Monday, 28 September 2020

got a new dash cam!

Fitted yesterday, here are some tweets with wee videos, edited on Movie Maker, have now sorted date and time:


 


I find it useful to save some captures before deleting off dash cam micro SD card and to compare with future films if I alter position of camera on car windscreen.

 

 

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Justin Bieber - Holy ft. Chance The Rapper

Hearing this song on car radio quite often these days and liking it!




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Ain't That A Kick In The Head - dedicated to ECT/shock treatment



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Sunday, 6 September 2020

30 years in Cupar, Fife, supporting family & exposing systematic psychiatric abuse


[we came to Fife in 1990 to support family, and I did this, but my main work, unpaid, over these years has been to expose systematic psychiatric abuse and to improve Fife mental health services, including £4.4m new build IPCU/Hollyview Ward at Stratheden Hospital, without getting any support myself as unwaged Carer]

 



We moved to the Cupar area of Fife in 1990 to be nearer my middle sister, incase support was needed, and it was, she and her son moved in with us until divorcing her abusive partner, paying him off with her teacher pension.  And I then supported my Mother, by moving her to Cupar from Perth in 1993, into her own Bonnygate flat which I found for her, and she died peacefully in the Adamson Hospital and was buried (her wishes) in Cupar Cemetery.  I was executor of her will, researched and chose a good quality headstone from Leven Sculptor which would last, paid from her estate.
plan to move Mum's grave to Dundee after we move there
photo taken on Mum's birthday 26 June 2019, I keep her grave planted with flowers

Then I supported my wee sister in Perth after Mum's death by helping her access suitable council accommodation and linking her up with a former Church of Scotland Minister friend of hers who I had met at the Festival '99 planning weekend, Scotland Hotel, Pitlochry.  For I was also a Trainer/Counsellor at the Franklin Graham Crusade in McDiarmid Park [Festival '99], training folk in Dollar beforehand.

I took a job in Perth 2000 as FT Volunteer Manager at The Gateway, North Methven St, near where my wee sister had a council flat, and early 2002 she came off her Depixol weekly antipsychotic injection cold turkey, barricading herself in flat.  Her Minister friend kept getting on to me about this as did the St Ninian's Cathedral Priest, plus I had invasive phone calls from a church house group  I attended, linked to the Gate Fellowship in Dundee.  There were other work stressors, a bullying culture at the Gateway, linked to St Ninian's Episcopal and I experienced a menopausal psychosis, voluntarily entering Stratheden psychiatric Hospital for respite, and was detained, coercively drugged with Risperidone.

And then I needed support, eventually remarrying my husband, on our 30th wedding anniversary, 4 July 2002, for I had no other advocacy or help, and he's anti-psychiatry so it was useful to have an ally when meeting with the psychiatrist and tapering, coming off the psychiatric drugs.  My husband had stood with me before, in 1978 and 1984, when I voluntarily went into Hartwoodhill mental hospital, experiencing puerperal psychoses, due to traumatic childbirths and other stressors, and came off the antipsychotic Chlorpromazine, making a full recovery each time.  It took longer after the 2002 engagement with psychiatry, due to polypharmacy and serious side effects of neurotoxins.

 Water under the bridge. 30 years in Fife, the last 8 of them looking for a move out of Fife to Dundee. Long overdue. 

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Photos from a Dundee walk, Morrisons to Trottick Ponds, with my son Daniel, 9 August 2020





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Bonnie Dundee

Recorded this song, second try, one I like by The Corries, selfie photo from Old Claverhouse Road, Dundee, taken 18 August:





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Wednesday, 2 September 2020

safe houses for psychosis - a worthwhile aim

I don't regret applying for a PhD in Clinical Psychology to do action research on Safe havens and crisis Houses for Psychosis even though it failed to transpire.  It was a worthwhile aim and maybe sometime in the future it will happen on a national basis, not just provided voluntarily by family and friends, unwaged Carers.


I had hoped the Clinical Psychology Professors at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, who I had known since 2009, might have stepped up to the mark and supported me in my endeavours, and I studied their Staying Well After Psychosis book after receiving a copy from Prof Schwannauer.  However it was a disappointing read and I saw very little there which chimed with my approach to psychosis, altered mind states due to life trauma, and how to make a full recovery after psychosis/psychiatry, which I had done 3 times in 3 different decades, after coercive and, to me, was abusive psychiatric treatment in 1978, 1984 and 2002.
1979 photo with oldest sons Edwin and Angus, happy times!
1985 photo of my 3 sons, youngest Daniel, taken by me, more happy times!
These photos demonstrate how I managed to taper and get off antipsychotics, and from the space invasion, at home, a safe house after psychosis/psychiatric abuse in 1978 and 1984.

 It was more challenging to make a full recovery after experiencing a menopausal psychosis due to body changes in 2002 and voluntarily entering Stratheden Hospital for respite only to be put at risk of coercive drugging, yet again, and detained against my will until I swallowed the toxic chemicals.  Before long I was on a prescribed drug cocktail of 5 different neurotoxins, unlike 1978 and 1984 when it was just antipsychotic Chlorpromazine.  So I had to plan my recovery and work against the demotivation caused by the meds/drugs, eventually getting back to PT paid work in 2005 and FT paid work in 2006, achieving another postgrad qualification, in FE lecturing, care subjects, graduating in June 2008.

I sustained 3 fractures on my right fibula in March 2005 when only walking downstairs after a Cupar Library job interview.  I didn't fall or trip, wasn't pushed, my bone just fractured for no good reason, or so it seemed at the time.  Later, in around 2013, I found out via research papers that max dose of Venlafaxine at the menopause can cause bone loss, and this made sense of my leg injury and 6 inch titanium plate.

In 2016 I decided to aim for a PhD in Clinical Psychology after some positive Email engagements with Professor Andrew Gumley at Glasgow University MH and Wellbeing Unit, as I thought he would support me in my safe houses research and he did give me a very good reference for Edinburgh University:





Professor Gumley also invited me to speak to his class of 2nd year DClinPsy trainees, a day of teaching about psychosis/psychiatry from my Lived Experience perspective and this happened on 8 May 2017, an enjoyable experience, the first and last time of having sole access to Clinical Psychology students and writing my own script:

link to Surviving Psychosis/Psychiatry slides
Then the next day 9 May 2017 my unconditional offer of a PhD Clinical Psychology at Edinburgh University was withdrawn.  It was an upsetting time, I felt unsupported, hopes raised then dashed by my Supervisor Professor Schwannauer at meetings in his office and instructions given by him to my other MH Nurse Lecturer supervisor.  I realised it was futile to continue with the PhD without proper support and gave up the quest, externalising my emotional distress over many months and even years so as to get it out of my system.  Which I have done and wish them all well, the ClinPsy academics who didn't support me with Safe Houses for Psychosis.


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Tuesday, 1 September 2020

#DanielMuirhead3D through to final stage #3dflowcup20 - well done Son!






3Dflow World Cup 2020 website










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