Whiteboards are remarkable.

Being in hospital really brought my life in perspective, by that I mean I could have developed a serious heart condition and would have had to cut down on Chicago Town Pizzas, putting several hundred jobs at risk.
Got a fair bit of work to do this week, all due in for the end of the month, a short story, a memoir and self assessments for both. I don't see the point in self assessments, we just seem to be doing the jobs of the teachers, (and I call them teachers god dammit, I hate the word lecturers, its far too near the word lecherous, I could call a few teachers from my secondary school lecherous...) they should be assessing us not ourselves, I understand the need for our own point of view on our work, but to ask us 'how good a job did you do with this task' will only be receiving one answer from everyone who answers it, which is, 'I did a fricking A job at it'.

Ever since I was little, if I was ever upset my Mum would give me money to go to the sweet shop. Thanks to Manic Depression I now look like a fucking American.

A little interlude there. Theres an article on The Guardians Culture website page, about a group of comedians and comic performers who are touring, all of who have or do have some kind of mental illness, their aim being is to show people that the stereotypes which surrounds mental illnesses are completely false, and have a stigma attached to them which has still not been completely ridden of. I remember talking to a guy who was at a case study I volunteered for in Cambridge about 2 years ago, the guy, a schizophrenia sufferer was explaining to me that the only time you see the words schizophrenia attached to someone in the media is either a criminal or the publics representation of someone with multiple personalities who has gone 'insane'.
In a large, representative sample from a study in 1999, 12.8% of Americans believed that people with Schizophrenia were "very likely" to do something violent against others, and 48.1% said that they were "somewhat likely" to. People with Schizophrenia are often likely to be targeted as a victim of violent crime, 14 TIMES, yes, 14 TIMES more often than they are perpetrators of the violence.
One more fact before I shut the hell up. Japan, in 2002, changed the name of Schizophrenia, where they call it Seishin-Bunretsu-Byo, or Mind-Split-Disease to Tōgō-shitchō-shō, or Integration Disorder to reduce the stigma surrounding the disorder, the name change meant that it increased the percentage of cases in which patients were informed of the diagnosis from 36.7% to 69.7% over three years, nearly double. Now give this a read bitches...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/apr/22/cracking-up-mental-health-comedy


My psychiatrist told me that to help my depression, I should try being a bit more optimistic, so tonight I'm going to drown myself in a half-full bath.

Love and Pets Win Prizes

Jc