Todays rant - 26th February 2008 Mental Health

Here we are again, a week on and I am in a hotel again, actually, I am in my usual hotel up North. Here I am quietly sat here "ranting" away and pondering on all that I have heard today or read in the Times!! My VOIP is fine, my mobiles are turned on and so is the television, and yet, now I am pondering. So here it is..........

According to the media anti-depressant pills are generally no better than a "sugar pill" and whilst last year saw 16 Million prescriptions given out to "depressed" people now most of these were no better than handing out Smarties instead.

The cost to the NHS was around £291 Million and a staggering £120 Million of this was spent upon SRRI type of medicine that this survey states is "useless".

Figures would say that as many as 1 in 5 people suffer from (or at some time have or will) depression requiring drugs. That really shows that at some point we will ALL know a number of people who are suffering.

So in reality what is really needed as a help for all of us?

The NHS currently has plans to train around 3600 therapists in an attempt to boost the levels of counselling available to the "man on the street". This additional assistance will cost around £30 Million extra in costs of therapy. Is this extra money going to help? Is the extra therapy available going to offer assistance either alone or in tangent with medicine?

SRRI medicine (Prozac, Efexor etc) is now seen as a placebo, however, is eveything potentially a placebo. If Strawberry liquorice helps ease the symptoms of depression is this not as viable as Prozac. So should the patient be prescribed a non-pill working on the assumption that for most people they believe they are being cured so they are being cured.

SRRI medicine helps a large number of people. Medically these inhibitors actually do somewhere along the lines provide some sort of assistance. If a person who is suffering sees their doctor it is that GP's aim to provide a solution to the problem, quickly, as in most cases the aim of the doctor is purely to ease the pain and suffering of the patient. And in a short term crisis, placebo or not, medicine offers an aid.

What if a doctor prescribes a "bread pill" ? they know it does nothing medically, but potentially as a patient feels they are being helped it is a win-win scenario, and a patient is not polluted by medicine.

But what if the placebo actually provides no help, what if the "bread pill" has no effect and the person being treated gets more ill, actually dies or as a result of the illness performs a hideous crime.

A doctor could argue that obviously the medicine has not worked, but, if the medicine is a non-medicine it will never work. Whilst the GP may well make the decision to go the placebo route can this be defended? is it fair on the doctor to have this responsibility on their shoulders solely?

I say NO. It cannot be right to allow a doctor alone to be forced to make this potentially life threatening decision. And maybe, just maybe, I can offer a solution -

The NHS are spending a lot of money making sure they have therapists and counsellors in place to provide assistance to "ill" people. These are trained professionals who in theory can help the patient and also provide feedback and concerns to the doctor.

I suggest that on initially seeing a suffering person the doctor needs to solve this problem without leaving themselves wide open to any recourse from a victim or their family. Physical medication may do very little, but, inhibits something and, possibly more importantly, (and I apologise for this thought) protects the GP from legal action as a result of the placebo solution being discovered either by the patient or a possible victim or family.

The patient then needs to see a therapist as a matter of urgency in order to fully evaluate the actual requirements of the indvidual.

Only through this combination of treatments can the true needs be evaluated and then delivered. Succesfully now rather than merely as a text book describes and to the best of the abilities available.

There is another possible success from this course of action. By providing a combination therapy the cost of solution should lessen. Currently the use of prolonged medical therapy is costly, then add this to a limited number of therapy sessions and the cost becomes greater.

An action where the need for long term medicine is reduced, effectiveness is increased and as an added bonus cost is lessened can only provide a winning situation.

It may be asked why can I rant on such a subject as a result of merely reading the Times and hearing the news?

I am one of the people classed as one of the 1 in 5. I cannot hide the fact that I openly "lost the plot" over a number of issues, my nature, ability to sweep matters under the carpet and my complete inability to ever admit anything was wrong.

I am lucky I have a fantastic GP who recognised what I needed, provided a medical solution and therapy through the CBT method of counselling. I have been ill, I am recovering. I still wobble and I still struggle to verbalise to my wife everything I should, which leads me to "clam up" when I should try to explain what is needed or happening.

I still see my GP a lot and she also makes sure I make appointments regularily to see her. I used my prescribed CBT not always in the best manner. Often I used these sessions as a sounding board for my personal issues and to advise upon questions or problems I may have had. My counsellor also was able to update my doctor on issues she saw and felt relevant. I could not ask for more.

So I suggest that the NHS actually spends some time looking at what is really required and not what is most pleasing to everyone. Maybe then a true solution to the problem can be delivered.

I will welcome the comments of others..................

20th February - Todays "rant" and worry

Here we are again, another day and another night in a hotel room and another night away. I am at my office again, and staying in my usual hotel!!

