R 18

If the World is a Stage
Then When I Die
I Imagine that
I could Make Love
to Salvador Dali
Or to God
Or the Devil
Who Knows
I do not Know
But I imagine Hay Bails
Wasn't it Claude Monet that painted Hay Bales
In his Later Years
When We are Freed
From Our Earthly Bodies
Perhaps the Human Spirit
Lives On
Bouncing Like
The Speed of Light
If We are to Respect the Dead
And I Worship Winston Churchill
If We are to Respect the Dead
We are to Respect
The Lives of Our Children
Please
Please
Please
If We see that Our Children
Are off the Rails
We must NOT
Stand Back and Judge
As a World
And as Nations
Our Mentally Disabled
Are in Dire need
Of Safe Passage
Through Life
We cannot
And Simply
Must Not
Stand Back
When Enmity
And Hatred
Of One Another's Weaknesses
When People are Young
That is the TIME
to Intervene
And Please
Give Everyone of Them
HOPE
I would Give Everything
I have to be Sixteen again
And Simply
Play the Piano
Alas I no Longer Play
Please Protect the Young
Don't Stand Back
While they are being Bullied
Or Raped
And having Murder Attempts
On their Lives
In God's Eyes
We are All Diamonds
Even the Mentally Ill
So Keep them Safe
In Future PLEASE
I have LONGED to Go to My Grave
Since I was Twenty
Only if We Protect
Those with Mental Illness
And Give them Equal Rights by Law
Will We Cure this Dilemma
Psychiatry at the moment is Pitying
Fractured
And Judgmental
We must Please
Set up Work Houses
For the Mentally Ill
And the Unemployed
And Ex-Prisoners
So that these Peoples
Psyches can Heal
It is Simply
Un Christian
To Settle for
Watching them Self-Destruct
With the Knowledge that They
Are NOT Accepted
That is the Key
To Heaven

I Give Thanks to God
For Every Day
Spare those that are Weaker
And Demonstrate Humility
And Kindness
Actions Speak Louder
Than Words
We must Not Condemn
It is Un Godly
Make a Place
For them
In Our Society
PLEASE

R 18

Perhaps it was very Irresponsible to even Start a Blog based on Euthanasia for Mental Patients.  Who am I to have the Audacity to make such a Request.  The time to Intervene Correctly, in a Persons Life, is when they first Present.  I don't believe that it is Humane and Fair and Just to Simply Look on, even if with Humility, though that is Often NOT the case.  The Destitution of Spirit for the Mentally Ill will go on Interminably unless We Provide them a Sheltered Environment for them to Flourish.  We say they the Mentally Ill are Welcome in Our Communities as Long as We don't have to Employ them……..They are free and yet they are totally Isolated and Oft laughed at and Judged.  I Believe, that Fool I may be, after numerous Breakdowns and Ad Lib Psychiatric Medicine but I Implore Humanity that We must offer Sanctuary and Employment before We turn to Psychiatric Medicine.  I am a Mess and more or less a Burden and I am Stricken with Grief that I could so Ignominiously Slip through the Cracks and never find a Way Back.  But the Judgement is so Succinct and it only Escalates as the Person Slips further and further into Insanity.  Please
I Beg that Our Children and Our Children's Children are not left to Self Destruct in Overwhelming Condemnation.  The Huge Burden of Stigma has just been Too Much for Me.
Humanity must turn towards offering Society as a Place of Sanctuary and Equality for those that are Burdened by Mental Illness.   That is JOB Prospects, etc, etc, etc…………….Please
We cannot Stand by and merely have Contempt for their Efforts.  We must Protect and Provide Equal Opportunity in terms of Employment and Human Rights.  The Right to Justice has to be One of them and from my Observations it Simply does not exist for those Stigmatized with Mental Illness.  
At the Heart of the Justice System We must move toward Protecting the Vulnerable or We are Simply Not Just.  I am not the Only One……I am One of a Multitude that has been failed by the Psychiatric System.  For the Sake of Humanity We must Endeavour to do Better for Our Psychiatric Survivors.  Every Human Being is Precious to God and We must Demonstrate that Please.

