My little contribution to The Conversation online today

In response to a question in a discussion on meditation and mental illness. Finally The Conversation becomes one for me... hope I haven't pushed to 'boat' too far and shut down the conversation with my middle class/educated claim about research in this field...oh well will know tomorrow if these people get too busy or I have simply accidentally negated their discussion space...

Okay this one specifically to James but also to the other academics discussing this topic. One could say that meditation is simply relaxation but I think the tenor of the discussion is about its efficacy in treatment for mental illness. Thus, as I mentioned before this is not my area of PhD studies (I am doing Creative Writing and writing a novel), it happens to be one of my "hobby horses". Too often people without mental illness study and speak for people with mental illness. And whilst I cannot speak for others, especially not for sufferers of extreme psychoses, I have lived with these patients for several weeks at a time on numerous occasions. Ethics does not allow me to use their experiences for my own research; however I can make general observations and relate the differences to my own experiences.

Relaxation is fantastic.. no matter how one achieves it... through physical activity, immersing oneself in a book, listening to music, or gardening and painting... however, meditation is the active decision to enter (or attempt to enter) a state of calm and relaxation. So why does this work for me as patient?

In my depressive state, my mind is active, constantly spiralling out of control with negative self-talk, reframing my past experiences in the bleakest light, and projecting that feeling forward if I can conceive of forward at all. When in mania it is as the disease name suggests the polar opposite... my self talk is grandiose, expansive and totally unrealistic in the same sense. I do not consciously want to come down from here... the colours are intense, the aromas more so, the sounds so sharp... every bird tweet is a thing of beauty and wonder, even the sound of the wind is magical... why would any rational human (even non-patient) want to say good bye to this? It is enervation at its extremes and we know that inevitably the crash will be horrendous to the hole dug by the "black dog". It is no way to live a 'normal' life... so what can we do?

Learn to establish wellness, and a form of self-awareness that means we mobilise our resources. We need to meditate first (as painting just allows the driven mania to express on the page). We need to learn to quieten our mind... to shut out external aural stimuli and internal self talk before we can enter a state 'normal' people equate with relaxation.

And from what I have been told by other patients with immediately more debilitating conditions such as schizophrenia and allied psychoses, they cannot shut out the noise and voices... they are already outside, not internal self-talk. Sometimes they are even externalised to the extent that 'real' people or personas are screaming the abuse at them... the quietness of the yoga space just allows them an amplified space to be heard.

So why tell you all this. I truly want to be a part of an NMHRC or ARC working with experts in their fields (multi-disciplinary) to research this topic. And why me? With the ethics clearance procedures at the Universities and Medical Institutes, the researchers interview 'subjects' and then present empirical data analysed into a cohesive academic narrative Consistent with disciplinary specificity... what that means in practice and please do not be offended, is that educated middle class people filter the data through a number of social, cultural and semantic lenses first. The voices of the patients become lost or translated and no longer have the immediacy and dare I say it, even emotive/evocative power of ethnographic research data.

I want in. My whole life is committed now to bringing the patients voices into the spotlight, publically and academically. I can only ever speak as me, on behalf of me... but I know my lived experience has validity as data in this space. If any of you or in best scenario... all of you put up a multi Institutional-interdisciplinary grant app in 2012 and beyond... I can be interviewed for this role... and most definitely itching to be so.

May I just ask for opinions on this?

The other day I was walking along Spencer Street and saw the big screen on the Age building saying how this guy believes fat people should pay more to fly in a plane. Now I am sort of in agreement, but as a "fattie" I feel it is discriminatory. It would mean in practice that we would have to weigh in publically and pay accordingly. (It's not so much the paying bit that is my problem). If we have to pay more do we have the right to demand a larger seat so that there is no further embarassment trying not to spill into the person next to us' seat. I too hate it when that happens. I would love the option of paying extra for a wider seat... but not two whole economy fares... I am not that much over weight.

Even if I was it would make air travel available for only the 'well heeled' note not well padded. Does anyone know how embarassing it is to have to ask for a seat-belt extender. I do, I used to have to do that prior to my lap banding surgery.

I am also heartily sick and tired of the blame the victim approach to social policy. It is as if anybody not looking like the societal norm today is permitted to be publically humiliated and vilified.

There is underpinning assumptions that the overweight person is lazy and survives on a diet primarily of junk food and take-away. This is far from the truth. Metapbolic rates are influenced by so many things as well as the energy in, energy out equation.

Lack of excercise is an issue with overweight people but that also has a lot to do with discomfort when excercising or downright pain in the joints, and excess strain on the heart. So walk I here you say... well let me let you in to a little secret.

" I am scared to walk alone in public along even suburban and country roads" let alone the nearby beach. I am yet to have a leisurely walk to my local shops (1 km away) enjoying the sunshine and blissfully enjoying the fresh air and plants around me, before some low life... usually young and male sees fit to wind down his window and hurl insults and abuse in my direction.

I promise you these young men are no Hollywood stars in appearance, nor are they built like male strippers. They are often unkempt, weedy or beer-gutted! Yet society has taught them they have a right, no duty to abuse fat women.

