Trivialising Mental Health - 'O.K.D.'

See this right here? This kind of thing needs to stop. this thing right here? This knting needs to stop

It’s difficult to watch TV, or go to a pub, or sit on a bus these days without hearing some person say ‘I’m a bit OCD’, normally because they are particular about things, like the cleanliness of their house or the categorisation of their record collection.

When I hear this, I sigh, and roll my eyes at a friend who knows why I’m irritated, which is all of my friends, because I tend not to make friends with people who are that clueless about mental illness.

This image however, this is my line in the sand. This has been reblogged into my tumblr feed by people whose feeds I otherwise like, who I have reason to believe are nice, smart people. A crochet version of this image has been reblogged by This is Not OCD -a great tumblr pointing out instances of this very problem, saying that it is an offensive comparison.

Let me talk a little bit about OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder in which the sufferer has distressing intrusive thoughts that they need to neutralise through some action or thought, sometimes that may be a cleaning task but it can be literally anything. If the compulsion is not acted upon the believed repercussions are catastrophic.

There’s an episode of This American Life that tells the story of Cathy whose OCD presented in the form of eating non-food items, resulting in many near fatal injuries and more than ten years of forced restraint in an institution. She believed if she didn't act on the compulsion to eat these items her or her mother would die.

I went to a BPS lecture on OCD a while ago and the psychologist giving the talk got us to do an activity, feel free to give it a go yourselves. He asked us to write the name of the person we loved most in the world in the middle of a piece of paper. Then he got us to write ‘I hope ___  is violently killed tomorrow’ around it.

When you've done this click read more

Schizophrenia, Stigma and Donnie Darko

It’s schizophrenia awareness week this week and I’m going to contribute by writing about something that may seem like a subtle, mental health pedant niggle, but is actually a big contributing factor to the stigma people with the diagnosis face.

So when I was 15 through to, oh…I guess 17, Donnie Darko was one of my favourite films. I love dark sci-fi, and it seemed obvious to me that Donnie Darko was a sci-fi, if you watch the director’s cut especially, this seems abundantly clear. So it didn't bother me too much in the fledgling years of my study of psychology that the character is given the diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia, of course the psychologist got it wrong, she couldn't possibly know he’s actually involved in a time wormhole thingummy.

The problem is that there are parts of the story where Donnie is taken over by Frank the rabbit, his ‘hallucination’, and made to do strange and violent things he has no awareness of.

Bumbling Poetry No.13

Stethoscope

Your tender chords are making
That galumphing sound again.
They'll put a metal valve in place,
Then we'll all set our watches by
Your ticks, and I'll dream of you
As Hook dreams of the crocodile.

Bumbling Cross Stitch No. 1

Hey internet,
I heard you like free things, how about this cross stitch pattern I came up with for my mum's birthday? 

pdf available here

I'm pretty happy with most of it but the DVD/CD isn't as clear as I'd like. Every self respecting crafter loves a charity shop so I'm hoping people will like this. I've only recently gotten into cross stitch after knitting too much gave me acute monoarthritis (!) and although it's a lot more effort for the eventual pay off I find it has a similar appeal. 

Armpits4August- Why Does Body Hair Matter?

I was once at a performance poetry night, everything had been going very well, drinks had been drank, poems had been said, everyone was in a friendly supportive mood by the time the open mic started. Then a very posh, floppy-haired young man took to the stage to read a ‘comical’ poem about how he had once gone home with a girl, only to discover that she hadn't shaved her legs, and that she could give no good excuse as to why not, so he left in disgust at her hairy body.

Now, I don’t know how many poetry nights you've been to, but the women there tend to be of the empowered persuasion, and this particular poem went down like a glass of cold sick.

If you don’t like body hair, that’s fine. Personally I’m not a big fan of hairy chests on men. But I would never try to publicly shame someone for being hairy, nor would I expect another person to groom themselves to my taste rather than theirs, and that’s really what I'm talking about here.