I drove up the M6 today and listened to the radio, catching up on the news and events. Well here is the rant, actually today it is more of a question and I am confussed to say the least. Either way I heard two pieces of news today that have left me "cold" and for the first time actually questioning what have our children got to face??

I listened in awe today at (amongst other things) the pieces of news stating that a 17th young person has commited suicide in Bridgend for no apparent reason and at the same time another young person has been knifed to death in London.

So we have two apparently unrelated deaths 200 miles apart. Two tragic ends to short lives, without either party having had chance to achieve anything except for the "15 minutes of fame" (thank you Andy Warhole) that these deaths have achieved.

My confussion I need to explain in a twofold manner, so here we go -

The Stabbing -

As I grew up I knew lots of people, I had friends throughout the country through a youth movement I belonged to, and I had lots of friends in London. As I reached my formative late teens my social circle was based around London and the Chilterns. I still see some friends now, I was best-man to one of them. I started school with a certain special, (then) little girl, who I still look upon as one of my greatest friends and without a doubt my soulmate and "ear" to rely upon, you know who you are!! I met my now wife when we were 18 and we have never really been apart since.

Amongst all of these friends and associates I do not know of 1 incidence of knife crime amongst us or of any of us carrying a knife. My wife also had a varied and wide social circle based around the Reading area. She also cannot relate to knife crime.

So I thought I needed to ask around, ask amongst people who had teenagers, like us, as they grew up. Not one of these throughout the whole UK can relate to knife carrying.

Now what this actually does is highlight the issue. Although I would dispute it, as would all of the people I know, my upbringing and friends have been held within a very "closed" environment. We all say we are blue collar, we all say we mix with all classes and colours. I now say NO we don't. If we did we would have seen knives and the results of these in practice.

This situation shows that the knife crime we seem to hear about weekly is actually very localised within a small element of society. The question therefore is what can be done to slow down this spread. Sociology has already shown that "trends" will filter across to all areas of society. What is localised today will potentially become a nationwide epedemic as natural osmosis leads to a spread of the problem.

The Suicides -

And this naturally brings the thought round to Bridgend. Originally 1 poor soul used suicide as a way out. His friends are shocked. I looked at BEBO earlier, this is a scary site as you can post whatever you like. And thus through natural word of mouth and BEBO reading and sociological filtering throughout the social circle the current suicide rate is 17.

Again, the circle I move within has not experienced this. We all lost friends to accidents, but these could not easily be copied. Suicides can.

This is the real issue with both knife crime and suicides.

And here is my confussion and worry - Why would you choose to copy knife crime or suicide? Does this "crime" guarantee the fame that is craved but not achievable? Does the current craving for fame at any cost mean that the cost can be the ultimate sacrifice in the quest?

What can a Father do to stop children reaching their late teens and viewing suicide or murder as a "cool" way of ensuring their fame? By the time the parents of current infants have children of this age osmosis will mean the epedemic may well of spread dramatically.

I ask as a worried parent, who hopes my childrens current sense remains, what can we do? How do we protect our children? and how do we act to try and stop the spread of this culture of craving fame at any cost?

An Apology First....... Then a Small Thought

Firstly I must apologise for my apparent tardiness at adding thoughts and rants to this Blog. My only defence is one of technology, my laptop gave up the ghost, the home PC's I have that the children and my wife use I could not get on with and it has taken until now to get fully (ish) back up and running. Now I just complain a lot as the buttons on my new laptop are in different places to those on my old. You would have thought that it wouldn't be asking for much if the manufacturers of machines could just agree on a format..... Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Gateway etc but all different!!! the same until you try and delete an item and find yourself "home" or "end" and all you want is to knock out a letter that should not be there to start with!!!!!!!!!!!!

But enough, here is a thought derived from my current (or always had) strangeness and my new found desire to question things that I have never looked at before..........

Many, many years ago Adam and Eve lived in "paradise", everyone loved everyone. Cats and dogs lived together, snakes and serpents walked around, and lions never ate giraffes!! Everyone could understand each other and they all lived together.

Then out of the blue a cunning serpent suggests to Eve that she tries an apple, after all it is only an apple. He knows the fruit is forbidden but hey, who would know? and if they did then what? Well the rest as they say is history......

Now my thought stems a little bit left of centre and has been started after I began looking through an unpublished work of my Late and Great Grandfather about sex in the bible. This work is not a saucy piece of literature as such, although pretty frank, but more a questioning book that explores the hows and whys.

Why did Eve tell Adam to put on a figleaf to cover "his bits"? Why does she cover her breasts and "bits" as well? I am not suggesting that we should all be nude, but why cover the sexual organs if she never realised they were "interesting"?

