Wow! doesn't it look like I have been prolific this month. Sorry to
disappoint you but some of the entries that are not personal
diary like inclusions have been carried over from October . I
have been obsessing about them for so long , since the last
entry 22nd October, and I rather thought that few would read them if
I left them in the October page. Yes I know this is not in
keeping with bog writing as daily inclusions but as you know my
blog cannot work like that because of all my obsessing which I
have explained many times and yet again in one of the entries
below. As I said before its is regrettable but is I am afraid
right now this is the best I can do.
Also from this month onwards all quotes in blog entries will be
included in
this coloured font.
I have done this on my Sheep website and I think it makes it so
much easier to identify quotations. In some of the entries that
follow there are a good number of quotations and it can get
confusing.
November 1st
Recently I
received an e-mail from the National Autistic Society (NAS) of which
both my son and I are members. The e-mail concerned the Autism
Bill which has made it through its final parliamentary stage and
has now become the Autism Act. The Act is the first ever
disability-specific law in England.
Below is an extract
from the NAS newsletter
"The adult autism strategy
The Autism Act will guarantee the introduction of the
first-ever adult autism strategy, which will set out how local
services should be improved to meet the needs of adults with
autism.
The strategy will cover a range of issues including health,
social care, employment and training and, crucially, will be
accompanied by guidance which places a legal obligation on local
authorities and National Health Service (NHS) bodies to meet
certain requirements.
We continue to
campaign
We want to make sure the adult autism strategy is as strong as
it can be.
For this reason, we have launched ou
r Don't
Write Me Off campaign,
We want the Government - and the new autism strategy
- to tackle the shocking proportion of adults with autism who are cut off
from employment support or benefits. "
The idea of the very
timely "Don‘t Write Me Off" campaign is to try and
get the government in accordance with the new Adult Autism
Strategy to take
some positive action about the very worrying current situation
concerning the large portion of adults on the autism spectrum
who are cut off from employment opportunities, for those who are
able to work, and access to support or benefits for those who are not.
The NAS surveyed a
large group of adults with autism for their 'Don't Write Me Off'
campaign and found that:
- one third are currently without a job or access to benefits
- just 15% have a full-time job
- but 79% of those on Incapacity Benefit want to work.
The following is the
aim of the campaign:
"Adults with autism need a job when they can work and benefits
when they can't. We are calling for a national strategy from
the government to transform access to employment for people with
autism across the UK. We are also campaigning for a number of
measures to make the employment and benefits system fairer and
easier for people with autism including scrapping the need for a
sick note, making sure people are asked about their disability
when they apply and a better understanding of autism across all
Jobcentre Plus staff, who determine eligibility for benefits or
provide employment support. This should include the introduction
of Autism Co-ordinators to work with frontline staff, local
employers and employment support services.
People with autism are routinely being denied the opportunities
to which they are entitled, namely to receive benefits or the
support they need to find a job. ”
Aim of the campaign quoted from the NAS website.
If you have not
already done so please listen to the interviews:
If you feel able to
write a letter please do so as you have more space to write
as much as you wish as there is a limit of 4000 characters for
the NAS e-mail.
To find contact
details of your local MP enter your post code, name of MP or
constituency into the search field on the right of the website
page.
November 2nd
This is a long entry
and rather repetitive, but it is a matter which may effect many
people who visit this website. Please do not forget that I am a
sufferer of OCD not a professional writer and my obsessive
compulsive behaviours as they effect me will often result in
long and sometimes repetitive entries. This I fear is one of the
longest. I have attempted to reduce the length and obsessed for
days and can't seem to make much progress and have decided to
publish as it is. What you see below is as good as it gets.
With reference to the
previous entry
Looking further
into the issues raised I am shocked to find a very worrying situation.
Concerning benefits, during the last year or so the situation
has become considerably worse for people with disabilities,
including those with mental health conditions and autism, and
many people are failing their applications or reapplications for
benefits even though concerning the latter many have been
receiving these benefits for many years because their condition
is chronic. It has been reported that as many as ninety percent
in some areas have had their reapplications for IB rejected. The
group most effected are those with mental health conditions and
autism. This is particularly so concerning reapplications for
Incapacity Benefit (IB). Keep in mind that IB,
as are all disability benefits, is paid to people who have been medically certified as
physically or mentally unable to work.
A new benefit,
Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) has been introduced to
replace IB which is being phased out, however people already
receiving IB will be entitled to continue to receive it and
would not be expected to transfer to the new benefit, that is if
they pass the renewal application medical, which it appears that
a significant number are not. The new benefit ESA requires
those with a disability to find some form of employment; only
the very severely disabled will be exempt. Again keep in mind
that all those on benefits of any kind have been diagnosed with a medical
condition or a disability, only about 0.5 percent of claims are
actually fraudulent. Also it is important to know that large numbers of
applicants for the new benefit ESA are also being rejected due
to much stricter rules. Contrary to outrageous and
prejudicial comments from the tabloid newspapers the huge numbers of people being
rejected for benefits does not imply that these people are
making fraudulent claims and are not sick or disabled. No - the government by means of a very unfair and biased assessment
undertaken by a person not sufficiently qualified, has
determined that people who are sick or disabled are able to do
some kind of work. However in my opinion it is doubtful
that most people, selected as able to work, are in reality
able to do conventional work.
The aim of the new
benefit is to get people with
disabilities back to work and while offers of
"personalised support
and financial help , so that you can do appropriate work, if you
are able to... access to a specially trained personal
adviser and a wide range of further services including
employment, training and condition management support, to help
you manage and cope with your illness or disability at work".
all sound great in theory, in practice however this is
extremely unlikely to happen .
Furthermore to reiterate, the method of assessing who is able to work and who
is not is carried out by a person not qualified to do so.
In the NAS survey,
more than a quarter of autistic adults were on incapacity
benefit, which has now been replaced by employment and support
allowance for new claimants.
However, ESA is not working for autistic adults, according to
NAS chief executive Mark Lever. For instance, all applicants for
the benefit must produce a sick note from their GP. This is a
"crazy" notion for autistic adults, says Lever, given that
autism is a lifelong condition that cannot be cured.
"They should scrap sick notes and just have the assessment," he
says.
However, the medical assessment itself leaves a lot to be
desired, he adds. "The people we spoke to said the details of
their disability should have been brought up at the start of the
assessment so the doctor could adapt how they communicate with
them.
For example, the doctor will ask 'can you use a bus to get to
work?' and they will say 'yes', but they won't go on to say
'that's if I have a supporter or if it's out of rush hour'. If
they were trained they could ask questions ina better way."
Paula Wharmby, who has Asperger's syndrome, is a case in point.
She succeeded in getting a job twice but on each occasion left
because she couldn't cope with the noise and dealing with
people."
The above is an extract from the article : People with autism:
the struggle to gain benefits and find work
by Natalie Valios
Please take time to
read the complete article including the case history at the end:
Researching the
internet reveals a very worrying situation indeed for people who
are disabled or chronically sick who have had their applications
rejected in what is considered by many including myself to be an
unfair system of assessment. In addition to the people
interviewed by the NAS there are people with all types of
disability being rejected, but mostly people with a mental
health problem, an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and people with muscular skeletal
conditions, which I take to mean people with Chronic fatigue
syndrome ME and Fibromyalgia. In other words people with what
may be called an invisible illnesses; an illness which it is
difficult to prove that you have, at least during the 45
minute assessment. People with a mental illness and the other
conditions mentioned above are cart
blanche deemed fit to work by people not qualified to make such
an assessment and are, it seems, expected to simply just go out
and find a job. This is not Utopia, Shambhala, or any other
mythical or fictional paradise on earth were man treats his
fellow man with respect and dignity working towards the
greater good. Neither is it the nineteen sixties when there
where more jobs than people to fill them; this is the greedy
capitalist driven twenty first century, 'the every man for
himself' economy, and few employers are about to employ a person
with no expertise who is mentally ill or otherwise disabled and has not worked
for years. Employers have the pick of the cream as the saying
goes. Indeed the government are living in 'cloud cuckoo land' if they think that employers are going to
give disabled and chronically sick people jobs.
