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: Car Alarms My notes say “I was anxious on entry. I wasn't scared, I was suicidal, what were they going to do, kill me?” This is me lying to myself, I was a bit of both anxious and scared. Although I didn’t fear for my life, I feared the unknown. My anxiety was about settling in. It didn't take long to, and now I was more comfortable I was taking a lot more of my environment in. A nurse came into my room and forwardly asked “for a chat” to say they hadn’t checked my sexuality yet. Even in my confused state i t seemed an odd move given no other nurses barged into rooms, apropos of nothing. Is this the norm, hours after all the fucking checks and questioning about minutiae of one's being, to come into people’s rooms to ask them whether they prefer front hole or back hole? It was also his only question and therefore his opener and closer. There was no foreplay, so to speak. Even with my flat feet my sexuality is irrelevant and also the way ...

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 ...

Please have a look at the earlier posts from The Bastard Noose My wait in Bay 13 of the Emergency Department was stressed not only by not knowing when it would end, but by constantly being told it was close to ending and it not ending. The concept of time was largely lost with no daylight. Time was dictated by the arrival of the friends and family I was slowly realising I am very lucky to have and, yes I’ll admit, a watch. As days wore on and my expense and tying up of resources became more of a stress on the Trust who cared for me, there was no shortage of tension. Mental health, or really any, beds are hard to find. I was told that a lot. I understood, I got it after about day three. Used to the frequent drawing of my curtain by someone looking for another patient or just checking I hadn't done a runner (an idea which left me so fast I'm definitely a candidate for Stockholm Syndrome), I didn't flinch when a man came in with a clipboard to enquire on my happines...

For other posts from the ED- take your pick I’m rather proud of my ability to find humour in things others are reviled by or at least uncomfortable with; it has certainly helped me throughout my time in hospital and beyond. In all of life’s ups and downs, seeing the funny in something can be the slither of hope. If I can still laugh, I can still live.  With that in mind, I bring you the tales of Barbara and an unnamed gentleman, both of whom I came across in my first twenty four hours in Bay 13. Stories I could twist any which way, but will try to find the funny in. While I hope Barbara (not her real name) and the man I describe are well now, I also hope my lottery ticket wins next week. My troubles felt as if they paled in significance with those of the poor souls who wandered or were escorted through the ED. It made me feel sane, then guilty for being that selfish. Every person has layers, levels, branches. Only it seemed the leaves were falling from many of these poor ...