it. What has this got to do with schizophrenia? Well, imagine being schizophrenic as being something like living in Japan. There are problems with flooding rivers and buildings falling down in earthquakes. In effect the activities and strategies are similar to

2005-05-18T16:19:00.000+01:00

I've been going through a bit of a trough. I've been sleeping a lot lately and my symptoms (of schizophrenia) have been more pronounced. I've got the latest copy of SuSE Linux 9.3 Professional ready to install but I just can't face it at the moment. In fact I'm having difficulty sorting out my bills and things. Although it's an unpleasant time to be going through, I'm glad that it didn't happen

2005-05-04T15:46:00.000+01:00

I've reached another milestone - attending theACCU conference and I didn't have a psychotic episode. There were a few moments where I was thinking "this is not real, I'm hallucinating" but overall things were OK.Since the last conference I attended, in Spring 2001, there were a few changes. Python had a stream for itself. So did security. And Template Metaprogramming replaced the usual talks on

2005-02-14T11:17:00.000Z

Things have been a little rough lately. I've become obssessive about checking my gas cooker, fridge, upstairs and downstairs taps, back door and front door whenever I go out. So I've been a little obssessive.Schizophrenia is like a banshee - it wails and your nerves end up like violin strings. When I go to church, I worry frantically about my house.

2005-02-09T10:43:00.000Z

My concentration is coming in peaks and troughs, I am experiencing voices and visions. Fortunately I have a little bottle of promazine (25mg) which I can fall back on when things get out of hand. I've sent off for two new books, discounted at the Register bookstore:- "Linux Kernel Development 2e" by Robert Love, Candace Bos, Jeanne Schumm ISBN 0672327201 which describes the latest (2.6)

2005-01-17T10:31:00.000Z

Not only do I have a New Year's Resolution to run a role playing game in the middle of the year, I'm also getting ready for version 2 of Open Office which is a free or open source clone of Microsoft Office. How will I do this? Well there are no free courses for Open Office but Learn Direct are doing free courses for MS Office and basic computing skills. So I've signed up for PowerPoint (

2005-01-10T10:45:00.000Z

I watched "Jerry Springer - The Opera" on BBC2 over the weekend. There has been quite a fuss about it from Christians so I was a little concerned but I thought that it would be better that I judge for myself. My final conclusion is that it showcased a lot of talent, even if it did conflict with some of my beliefs. All in all, Christianity will survive this. My main concern is : How will

2005-01-05T13:54:00.000Z

Good news! For the first time since 2000 I've had a Christmas/New Year that wasn't based at the hospital. I've made a New Year's resolution:- to run a Vampire : The Dark Ages role playing game. I'm taking Jan-Feb to absorb the rules, Mar-Apr to soak up the setting and May-Jun to read Vampyr/Medieval stories : see the White Wolf web site for more details

2004-12-03T10:51:00.000Z

Although I'm a Christian, I think its only polite to be aware of other faiths. So, yesterday, I bought a translated copy of the Qur'An (Koran) from Appleby's books in Morpeth. Its surprising how intermingled the Christian, Jewish and Moslem faiths really are. Now all I have to do is find time to read it properly.

2004-12-01T16:02:00.000Z

Just been to Contact in Lynemouth - it is different to Contact in Morpeth. Fewer people but still ok. Winter is coming - I've just had double glazing put in and it makes a big difference - I need to put the heating on less often. Christmas meals are coming and this is the first Christmas since 2000 that I will be based outside of the hospital and the first Christmas I will have as a vegetarian.

2004-11-08T10:52:00.000Z

On Saturday my VCR's front panel stopped working - I couldn't eject the tape that was in it. AW from the Outreach Team identified the problem and fixed it. Very good of him to do that, I appreciate it. I've got all sorts of paper work to do with being ill that I've been given over the years. I'm trying to be more organised. It all depends on how much concentration I can muster. I had a glimmer

2004-11-01T10:56:00.000Z

Well, sometime back I asked one of my outreach workers (JX) "How come natural selection hasn't got rid of Schizophrenia?". She gave me various papers, one of which is called Creativity, Evolution and Mental Illnesses. If I've read the paper correctly, it appears that schizophrenia contributes extra creativity to the general population. In other words, schizophrenia helps the group at the expense

2004-10-25T11:15:00.000+01:00

Well, its been confirmed. My meds/illnes is making me slur my words so I sound either rather dim or drunk. Sometimes it takes me quite a while to formulate a sentence which doesn't help either. I'm counting the weeks that I have successfully stayed out of hospital. This wednesday I will have been out of hospital for 10 weeks.