In reality many people
are simply too ill to work. The government of course know this,
they do not care about individuals its all about pandering to
misguided ignorant public opinion, vote catching and
reducing the benefit bill helping them to claw back some of the
money they used to shore up the greedy bankers. Oh and don't
forget the Olympic games, not heard much about that, a huge
financial expenditure for which the government of course need
funds.
Contrary to popular
belief getting benefits has never been easy, neither is it
lucrative. Now since the new system qualifying for benefits is considerably more
difficult and in the last year
many who had already found it difficult living on benefits since
the financial nightmare now find themselves in poverty, destitute.
Please read an article
from the Guardian
By Guy Parckar
Testing times for
disabled people
The new eligibility test for people on sickness benefit will
only intensify the massive disadvantage faced by disabled people
"There are some
good principles behind the new Employment and Support Allowance
(ESA), but what does the accompanying eligibility test actually
mean for disabled people? The first full set of figures to show
its impact suggest that more disabled people could end up in
poverty.
A year ago the ESA was introduced to replace Incapacity Benefit
(IB). At the same time the "work capability assessment", was
introduced. Now the figures showing the impact of this new
assessment have been published. Essentially, they show that the new assessment is
considerably tougher than the old one, so fewer people are being
found eligible for the benefit. As eventually all existing
recipients of IB will also be retested under the new assessment,
the figures also show us that many people currently in receipt
of IB will be found ineligible for the new benefit when
retested.
Their circumstances won't have changed, their impairment will
not have altered, but as the new test is tougher, they will no
longer be eligible."
Please read the
complete article and also some of the comments.
Here are links to some
some examples of the misery and suffering of people unfairly
turned down for benefits in recent years, which show even prior
to the recent changes claiming was always difficult.
What happens to those
who have been turned down for the renewal of their IB or ESA.
Most if not all will
find that they have suffered a considerable loss of income. In
most cases by as much as £45 per week.
The options for those
who fail the medical are :
The person may request
that their medical assessment be looked at again by a different person.
If this fails he or
she may take the case to a tribunal, a very stressful
situation for anyone but for someone on the autism spectrum or
suffering with a mental health problem this is a particularly traumatic experience
indeed. Also the rate of benefit will be reduced and in some
cases a person waiting for a tribunal may be paid a reduced rate
of income support amounting to as little as about £50 per week!
The third option is to
sign on and apply for job seekers allowance. This means that the
person has agreed with the medical assessment and is going to
look for employment which will mean signing on bi weekly and applying for
at least three jobs per week and doing retraining. For many
people with disabilities who find just getting through the day a
challenge this could be of considerable detriment to an already
difficult life. And again it is unlikely that many employers
will give a disabled or chronically sick person a job.
A fourth option for
people whose claim for IB has been turned down is to apply for
the new benefit ESA if he or she has experienced a deterioration
in their condition or has a new diagnosis since having their
application for IB rejected. Now I am not sure of the exact
specifications here for application in the case of being
rejected for IB as this information in this context is difficult to find.
Furthermore this new benefit has a very high rejection rate also
due to unfair assessments as already mentioned.
My main concern is that the whole system of assessment is unfair, the medical
assessment is in real terms not a medical assessment at all but
rather an assessment to identify what type of work the applicant
is able to do, and many believe that the assessment has purposely been designed to pass as fit
for work people that are not fit to do so. On the new benefit
ESA only those who are severely disabled will be exempt from
doing some work. The medical is carried out in some cases by a registered
nurse - not a doctor , not even a clinical psychiatric nurse CPN
- who is
unlikely to have experience with conditions such as ASDs or mental
health problems.
The concern is that a huge number of people
are having their incapacity
re-applications rejected, and in my opinion unfairly.
Furthermore from what I have read during my research on the net it appears that those suffering with an ASD and the
mentally ill are being targeted unfairly for rejection. Applicants
are having their applications turned down in huge numbers on the
erroneous pretext they are able to work however for the majority
this is not the not the case at all.
For many people whose lives are made difficult as a result of
disability or illness this is causing increasing hardship and
suffering.
The most serious facet
of this is not only the worry of it all for those
psychologically effected by
this draconian crackdown but the drastic and devastating
financial hardship abruptly inflicted upon people who already
lead an impoverished life. Those who have their IB reapplication
rejected find they have a drastic reduction in their income,
in some cases as much as half if you are appealing or waiting
for a tribunal. Certainly Job seekers Allowance is considerably
less than either IB or ESA. Moreover there are few jobs for the
able never mind the disabled. As already mentioned it is obvious that few
employers are going to employ a disabled person who has not
worked for many years when they have a choice from the vast
numbers of the unemployed. It is even more unlikely that a person
with a mental health problem will be employed particularly
considering the stigma in this country against the mentally ill.
Of course my last statement is a generalisation, there will be
the occasional more ethical employer, however he or she will be
the significant minority.
I used to think that
Britain was a fair country with a reasonable if far from ideal
welfare system. Yes indeed contrary to popular belief people on
any kind of benefit receive barely enough to live on, but
compared to now ... Since the introduction of the new
social reforms many with lives already made difficult by illness
or disability will see the quality of their lives further
reduced as a result of poverty and deprivation as their
income is dramatically cut along with the trauma of
unreasonable pressure to find jobs that simply are not
available.
Many people feel that
those with mental health problems and ASDs are being unfairly
targeted because they are less able to stand up for their rights
and sadly, with the exception of the well organised NAS
campaign, and comments by a few mental health charities or
organisations few if any care about this travesty of human
rights let alone campaign against its continuation. In fact as
you will see from the article by Mind that many of the
tabloid newspapers are attacking those who are mentally ill with
comments like:
"It is telling that
more than1.1million incapacity claimants are not suffering
from any physical disability at all, but get their handouts by
moaning about problems like “stress” and “depression”.
This is the type of
rhetoric the mentally ill and others on benefits are faced with.
Below is the more
supportive and realistic assessment from The Independent which
predicted the dire circumstances that the sick and disabled
would find themselves when the new benefit was introduced last
year.
October 27, 2008
Strict new benefit rules 'will drive mentally-ill people into
poverty'
By Nina Lakhani
"People with mental health problems will be driven into
poverty by the introduction of a new benefit today, campaigners
have warned.
Around half of applicants for the employment and support
allowance are expected to be rejected because of much stricter
rules, forcing thousands of people with mental health problems
on to the much less generous job-seekers allowance, or into jobs
they are unable to cope with and which could lead to a relapse
in their conditions.
Thousands more will face tough new sanctions on the benefit
which replaces incapacity benefit, if they fail to attend
regular work-based activities and interviews. This could lead to
benefits being withdrawn completely."
A year later the
reality of this prediction has come to fruition.
Please take action by
writing to your MP. There is very little support for those on
benefits due to a continuing prejudicial campaign by the media
and in particular the tabloid press against those who for no
fault of their own are either unable to work because of chronic
illness or disability or whose who cannot find employment. This
campaign of hate, which is not too strong a word I can assure
you leaves people who are sick, disabled or unemployed without
much in the way of moral support from anyone. Because the plight of
those receiving benefits has little support we need to
get the message out there, to try to get people to understand
what it is like for those who are being treated in such a
shocking way. Ask yourself could you live on £64 per week? this
is the amount that an unemployed person receives.
Please take time to
write to your MP, support the autism campaign mentioned in the
previous entry, and write with your
concerns about the unfair benefit situation.
if you would like to
write to your MP about the unfair benefit situation please click
the link below.
To find contact
details of your local MP enter your post code, name of MP or
constituency into the search field on the right of the website
page.
This is what the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights says :
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for
the health and well-being of himself and of his family,
including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in the event of
unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other
lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and
assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock,
shall enjoy the same social protection.
Britain signed the
declaration of human rights along with many other countries.
Looking at modern day Britain particularly in the last few years
and in particular concerning the shocking situation of benefits
and employment, can we really say that the policies of the
government are in keeping with the commitments to human rights
in this declaration, particularly article 25?
