Alpha Blogger

Now a completely irrelevant post but I’ll keep it up anyway!

Therapy Assessment

Or, “One hour of me feeling defensive and being asked questions like, “Why do you use labels like manic depression”? Because I have this treatable illness called “manic depression” and you were asking about it? I’m fairly well read when it comes to psychiatric diagnosis, mostly because I write this blog and like to be [...]

The Sane Guide to Living with Mental Illness: Medications

I was watching cigarette advertising from the 1950s onwards on Youtube today. It’s all very aspirational, grand cars billowing Camels smoke from the driver’s window, doctor extolling the virtues of Chesterfields and such like. So I made my own non-aspirational cigarette advert. Anyway… Here is another one of my more sensible guides to mental illness, [...]

Operation You Make Me Sick

I spent a good hour on the phone this afternoon to an eating disorder charity, Beat. I initially rang them to ask one simple question- “If I begin eating again, will I gain weight?” The answer was, “Maybe to begin with you’ll gain a few pounds as your body adjusts”. Looking down at my bruised [...]

Friends of the Madosphere

A question I get asked a lot in relation to this blog is- “Have you made any new friends because of it?” The rather blunt answer is, “Not really”. There is one actual friend that I have made from this blog, and a few acquaintances who I might be friends with if I was not [...]

In Happier News

Edited the link- I’d put the wrong one in there. But in good news, I received my copy of One in Four today, which I wrote for! In hindsight, the article I wrote is far from my best work but I’m still proud to be a part of it. The magazine itself is fantastic and [...]

Snake and Crocodile

Just popping by to gratuitously plug Rob’s new web comic, Snake and Crocodile! It features Snake… …and Crocodile… …with occasional special guest stars sauntering in to be cocky. Anyway, go visit. It’s brand spanking new so expect it to be updated regularly. Hurrah! (You may have seen two entries here today but those were mistakes, [...]

I’m not right now at all

Oh look! A lyric. I keep writing posts and then deleting them. It comes down to this: things are not going too well here, in terms of shoddy and desperate mental health, so I might be an absentee for a little while. I’d say, “Oh no! I don’t know what’s wrong!” and look innocent and [...]

Admitting to feeling like crap

This was a private post but I’ve decided to make it public instead.

Remember to Live

Anyway, as an antidote to the previous post’s misery (it’s relentless these days)… I’m not angling to lower the tone of this blog with titillation, but here is a photo of my “Memento Vivere” tattoo taken a while back. It means, “Remember to Live”.

“I’ll wish, and the thunder clouds will vanish”

You don’t have to read this, I’m mostly talking to myself here. It’s about my dad, and missing people, and feeling very sad because of it.

Thanks

Labels and language

Bipolar disorder is “just a label”. Not to me. I know mental illness is culturally and personally complicated. A faction, a rather large vocal faction, don’t believe in the existence of mental illness. There’s another debate about this over at Mental Nurse. I stayed out of it. It’s fair enough to hold your own opinion [...]

Shout Back

For no reason at all, tonight I’ve got suicide on the brain, which is why I’m sat over here typing because my head is screaming angrily at me. When I have a nice, blue skied, life-is-here kind of day when I feel depressed, I get the idea that it’s a good place to “leave it”. [...]