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- Written by Marian Moore
Marian @ Krysan
THE WELLBEING CONSULTANCY
Planting Golden Seeds in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, and Durham
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THE PRAYER FOR PEACE~~~~~~
Lord, make a channel of Thy peace that, where there is hatred, I may bring love; that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness; that, where there is discord, I may bring harmony; that, where there is error, I may bring truth; that, where there is doubt, I may bring faith; that, where there is despair, I may bring hope; that, where there are shadows, I may bring light; that, where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood; to love than to be loved; for it is by forgetting self that one finds self; it is in forgiving that one is forgiven; it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
St. Francis
BLOG 3 - Wednesday 10 March 2010
W I L D H O R S E S
(There but for the Grace of God ...)
These are truly words full of wisdom and worth sharing.
A grandfather was talking to his grandson, telling him, "I have two wolves barking inside of me. The first wolf is filled with anger, hatred, bitterness and mostly revenge. The second wolf inside of me is filled with love, kindness, compassion and mostly forgiveness." "Which wolf do you think will win?" the young boy inquired. The grandfather responded, "Whichever one I feed."
I'm going to introduce you to a mother. She is called Hazel and she spoke in the slot before me in a northern hospital this week. Hazel was introduced as 'an ex-carer', the son for whom she had cared with such devotion having died three years ago. We learned that this young man had developed (as I did) the extreme symptoms of schizophrenia. Now, his mother writes, and shares with others, sometimes painful insights gleaned from her experience of being a carer. Through her poetry, she describes what it is truly like to be responsible for someone forever changed. The following poem has been chosen at random. It is about care in the community and is called 'Abandon Ye'.
Send them home to their carers/ We've given them all we've got/ They've had their allocation/ Though it was not a lot/ The funding won't allow us to keep them anymore/ So, send them home to their carer/ That's what they are for!
Send them home to their mothers/ For we don't have a bed/ And there are lots of others/ Who need their place instead/ We haven't got the money, the cash-flow isn't there/ So, send them home to their mothers/ The only ones who care.
Send them home to their sisters/ Or brothers or their friends/ 'Cos we've a line of patients/ That simply never ends/ Yes, care in the community/ That's the thing today/ So, send them home to their sisters/ Cos that's the cheapest way.
Send them home to their new flats/ With packages of care/ Except because of cutbacks/ There's rarely someone there/ The CPNs are loaded down and simply cannot cope/ So, send them home to their new flats/ Without the slightest hope.
Heartbreaking - yes - but this poem was recited by Hazel with love, kindness and compassion for herself, her son and her audience of student nurses. These are the young people who will one day take their place in society as Community Psychiatric Nurses (CPNs). They will become part of 'packages of care' and will be often stretched to the limit. Although, I know that care in the community worked for me, I also know that this is not always the case for others - and sadly never will be. With the best will in the world, abandonment and lack of hope will always be there for some unfortunates whose suffering and anguish I cannot even begin imagine. No system is infallible and some people do, indeed, fall through the net.
I come now to examine the indirect consequences of care in the community for other (equally innocent) people around the country. Their disturbing stories were told in a BBC 4 documentary beamed into our comfortable sitting rooms and complacent lives last week. The whole thrust of the programme was around failures in the care system. The documentary Why did you kill my dad? was made by a journalist called Julian Hendy. The programme told the story of his own father's death at the hands of someone suffering from schizophrenia. The 'perpetrator' was a mental health service user cared for in the community.
Of equal significance to an understanding of this 'stranger homicide' was the implication of mind-altering drugs. At first glance, this programme was surely a body-blow for the anti-stigma campaign of which I am a part. On second thoughts, maybe this is not so. Sometimes things need to be said and said with a passion if anything is ever to change for the better and I would defend Julian Hendy's right to a basic freedom in modern Britain, the freedom of speech. But, please, don't let that first wolf win. There is another way.
Exceptions don't make the rule. Many service users who have recovered have done so because of (and not despite of) care in the community. Maybe this is a good place to say that many of us also recovered because we made informed life-choices (1) to reject stigmatising labels, and (2) to reject mind-altering drugs. On the first count, service users like me have cause to wonder at an alarming intolerance towards 'difference' in society and this at every level. We are equally perturbed about the long-term side-effects of drugs on the delicate structures of the brain. These are the same drugs that some take by choice, whilst others (like me) have to be coerced into swallowing. For whose good? Sometimes I wonder.
We service users also know only too well about the super-human efforts needed to self-heal despite all the cards being stacked against us - all but one! Too often our insights (and those of our carers) are ignored by upholders of the status quo. I don't want to hear yet again the old familiar cry that lessons will be learnt. I want rather to see grass roots action. I love and admire the National Health Service and everything it stands for - it is our NHS. We all have a vested interest. Don't become an invisible patient. Speak out.I did, Julian did, Hazel did - and you can, too.
Why?
Because, one in four people will suffer from mental illness in the course of their life and this person could be you or someone you love.
UNTIL THE NEXT TIME
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