How can anyone have
"a standard of living adequate for health and wellbeing"
when his or her already inadequate benefit has been drastically
reduced. Where is the
"right to security in the
event of unemployment sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of
livelihood in circumstances beyond his control"
for anyone living in the UK today? Most people live in a
state of dreadful insecurity, even those who are employed cannot
feel safe and anyone can loose his or her job at any time and
find themselves at the mercy of the state to hand to them a
pittance upon which they cannot live, losing not only their
financial security but their homes, their health and well being
as a consequence of events beyond their control.
Here is a quotation I
often include in my animal rights website think differently
about sheep.
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be
judged by the way its animals are treated."
Mahatma Gandhi
I would also like to
add that a nation and its moral progress may also be judged by
the way its sick and disabled and unemployed are
treated.
I rather think that
Gandhi would not mind my taking this liberty.
Just found this latest shocking information concerning people
with Parkinson's disease under 65 being forced into work:
"EMPLOYMENT BENEFIT REFORMS 'FORCING' DISABLED PEOPLE INTO
JOBSEEKING
By Lorraine Connolly, Community Newswire
HEALTH Benefits, 26 Oct 2009 - 17:21
A survey released today by a national disability charity claims
that significant numbers of disabled people are being adversely
hit by the Employment Support Allowance reforms, introduced a
year ago to replace Incapacity Benefit.
The Parkinson's Disease Society revealed that two-thirds of
people under the age of 65 with Parkinson's disease who had
responded to its survey, believed they had been wrongly forced
into job seeking, despite being physically unable.
The charity said the Employment Support Allowance (ESA) tick-box
style medical test, used to determine whether a person is
capable of work, did not allow for fluctuating conditions such
as Parkinson's, in which people can be capable one minute, but
severely disabled the next.
It believes decisions are based on the opinion of the assessors,
who in many cases, do not refer to a person's medical history,
and are untrained in Parkinson's.
There are 12,000 people with Parkinson's currently receiving
incapacity benefits in the UK and of these fewer than 1,000 have
so far been moved onto ESA."
Read the complete article
Community Newswire
Another very
informative article concerning the current situation
Welfare reform post to the Guardian Newspapers Public Jo Blog
"Once, when
people talked about welfare reform, it meant trying to improve
the lives of people as service users, citizens and claimants.
Now it is more likely to mean another attack on people on
benefits or a search for an easy way of making public spending
cuts. But we can expect to hear much more about welfare reform
in the coming months, with a general election pending and
politicians on the lookout for easy targets for party-political
points scoring and economies.
It was Peter Lilley, as Tory social security secretary, who said
he'd "got a little list" of people to stereotype as scroungers.
This hate list is longer under New Labour. The groups who
regularly feature are some of the poorest and most powerless in
our society: lone parents, mental health service users, refugees
and asylum seekers, "the unemployed", and young and homeless
people. They have few friends in parliament, and few votes are
to be lost attacking them."
There appears to be some threat to carers and disability
allowance. I have not yet looked into this and feel this entry
is long enough but at a later time I will comment. For people
who are on benefits its a very worrying time and people need to
take action to prevent further misery for many people who need
the support of benefits through no fault of their own.
If we do nothing , nothing changes. Yes many of us are too sick
to do much about anything , but please try and at least inform
yourself of the current situation, write a letter or sign a
petition.
Indeed just writing a letter can be a considerable task for
someone with any mental health problem and for people with OCD
this can be a daunting task due to obsessive types of checking
and ruminating, the kind that has made writing his an exhausting
endeavour which despite appearances has taken hours and hours
over three weeks.
"
All
that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do
nothing."
Edmund Burke
November 3rd
Not only is there
concern over the rights of the disabled regarding work and
benefits but the rights of able people seeking work are also very
worrying.
I apologise for all
this negativity and I know that we have so much misery of our
own to contend with and as the person in the link above said:
"Anyway maybe you
have wondered how sick people end up on the streets (or maybe
you already know & choose to ignore it most of the time, to
avoid going mad yourself, ..."
You do indeed feel
that you will go completely crazy if the injustices of this
world effect you as much as they effect me, injustices and ill
treatment to both human and non human animals is a big issue for
me. The misery of the world comes knocking at my door and I
can't ignore it and such effects my depression. I find it
difficult to live in a world filled with misery, cruelty and
injustice to any creature. Yes indeed there are worse injustices
in other countries and in time I hope to set up a blog where I
can give vent to my feelings on such issues as the more people
who speak out the more there is hope for change, but here is
perhaps not the place at least not too frequently. However the
current situation here with employment and benefits may at some
time effect all
of us who have a disability whether it is mental or physical,
and even if you personally are not effected it is important that
all people stand up for the rights of those with illness or
disability and those who cannot find employment. Few it seems will speak up for the disabled and those
struggling to find jobs where there are none and are paid
nothing to live on while at the same time continuing to be
exploited by the state and employers.
You know what it is
like when your attention is turned to an issue, and social
justice
is in any case a big issue for me although for the most part my
attention is mostly international, you begin to notice similar
related injustices. Here is another injustice of which I was not
aware until the day after I received the news letter
mentioned above from the NAS.
Here is a story I
heard from an acquaintance concerning a local
factory and a relative of his who is on job seekers allowance.
He and a number of other unemployed people are required to work
in the factory for forty hours and will receive no pay other
than their job seekers allowance. There are vacancies with this employer but only a few. The number of
unemployed required to work exceed the number of vacancies. I am
not sure of the details but the number is significant. All will
work for a time, again not sure of the exact length of time, at
the end of which the ones the employer thinks have worked the
hardest will get the job. What happened to conducting interviews
and choosing suitable employees and paying them and then only
dismissing them if unsuitable?
Don't you think this
is exploitation? All of these people will be working
their butts off hoping to be chosen for one of the few vacancies
but getting no pay. The only person to profit is the employer
who gets a lot of work done for nothing!!!!!!
Shame on the
government, of what was once a socialist party, allowing such
blatant exploitation. None will ever get my vote.
Neither will their opponents whom it appears have collaborated
with the government concerning the benefit crackdown, in
fact the conservative party propose even more severe measures of
reducing financial support for the disabled and those who are
unemployed.
November 4th
Time for something
positive? Yes indeed, if you can find something positive. Next
month I hope to include some positive things. There are events
in this world that are positive but right now it seems that in
present day society there is an extreme emphasis on issues
that are negative, and in my opinion this seems more so than at
any other time in my life. Yes of course there has always been
awful things happen in the world but there has never been so
much deliberate focus upon all the bad with no mention of anyone
doing anything positive. Most certainly there are times
when we need to be aware of what is happening other wise nothing
much changes. However we need to keep a balance because there
are many who are greatly effected by all the negativity in the
world; for me personally all the awfulness in the world
has a profound effect upon my own health and my mood.
There are positive
things happening in this world which you can read about here:
If you know of
anything positive in your part of the world or within your life
do drop me a line by e-mail and I will mention them here and if I get
enough responses I will include a positivity section here on my
website were visitors to this website can send in their positive
stories either from world events or their own lives.
I like to maintain
some balance here as I know for the most part I am a negative
person, but perhaps it is those of us who are aware of the
awfulness in the world and feel saddened by it who are the ones
more likely to speak out than those for whom the misery and
suffering of all creatures both human and non human seems to
pass them by. While I at times envy the ability of many people
to remain unaffected or at least less affected by the negative
aspects of life, the world needs people who are affected by the
suffering of others if anything is ever to change. I feel
frustrated at times and indeed angry and depressed by my
inability to do much about anything, but in some small way we
can all bring about change even if we only write a letter of
support or protest, sign a petition even just simply writing
about the things we feel need changing and hope that by doing so
someone will take up the cause who would otherwise not have done
so.
Life is difficult for those of us with a mental health problem
which often gets worse as a result of lack of appropriate
medical care or support . In an ideal world I could have lived a
better life, but its not an ideal world and never will be unless
we do something about it.