Asymmetric Nude 2

Picked Up the Cabbage Leaves

Picked Up the Cabbage Leaves
Have lost my Fork
My Trowel
And my Secateurs
As well as My Mind
I'm a Complete Lightweight
I couldn't
Make a Political Argument
If Someone Paid Me
But I was told to
Focus on Myself
By the Psychiatrist
But We cannot
Go on Kidding
The Patient
Within Consultation
And then Condemning
On Paper
And Verbally
It is Immoral
To Stand By
And Allow
Our Psychiatric Patients
To be Raped
And Have Murder Attempted
And to be taken Advantage of
Etc, etc, etc
Without Protection of Law
It's all a Cruel Freak Show
And Psychiatry must Change It's Focus
And Develop a Moral Fibre
That Enhances People's Lives
Drugs only Hasten
The loss of Faculties
Unless People can See
That there is Truly Hope
I have been So Traumatized
My Sanity
Is All but Completely Lost
We cannot Go On
Mocking People
Into Suicide
Please Give these People
A Decent Chance
At Decent Living Standards
And Job Security
That I Believe
Is the only Fair Choice
For Psychiatry
The Mentally Ill
Should not be Left Rudderless
To Will Themselves into an Early Grave
I Kneel Before God
And I Pray
That When I am @ Peace in my Grave
Our Children
Don't just Exist
In a State of Complete
Desperation
But feel Safe
In a Society
That does not Condemn
I'm only Here by default
I wanted Out of the Degradation
But I Argue now
For those that are
To Come
We Cannot
Go On
Turning a Blind Eye
And not Lending a Hand
Psychiatrists must Start Batting
For Their Patients
Instead of Analyzing Us
As Some sort of Lab Rats
And then Condemning
And Hiding Mistakes
Drugs Destroy the Mind in some Cases
Even more so than the Mental Illness itself
We must First Employ
Then Medicate Cautiously
PLEASE
PLEASE
PLEASE

Weed Garden and Plant Anenomes

These Days I am Happy to think of What I can Do
Rather than what I can't do
I'm no Rocket Scientist
And some Days I do
Very Little
Today is a Sunny Winter Day
And I must do Something

Seventh Happy Day

When One realizes how Good it is just to be Alive and then I win my Golf it is Hard Not to be Happy. The Game of Golf is a Miracle of Creation because of the pleasure of Participating.  I am Privileged to be able to Play.

Imagine A World

Where Every Human Being

Is Valued

If the Potential

Of the Young

Is as Uncut

Diamonds

We must

Strike

At the Very Bottom

Of Society

With a Strong

Resolution

For Change

Psychiatric Patients

Loose the Respect

Of their Peers

Then they

Loose Hope

Then they

Become Melancholy

and Inert

Are We to Waste

Our Human Resources

With Poor Management

of These Poor Souls?

Instead of Such as

Suggesting Sterilisation

And of Course

As I have said

Condemnation

+ Stigmatisation

+ Alienation

There

Is the New Revolution

I Believe

I'm Supposed to be on

A Happy Day

Day Five……………

Got Out of Bed early

Made Porridge for Peter

And I

Watched Ghana Playing Germany

Thrilling Play

Smoked the Peace Pipe

And it is a Sunday

The most Special

And Sacred of Days

Because it is a Day of Rest

Day Four of being Happy

Have made a Carrot Cake
And Thank God it looks Great!
Angie visiting today
So We'll get Her to blow the Candles Out!
This Week I have to tidy
My House
And next Week
I Shall set up the Studio
I have to remain Focused
Cool Winters Day

Day Three of One Hundred Happy Days

Thanks to Rainbow-Claire Insley and Malissa Jayne Topping and Whoever thought of the Idea I've taken the Plunge and I am trying to have One Hundred Happy Days in a Row.  I'm on Day Three and there is Already Slight Improvement in my Output.  Could be a Marathon….Lets See if I make it.

