The rationale for this blog

This is part of my 2010 wellness campaign. Having just spent 35 days in hospital (again) I had the time to read (and reflect upon) the book, Spike Milligan's Box 18, compiled by his friend and editor Norma Farnes. IT occurs to me that like pike I have a secret Box 18 although my recordings are scattered amongst 30 A4 ring binders, numerous hand written and partially completed journals, work diaries, and archive boxes of articles, cartoons, clipping and general detritus that I have saved as inspiration tools.

Over the past three years doing my PhD (and even during my preceding two years of Masters study) I have forced my body to ignore and push through my chronic mental illness. I have only ever allowed myself down time for physical mental reasons... migraine, having been hit by a car, having parathyroid glands removed, having lymph nodes removed, skin cancer removed and finall lap banding surgery. All these have hapily co-incided with severe bouts of clinical depression which I could hide away from, personally and professionally. I live in a household of two males where mental illness remains stigmatised and often seen as self-serving and manipulation.

At work I am only ever viewed as a professional if I can keep my highs and lows within what is considered the 'normal' range, even though I am considered to be quiet 'out there' in my grey zones!. Normalcy just does not enter my vocabulary as it applies to the outide world. I can only ever approximate normalcy and under careful medication.

I am therefore perceieved to be professionaly 'unstable, irrational, unreliable, and at times a total pain in the arse if I am cycling towards mania.' Yet this is how I cope with extreme work loads and actually get things done. The corollary of course is a massive drop from mania to the darkest depths of despair and self-hatred.

Bi-polar Mood Disporder (or my preferred pre-sanitized version Mani Depression)is perhaps one of the most debilitating yet misunderstood of the mental illnesses. Thanks to Hollywood everybody thinks they understand Austism/Aspergers (think Rainman and a Beautiful Mind), they understand psychosis and breakdown (think Shine), or Depression, post-partum depression (how many soapies could I list here), and of course Schitzophrenia ( Sybil), then recently Dissasociative disorder (Altered States of Tara.

Hollywood and pop culture have also pitched a 'sanitized version' of BMD. It afects many 'creatives' who speak out from the height of their achievements and positions of fame. Therefore, like ADHD before it, it is totally over-diagnosed as it is now the 'in' mental disorder for adults who experience reasonably normal mood state alterations across periods of their lives.

Let me disavow any of you self-diagnosing this condition. It is NOT GLAMOUROUS. We are not all GENIUS/CREATIVES. We are everyday people dealing with extremes that NO-ONE would wish to experience. Ask any true Manic Depressive and they will be reluctant to change a thing... they would not contmeplate medication bacause the highs are too intense and to seek a life without them seems to be too high a priceto pay. Even the darkest suicidal despair is preferable to living in the medicated grey zone.

Well my friends, I chose 21 years ago in an attempt to live in the medicated grey zone. I have only attempted suicide once in this period (despite numerous suicidal ideations), and have only reached the very lowest level of mania once (most recently between August 2009 and hospitalisation Feb 24, 2010. For those of you who think I am 'over the top'.... guess what that's my nearest to normalcy I can achieve. To do this I have been on a reasonably stable dosage of daily medications. (Prozac and Epilim). Like an insulin diabetic these are necessary for my survival and I no longer rebel against taking them.

So why talk now? It is because 2010 is my year to live and do more than 'just cope' with life. I cannot worry constantly about financial instability and job insecurity. This alone makes me vuknerable to depressive swings (as it does anyone), however for me the swing is more a plummet... towards paralysis and total disintegration. I just want to die. Although now at 53/4 I can agree with Stephen Fry in his own words... "I want to die, I just do not want to kill myself". This is my current battle... to not just lay down and wish for death and respite. I no longer have the youthful impulse to act on these messages from my brain. I have seen the effects of this action on those left behind and even in my darkest days I cannot wish this on anyone close to me. I do not hate them that much.

Why now yo may ask.... well it was the timely re-screening of Stephen Fry's The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive on the biochannel on Foxtel that made me decide to blog through this coming year. I had of course seen this before on ABC TV but this time my inspiration has been some women he interviewed. The first is a practicing GP who believes that she has maintained mental health through Omega 3, Flaxseed oils and diet. This is something that will be complementary to my dietary changes post-lapband and it also just makes sense to me also, with al the research around brain chemistry and Omega 3s. Also the woman (accountancy background) who is mapping her mood swings and cycles with her partner on a spreadsheet. Oh how organised is that... and does that not play right into my obsessive compulsive tendencies also? Lastly the young girl who together with her family has a chart listed on the kitchen cupboards to monitor thoughts/feelings and attempt to pre-empt major swings.

I know that having been sujected to several medication 'readjustments' over the years I can use a similar tool, although the big guns I feel I need right now (valium and temazepam) are denied me. I am cold turkey after a prolonged stint in hospital. I am replacing these with (sunlight... vitamin D, exercise... endorphins, and lastly yoga for tranquility and breathing techniques to enforce positive sleep routine).

Another timely moment was when the parents of a suicidal girl describes her feelings that she "could never be exceptional again" and her only choice was to jump in front of a train... I really identified with this feeling. My current work and study situation has my thoughts and feelings hovering right there on the precipice... but I can stand back and see/hear these things, therefore I can put in place interventions to not act upon the impulses.

My work and study has probably pushed me to this precipous also. Whereas the GP in Stephen's doco laughs that her workplace likes to see itself as suppotive and modern, by accepting her illness like any other disability... she laughingly calls herself "their token loon"... my supposedly educated and enlightened workplace cannot adapt to a "token loon", despite all the policies to poke a proverbial stick at. I challenge the norm. I defy people's expectations of student/academic/woman. I am the 'problem' needing to be controlled or eradicated... not accepted and allowed the liberties once granted eccentrics in the Academy in years gone by. Is it any wonder survivors of this disease cluster in the creative sircles where deviance is accepted and even tacitly encouraged. Ah the 'night people"... I miss you all so.

But I cannot go back there, no matter how much I long to return to my twenties. I have responsibilities that I can no longer simply run away from, at this stage in life and I am choosing not to.

The other thing is that in the blogs posted after the screening of The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, many noted how his interviews were skewed because the subjects ahd family support networks and appeared to be financially cushioned... rather than homeless and disempowered by their illness. I sit here in 2010 between both. I am so grateful to have had a PhD stipend as a safety net; yet the emotional price paid for $11.84 per hour/ 38 hour week has been quite disabiling and destabilising with pressure and expectations from 'outside". I am now angry and that is good... anger draws andrenaline and I fight back from the depths. I am worth more than $11.84 per hour. My skills are equal to that of a basic tutor $90 yet as a researcher I can only aspire to an additional eight hours at $33 per hour.... well forget it. Roll on full-dispability pension, and my need to pay my private health insurance. If that means food vouchers so be it!

I cannot work at my most productive at a University where staff earn over $100K (often in dual income households) and expect mature-aged students carrying full family responsibilities to juggle these demands... and that's even the 'sane' ones, let alone those of us with menatl illness. The system sucks!

2010 I am going to survive. I am going to do all I can to publicise the illness I endure and to present at the highest academic level globally WITHOUT the assistance and SUPPORT of my University. They don't give a rats. PhD students only equal government dollars and points on the metrics used to calculate "quality assurance measures" and 'research outputs". I am sick of being seen as a problematic liability not producing at the desired 'output rate'.

Australian Higher Educational corporate managerialism has gone too far and must be turned around for the benefit of students, staff and the community at large. This eof us silly enough (or sick enough) must speak out, and do so loudly.