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 burning building with other people (outside) commenting on the firefighting technique.

Distraction - battle for intellect.
I had a look at my expenses – books, music and Sky and I thought – three choices, pick two to keep and get rid of one of them. I’ve cancelled my Sky subscription because I want to spend the money on other things (DVDs) – and because I believe I’ve made more progress. When I was still on East Loan (rehab), I used to sit all day, drinking tea, watching music television and reading the Daily Mirror. It’s taken a while and I’m nearly but not quite there. If my symptoms are bad then I find it difficult to concentrate. If I can’t concentrate then I have to rely on music as a distraction technique. If the music doesn’t work, I have to rely on promazine. Depending on how well that works, I may have to have a chat with the outreach team. The DVDs will be useful because I want to run a Story Teller game (by White Wolf) and those games are like a cinematic type of Dungeons and Dragons game. If I get my concentration back, I should be able to read the game’s books, do a bit of brainstorming and ultimately run the games sometime in 2006.

Speech.
On Thursday the 10th of November, at the Hirst Welfare in Ashington there will be a “Well being for all” day, starting at 9:30. There will be various events but the one that has my attention is the after lunch presentations from local projects – I will be giving a 10 minute talk on my experiences with the Hearing Voices Network.