November 5th
I have been
trying for weeks to include more diary like entries but right
now I seem to have some kind of block concerning this. For the
time being it is not possible to write much of anything
personal, although of course the nature of my depression and
anxieties are also apparent in the way national and
international injustices to include both human and other animals
affect me. Someone I
write too once said:
Sometimes its just too difficult to write about your
problems.
And I guess that
this is the situation for me now. For the time being it is
not easy to write about personal issues which it seems are
making my overall OCD more problematic, which in turn is
effecting everything I write. My obsessions with writing, the
content, checking facts and editing and editing or obsessing and
obsessing is really much much worse of late. I am so frustrated
not only about the effect this is having upon my ability to
write or more to the point publish anything on this website, but
it is also making it extremely difficult to write anything much
for my new website . I am working on a series of articles about
animal rights and religion, writing articles on some of the
world's religions and philosophies but as I am not
conversant with the beliefs and philosophies of these regions
this involves a lot of research and yes you guessed it a lot of
checking and obsessing about facts. Its rather like the
situation about which many young people with OCD complain when pursuing a
course of study and many people with OCD eventually drop out of
university or college because of this type of OCD, the need to
compulsively check facts and obsess over content. Moreover there
appears to be an inability to know when enough is enough when
sufficient information for the purpose has been collected. Also
the obsession with detail, a compulsive urge to include too much
detail and not knowing how much is necessary. Always studying
far beyond the level required finding that as more information
is gathered the more detail is added and consequently the more
there is to obsess over. And to add to the depressing
disabling list is the demon of
perfectionism. An insatiable monster that has destroyed my son's
ability to continue with his art work. Its a depressing mix of
impediments which at the very least spoils your enjoyment and satisfaction with whatever
endeavour it has turned its focus
upon and at the very worse completely renders you incapable of
doing anything and you end up abandoning a struggle with something
which once gave pleasure or at least satisfaction with considerable
regret, feeling guilty because you have finally conceded defeat . You go
on to something else, all is fine at first than the OCD demon of
destruction gradually infiltrates with the same old strategy
until you abandon your new endeavour.
What's to be done
I have no idea. Its November and as I sit here writing this I am
unable to publish many of the entries since October 23rd because
I cant stop checking them for errors and all the others things
about which I obsess and which I have mentioned earlier many
times. It has taken hours and hours of my time, time which is
limited as a result of my OCD and headaches which are often made
worse as a consequence of frustration and exhaustion. But I feel
driven to complete what I have started because to concede defeat
replaces one type of suffering, OCD torment, with the misery of
depression. This problem has escalated in the last year
and does not look like it is about to improve so I plod on. My
son says he cannot cope with his art because he can only proceed
at a glacial pace due to obsessing and perfectionism and lack of
confidence, so he now simply feels a certain dread in even
attempting to draw or paint and the thought of the misery of
torment this causes makes him ill at the very thought of even
drawing or painting for just an half hour as I often suggest.
These kind of obsessions are very deliberating make no mistake,
the devastation they cause within your life cannot be
underestimated.
However even if I
only progress at glacial pace, glaciers do arrive at their
destinations at some point do they not, and when the entries are
downloaded some may be dated, but this is the best I am able to do.
Who knows at some point the whole misery of this obsession may
overwhelm me, but for now I try to carry on as best I can.
Sometimes some things only get published on my blog or website
when I am at a point of such exhaustion that I get past caring
if it is correct or whatever the OCD thought happens to be,
although thoughts that make me anxious that what I say may
result in some harm are more difficult to ignore even when
exhausted.
Obviously if you are reading this I have finally
published these entries but it will have been a struggle and right now
things are really just awful for me.
I sit here now, we are supposed to be going out but I am
depressed, my headaches are beginning to have their usual effect
and I am increasingly becoming less able to cope with this and
feel snowed in under an avalanche of perversity. Already I am
obsessing about his entry and it is not yet written. I really
do not know what to do any more .
November 6th
Time for
something positive. The story below was sent in by Luis Leonel Lopez, a sufferer of
OCD and AS. Luis as those of you who regularly visit this
website may know is from Uruguay and is studying sculpture and
enjoys photography. The inclusion below has nothing to do with
OCD directly but a snippet of positive news from south America.
Luis says:
"I want to tell you something that may be of interest for you. One Laptop Per
Child Association, Inc. (OLPC) is a U.S. non-profit organization
set up to oversee the creation of an affordable educational
device for use in the developing world. Its mission is "To
create educational opportunities for the world...'s poorest
children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost,
low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed
for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.
In October 2007, Uruguay placed an order for 100,000 laptops,
making Uruguay the first country to purchase a full order of
laptops. The first real, non-pilot deployment of the OLPC
technology happened in Uruguay in December 2007. Since then,
absolutely free of charge 396,727 laptops have b een ordered to
cover all public school children between 6 and 12 years old.
Uruguay is, also, the first country to deliver these laptops to
blind public school children. These laptops have been delivered
to public school children with mental disabilities too.
I've included some photos of happy children with their laptops
and also one photo of the Uruguayan President and his Ministers
with these laptops.
The laptops are free of charge for
public school children; they weren't free of charge for the
government which was the first to purchase a full order. The
operating system of these computers is GNU Linux and they've
connection to Internet. Teachers of public school have received
these laptops; they may be free of charge also.
Public schools in Uruguay (as public secondary schools, schools
of crafts and arts, and faculties), as you yet know, are free of
charge for Uruguay citizens and for some international students."
As many of you
know I suffer with frequent migraine and chronic daily headache,
conditions which are difficult in their own right let alone in
addition to OCD, depression and all the other conditions from
which I suffer.
I am of course
not the only one with a mental health problem who experiences
migraine, I imagine that many visitors here suffer with this
very debilitating condition. I am not certain if the condition
of migraine is the result of anxiety and or depression though it
may most certainly be aggravated by either of these conditions.
The following is
a link to the Migraine Action website with information about an
upcoming event in the North East of England : Middlesbrough
migraine education day - 28th November 2009.
I am not able to
attend as it is just too far away for me and I am not well
enough to do so. But if anyone is interested it may prove to be
an informative day, at least an opportunity to get together with
other sufferers. Migraine rather like mental health conditions
is often met with little understanding or sympathy , except from
fellow sufferers.
Please click the
link above and also check out my new video which
took a long time because of my OCD checking, perfectionism, neck
pain and other interruptions.
The Soul is
the Same in all Creatures: Animal Sentience
A slide show featuring clips of
animals along with quotations concerning sentience in animals
from scientists, philosophers and others .
November 9th
"The ultimate
herbal remedy: Can cannabis improve autism?
The debate over its risks has split political and scientific
opinion in Britain. But American mother Marie Myung-Ok Lee says
cannabis isn't only safe enough for her autistic son – it's
dramatically improved his condition"
Please read the complete article in the Independent.
A controversial subject about which I will make no personal
comment but considered that this article may be of
interest to visitors to this website.
Having said that I do rather feel that cannabis used in certain
circumstances has perhaps more benefits than is generally
considered and may prove to be a useful medication in treating
many condtions including Autism, MS the aches and pains of old
age and as the article points out may even be useful for the
treatment of cancer. Its just such a pity it is so demonised.
All drugs used for medical purposes have some down side,
undesirable side effects, but people take them because the
potential for good outweighs the potential for harm. Such is a
decision many of us have to make when taking any medication.
November 10th
Today I had an appointment at the dentist and was for days
anxious and depressed. Nothing new there of course but my
depression is invariably worse whenever I have to attend an
appointment. I have for my entire life been phobic about
the dentist but in the last three years or so have gone for
regular check ups after a bad experience with having to have an
extraction . I am of course still phobic but to a greater degree
my anxieties in this regard have been surpassed by anxieties
that I will have a headache and have to cancel, although I am
sure if I was to have anything other than a check up my anxiety
would be even more extreme and of course as there is always the
possibility of having to have some work done so the anxiety is
there still. I also find it stressful just having my teeth
looked at and polished and cleaned. Not to mention anxieties and
obsessions and compulsions making certain all my cloths are
freshly laundered, my hair and even my curlers and combs and any
slides have to be washed prior to a trip to the dentist. Of
course these things are washed regularly, perhaps more so then
would be done by the average person, but prior to an appointment
I have to make certain every item of clothing and
everything I wear or which will come into contact with things
used by other people, in this case seats in the waiting room and
the dentist chair, is OCD clean for fears of spreading
contamination.
