Tuesday, 25 October 2016

Some Corrections

I try to be as honest as I can and so I thought I would take this opportunity to clear up some minor mistakes in some of my posts. I also thought I would correct another mistake, not made by me but by others.

In the previous post, "Concerning Obama", I said that I started hearing Obama's voice in my head in late 2009. In fact, although I was, as it were, aware of Obama peripherally before then, he did not state speaking to directly until around the 10th of January 2010 (in Fiordland). The concert I mentioned was The Big Day Out, formerly New Zealand's biggest rock festival, which was held on the 15th of January 2010. Jon Stewart had been speaking with me directly rather than indirectly from about early December 2009. The voices faded out during the first part of 2010 and were probably completely gone by February or March. I should also say that I talk about these voices as though they were real because they felt real to me at the time.

In the post "A Sketch of my Uncle" I said that my uncle had nominated Roger Douglas to stand for parliament. In fact, my uncle nominated Roger's father, Norman,

In the post "The  Therapeutic  Relationship", I said that in Easter 2013 I had told my psychiatrist that I "hated" my father. This is not really true. What I really said at the time was that my father was an idiot - which is a little different from hatred. I also said in that post that, having defined the term, I would identify myself as a cat. I would now like to disclaim this and say that I choose not to identify myself as either a cat or a dog, as I always had previously.

In the post "Me and Jon Stewart Part 3" I think I said that the Daily Show screened in New Zealand TV in 2014 and 2015. Of course this is wrong. The Daily Show returned to New Zealand around February or March 2014 and had its final episode on the 6th of August the same year. This date is easy for me to remember as it is my mother's birthday.

I would now like to turn to a mistake I think others have made.

In 2008, when I was more or less well, I saw a Scottish nurse (not a psychologist), attached to the clinic treating me, whose job was to give me therapy or counseling or something. She worked closely with the psychiatrist I was then seeing. I didn't discuss much with her at these sessions. For whatever reason, I had little idea what to talk about and so generally elected to talk about the American election. I was on 2.5 mgs of Respiridone at the time. Around December of that year (shortly before the Neil Finn's second Seven Worlds Collide concert), I decided that I should at least try to talk about my feelings towards my family and mentioned some unresolved resentment towards my step-mother. Now, I think I get along quite well with my step-mother currently (she has sometime since split from my father) but it would be surprising for the child of a broken marriage not to harbor some grudge towards his step-parent at some time. At the next session with this nurse, she said something like, "You were telling me last time about your dislike of your mother." I said, "I don't have an issue with my mother - it's my step-mother I have issues with." All of a sudden I felt the dark wings of the Homosexual Conspiracy rising around me. Whatever she had thought I had said had gone in my record.

The psychotic episode that lasted most of 2009 began almost immediately after this conversation.

You see… the truth is that my mother is the only member of my family with whom I have had basically uninterrupted good relations my whole life. For most of my existence, through all of my suffering, she has been not only my mother but my rock, my best friend. She has always ensured I was kept out of hospital. I believe though, that because of this mistake, it went into my record that I disliked my mother. I believe that this mistake has followed me ever since. I think it has followed me, despite all evidence to the contrary, because it fitted the diagnosis my first psychiatrist made when he first saw me. In fact, if I have one criticism of my mother, it is only this – that she has always ensured I take my medication. But I can forgive her this because she honestly believed the doctors knew what they were doing.

It may seem a small thing but to be trapped in a system (I am still trapped in it) which can't even keep proper records is soul-destroying after a time. All the evidence since has surely pointed to the fact that I love my mother but it seems people in Mental Health Service can be deliberately blind when the diagnosis is made.

I thought I would mention one more example of clerical 'inaccuracy', only because I really feel the need to share it. In a previous post I described some of my interactions with a psychologist, also attached to the same clinic, in 2014. One day I described to him watching Jon Stewart the previous night and hearing him use the phrase "The best disinfectant is sunlight." I thought this quite profound at the time and perhaps still do. The psychologist said to me, "I think you said it." I said, no, I'm not clever enough to come up with a line like that, Jon Stewart said it. He said, again, "No, I think you said it." Interactions like this with him strongly suggested to me that he was deliberately distorting, if not falsifying, my record, purely to suit his own agenda or preconceptions.

Again this may seem minor but when people have the power to force you to take potentially brain-damaging drugs and even hospitalize you, it is important that they have some sense of who you actually are, when you are sick and when your are not, what you believe and what you don't. And accurate record keeping is a part of that process. The thing that makes me most angry is that people resort to the Mental Health System because they need help. And instead of receiving real help they are treated like they are stupid or like they are animals.

This may not seem the most interesting post but I think it important, at least to those who can read between the lines. I am tired. I slept poorly last night and the quality of the writing may have suffered as a consequence. I feel I should add one thing though in conclusion - when the Scottish nurse left the Taylor Centre some years ago she hugged me goodbye. The way she hugged me has made me wonder since if it was a guilty conscience that led her to do so.


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