Mentallyinteresting.org.uk-Update bookmarks

EDIT:
Thanks to the wonderful Georgia, I still have a Mentallyinteresting domain!  The new address is www.mentallyinteresting.org.uk so update your bookmarks if you like!

The Consultant

I have full RSS feeds on right now but I’m in two minds about it.  Some people like the full feed and some people don’t, so, if it goes back to a summary, don’t be surprised.  I prefer summaries because my posts are usually rather long.  It’s syndicated on Livejournal and a summary is a [...]

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers

Happy Thanksgiving!  I really hope that everyone can find something in their lives, or minds, or hearts, to be thankful for.  Gawd, that sounded like something from an advert for turkey basters. But I mean it.

Bring that minute back

I miss my dad.
That’s all, really.

Relax

The physical ills are still dogging me, I’ve spent the week mostly indoors trying to get over this feeling of bodily exhaustion.  
Anyone have any tips on how to relax for a person who finds it very difficult to do so?  I am incapable of doing it when I feel like this and I run [...]

Phew

Well, I did my interview!  It will be broadcast on Radio 4’s “All in the Mind”, Tuesday December 2nd at 9pm.
It was fun.  Claudia, who interviewed us, was really nice, as was Fiona, the producer.  I was very nervous.  I said bollocks a lot. I can talk for Britain but my words coming out in [...]

Love and body image

Dreaded introspection!  It’s beats outrospection right now.  I am being interviewed on Radio 4 in the morning and I’m really scared.  I am so glad it’s pre-recorded as there’s no doubt that I’ll say, “Fuck” a lot, given that it’s a word that I use almost as punctuation.  Mandy from Lifeboats Ahoy is also being [...]

How sexy am I?

They never tell you about the physical side of manic depression, do they?  The body and mind are part of the same family, and if one pisses off the other, there’s repercussions.  They body sends a plague.
I’ve come out in hives again.  Whenever I’ve run myself down with hypomania (and the stress, agitation and restlessness [...]

Anger is an energy

Hasn’t been a great day, really.  I am completely run down, yet again.  I have a knack for exhausting myself so every few weeks I endure a few days of feeling absolutely terrible. My own fault, of course.  It’s just my body’s way of telling me to quit messing around and to slow down.
It has [...]

“How Mad Are You?” and How Mad am I? The giveaways of being a little bit mental.

My pot plant, Brian May, has bravely fought for survival these last eighteen months when faced with the most seemingly insurmountable of challenges, such my forgetting to water him for weeks at a time, the cats eating his leaves, moving house and being dropped on the floor and my watering him with Diet Coke to [...]

Hurl abuse at me as I shuffle through awkward silences on Radio 4

CRAP PSYCHIATRIC JOKE FOR YOU: A man walks into a bar.  He notices that’s it’s full of psychotherapists.  As he struts up to the barman to order a drink, he’s stopped by a bouncer who asks, “Can I see your id?”
AHAHA. Ahem. (sly edit there)
Pretty please read my previous post called “Am I Pro-Psychiatry?  Well, [...]

Am I pro-psychiatry? Well, not exactly.

This is quite a long post, so get comfortable.
This blog isn’t one that is full of impassioned polemic like some others; it’s a very personal blog that’s exactly what it says on the tin; the life of a manic depressive and the many myriad joys and breathless excitement of living with severe mental illness and [...]

Suicide and laffs, eh, eh

This is a post happily about suicide but first…
Mix tape!  You can just listen to it by pressing play!  It rules.
My writing skill has absolutely deserted me of late and I am resentful.  Boo, writing skill.
I went on my weekly pilgrimage to the Noble last night.  Once again, I was over two hours late.  Thankfully, [...]

Weekend Mix Tape, Mix’d with Love: Great British Indie You Probably Haven’t Heard/The Songs I Sang When I Was a Teenager

There is a mixtape here for you!  And this time, you can just click play on this page and stream it easily, no downloading required!
Today I met one of my readers Giovanni.  It was good, he is, like all the readers I have met (and indeed, like all I have observed and spoken to here) [...]

Is it right to call the standard of Haringey social services into question? Yep.

No fascinating mood news today, except for the fact that my sleep is completely messed up, I have no idea how to remedy it, and as a result I am quite wired, wide eyed, completely distracted, shaky and odd-headed, but not uncheerful. I have the feeling that a few more days of screwed up [...]

Boring admin post

New colour scheme and stuff, hmm or hmmm?  And back for the time being are my eyes but I much prefer Vivian Stanshall with a ping pong ball in his mouth.  I am seemingly alone in this! I’m not fond of this banner at all. It’s so serious that I almost want to add, “funnier [...]

“How Mad Are You?”

(Watched it now, see below)
“How Mad Are You?” is a self described social experiment being broadcast tonight and next Tuesday at 9pm on BBC 2.
Take ten volunteers, half have psychiatric disorders, the other half don’t – but who is who? Follow this two-part social experiment to see if you can tell which of the people [...]

Come on Google Image search glory! Go away, depression!

Unrelated annoyance: the word “sexpert”.
If you Google Image search “bipolar disorder”, you’re greeted with a wall of glum females deep in thought and badly drawn Cerberus-like illustrations of mania (happy face) and depression (sad face).

Glum female

What seems to be clip-art for bipolar disorder.  And the sad face is blue!  BLUE! Geddit?

Argh! Although her depressed face [...]

Clang

A quickie…
One of my secret little passions is history, and recently I’ve been reading a lot about the most excellent Jeremy Bentham, one of the foremost Utilitarian thinkers, and a man ahead of his times, ahead of our own times, even. Likewise, one of my greatest pleasures is sitting cross legged streaming historical documentaries, [...]

President Elect Barack Obama

I am knackered and emotional but-
I was so nervous that somehow, this wouldn’t happen but it did.  
Thank you for turning out in record numbers to vote, thank you for your young voters who proved that my generation is not apathetic, thank you for ending eight years of Republican rule,  thank you for electing an [...]

Joining the rest of the blogosphere in asking: Who’s staying up for the results, then?

And my American readers, who’s voted?  How has it been at the polling stations?  What’s the turnout like?   I hope you put Britain to shame with your turn out. 
My politics are much further left than Obama and I’ve always viewed elections as puppet shows, but this is important, it actually matters, and it would send [...]

Six Reasons Why Psychiatric Treatment Has Not Been Pointless

I have been sleeping really badly lately and lumbering through the day smacking into walls, which is shaking my vocabularly out my ears.  I have edited this post three thousand times as a result.
This is going to be a long ‘un, so grab hold of that comfortable cushion if you have any you big girl. [...]

Need

I’m finding it quite challenging writing in here at the moment.  I’m really knackered these days.
I’m confused by my CPN, which I’ll talk about in a minute, but first-
sean connery fucked me
is the oddest search term I’ve ever had.
It’s reassuring to know that I’ve pegged you correctly in terms of ideology, or at least in [...]