So all this puts a pressure on me and adds to
existing anxieties. But the fear is considerable of getting a headache or
migraine and not being able to go for the appointment and than
afterwards to reschedule and have to go through all the fears
and worries and all the OCD all over again. This was made more
of a problem when last time just as we parked the car an
existing mild headache became migraine and although I was able
to have the dentist
check my teeth I could not cope with the clean and polish and
had to reschedule. He was very understanding and sympathetic but I
felt awful as I had forgotten to go for an appointment which both
my husband and I had arranged six months earlier. A first for
me I have never forgotten an appointment.
I had got into such a sate of anxiety that this time I really
felt I would not be able to go through with it. I did
wake with a relatively mild headache which thankfully eased
after a while upon getting up but I was still very panicky, any
little twinge and I became anxious. Usually for an appointment I
wont have much to drink and just have my usual camomile tea at
about 4 or 5 o'clock when I wake and then not bother to drink
further until after the appointment due to irritable bladder
which I am certain is made much worse as a result of anxiety, so for the
most part not drinking much does not guarantee I wont still feel
great urgency to go to the toilet regardless of need. But later
on I forget and my husband made me a coffee which I, getting so
absent minded and out of it, forgot and drank the lot which of
course added to the anxiety and my sense of urgency.
Some how though, notwithstanding three visits to the toilet
before I was even called in to the dentist, and no headaches
I somehow managed, albeit really anxious though should I need a filling
or worse. He does understand that I have problems and this does
help. I read somewhere recently, and I will try and find where I
read this some other time , but a significant number of people
with mental health problems neglect their health most likely due
I imagine to health care professionals who simply show little or
no understanding of a person who is anxious. Furthermore many
people with mental health issues may find it increasingly
difficult to cope with all the added stress of attending
appointments in addition to anxieties over the possibility of
invasive treatment, there may for example be anxieties
about social interaction or the stress of simply sitting in the
waiting room ...well it could be virtually anything and
often someone can be anxious, even afraid of just about
everything. In recent months I have procrastinated about
returning to see my doctor even though I should have done so .
There is another difficulty here other than those I have
mentioned and that is the anxiety and depression that becomes
much worse on the days leading up to the appointment, sometimes
just coping with that is daunting enough.
November 11th
Woke with a severe headache this morning about 2am. In the last
few months I have had a spate of waking with a shocking headache
, yes most mornings I wake with some kind of headache which
either gets worse or eases after waking but in recent months I
have had spates of three or four day in a row each week of
waking with very severe headaches, sometimes they are migraine
but at other times they are a tension headaches, but it can be
difficult to know the difference. This morning I took my meds I
just could not cope with the pain . I usually try and wait to be
sure its migraine as my meds work only for migraine but really
the pain is just awful. After taking my medication it did
ease off but was still present on waking and was I imagine then
a tension headache which often remains when the migraine had
gone if I have suffered with both at the same time . But it got
really much worse after waking and getting up and I was anxious
it would become migraine before I could take more medication. It
was shopping day as well and I hate having to rearrange my
schedule and struggled in to do the shopping with my husband. if
it had been migraine though this would have been impossible but
there was still the fear it could become migraine again. I do
feel so depressed about all these headaches which are a
nightmare about which few really understand. Neither do people
realise the severity of even a tension headache let alone a
migraine and how they are so incapacitating. I honestly do not
know what I would do without Diclofenac, my migraine meds, as
without them ... an unaborted migraine is agony that can go on
for hours and hours and experiencing them two to five times a
week is, unthinkable.
Everyday it seems there is one thing after another but of course
with so many medical conditions it would be virtually impossible
to go even one day with out at least one presenting... no
obviously more than one, for OCD, depression, anxiety and the
tension headaches are chronic and occur everyday to some degree
and just lately all seem to have got much worse. These severe
nighttime headaches bring about a dread of going to bed.
But I was thankful that at least my troublesome headaches
managed to stay away for me to get that dentist
appointment over with, not much consolation you may be thinking
but the thought of all that worry about the appointment was
itself an anxiety provoking situation. Yes indeed you can became
anxious and depressed about becoming anxious and depressed when
you know that something is going to make you
more...well...anxious and depressed.
November 12th
Well still not got any of the latest entries on-line, still
obsessing about most all of them reading and re reading even got
my son to look them over , well some of them he does get rather
overwhelmed by a lot my writings and is not coping at all
himself. I ask him to check the sheep website more for errors as
there is more worry there about grammar spelling and rambling
which people may understand here as part of my conditions and
anxieties, but else were may be a detriment to anyone visiting
my website. However in recent weeks my son has really gone down
hill as the saying goes, he can barely cope and I try to avoid
asking for his help too often as he struggles with his own brand
of perfectionism as I have already described.
Perhaps I take on too much, I am not a writer but just want to
feel I do something useful with my miserable life . I am
concerned about social injustice and animal rights, the
treatment of animals in factory farms and in experimentation and
other abuses breaks my heart as does mans inhumanity to man to
use a familiar quotation. Watching on Sunday a DVD of the TV
series Larkrise to Candleford one of the Characters, not
sure of his name, the stone mason who has a great sense of
social justice, was making a protest about a political issue, no
need for details. His wife said to him concerning the
issue of which he was protesting that perhaps his concerns about
such issues were ways of focusing his own sadness. A good point
and made me think. But I think in my case I am concerned about
social injustice and animal rights because I genuinely care
about the misery of suffering for all creatures . It does
impacts upon my own misery and I feel so depressed and sick
inside because of some of the awful things that man does to
animals including his own species. Suffering is really the only
emotion I understand, if emotion is the right word here , and
unfortunately the only time I am able to empathise .
Oh must not forget anger which as well as sadness are my only
real emotions. Seething boiling raging anger . However anger
they say is a manifestation of depression, although it makes me
ill and certainly doesn't help the headaches it is in some ways
better than the apathy of more conventional depression, which of
course consume me at times so much so that it is difficult to do
anything unless driven by obsessions. You know thinking about it
now , mostly I am motivated by depression, anger and OCD to take
some action even it is only share my concerns with you. I am
obsessing now and must leave it there.
Anyway hopefully to day I might upload all those back logged
entries. I have got to the stage now were I am just so exhausted
and can no longer cope with the worry of it all. I do wonder if
it is all worth it and the temptation to let OCD have its own
way is very strong right now. I am tempted not to bother any
more after all I rather think that few people visit here now. My
blog which once appeared right at the top of search engines if
OCD blog was entered into the search field now no longer
appears at all!
I really do not see any solution to this problem with checking
entries and other writings which like the rest of my OCD appears
to be intractable.
The thing is that despite all my checking my writings are still
riddled with mistakes, maybe something to do with my attention
deficit , but this of course makes my checking worse when
weeks later or even years later finally I suddenly notice my
errors or question why I wrote this or that.
November 14th
Whilst looking round You tube recently I stumbled across the video
below which some of you may find interesting regardless of
religious belief or none.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche a Tibetan Buddhist monk talks about his
experiences of suffering panic attacks and how he uses this in
his meditations.
" In this talk based on his groundbreaking first book, The
Joy of Living (Harmony Books), world-renowned Buddhist teacher
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche invites us to join him in unlocking the
secrets behind the practices of meditation. Working with
neuroscientists at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and
Behavior, he provides clear insights into modern research
indicating that systematic training in meditation can enhance
activity in areas of the brain associated with happiness and
compassion. He has also worked with physicists across the
country to develop a fresh, scientifically based interpretation
of the Buddhist understanding of the nature of reality. Mingyur
Rinpoche weaves together the principles of Tibetan Buddhism,
neuroscience, and quantum physics in a way that will forever
change the way we understand the human experience."
