Laudus Himself

THE BASTARD NOOSE ALL PARTS The red mist, an uncontrollable and immediate descending of violence perhaps not everyone knows. I’ve had it many times in my life and I’m mostly not proud of it. As one friend told me “your mouth has at least talked you out of as many fights as it’s talked you in to.” Shame they weren’t the same fights. Once it comes, there’s no stopping it, but I have got better. Entering a mental health ward I was as polite as I could be. Thrown into a world which scared the life out of me I still didn’t feel as badly off as the poor guys I shared an 18 room ward with. I definitely wasn’t dangerous, but one incident made me lose it to the point I’d have genuinely killed a man. The thing with nut nut* units is that we/they are they unstable, combustible. You have seriously unwell people as well as a sliding doors of men on the precipice of prison, waiting to be given the OK to leave and those headed the other way. I liked many of these, but geezers on their way inside who ...

The Bastard Noose Mental Health Ward: Food, Family, Friends My Grandad O'Reilly, apart from being the reason I can never spell my mother’s maiden name, had an important saying: Faith, Family, Friends. It is a good mantra and one I hope to adhere to as closely as I am able. My problem is that I’m an atheist, but I’m just about grown up enough to appreciate how important faith is to a lot of my family. I wanted to replace the F of Faith, and I decided on food. No, I wasn’t going there, get your mind out the gutter. It’s probably pretty obvious if you’ve read the other The Bastard Noose entries that I love food. Eating and cooking (particularly cooking- I’ll happily make food and not eat it) are things I enjoy extremely. Obviously making meals, past lukewarm posh Pot-Noodles, was not an option on the ward. I’ve talked about the ubiquitous cabbage and even toast had to be prepared by someone who wouldn’t try to eat the toaster, or however you kill yourself with a toaster. Recently, a f...

The Bastard Noose Mental Health Ward A hiatus from The Bastard Noose was due to my feeling good and thus aware I was a self important prick imposing his moaning on you about things in the past. Also after a while I'd totally blasted the whole experience from my mind. Given where we're at, good thing Google didn't delete my memories, eh! I write The Bastard Noose to contemplate and examine but I always hope to have some happy come from it. Looking back at past posts I’m not entirely pleased with many of them and I wonder why I let it slop back and forth in my head only to throw shit out my fingers. Writing up my notes to force on you began to feel pointless. I worry it's a waste of my time (and yours).  But then if you never worry about anything you’re probably a prick. It is perhaps ironic that what I consider to be a relatively upbeat piece has come at the worst time I’ve had since going into hospital. My brain is wrongly wired and sadly my body listens to it. A y...

The Bastard Noose The Mental Health Ward: First Impressions Click here for Part One of The Mental Health Ward: Informal Inpatient “But you don't [engage with mentally disturbed people], because they seem frightening and irritating, they seem dangerous a lot of the time… and you know if you make eye contact, all those problems in his head will be yours too.” Doug Stanhope Doug Stanhope’s words reverberated. I was shell shocked walking out into gen pop tired and without savvy. I didn’t know these humans and frankly, really frankly, I didn’t want to get to know them. The environment was a mystery and after my arrival under darkness these nut nuts , screaming and shouting were not people I wanted to befriend. I didn’t shout. I didn’t kick and scream, I shouldn’t have been there. I didn’t see myself as that ill by comparison. They all looked at me, the problems in their heads waiting to be mine too. My head is full, no room at the inn. ALL THE BASTARD NOOSE PO...

The Bastard Noose The Mental Health Ward: Informal Inpatient I hated writing this post. Originally it was all in the third person, but I decided it was too detached and out of line with what I've written of The Bastard Noose so far, so changed it to this; which I'm not sure is better. Going over my notes from that time a year ago, it is pretty obvious I was in a weird place, literally and metaphorically. The tone and my engagement with my experiences bounce around some. After eight days I finally got what I wanted, a transfer to a mental health ward elsewhere in London. CLICK HERE FOR EARLIER PARTS OF THE BASTARD NOOSE After darkness had ripped the bright lights of the Emergency Department from my eyes, I was thrown into the sensory stasis of a hospital transport van. Dull blue light sat coldly in the back, the quiet journey through a seemingly empty London indescribably lonely. Although I had an ascribed escort in the back with me, he said nothing and neither...

Please read the other posts from the Emergency Department  Eight days in Bay 13 of the Emergency Department. Frustrated, mad and upset at once. A mental health bed waved at me, a glimpse of the future. Titillation. The false dawn. A bed in another Trust had been dangled like an eight day old carrot. A carrot another donkey had got to first; hoisted from my hooves and leaving me biting at air like an ass. It all made me feel as if I had to be wailing, shitting in my hands and clapping to get the help the hospital had repeatedly told me I needed. I was lower than I had been since about day two when I had begun to adhere to my captors. Bottoming out, sad and angry at the system. I am sure my face flared when told the bed was gone. It occurs to me at this point how hard I have tried to avoid mentioning crying, both at the time and while writing this. Tears happen. Tears hurt. After more than a week of teasing and taking bad news I fought tears back with anger alone. I still ...

This isn't just food. This is NHS food. Subtitle: The Little Things for earlier posts, click here I'm told my The Bastard Noose posts are all a bit sad and depressing. Can't think why. Because I’m so desperate for affection I promised a lighter post, so I thought I'd run through the facilities in the Emergency Department. Obviously it isn't a hotel (at least, not until the building is inevitably sold off and restored as a “boutique resort” with ironic medically themed rooms and the birthing pools turned into jacuzzis), but I was there for eight days which is longer than I’ve stayed in most hotels. In the spirit of a happier tone on my part, here is a breakdown of the ED’s hospitality in case you ever have to spend a night or more(!) in a bay there. Or really in any hospital ever, for anything. Private hospitals don't count, obviously. They have a much nicer atmosphere which you are more likely to die in. The Room A room that isn't...

  "It's a facade, and it's exhaustive" Eminem ( Walk on Water ) Intro / Admission / The ED I'm aware this is another one from the ED, and is a bit of a wandering piece- but my more concise draft got deleted accidentally (by me) and I wanted to post during Mental Health Awareness Week. The Bastard Noose's first section was always meant to be a series set in the ED, a long form story told piecemeal, with one revelation intended for later being that the ED wasn't a stop gap. It wasn't the brief transition between crisis and care. I spent eight, interminable, odd, yet at times very loved days in that booth. Trying to recover or remain or whatever the hell I was there to do while daily being told about the awful bed situation for mental care was taxing, I won't lie. Eight days. That was supposed to be a reveal in a few posts, but it didn't feel right to keep dragging it out. Once I'd told the ED part of my tale, plan was t...