Day 2 of 100 Happy Days

I'm going to try and go One Hundred Happy Days
That's a Mission for me
When some days I am Glad
If I just manage to fold the Washing
I have now Promised
To tidy my Studio

Voila
I have Until next Thursday

Speech at Sixteen

My Speech of Choice
At the Age of Sixteen
Was that Everyone
Should have Right
to Euthanasia
You see
I was Young
Clever
And My Poor
Dear Mother
Had Lost Her Mind
I wanted
And still
Sometimes
Feel that
Having Right
to Euthanasia
Would make
Us Change the way
That We treat Our Invalided
If instead of having
to Commit Suicide
We could
Demand Euthanasia
It would be
Embarrassing 
We would Immediately
Take Action
I have Lived
Since I was Sixteen
Entirely
Traumatized
And then I Fell
Having a Mental Illness
Is like falling
Into Personal Hell
I had the Great Privilege
Of Giving Birth
And for that
For my Sun
I must go on……..
When little is left
Of what was
Once a Clever Mind
I have to Settle for 
Simple Pleasures
Like Watching
The Clouds go by
It is Deep Winter
Here in Paeroa
Please treat Us All
As Equals
As Brothers
+ Sisters
Before God
We have to Get
Away from Judgment
And Help
Our Fellow Man
For aren't those
The Values
Of a Democracy
Be Kind

I Guess I was too Stoned to finish what I had begun………..
There needs to be a Radical Shift in Our Society's Focus on the Mentally Ill.  There is an invisible Barrier set in the way of the Mentally Ill.  And that is Universal Condemnation.  The Psychiatrists Condemn You.  The family You Live in Condemns You and so does the Majority of Society.  If We are to Allow Our Mentally Disabled People to Live Wholesome, uncomplicated Lives We need to Shift the Focus on the Patients Strengths PLEASE.  Too many are Falling by the way side with Psychiatric Diagnosis.   As a World and as a Country and as a Community We must Shield and Protect Identity Factors in Dysfunctional Families.  First terrified and now Disillusioned I think We need to Change the Focus of Care PLEASE.

So I Wanted Death if I was Mentally Ill.  I carried on in that vein for All my Adult Life.  It is only because I Lacked Courage that I am Alive and Perhaps to Honour my Son.  Suicide is Destructive but if We don't want People to Kill themselves they must be Included in the Fabric of Humanity.  Not just cast Out of Society.  I've Lived it and I know the Pitfalls and the Pain of Isolation and Judgement.  In the New Era PLEASE look at People Strengths rather than merely focus on their Weaknesses and Condemn.  The Commissioner for Mental Health Services Herself Acknowledges that We need to Change the Focus.  Insanity becomes a Self fulfilling Prognosis and Isolation breeds Dissidence.  When all They want is a Place to Stand and Contribute alongside their Fellow Man all We do is Dis Them.  No Wonder their behaviour becomes more and more Extreme.  Work, Security, Pay Rises are Every one's Dream.  Let's Help it to Happen for the Mentally Ill and Ex-Prisoners so they can think of Better things to do than take Out their Angst on their Fellow Man. We need a Huge Shift and it must Happen because the Psychiatric System, for all it's apparent Concern, doesn't attack the Problem with enough Vigor.

A Hundred Happy Days

100 Happy Days
Seems to be the latest fad
To do that
I have to take 
My Meds
Use my time
Constructively
And a Love Interest
Always Helps
I don't think
I can last
A month
Without
Some family Issue
Tripping me Up
But here goes
Day One

The Sun is Shining
Cheers Winter Up
The Trees are Naked
Now We can 
See the Birds
Singing away
To help Cheer
A Winters Day

Thank God
For the Sun
And thank the 
Lord for my Boy
Without Him
I am Nothing

Sunday

It's a Sunny Sunday and the Washing is on the Line.  Not much to Report.  Just Happy.   I've made it to 54 years of Age.  I have Discovered that Hope is a bulb in the Earth that Pops up at unexpected moments.  Hope Rekindles itself.  

