Awareness of vulnerability

 CAMPAIGN FOR DISABILITY AWARENESS.

Dear reader,
the reason for this blog is to draw attention to the idea that disabled people, either physically disabled or mentally impaired are vulnerable and are more susceptible to abuse and oversights concerning their welfare or health.

Here are some case histories which have happened over recent years.

 July 2007.
1. Kevin Davies was an epileptic who had been kept hostage locked up in a garden shed and fed potato peelings. On his death it had been discovered that he had been given weed killer.

2. Steven Hoskins, a person with a learning difficulty had been kept prisoner in his own flat. The authorities were notified about suspicious noises coming from his flat, but nothing was done. He was beaten and tortured. He was also made to wear a dog collar and kept on a lead. Steven was left hanging from a viaduct where a woman stood on his hands and he fell one hundred feet to his death.

January 2008.
3. Brent Martin was murdered by two youths who bet each other five pounds that they could knock him out. It was quoted that he was a gentle giant and that the youths took advantage of his better nature. Also, it was reported that there had been a spate of crimes against disabled people who were targeted for their disability.

July 2008.
4. An investigation was held concerning NHS treatment of people with a learning disability.
A case was quoted where it took three days for a person with a broken leg to see a pain team. He died eight weeks later.
I think the conclusion from this case is that people with a mental handicap / impairment including the elderly are more at risk from neglect because they are unable to state their needs.

November 2013.
5. Bijan Ibrahimi was a person with a learning difficulty. His interest was flowers. On photographing the damage done to his flowers he was called a paedophile and  to his disbelief was arrested.  After a man killed him by stamping on his head while another provided white spirit which was then used to set his corpse on fire.

6. October 2012

Thomas Orchard a paranoid schizophrenic and a church caretaker aged 32 died after he was unlawfully restrained by police officers. He suffered a cardiac arrest in his cell at Exeter's main police station.

7. Kevin Clarke also a schizophrenic also died on a separate incident as the result of being restrained.

About the author of this blog:
I myself received a stab wound after being assaulted and provoked.
I took up martial arts classes to learn some more self defence. I had a feeling that there was a bit more to these classes than sport concerning the instructors, but that could be down to my paranoid illness or projection after my stabbing.
A number of years later I was assaulted with a bottle and was punched and then kicked when I was on the ground. I got up and ran off but my assailants gave chase until my left knee which had been repaired after a road accident, suddenly gave way and I hit the road sustaining further injuries to my knee.
These assaults to my person may have just been by opportunists, but with a mental illness (paranoid schizophrenia) it is a struggle not to strengthen my negative feelings concerning the community. As it is I have since relocated to a rural area.
I have asked for respite care as as a day patient at the local hospital but due to recent cuts there is only access to hospital facilities as an inpatient.
I am unable to get an appointment to see my psychiatrist until next year. I recently have only been able to average about two appointments a year.
I fear slipping through the net where family and friends and the police have to take on the burden for a lack of support by the health service.
Before I relocated from Bristol I had been a disability advisor with Bristol City Council for a year and believe in a policy of social inclusion.

As an update to this I have been discharged from the psychiatric service after thirty six years without ever having formally establishing a recovery. I recently studied for a CACHE level 2 course in "Understanding behaviour that challenges'. From the content of the course, and as a precaution against a setting event by being discharged into the care of the community without psychiatric support for    my condition, I have produced a personal communication passport in an attempt to have my needs met in Barnstaple in a unique, appropriate, meaningful and important way. The link to my blog containing my passport is

personal communication passport

After having been discharged from psychiatry I have decided to establish an alternative safety net by applying to be formally assessed for Asperger's syndrome by the Adult Autism and ADHD service. The first application form was lost.in the post, but filling in a second form and sending it by tracked and signed for post has resulted in me being put on the waiting list to be assessed. 

My steps four and five of the twelve step program used for mental health.

 Here is a step four of mine, 'we took a fearless and moral inventory of ourselves', and step five of 'we admitted our defects of character to ourselves, another person and our higher power'.

Here are my defects:-

Sardonic: bitterly mocking or cynical.

Obstreperous: unruly, turbulent and noisy.

Self-absorbed: absorption in oneself.

Obsequious: servile, fawning, sickeningly polite.

Self-assertive: confident or aggressive.

Opprobrious: very scornful, abusive.

Self-centred: everything has to centre around my needs.

Obtuse: dull-witted.

Self-seeking: primarily concerned with my own journey through life.

Ostentatious: showing off, in my case with physical abilities and education or knowledge.

 

Self-obsessed: primarily concerned with my own role in life and its accompanying insights.

Oculogyric crisis: a dystonic reaction to anti-emetics, in my experience, Maxalon, Stelazine, Olanzapine, and cannabis. Characterised by upward deviation of the eyes.

Side effects / sight: damage to the parietal cortex on the right side of the brain by the use of anti-emetics, in my case, Maxalon, Stelazine, Olanzapine  and cannabis. This can produce a kind of blindsight in the left field of view. Some aspects of the part of space that is ignored are still processed, but there is still blindsight in the form of seeing without seeing by not being able to register the full amount of information. This is called visual neglect.

Ontological: continually rationalising existence, being, becoming or reality. Soul searching that borders on obsessive compulsive disorder. Continually looking for answers or insights relating to my state of mind. Lao Tzu said "Desiring one will only see the manifestations, desireless one will see the mystery" 

 Samizdat: clandestine publication of banned literature, in my case, letters and emails.

An insight that I have developed through this process of listing my own character defects, and liabilities, and then confessing them can be described as follows: I have gone from being opprobrious which means being very scornful and abusive, to obsequious, meaning fawning or servile in conduct. Similarly I have gone from being obtuse, which means dull-witted, to being self-obsessed, and self-seeking, seeking meaning in the experiences that I have. The conclusion that I have drawn from this is that I have gone from one extreme in behaviour to the other extreme at the other end of the pole. To me this dipole means I can have a polarised personality with "mood swings", and like a dipole which is charged at both ends, I can hold a charge which attracts certain situations or scenarios.

 

 Here is a step four of mine, 'we took a fearless and moral inventory of ourselves', and step five of 'we admitted our defects of character to ourselves, another person and our higher power'.

Here are my defects:-

 

Fractious: irritable, peevish

Arrogant: No humility towards other people, as my defences were weakened I started to become inter-personally abusive by clinging to other people for company including hanging on to drinking parties instead of facing up to the issues of homelessness.

 Naive: relationships with women were not just physical but also involved a head space. Talking or listening to music was not just me letting off steam to be gone on the wind, but people might have given what I said and did some considerable thought. I have some residual paranoia when recollecting some scenarios.

Indolence: aversion to exertion. I would always leave my revision for final exams at school and university to the last moment and then cram the information, dreading the moment i had to start learning. Hedonism may have been involved in this process of always seeking pleasure instead of having a slow and steady progression or learning curve. Hedonism may have also led to substance abuse. I tried to discuss indolence as a character defect to a psychiatrist at Riverside psychiatric services, but was told to discuss it with a therapist. Here are the results of the therapy:

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy