Taken from the Philosophy of mental health- Extract Copyright Robert Fullarton 2009

 Taken from the Philosophy of mental health- Extract

Copyright Robert Fullarton 2009

I myself have congregated and associated myself with the older generations and have been treated to the extraordinary insights and moments of self-renewal through conversing with my elders. I have met such people in hospital twice, on different courses, which I have

partook in. The stories are magical, they are my memories of bliss, the only, singularly present light that beams like a vibrant pulse of energy, through a pitch dark moment or period in my life. I have formed friendships with such people, with older generations with whom I found the common denomination between such affable and sociable human beings in their entirety. 

As I have struggled in the past two years since my release from hospital, I have had to familiarize myself with the old world of routine, self discipline, a professional standard and a determinism to work and try things anew. Over so many days I would wake half exhausted, half emotionally wrought, raved by depression, a breathlessness from my anxiety, shooting pains and muscular aches –my psychosomatic illness took leverage over my habits and motives- and all in all dizzy spells were forecast at least several times a week. Throughout many weeks I spent much of my time in bed, trying to convalesce, I grew intrepid through both depression and excitement and there was always a fresh crisis around the corner for me to tackle. I wrote my diary entries to a melancholic flavour of my dissipating mind, with a growing pathos often for the community of those who suffered from similar illnesses and even of those with ASD, whom I have gotten to know in a greater capacity as the years have gone by. I have never taken surveys in my life on different peoples and their particular tastes and associations, but I do remember distinctly the kindnesses from which I have met from some of the most profound people, people who come from all walks of life. 

Their stories –as I mentioned earlier- stay with me, I may unfortunately forget their name, but never their story, and I have met with narcotic addicts, alcoholics, schizophrenics, people termed psychotic, people with behavioural disorders, bipolar disorder, attempted suicides, people who have spent time in padded cells, sufferers of vicious abuse of many kinds and I have met courage and beauty in the stories and the individuals that bore the spirit and the goodness to still feel and give love, despite the very negligence and the ignorance of those who have manhandled them. I also know many other people –my beloved- who suffer not specifically from mental illnesses but from crippling physical conditions –those who have been neglected and left for the hospital bed waiting lists- I have known and still know these people, these names, flesh and blood alike and have come to a contemplative conclusion, they have come to their own conclusions on the mysteries of life, what it brings, what it gives and what it takes alike. 

I have thought it is so wonderful, so lamentable and yet so strange how often it is the healthy and the wealthy who abuse their position vicariously and rather prejudicially, to reap reward, to bask in social notoriety and accumulation and how it is the deprived, the afflicted, the wounded, the troubled men and women of the world who have the resilience and the depth that many cannot know, for the rich never rarely see the other side of the coin, in the world of poverty and desperate need. So too the healthy should not be ignorant of the blessings, the capabilities, the honours and the privileges one bears and possesses when one is in the full prime of one’s life. I am rather pique and rather lost when I see the youth of today –my contemporaries- showing no regard for civil liberty and bodily integrity, no respect for seniors or the responsibilities and the codes of good conduct that bring honour to those who obey them respectively. 

As I said earlier you may laugh today but you will quite possibly weep tomorrow, for anyone who takes their own health for granted and their abilities, by not making the most of their days, by being thankful and grateful, for doing the best they can, when they can, they will be left to their terrible disadvantage and will be forced to learn of the frailties, the costliness, the hardship and the community that can emerge through suffering and through conquering. But I must admit the days bring fresh challenges even for me and I will confess that it can be particularly difficult for to survive a day when we clutching to straws, and the world seems not to understand for its indifference is no illusion but our affirmation to positive change is the difference and we should find comfort and solace in our own ability to problem solve and locate the sources of our abilities.

I have lived through times of political and social unrest, turmoil and recession –every age has their national and supranational crises to bear-, I have listened despondently and wholeheartedly ignored the common rigmarole of the media and yet I have come back around full circle to my own self realisation, time and time again I have to live life at my own pace, the world it seems has gone awry long ago, I cannot find solace in the world or. 

When a man comes to an important juncture or stage in his life and realises that he cannot know everything from his own tastes, desires and fantasies and accepts that often he learns much of the lustre of his own capabilities from his friends –the ones he loves and cares for- life is that much more sentimental and rather luscious with its surprises when one finds support and pleasure from friends on a mutual basis. I myself have found a circle of dependant comrades, intellects that mimic the youthful search for learning and living. I cannot stop praising those men who belong to the minority out there –those who are not absorbed in a corruptive popular culture that relishes in stereotypes and cliques, that acts to endorse and make profit over the uneducated through cheap tricks and kicks- I really find that where there is a certain element of alienation between the sexes which is potently based more on culture and pithily I state it is all fashion trend and business. What have the sexes in common, that the boutiques and the fashion designers have not exploited?

I am basically stating that a good friendship –to say it eerily enough- when it has been given a temperament for openness offers the devotion and the understandings that monogamy can never forge throughout a lifetime, because it is not based on traditional restrictions, gender roles, cliques and culturally implies terms. True freedom is spontaneous, self searching, questioning, defies the shrunken superstitions of each society. I must state that it is a sorry case when we find ourselves surrounded in a city of strangers, for that is what we are –we are not brothers in this land of ours-

without community spirit, without that contemplative power of reasoning in life, the majority will always fill the adhesive roles as labourers and shop keepers that toil and exhaust themselves for cheap pleasure –as the means and ends of their existence- while- and hardly question and wonder on the abstract boundaries that shape their existence. Blessed is he who stops pacing two and fro and roars “Why”!

I tell all and even the hypocrite in myself...to never take anything for granted, for there are two ways of looking at things...its either a blessing or just mere luck, which we can dismiss and dispose of when we want...but in the end the nights are truly blacker than they should be and for me as a Christian it is the crest of the wave that carries me through...the joy of joy's...love of loves...hope of hopes..the fighter in you needs a good coach and a good right hook if he or she is going to fight...for we have to be fighters in order to live and live good...but for me as a Christian, I believe that my own life is a duty for the greater good of my faith to God and that I must look outside myself and be an example of such behaviour, for truth is truth but it must be lived out and learned the hard way, it is not written on paper nor washed away when the majority get tired of its labours and responsibilities. Solzhenitsyn once remarked during his famous Harvard address that "We are all ready to talk about rights but less so about responsibilities." This is prophecy in the making and which we will follow in time as a quagmire of liberalism is ruins the tenets of states, traditions and principles, selfishness is the reality here, responsibilities, duties, loyalties, traditions, graces and good will are in short demand in an age that shops and swaps its dogmas as it goes, but it is a vociferously anti-Christian age and that is why Christians must be prepared to draw the highly visible line in the sand and make a stand against the hell-bent dogmas of the age, that want to water down and question the very kernel and heart of our social virtues to death..and whether you like it or not...most of such come from the very teachings of Christ.