Extract from information about the video on on Youtube
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche - Using panic attacks for meditation
November 15th
This is my attempt at trying to load at least short entries upon
the day they are made. I have not the time anyway to write
something everyday and when it comes to my dairy-like entries
they would in any case be much the same if I were to describe
how OCD effects me on a daily bases.
Today also I have decided to try not to give in to niddling,
(hope the spellings correct here as niddling comes up as
incorrect on my spell checker and I am not going to exhaust
myself trying to track that down on the net,) obsessions about
such things as those banners that are missing on the blog
introductory page. They have most like been missing for some
time but of course once noticed I get anxious about putting them
right. But one banner is missing entirely from my website folder
and the other simply will not load. The latter is most likely a
software glitch, such are common with Microsoft Front Page and
to correct I may need to create a new page and track down one of
the banners, a hugely time consuming job . Frustrating to say
the least. Anger provoking? yes indeed as most
things make me so angry, it appears to me that there is always
something wrong either on the internet or with anything to do
with graphics and movie maker which crashes if I try to import a
video. The internet is often a real pain which yesterday would
barely work cutting me off-line four or five times right in the
middle of writing an e-mail eventually leaving me unable to get
back on-line. Anyway to cut a long story short the missing links
still work regardless of the absence of the banners, so that is
the main thing, its just the banner are missing. I have included
an explanation and eventually I will fix it, at least I hope,
but sometimes things like that get a bit too much for me as they
effect my mood.
Yesterday my husband and I were at the local garden centre and
my husband found a twenty pound note on the floor, someone
having dropped it . My heart sank as I know that with OCD
scrupulosity this would cause problems and leave me feeling like
an idiot. There were a whole stream of thoughts and it is
amazing what passes through your mind in so short a space of
time. Even in this time of financial upheaval to many people
twenty pounds is no big deal while to others who are struggling
including my family and I twenty pounds is a considerable amount
as we do not have much spare cash. So I admit to immediately
resenting my scrupulosity and wishing I could be like everyone
else and just shove it in my pocket and treat myself. My husband
of course knew I would not do this and he was not keen to pocket
it either. I said to take it to the till in case someone when
paying for their purchase noticed when they open their purse or
wallet that the twenty pounds was missing. If no one claimed it
we would ask them to put it in the charity tin.
This was the right thing to do of course although many people
would convince themselves otherwise, there was two people at the
check out so we thought it unlikely they would pocket it, but
than that is up to them and their conscience. But we felt silly.
I as always hating any kind of social interaction these days got
my husband to approach the person at the till and explain the
situation. The man on the till looked rather taken aback but
said little. It was embarrassing and now today I am still
thinking about it. But should we really feel embarrassed because
we have done the right thing. It was not our money and the
person who had lost it could suddenly realise this in the way I
have suggested and twenty pounds is a lot of money, a pound is a
lot of money if you don't have anything . So why do I feel silly
and embarrassed and a mug, I can well imagine they thought we
had lost our minds .
By odd coincidence earlier while preparing a section for my
sheep website I was reading the biography of Tolstoy, the
Russian author or War and Peace and Anna Karenina, who was
vegetarian and wrote about the ethics of a vegetarian diet.
Anyway the point is he wrote the following concerning ethical
behaviours in terms of trying to lead a good life and how the
majority of people even family derided him for trying to do so.
"Some day I will narrate the touching and instructive history
of my life during those ten years of my youth. I think very many
people have had a like experience. With all my soul I wished to
be good, but I was young, passionate and alone, completely alone
when I sought goodness. Every time I tried to express my most
sincere desire, which was to be morally good, I met with
contempt and ridicule, but as soon as I yielded to low passions
I was praised and encouraged.
Ambition, love of power, covetousness, lasciviousness, pride,
anger, and revenge - were all respected.
Yielding to those passions I became like the grown-up folk
and felt that they approved of me. The kind aunt with whom I
lived, herself the purest of beings, always told me that there
was nothing she so desired for me as that I should have
relations with a married woman: 'Rien ne forme un juene homme,
comme une liaison avec une femme comme il faut'. [Footnote:
Nothing so forms a young man as an intimacy with a woman of good
breeding.] Another happiness she desired for me was that I
should become an aide-de- camp, and if possible aide-de-camp to
the Emperor. But the greatest happiness of all would be that I
should marry a very rich girl and so become possessed of as many
serfs as possible."
I cannot think of those years without horror, loathing and
heartache. I killed men in war and challenged men to duels in
order to kill them. I lost at cards, consumed the labor of the
peasants, sentenced them to punishments, lived loosely, and
deceived people. Lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds,
drunkenness, violence, murder - there was no crime I did not
commit, and in spite of that people praised my conduct and my
contemporaries considered and consider me to be a comparatively
moral man.
So I lived for ten years.
During that time I began to write from vanity, covetousness, and
pride. In my writings I did the same as in my life. to get fame
and money, for the sake of which I wrote, it was necessary to
hide the good and to display the evil. and I did so. How often
in my writings I contrived to hide under the guise of
indifference, or even of banter, those strivings of mine towards
goodness which gave meaning to my life! And I succeeded in this
and was praised."
A Confession
by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Eventually Tolstoy turned his life around and became a genuinely
moral man whose ideas of non violent resistance influenced
Ghandi. But what he says is so accurate. Maybe not concerning
major crimes of course but don't you find that things like
honesty and truthfulness for instance are ridiculed.
Maybe my pocketing the twenty pound note would not be too
heinous a crime by comparison, but it is nonetheless not
ethical.
Moreover of course had I taken it home or spend it I would have
been tormented by OCD thoughts of something bad happening and in
this instance maybe the OCD was stronger than my personal issues
of ethics. Again with OCD there are many times that you simply
do not know whether it is you or your OCD that determines your
actions, although ethics and honesty and doing the right
thing, according to the dictates of my own conscious that is, is
important me and I simply cannot go against my ideals. Had I
taken it home I would have probably retuned at some point to
hand it in, driven crazy by OCD.
As we made our way home I suddenly remembered something in the
garden centre I had wanted for ages, wanted mind you, not
needed, that cost £19.99. I must admit to feeling a little
resentful about being so honest but I would not have enjoyed
keeping the money.
I feel the need to emphasise that although OCD scrupulosity can
be pain sometimes you should never be ashamed that you are
honest truthful or ethical more so perhaps than most.
Latest on the missing link, after loading the above I managed to
find quite quickly one of the banners . Yes obsessing now but I
only just realised that the banner appeared on the home page so
it was simply a matter of cutting and pasting. Still obsessing
about the second banner but will not do anything about it
straight the way as it can be just so exhausting.
November 17th
A wet windy day again,
I always worry about the poor sheep and cattle left out in the
open in some very exposed countryside we have here. It is though
mild and although it is only 4.30 I feel very warm. There is no
heating on of course, I cannot turn the heating on so early in
the day as it would cost a fortune and is in any case, except if
someone is ill, an extravagance that few people here in the UK
are able to afford or find desirous. I wake as I do most days
with a headache, this one is significant but right now bearable
but I suspect it will turn into a migraine. I cannot
imagine how unpleasant it would be to wake up in a stuffy room
were the heating has been left on all night. My sister who had
anorexia nervosa timed her heating to come on a 5am, because of
her thinness she felt the cold, but it was unbearable . We
do not turn the heating on until 7 or 8 am or much later if is
mild.
Heating and the
weather though are not the subjects of this entry but rather I
wanted to share something I read recently with those of
you who suffer with social anxieties of some kind, such as
social phobia, Aspergers syndrome or other autism spectrum
disorder or avoidant personality disorder or plan shyness.
Shyness though may be the result of one of the above conditions
particularly when it continues past adolescence and young
adulthood. But who knows we are so quick to give labels to
everything, although I do like to know from what condition I
suffer which causes all this disruption in my life as it helps
to identify the problem and therefore seek an appropriate
solution, if of course one is available .