Why does Eve not say "Adam, cover up your feet, you'll get cuts all over them and put blood on the grass bed covers!" or why not "Adam will you put some leaves on your chest before you catch a nasty cold, honestly look at you stood there with nothing to keep you warm, you will catch your death"

No Eve covered her genitals and then told Adam to do the same. Never mind the cold, never mind the odd cut, just get those dangly bits covered before all and sundry start pointing!!

Now all of this happened a long long time ago, the jewish year is 5768, so why??

In 5000 years time is everyone going to be "Potters or Voldemorts" depending on the religion they follow? Be honest the bible is a fantastic work of literature, in a few thousand years time will the Harry Potter books of today be viewed as fact not fiction?

So I guess my thought is two fold -
1) Why did life as we know it begin with Adam and Eve and their banishment from the Garden of Eden?
2) Was the bible a reality when first written or was it the "novel" of its time?

Now I am anything but a non-believing heathen. My belief and faith if anything is now growing, although I would still question if I believe in a religion as such or more in a faith of some describution. My current personal situation means I now am actually "believing" and questioning.

Maybe this is actually the thought. We don't really care if the bible (Old or New Testament) is based on real fact. We realise something must have happened to spur these tales along. We all know how "chinese whispers" can grow a very small act into a huge life saving action from which all sorts of other acts grow. Can we assume that this is how the bible grew?

So faith today is not actually based entirely upon fact. We know something happened. We know somehow a chap called Moses was given some pointers to follow from somewhere. This is the 10 commandments we use as the basis of all living. We know somewhere along the line a chap called Jesus lived about 2000 years ago. Did he really feed 5000 people with a loaf of bread and some water, or was he a waiter of sorts who served a lot of people?

From humble and often insignificant acts whole religions have developed and these offer us some sort of comfort.

I question the origins, I question the reality of the stories, however, and this is important to realise, I do not question the faith these acts deliver.

And so that is my thought, do we really care where the Bible stories came from or if they are true. I say who cares, we want them to have existed, we want them to be true and from these thoughts, whether on a religious level or a faith level, we still worship and look towards something. The stability that this sense of belonging brings is enough for now. It is this the steadying thought that we must instill upon our children to maintain their stability and to try and give them something to cling to.

I know that religion is not the answer to all, but, it is the level of "order" that this brings that we need to impress upon our children. The small amount of respect that religion gives might just keep some from being wild and having nothing to steady them.

And that is my thought, preach and rant over for today..... But i would welcome other opinions????

Today - 5th February - Just a question.......

Today is the 5th of february, I am away from home again in Cheshire, so I can be at my office for a number of meetings, including a very important meet tomorrow with a key partner. I would like to be at home (3 hours south!!) but I have to be here. I know my wife is not 100% well right now and I know my children are a handful as well as also not being fully well, but I also know that I need to be here to sort things out and win contracts for the future.

Anyway, enough of my feeling sorry for myself, or trying to justify the fact that I am away. Here is todays thought, and it is a question of sorts as I am looking for the answer and not really getting anywhere.

I am sorry that this following question may be seen as a little "hippy-dippy" but I guess this just shows my strange state of mind!!!

What really happens when a person passes on? Jacky Newcomb clearly believes in an afterlife. She believes in contact and also in "guardian angels". As far as Jacky is concerned when a person passes on they are not dying and and disappearing forever. A person is merely moving onto a "higher" plane and is able to contact those left behind for now.

It may take time to be able to contact the living. It may only be a brief and fleeting goodbye, BUT it is still contact of some sort.

Sometimes it takes the form of a dream, sometimes the contact arrival is announced by flickering lights or familiar scents. On other occasions the contact is through a familiar form, such as a specific bird, but in strange surroundings or an out of context habitat. Whatever the form taken Jacky is adamant, as are many, many others, that this is absolute contact and proof of an afterlife where already passed family and friends are waiting.

Now, here is my question............

I want to believe in this next stage. To a large degree I do because it is this hope that makes the future plausible. But in honesty, and purely as I don't know, does an afterlife exist. Is there some sort of life to move on to?

I know that my sister is adamant that my father (who passed away in 2004) is always helping her. When she needs extra figures to boost her sales at work, she asks for his help, and a sale walks in. Frequently she says she is "at Dad's" meaning the grave. My sister truly believes this situation.

A few weeks after my father passed my grandmother also moved on. I was close to my dad, and I was very close to my grandmother. Whilst I may have experienced my father's ghost I remain unsure.