Oh yes this helps. When a person is struggling with weight and eating disorders it is usually a sign of dis-stress and low self-esteem. Yep, calling out abuse is a certain way to get them to exercise and diet...NOT.

I am not even safe from the glares from other women or comments from the suited ones in Collins Street. This fatism has to stop. I agree being overweight is a serious public health issue, that's why I am tackling my problems on a number of fronts, holistically. It is also a reason I have private health insurance to not burden the public purse with my life-style induced illnesses.. and enough funeral cover to be a responsible parent.

Everyone I know says it is great when you become invisible as an older woman. I remember that phase... it was liberating. But now a few years later I am even more visible than every before. Shouldn't we be allowed to age gracefully. If we are relatively healthy, (no diabetes, high blood pressure, gout or other obvious symptom of serious obesity-related illness) can't we be left alone to slowly work on and with our problems without harassment.

Can some caring individuals stand up to these guys when they witness such cruelty and say "You are out of line buddy"... or is our society now cowered by these thugs? We of course can say nothing as we are praying for the ground to open and swallow us, or at least have an invisibility cloak tossed our way.

Great response from my meditation program experts

Given I had such a physically and mentally tough time using my new meditation CDs this answer actually makes complete sense to me, particularly the bit about bringing the stressors to the surface, hence thought noise!

This may be instructive for others feeling they too are meditating wrongly.

Carol-Anne, Should You Have an Active Mind When Meditating?

Back from the cyberspace black hole...

When I began a new job in May last year I became reticent about posting my wellness routine and illness monitoring in cyberspace. I also felt that it would impact negatively on my PhD studies as my superiors would read the "ups" and "downs" and mis-interpret them as periods proving my inability to function cognitatively at the level required professionally.

Well, I happily confess I was wrong. I did more damage than good. This decision worked so against my personal philospophy. There is no shame in having ANY type of mental illness, especially Bi-polar Mood Disorder. Many people live professionally rich and intellectually generative lives with this disorder, but despite many well-known people speaking publicly about it, there remains a resistance on the part of the broader community to acknowledge that we are "normal" and it is not just the celebrities whose wealth can shield them from needing to perform publicly when they are in the swings of illness at bothe ends of the spectrum.

If anything for performing artists, visual artists, and writers 'the public' almost expect them to show signs of 'madness' when being creative. So it seems that mania is fine on display as long as their is a willing paying audience to watch the creative process "live" so to speak.

But talk of the depressive end of the spectrum and it remians more comfortable for the community to not have to see it, not deal with it. We should all just hide away until we "snap out of it". Even those purporting to be supportive of full-integration in the workforce are not immune from over-reaction and stereotyping when either pole emerges (even slightly) in a colleague.

We know our extremes of illness and onlooker does not. So what for a "normal" person would just be perceived as a bit flat, a bit down or sad is seen as temporary glitch that will soon pass if ignored. As for the upper end of the spectrum co-workers and friends just consider a "normal" person's elevated mood as happiness and excitement, whereas for a manic-depressive it is perceived as a threatening sign that they are about to implode or explode.

I ask again of family, friends and co-workers to see these shifts in "internal weather" as indicators of deeper things at play, and not just in the personal realm! Look around you. Is the work deadlines untenable, the relationships in the office verging on toxic? Is there bullying, even not of the BMD co-worker, as we are sensitive to this in our environments even when we are not directly targetted.

Whilst pressure and work stress can be generative of high functioning productivity there is a very thin line between what is actually normal professional deadlines and expectations and unreasonable work practices and expectations. I am sick and tired of worrying just how much I show through my mood states publicly as I am still judged as the "offender" or "victim" rather than as (my favourite analogy), the proverbial canary in the coalmine... If I stop being up... and singing then the air around is perhaps polluted and toxic.

I recommend evry workplace and effective manager needs a person with BMD at work. We take the policies from the paper or cyberspace network and implement them on the ground. I am fed up with non BMD people advising me NOT to be SO OPEN about my illness as it will hurt my career prospects.

Well I'm sorry if my "managed and controlled illness" damages my work prospects so be it. I cannot function living a divided life. The 'real one' at home and the 'perceived socially acceptable one" at work or at my University. Bugger that this slpit has damn nearly hospitalised me in 2011.

I am now truly ready to tell people where to off being judgemental. My illness at least does not have a truly negative personality disorder directed at others! Most BMD people I have met tend to find fault in themseleves first and foremost, not attempt to bring others down strategically, emotionally or through malicious acts. These are workplace deviants, not us.

It is about time in 2012 that so called "normal" workers are held to account for their actions of a "behavioural nature". If everyone around these disfunctional workers were monitored and watch as closely as those of us open about our medicated illness, then workplaces would be so much more productive, inclusive, dynamic, creative and dare I say it... happier.

So rest assured dear readers you will be travelling along regularly with me, in 2012 no matter what my job or how close to submission my PhD develops. I don't give a toss about the people who really SHOULD not determine my own wellness.

I think I just might open their access to my Facebook Account and they can find their way here.