I am reading the
autobiography of Gandhi: An Autobiography
or The Story of my Experiments with Truth
written by Mohandas K. Gandhi, translated by Mahadev Desai
It came as rather a
surprise to find out the Gandhi was very shy at least when he
was younger, as you will read in the section further down Gandhi
learned to cope with his shyness to a certain degree in later
life but would not completely overcome it. I am not suggesting
that Gandhi suffered with any of the conditions above but simply
that at lot of his social interactions remind me of my own and
are similar to the problems that many of us with social
anxieties face. We cannot suppose that all social interaction
difficulties or other behaviours necessarily arise from any
condtion such as those above anymore than I can say that all my
ethical behaviours arise from my scrupulosity OCD, yes sometimes
it is difficult to know which is which but there are
differences. This I hope to discuss more fully in another entry
at some time.
Below is an extract
from chapter 18: Shyness My Shield, of the aforementioned
autobiography, which illustrates so well this part of his
character, those of us who suffer this way will relate to his
description of how his shyness effected him.
During his youth as a
student in England Gandhi joined the vegetarian society and
became a member of the committee. Below Gandhi's relates
his problems with shyness and expressing opinions that despite
the fact that other committee members had expressed he
nonetheless felt a strong need to do likewise but could not
overcome his tongue-tideness to do so.
I have quoted the
entire chapter, which is not very long. I thought this best
rather than try to choose the best parts or paraphrase. This is
a free e-book and in the public domain:
"I was elected to the
Executive Committee of the Vegetarian Society, and made it a
point to attend every one of its meetings, but I always felt
tongue-tied. Dr. Oldfield once said to me, 'You talk to me quite
all right, but why is it that you never open your lips at a
committee meeting? You are a drone.' I appreciated the banter.
The bees are ever busy, the drone is a thorough idler. And it
was not a little curious that whilst others expressed their
opinions at these meetings, I sat quite silent. Not that I never
felt tempted to speak. But I was at a loss to know how to
express myself. All the rest of the members appeared to me to be
better informed than I. Then I often happened that just when I
had mustered up courage to speak, a fresh subject would be
started. This went on for a long time.
Meantime a serious
question came up for discussion. I thought it wrong to be
absent, and felt it cowardice to register a silent vote. The
discussion arose somewhat in this wise. The President of the
Society was Mr. Hills, proprietor of the Thames Iron Works. He
was a puritan. It may be said that the existence of the Society
depended practically on his financial assistance. Many members
of the Committee were more or less his protégés. Dr. Allinson of
vegetarian fame was also a member of the Committee. He was an
advocate of the then new birth control movement, and preached
its methods among the working classes. Mr. Hills regarded these
methods as cutting at the root of morals. He thought that the
Vegetarian Society had for its object not only dietetic but also
moral reform, and that a man of Dr. Allinson's anti- puritanic
views should not be allowed to remain in the Society. A motion
was therefore brought for his removal. The question deeply
interested me. I considered Dr. Allinson's views regarding
artificial methods of birth control as dangerous, and I believed
that Mr. Hills was entitled, as a puritan, to oppose him. I had
also a high regard for Mr. Hills and his generosity. But I
thought it was quite improper to exclude a man from a vegetarian
society simply because he refused to regard puritan morals as
one of the objects of the society. Mr. Hills' view regarding the
exclusion of anti-puritans from the society was personal to
himself, and it had nothing to do with the declared object of
the society, which was simply the promotion of vegetarianism and
not of any system of morality. I therefore held that any
vegetarian could be a member of the society irrespective of his
views on other morals.
There were in the Committee others also who shared my view, but
I felt myself personally called upon to express my own. How to
do it was the question. I had not the courage to speak and I
therefore decided to set down my thoughts in writing. I went to
the meeting with the document in my pocket. So far as I
recollect, I did not find myself equal even to reading it, and
the President had it read by someone else. Dr. Allinson lost the
day. Thus in the very first battle of the kind I found myself
siding with the losing party. But I had comfort in the thought
that the cause was right. I have a faint recollection that,
after this incident, I resigned from the Committee.
This shyness I retained throughout my stay in England. Even when
I paid a social call the presence of half a dozen or more people
would strike me dumb.
I once went to Ventnor with Sjt. Mazmudar. We stayed there with
a vegetarian family. Mr. Howard, the author of The Ethics of
Diet, was also staying at the same wateringplace. We met him,
and he invited us to speak at a meeting for the promotion of
vegetarianism. I had ascertained that it was not considered
incorrect to read one's speech. I knew that many did so to
express themselves coherently and briefly. To speak ex tempore
would have been out of the question for me. I had therefore
written down my speech. I stood up to read it, but could not. My
vision became blurred and I trembled, though the speech hardly
covered a sheet of foolscap. Sjt. Mazmudar had to read it for
me. His own speech was of course excellent and was received with
applause. I was ashamed of myself and sad at heart for my
incapacity.
My last effort to make a public speech in England was on the eve
of my departure for home. But this time too I only succeeded in
making myself ridiculous. I invited my vegetarian friends to
dinner in the Holborn Restaurant referred to in these chapters.
'A vegetarian dinner could be had,' I said to myself, 'in
vegetarian restaurants as a matter of course. But why should it
not be possible in a non- vegetarian restaurant too?' And I
arranged with the manager of the Holborn Restaurant to provide a
strictly vegetarian meal. The vegetarians hailed the new
experiment with delight. All dinners are meant for enjoyment,
but the West has developed the thing into an art. They are
celebrated with great eclat, music and speeches. And the little
dinner party that I gave was also not unaccompanied by some such
display. Speeches, therefore, there had to be. When my turn for
speaking came, I stood up to make a speech. I had with great
care thought out one which would consist of a very few
sentences. But I could not proceed beyond the first sentence. I
had read of Addison that he began his maiden speech in the House
of Commons, repeating 'I conceive' three times, and when he
could proceed no further, a wag stood up and said, 'The
gentleman conceived thrice but brought forth nothing.' I had
thought of making a humorous speech taking this anecdote as the
text. I therefore began with it and stuck there. My memory
entirely failed me and in attempting a humorous for having
kindly responded to my invitation,' I said abruptly, and sat
down.
It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though
I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to
speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange
audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even
today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a
meeting of friends engaged in idle talk.
I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my
constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In
fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my
advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance,
is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has
taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the
habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the
certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my
tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret
anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a
mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence
is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth.
Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth,
wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man and
silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words
will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every
word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no
chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for
permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the
speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time,
and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can
hardly be said to be of my benefit to the world. It is so much
waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and
buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my
discernment of truth."
I can well imagine
that many of us who have this problem recognise ourselves in
this piece of writing by Gandhi, at least to some degree,
however few of us will need to speak in public or at committee
meetings. Although of course the fact that you do not may be due
to your shyness or social anxiety. My social interaction
difficulties and anxiety keeps me from joining organisations
such as the one Gandhi describes because of such difficulties.
But even in less formal settings in groups of even a few people,
casual acquaintances or friends, if you are fortunate enough to
have acquired them despite your shyness, it can be difficult to
speak and like Gandhi whilst you are trying to formulate what
you are about to say the conversation moves on, or you attempt
to speak but its all comes out garbled and you fail to express
yourself. I like Gandhi can on occasion talk with one particular
person if we happen to have a lot in common but could not talk
to others and certainly not whole groups of people, not because
I do not wish to do so but simply because I am tongue tied.
These days as my abilities to cope with my social anxiety have
diminished I have great difficulties even talking about subjects
of which I am well informed and I still cannot express what I am
trying to say and resort to writing things down. Sometimes even
sentences or paragraphs, when something needs to be explained
clearly, have to be written down in such instances as, for
example, consultations with my GP who of course understands my
need to do this. Most people would find this strange though as
few really understand what it is like to be this way, how it
isolates you and in recent years even interferes with getting
appropriate medical care. In the last six months I have found it
difficult to see my Doctor due to my social anxieties, because
even though she knows I have this difficulty it is nonetheless
for me an ordeal and I feel awkward and get depressed for days
before an appointment. There are other issues here of course
other than social anxiety such as anxiety over what I say
or write, for instance I imagine it maybe misconstrued,
misunderstood or I have the anxiety that I may have said
something which may result in harm of some kind. Having in the
last twenty years the added misery of chronic daily headaches I
have been less inclined to socialise as even without the OCD, an
ever present misery in its own right, it is difficult to
go about your life when you have headaches everyday and even if
they are only of short duration you cannot know this in advance
so you can never commit yourself to anything so never join
anything or do anything where you are required to be reliable
and this has made my social interaction much worse of course
Must leave it there as
I do not wish to aggravate a headache which I fear is gradually
gathering momentum.