Gracious Knits- Back to the Future

Over the past year I've collected quite a lot of 80s knitting patterns, to the point where I've banned myself from buying any more, as I only have one lifetime and I'd like to do more with it than knit.
Having said that, this book appeared for me under the Christmas tree last year:

Aaaamazing!

 

 

After soaking up every page of 80s goodness I settled on an interesting pattern that uses up oddments (I have sacks of oddments) for a friend's birthday present.

 

 

 If you want to know how it feels to have Joseph's Coat of Many Colours going round in your head for 3 months, the answer is- not great.

 

 

 

The whole time I was making it I couldn't decide if it was just too insane looking, but I think the colours make it work.

 

 

I hadn't done anything like fair isle style knitting before, and I think I did pretty well with the zigzags, I twisted the yarns in so there's no tugging. 

 

 

Anyway, I enjoyed looking at it so I thought you might too.

 



 

The Scattered Remains of Something Broken

In one of the many charity shops in the city centre -one of those charities that have enough money to give its shops the surface impression of a vintage boutique, an austerity chic for the less privileged- Leah was browsing the bookcases. She was there because she preferred old books to new books, she liked anthologies of poetry annotated by the previous owner, reaching the point of a novel where the spine was at its most broken, and finding improvised bookmarks made of detritus from someone else’s life. She was also there because half of her paycheque every month went on her rent. That’s cost of living in one of the richest areas of the country when you aren’t rich, and Leah wasn’t about to give up reading.

The classics section was always her first port of call, as years of general consensus tended to assure quality, she was not about to waste good time and money on something badly written. On this occasion she picked up a couple of Fitzgerald novellas, a hefty tome by Dickens and brick of Dostoyevsky. She handed over two hours’ pay.

Bumbling Craft- Mother's Day DIY

 

 

Microwaveable Scented Neck Cushion

 

Materials:

 

A fat quarter of printed 100% cotton fabric

 

Around 500 grams of oats

 

One pair of large (size 7+) clean socks, with no holes.

 

One small bottle of oil scent such as lavender or lemongrass.

 

Sewing kit.

 

Method:

 

Take a container like a plastic tub or shoe box and empty oats into it.

 

Sprinkle oats sparingly with some of the scented oil.

 

Using hands or a scoop and funnel, stuff socks with roughly equal amount of oats. (Make sure to hold over box to avoid spills.)

 

Tuck the top of one sock into the other and make sure both feet are pointing downwards, sew flat across this join.

 

Push desired amount of oats into ankle sections of socks, which will cover the back of the neck, and sew diagonally across heel to front of foot on both socks so that oats do not drift from this section.

 

Distribute rest of oats evenly inside feet and sew across at several points to ensure there are oats in all sections.

 

Lay the fabric out wrong-side up and place socks along one edge, it should be an ideal size to fit along edge with a couple of cms either side.

 

Using a ruler and a pencil mark 3 or 4 cm on the inside edge of the end of the feet and beginning of the feet.

 

Using these marks and the ruler you should be able to draw a rectangle with the centre of the fat quarter marking one edge.

 

Fold fabric down this centre line and cut along lines. This should leave you with a large rectangle of fabric with a smaller rectangle cut from the centre.

 

Take the large piece of fabric folded wrong-side out and sew up short edges.

 

Turn right side out and place the sock cushion inside. Sew up long edge using hidden stitch.

 

The result should be something like this:

 

 

 

When microwaving this cushion make sure to heat in short bursts of around 30 seconds for a couple of minutes and keep an eye on it at all times just in case.

 

If giving as a gift include the oil bottle so they can top up the scent when it fades.

 

 





Bumbling Poetry No.12

The clavicle bone, rarely pinned up,

Is the most beautiful part of the body.

Right at the point where it nudges into

The straight line of the shoulder, and less so

Where it makes a shallow cup, to quench the

Heart- a noble role for the bow of some

Great Instrument.