2004-10-02T11:52:00.000+01:00

Went on the coach with Contact to Skegness' Butlins on Monday (returned on Friday). It took over four hours. Made friends to a fellow singleton called Joy T. We were inseperable over the past five days, being affectionate, sharing experiences and talking about things. Butlins is mainly aimed at families - Joy and I mainly made our own entertainment and enjoyed the night life. We're going to

2004-09-01T10:59:00.000+01:00

Well, its been two weeks since I've been discharged. I've been meeting friends and generally getting on with things (cooking food, drinking wine). My biggest project at the moment is moving my furniture around in preparation for getting my (gas) central heating installed. I've found that having sky (the £20/month version) is helpful - there is less silence in the house which means its harder for

2004-08-20T12:08:00.000+01:00

I was discharged yesterday. But I've still got my social contacts, at Church and at Contact. The tiredness is still a major problem. And the Assertive Outreach team is keeping in touch with me to make sure things are going ok. And the hospital is keeping in touch, for about 4 weeks after discharge. Last week AW (from the Outreach Team) took some of us to the cinema to see "I, Robot" and it was

2004-07-30T13:43:00.000+01:00

I am constantly tired, due to medication. Today I slept in till 10am so I was late for work. Its a good job that I am doing voluntary work. It makes it so much harder to read YCDI!, a C++ tutorial. Some friends from Contact are coming round for Pizza tonight - JT, LS, LX and EX (with her daughter because it is so hard to get a baby sitter). It should be ok. Not looking forward to Saturday

2004-07-26T10:54:00.000+01:00

I was confirmed yesterday at Mitford. It was good. I think the vicar (David) made the preparatory work simpler for me because of my medicine making me rather tired and dopey. Other people have classes whereas I had informal chats and the task of finding a favourite hymn and a favourite bible quotation, I chose Mark 1 "I will send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way" and "Amazing

2004-07-26T10:51:00.000+01:00

I've got to pancake this baby - that is what I kept on telling the Birmingham psychiatric emergency team back in the 90's. Actually I'm not a cannibal, I used to be an aviation geek. At one stage I wanted to fly Sea Harriers for the Royal Navy but I got side tracked into computers. To "pancake" an air craft is to crash land it. So now you know

2004-07-23T14:45:00.000+01:00

Clozapine is like a spy satellite - when it is overhead (fully working on my body), my intellect and consciousness hide, leaving me much like a vegetable. I counteract this by having checklists of thing to do and by waiting for the satellite to go away (and can continue reading things like the classic book I am struggling to review, You Can Do It, by Francis Glassborow. I'm having to work on

2004-07-23T13:27:00.000+01:00

I am *so* nearly a vegetarian. When all the meat in my kitchen is used up, I will have a meat free kitchen and diet. Contact in Morpeth is expanding. I think it would be a good idea if Contact was open on a Saturday because most services stop at the weekend. Been for a walk with the AOT walking group on Wednesday, walked around a lake and had a soft drink afterwards. Last Saturday I raised

2004-07-16T13:05:00.000+01:00

This week I've been mainly eating Clozapine :) In truth, it is a worthwhile medication. While I was on Olanzapine, the meds trashed my concentration. When I moved to Amisulpride, my concentration was still poor. Then I switched, with many misgivings, to Clozapine. I've been on the Clozapine for a while now. When I first started, I had to have my blood tested once a week. Now the initial screening

2004-07-06T12:03:00.000+01:00

Saturday 3rd July. I got soaked travelling back to the Hospital. First of all. It was raining. That was bad enough. Then a part of the pavement lurched downward, soaking my left foot. Then a car sped through a roadside puddle, soaking my bag and right hand side. When I got back to the hospital I had a nice hot bath and changed into dry, clean clothes. I was going to go to Edinburgh with a friend