I had some massage treatments a couple of years ago when I was suffering a lot of illness. The treatment lady announced one day that my grandmother was there and had been for a few sessions in the past. She also said that my grandmother had tried to pass me a tissue or piece of paper with something on it. I suggested my grandmother was just "seeing what was what". The following week my mother gave me a poem written down by my grandmother. Was this the note she tried to pass?? My mother did not know of this possible contact.

Now, all of this seems like proof, but is it? Can it just be a chain of coincidences and other peoples belief and wants?? If my father and grandmother are always there, why have they watched me have issues and problems without once appearing to me or offering any sort of covert help?

Has the contact actually been there and I have just missed it? Are my father and grandmother waiting for the correct time or a timely moment? What do I need to do to receive some sort of sign or contact?

I eagerly await any thoughts............

Today 4th February 2008

It is February, is this the "yukkiest month", is this why it is so short compared to the 30 or 31 day months?? Even allowing for this year being a leap year it is still short!! Or should we just say thank goodness it will soon be March and Spring can come marching on.................

And so the Rant -

I was out earlier today, I picked up my youngest from his school at lunchtime and then went to the local store to get a few things we needed.

50 yards from this store is a LARGE car park. 20 Feet from this store is a Zebra Crossing. Outside the shop is double yellow lines, and ALWAYS has been!!!

Why do people insist on parking on this penalty area to save a 2 minute walk? When there is more than one car here the Zig-Zags of the crossing are frequently parked upon.

Nobody seems to care!!!!

I know we live in a small village, but I also know this is still a busy road. Our Infant and Junior schools lie at either sides of the village and this road neatly disects the 2. This means either way the road has to be crossed.

Now the shop says "it is not their problem, and they can't stop parking outside!" is it not their problem or will the need to park in the car park stop the lazy people going to this shop. Will the shop's takings thus be down. It seems strange, most people illegally parked are going to "pop" in for cigarettes, but hey, who am I to bring this up!!!!

On a more seriousness note, what is going to happen when this parking causes a child (or anyone) to be knocked over, or worse killed? Is the car owner who caused it going to be prosecuted? Are they going to spend forever in remorse?

I have asked various drivers about parking here and I am met with sometimes an apology, but more often than not pure insolence.

I know it is "not my battle", I should and could walk past. But how am I going to feel when someone, young or old, gets knocked down when i might have stopped this. I don't want to save the NHS money. I don't want to do the undertakers out of money. I just want this inconsideration to STOP - before it is too late.

Any ideas??

Was he there.....

I sat in bed last night reading "An Angel by Your Side", by Jacky Newcomb. The introduction suggested I might relate to happenings that I did not realize were possible contact.

Spookily I am sure someone came into the room as I picked up the book. I thought it was one of my children at first but they were all in bed asleep and the door had not moved. My wife was still downstairs, was I sharing the book??

My actual experience relates back to 2005 when I was in Cyprus. my father and step-mother had retired there shortly before my fathers passing (late in 2004)from cancer. He was well known in Cyprus as he had had property there and been there for long periods of time for many years. This was my first visit since his death (back in his other property in London) and walking down the "main street" in old town Famugusta took 2 hours as everyone wanted to pass on condolences such was the effect he had on people. Honestly, Mr. Blobby would have attracted less attention!!!

Later that week I was by the pool, the kids were in the water and my wife was discussing something with our friends and my step-mother (who I am very close to) I was just dozing in the sun and after the emotion of earlier was trying to relax.

There was a small bakery next door that we used a lot, and often my father would go in there and buy pastries and sweets for us all to have for lunch and would appear next to the pool carrying the bag of food proudly, and my step-mother would tell him off for spoiling the kids and eating too much and getting fat!! but I know this was in jest as she really loved and still loves him!!

I was nearly (or maybe was)asleep, I heard footsteps and looked up. I was certain that there was my dad with a bag of food coming to join us. I smiled and sat up in readiness, I think I may have waved. At that point I came back to reality. My dad wasn't coming to join us as he was passed on. But I was so sure it was him and it had happened. No-one else saw, my wife said I had just been dreaming, the children were unaware.

I was shocked, and shed a tear, but also I was so sure it was true that I just felt sort of relaxed as this was "normal" happenings, and no doubt we would have shared a cheese pastry.

Was he really there? was I dreaming because of where I was and emotion? or as I now (having read the book) believe was he trying to make things like normal by bringing the food?

To add to my shock last night, not only was I possibly "joined" by someone, not only was I now believing I did see my father, but I could smell pastries and bread cooking!!

This smell lured me out of my room and downstairs, there was my wife baking Biscotti. Why was she baking at 11 o clock at night and why biscotti? She said "she just fancied" was this my fathers hand again...........

What do you think, or believe?? Tell me......