Do you ever wake up and look and think there are a million things i could be doing today but when you start to decide what to do your mind shuts down and you decide to write in your blog instead? I'm having all sorts of bother trying to change email addresses and every time i go to connect to this page it won't let me and i have to go round the houses. I'm going to set up a new account in a new address with wordpress and i'll try to inform you of the changes and let you know how i got on.
What i just experienced whilst navigating and negotiating unresponsive and unhelpful advice and information was the same feelings of 'Hopelessness' I had in prison. It sweeps over me like a warm blanket and i normally feel it in the pit of my stomach before it reaches my brain. I'm lucky enough to recognise it and trained in how to deal with it.
What is it?
It - is every positive and negative thought that you can and can't remember which triggers a switch which triggers 'IT'.
It - most importantly, is a process. It will come, be assured it will come, but it will also pass if you know the signs and can breathe and let it go.
I've visited this process a hundred times in prison but could never really tell anyone. I was a 'Listener' I get it, i really do, but in prison the words 'suicide' and 'depression' cannot be used in the same sentence to authority. These words automatically set in process a chain of events that will leave you spinning out of any semblance of control you previously were clinging on to. It's called a SPAR or PAR - Suicidal Prisoner At Risk or Person At Risk of suicide or self harm. I'm not going to tell you what this involves, look it up, find out about it and read how plausible and helpful it sounds, you'll find it under Safer Custody in the Prison Standard Operating Procedures.
The men I know who come off a SPAR do not do so because they have lost their suicidal tendencies. I'll tell you if you are interested but not here, it's way too personal.
It breaks my heart to see how the threat of culpable manslaughter has allowed the system to legally administer abuse. The reason I started all of my work in Criminology and prison shenanigans was because of a lady called Pauline Campbell from the Howard League (I became a member yesterday) who I met in Brixton in 2007 along with Francis Crook and Lord Carlisle. Pauline's daughter killed herself in custody. Pauline killed herself at her daughters graveside, on her birthday, in 2008. This chain of events left me with a burning rage in my soul. This is state sanctioned abuse - resulting in hopelessness - resulting in action/suicide - causing a ripple effect on others - resulting in solution which equals suicide.
I lost count how many times in the last couple of years I wanted this for myself. I was able to tell a person who worked with me in the prison my true state of mind. The person was physically moved and shocked 'but you always come across as...' Yes, i did but only out of fear from authority if i went looking for help. Thankfully I survived.
Suicide is a solution, but what most people forget, in the heat of the moment, is that they will not be around to see it's outcome. I lay in the sun yesterday, in my massive back garden and watched a big fat, battle scarred, one eyed Tom cat, nonchalantly but stealthily walk past me. He kept glancing at me with his good eye and in a moment of clarity i thought - he's just like me Mr Tom battle scarred, wounded and traumatised but he still walks the walk and seeks out his prey, he's fat so he must be doing OK.
I hope you get this message, it's a bit like....
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