2004-06-28T10:38:00.000+01:00

Well, a lot of things have happened. On Wednesday I travelled (with staff and patients) by train to Manchester to attend the Hearing Voice’s Network AGM. We stayed overnight in a Travelodge near the city centre. The next day, Thursday, saw the AGM. There were some workshops in the morning and afternoon. In the morning, the choice was between a) the healing powers of crystals and b) setting up

2004-06-08T10:31:00.000+01:00

Lots of things have happened since I last wrote anything. It .looks like we will be pulling out of Iraq (I hope). Hopefully they will eventually enjoy their taste of democracy. My clinical psychologist and I have worked out a spectrum of mental capacity, ranging from being unable to listen to music to being able to read article to being able to read technical books to being able to function as a

2004-03-23T11:14:00.000Z

Well, what can I say. I am in hospital (still), with more medication. I've been very sleepy in the evening so I now get my medication at 8pm. And I've been drooling quite a bit so I've eventually been put onto patches which have medication in them. We'll see how it works. I've been going home on occasion and its been a bit freaky. Kind of bouncing off the walls. I've rearranged my old PC at the

2004-01-05T10:35:00.000Z

Oops. I've been readmitted again (as of 8th November) and my thoughts aren't exactly sharec by other people so they might be called delusions. The trouble is they seem so real and I was *just* about to act upon them when I was readmitted into hospital. So it seems the system might work. I get to go home occasionally when the outreach team takes me back to my house and check things over. Who knows

2003-10-20T10:38:00.000+01:00

Well, I've been discharged since last Tuesday. So far so good but things aren't going as smoothly as they could be. Going back to East Loan for the night provided some respite for me from living in the community / real world. I wasn't going there much but I still miss it. What happens to those schizophrenics that take a good look at reality and decide its not for them? They get discharged anyway

2003-09-22T13:45:00.000+01:00

Well, they do say you're never alone with schizophrenia. And they're wrong. Nothing is more lonely than being on your own with voices in your head giving you telepathic commands to attack people before they attack you. The medication helps, both the prescribed stuff and the additional PRN for emergencies. But it does make you sleepy. And less worried about the police reading your mind. Its

2003-09-08T14:21:00.000+01:00

I think I'm institutionalised. Don't exactly know what it means and various NHS types may leap at this saying NO!, you're far too independant. But my life revolves around the hospital and its an awfully steep gravity well to escape from. There's this debate about quality of life for schizophrenia patients and it still isn't resolved. Psychiatric hospitals everywhere are downsizing, with more care

2003-08-28T16:06:00.000+01:00

Last week I took an overdose. It didn't do any lasting damage so maybe God was looking after me after all. The voices and thoughts of self harm just got too much to bear while making breakfast so I ditched everything and took two days worth of medication then phoned East Loan while I was taking another day's worth. Drusilla on East Loan got me to stop taking the meds and I flatly refused to call

2003-07-14T10:52:00.000+01:00

TO DO: Info on discharge: 3rd DISCHARGE : forthcoming discharge with Assertive Outreach Team cover. Discharge Discharge is when you finally leave hospital. After you've been in hospital for a while either you're chewing at the door to get out, you're not bothered one way or another or you want to stay on. I've got mixed feelings about discharge, not being sure about losing 24 hour nursing cover

2003-07-10T10:53:00.000+01:00

The acute ward. If you are seriously unwell you get a trip by ambulance from Berwick to the acute wards. Its a long way to go by ambulance and it feels spooky looking out through the back windows of the van seeing Berwick slip away, over the bridge and far away. The acute wards are called Otterburn and Delavel. Otterburn looks after rural Northumberland's patients and Delavel looks after urban

2003-06-30T10:59:00.000+01:00

More on East Loan, the rehabilitation unit. Contact. If you have something to say about this blog then send a message to Schizopanic@hotmail.com. BTW Contact is also a charity for people with mental health problems run in Morpeth that meets at the Bridge Street Centre on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Its seems ok even if the average age is way above what I'm used to on the wards. I've been asked to

2003-06-27T10:41:00.000+01:00

Well this is it. Me a blogger. We all have labels to add to our names, one of mine is schizophrenic (see NHS Direct http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/en.asp?TopicID=404 for more details and see Google News for recent events concerning schizophrenia). Mental health is a bit of a taboo area even in these so called enlightened days. I've been stable for 24 hours now. Not as good a record as BSD but then