Must say though that I
do agree with Gandhi when he says:
All this talking can hardly be said to be of my benefit to the
world. It is so much waste of time.
I find idle chatter
infinitely boring and exhausting and too much talk even about
important issues so time wasting. Even at government level it
takes months of talks to arrive at decisions, so much time
wasted when action needs to be taken.
November 19th
"SPREAD THE WORD, NOT
THE GERMS!
"Throughout the world,
2.5 billion people don't have a toilet. Every single day, they
have to find another place to take care of business. And each
day, poor sanitation kills 4,000 children due to water and food
contamination, rampant bacteria, and the fact that no toilet
means NO hand washing.
The United Nations set a goal in 2000 to cut the number without
access in half by 2015, but the way things are going, the world
will miss the sanitation target by more than half a billion
people.
In other words, close to 2.4 billion people will be without
improved sanitation in 2015, barely a drop from today.
What's the problem? Well, apparently talking about toilets isn't
all that sexy. But the people at Water For People have come up
with a brilliant idea to help. They've created three eCards to
commemorate November 19, World Toilet Day. Yes, you read that
right -- World Toilet Day.
For today's
Daily Action, send an eCard to your friends, family, and anyone
else you might think of. By spreading the word about World
Toilet Day, you will help to support the movement."
If you are looking at
this entry after the 19th November the above link will no longer
concerns this issue and has been replaced by another campaign or
project. To read more about this issue and other similar
issues concerning Water for people in developing countries
please go straight to the Water for People link below
The link below will
take you to "Water for People" the website that is hosting
the campaign and to were the above care 2 link will take you. I
have included the link to Water for People here because the care
2 link above will only be active today, after which it will be
replaced by another daily action. Also the Water for People
website includes other actions you can take and contains
information about their mission to help people in developing
countries to :
"
improve their quality of life by supporting the development of
locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation
facilities and health and hygiene education programs.
Our vision is a world
where all people have access to safe drinking water and
sanitation; a world where no one suffers or dies from a water-
or sanitation-related disease."
World Toilet Day is
Thursday, November 19 and Water For People wants to get people
talking about toilets—a topic not often discussed in everyday
conversation. More than 6,000 people die every day, including
4,000 children, from diseases caused by poor sanitation and
unsafe water. We’re making strides in improving water, but
unsafe or a complete lack of toilets is still not capturing
enough of the world’s attention to speed support to the
communities that need help the most.
We’ve created 3 E-cards to get people talking. Please share with
your friends, family, and anyone else think of. "
Please show your
support by sending an e-card.
I complain a lot about
the situation here in the UK regarding access to public toilets.
And for me this is a problems and limits were I can go and when.
However it is unthinkable to me and indeed most of us what it
must be like to have no access at all to any toilet, not even in
your own home. I am of course aware of this shocking situation
in the world but was shocked to realise from the care two
extract above just how many people do not have access to a
toilet of any kind! A staggering 2 .5 billion people. Shocking
and unnecessary as there is enough in this world to provide for
everyone at least the basic needs of shelter, clean water, food,
clothing and access to a toilet.
November 21st
Please take the
time to read and take action, Thank you
This morning I feel as
though my heart will break, as though the cruelty of human
beings to our fellow creatures is beyond my ability to bear.
As regular visitors
know I am very into animal rights and feel a strong love for all
animals, hence the creation of my website "think differently
about sheep" which focuses on animal rights for all animals not
only sheep.
I know I occasionally
include petitions and requests to write letters to government
officials both national and international and at times I wonder
if this is fair to visitors. Considering this I would not have
made any further requests this month if it had not been for the
news letter that I received this morning from the Humane Society
International concerning a brutal action of dreadful cruelty
which is about to take place in Nepal, a country predominately
Hindu; Hindus are normally against killing or harming any living
being and Nepal was the birth place of Buddha.
Please read carefully
the extract from the Humane Society's website and click the link
which follows to read further information and to send an
e-mail to Nepal's Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism
to ask that they use their influence to cancel the festival or
adopt a more peaceful alternative.
It is a from letter so
its all written out for you but you can use your own words
to personalise it.
Mass Animal
Sacrifice Planned in Nepal
Animal sacrifice is
foreign to many in today’s day and age, but it still happens.
One of the worst scenes of such slaughter in the world is the
Gadhimai Jatra festival, held in the Bara district in the south
of Nepal. Every five years, hundreds of thousands of animals are
massacred in the name of a Hindu deity. During the last event,
more than 200,000 animals were killed in just two days. This
year, organizers are calling for nearly a half million animals
to be slaughtered November 24 and 25.
The details of these so-called “festivities” are particularly
horrific. There is no slaughterhouse or system in place for
humane killing; instead, the animals are kept trapped in
enclosures. The “panchhbali,” or five offerings, involves
slicing the throats of five kinds of animals (buffalo, goats,
pigs, roosters and rats) with a knife. This is not a quick
death, but slow and agonizing for the victims. Buffalo, due to
their size, suffer the most. Men swinging swords, often drunk,
enter the corral and begin to hack away at the huge beasts. They
target the hind legs first to bring the animals down and then
proceed with a slow chopping at the neck, often requiring tens
of cuts to actually kill the animal. The cruelty is unspeakable
and the pain these creatures endure is unfathomable.
To read more
information about this shocking event and to send an
e-mail please click:
Mass Animal Sacrifice Planned in Nepal | Humane Society
International
and than go to
the right of the page and click take "Action button Stop the
massacre! Write to Nepalese leaders now to express your horror
over the planned bloodshed."
There is a form letter
for you to send, you can personalise it and add your own words,
but if you do not feel up to doing so please at least send
the form letter which is already written for you.
Please take the small
amount of time required to do this.
There is a time
limit as the massacre takes place between the 24th and 25th
November
You may find
these scripture quotations useful in your letter but don't be
put off, if you can't personalise the letter just enter
you details and send it as it is.
All
beings tremble before danger, all fear death. When a man
considers this, he does not kill or cause to kill.
All beings fear before danger, life is dear to all. When a
man considers this, he does not kill or cause to kill. Dhammapada
54
(Buddhism)
For
profit sentient beings are destroyed, for flesh money is
paid out, they are both evil-doers.
Buddha, The Lankavatara Sutra, "On Meat Eating
(Buddhism)
Let him
not destroy, or cause to be destroyed, any life at all, nor
sanction the acts of those who do so. Let him refrain from
even hurting any creature, both those that are strong and
those that tremble in the world.
- Sutta-Nipata (Buddhism)
One is
dearest to God who has no enemies among the living beings,
who is nonviolent to all creatures.”
Bhagavad Gita,
(Hinduism)
To my mind, the life of a lamb is no
less precious than that of a human being. I should be
unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the
human body.
I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with
the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with
all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth. Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi.
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responsibility is accepted for the content of external links
including bogs:
Concerning blogs :
Although I have initially looked through the recommended blogs
in my blog roll I have not read every single entry and have
selected each on its overall merit: interesting regular entries
. However the comments and opinions of the respective blog
owners do not necessarily reflect my own opinions.
I will endeavour to reply to all e-mail, however please
bear in mind that I have a number of quite debilitating
illnesses and there may be times when there will be considerable
delay. Also I will not
publish anyone's comments, as appears to be the procedure with blogs,
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publish your comments please indicate clearly at the end of your
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All comments are welcome including polite
constructive criticism and difference of opinion. However I
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