No one can say how much depression is a genetically determined condition and how much it is a response to lived experience. Whilst genetics cannot be ruled out, lived experience is something that must be ruled in because depression, like poverty, is a whole lot more than just a personal weakness, problem or failing. If […]
Tag: mental illness
Taking back our humanity… What nonsense is that?
I wanted to write a piece about taking back our humanity, but that didn’t seem right. What on earth was I thinking? You can’t take back something that you’ve neither lost nor forsaken nor had stolen from you, although through relentless propaganda the government and media try and, for some, succeed. I found myself laughing […]
Beyond the age of reason
We are not rational creatures, as a descriptor of humanity, we have the potential to be rational, but even attempting to be rational has subjective bias for all sorts of reasons including regional and cultural bias. We also use reason and logic selectively, prejudice is very real, but also irrational. We make no conscious choice […]
Life should be treated with awe and respect, not penalised
A letter a day to number 10. No 1,228 Monday 12 October 2015. Dear Mr Cameron, Just in my area this past week a 15 year old said she wanted to end her life and a young married man with two children has taken his life and these are only the ones I know of. […]
Iain Duncan Smith – work cures mental illness
A letter a day to number 10. No 1,189 Tuesday 25 August 2015. Dear Mr Cameron, It seems that the DWP has issued Jobcentre staff with pink suicide cards to be waved above their heads when anyone threatens suicide. I have to commend Iain Duncan Smith on this initiative, it is an excellent idea whose […]
Mental ill health, top target for sanctions
A letter a day to number 10. No 1,171 Friday 07 August 2015. Dear Mr Cameron, As we know only too well, to the Tories our minds don’t matter. What we think, feel, care about or for, our considerations on any matter simply don’t matter. Why would our minds matter when all we are, as […]
The Tories, not a shred of common human decency
A letter a day to number 10. No 1,157 Friday 24 July 2015. Dear Mr Cameron, Authoritarian Conservatism is a combination of emotionally (anally) retentive Victorian paternalism with the colonial mindset of conquest and ownership. It is socially corrosive and divisive and fundamentally dishonest in its self righteous attitude of ‘don’t do as I do, […]
The Tories have no place in a civilised nation
A letter a day to number 10. No 1,129 Friday 26 June 2015. Dear Mr Cameron, One nation, eh Mr Cameron? One nation divided by the Tories. I don’t know whether you noticed, but somewhere up to 250,000 people had something to say about your ideological austerity the other day in London and DPAC visited […]
Welfare dependency is a life line, not a crime
A letter a day to number 10. No 1,128 Thursday 25 June 2015. Dear Mr Cameron, Before I get on to welfare dependency today, let’s just clear up the issue of those who abuse the system. It is part of the great diversity of human nature that some people will always take advantage of situations […]
A hand to mouth existence and Cameron’s “culture of entitlement”
A letter a day to number 10. No 1,098 Wednesday 27 May 2015. Dear Mr Cameron, However you look at it and whatever you believe we are only short term tenants of this world, no rent is demanded, and ownership is a ridiculous construct of human arrogance. The Earth gives extravagantly to us in wonderful […]
Fear and Loathing in Great Britain 