And a Blue Heron
Flew through the Rain
to my Window
Gray Clouds
Will not
Weary the Spirit
May We Shield
Each Other
And be as Beckons
In the Dark
Let in the Daylight 
To those
Whose Lives
Have been Destroyed
By Mental Illness
It is for the Young
That I Pray

Rainbows Aplenty

It's a Bleak day
But there are Rainbows
Aplenty
And We are Cosy in Our Insulated Home
I had a Stern
Discussion
With Salvador Dali
And as long as
I am Alive
I Should
Have a Paint Brush in my Hand
It was how I had Fun
How I could
Communicate
And without it
Part of me
Is Missing

You are LUCKY Johnny that You didn't Spend your Youth having Nervous Breakdowns and Caught by Insanity.   What I am saying and I shall Reiterate is that many of Our Psychiatric Patients are often some of the Brightest and most able of Candidates.  And yet to be diagnosed with a Mental Illness is like your Spirit being put into a Rubbish Bin.  Would it not be an Intelligent move to focus on finding Secure Employment for these people rather than let them naively flounder like a boat with no rudder in Hostile Communities.  Wouldn't it be a far Superior Option and one where Humanity takes a Step forward in the Treatment of the Mentally Ill that We give them a "Train-line" so to Speak.   Groom people for Work and Employ and only then use Medication in the Equation.  I feel I Slipped into an Abyss when I was Diagnosed and the fear was Palpable.  It has been a Nightmare ever since with People Looking Down on me with Judgement ever since.  People NEED to feel a Part of the Community or Anger Breeds in the Shadows.  I am Guilty and a Peace Activist so I can only warn that leaving People to bumble along against the Weight of Stigma is Cruel.  We Breed Dangerous People if we leave people as Train-wrecks at the bottom rung of Society.  We must Act more Constructively and get People into Sheltered Employment or such like and give People HOPE please.

Uenuku Dancers

I look to my Etching and I sometimes Surprise myself.  As I come from Te Awamutu Uenuku, the Guardian of the Rainbow, has Special Significance to me.  Those Years were the Summer of my Life.  

It was such a Privilege to go to the National Party Cuppa.  Still have the Blue Nail Polish on.   They are doing a Good JOB.  Seamless Politics.  Impressive

Billboard Vision 1980

Thankfully I'm Alive
My Uncle Milton
Reminds me
That I Should 
Thank God
For every Day
That I
Should
Be Proud
For I had a Son
It would be So nice
To form a Trust
called after Mervyn Hope Campbell
Called the Hope Foundation??
Whereby
Newly Diagnosed
Psychiatric Patients
Would find Opportunity
Of Employment
I'm a Train-wreck
And more or less
A Career Beneficiary
Which Usually
One would have
Good Reason 
to Condemn
But my Idea of a
Humane Solution
For those that
Present with Mental Illness.
Would be FIRST
Employ
And then 
And only Then…
Medicate
Ad Lib
I have born
The Consequence
Of Using Medication Alone
To treat the Patient
And in my Estimation
It is a Cruel
Stigmatizing
Regime
We are not Rats and Bunnies
But the Mentally Ill
Are Also Human
We must want
For Every Human Being
What We want for Our Own Children
And that is Acceptance
In Our Own Communities
That is my Prayer
For the 
Future
Of Psychiatry

+ + + + + +
+ + + + + +

Train Wreck

I wouldn't rather
Live any other Life
For the Lessons
Of Compassion
I have Learnt
Every Day
I hope to
Get Up
And tinkle
Iris
Our Mascots
Legs
It's a Joy
To be Alive
I Hope to
Look into
A Granddaughters Eyes
One Day
And Know that
She will
Be Safe
I have
Too many times
Seen the Inside
Of Mental Institutions
Give them
Hope
Guidance
And Employment
And You will
Keep
Both Society
And the Psychiatric Patient
Happy
And a Happy Society
Is a Healthy One

Uenuku

It is Unfortunate to live One's Life as a "Train-wreck".  Sometimes I wish I could go back to Pine Cone Mansion at Te Awamutu and Relive my Life from there.  I had the Great Privilege of meeting my Local M.P. Scott Simpson and the Minister of Arts and Attorney General Chris Finlayson.   It's got to be Good that the Country has been Protected from Financial Ruin by a Banker and a Good Gang.  

I think, however, that it would be the most Marvelous Experiment if We took Distressed Youth from Broken families into Employment and training so they don't get lost in the Poverty Trap.   If We taught them the Arts and Cooking and Gardening and Music Skills and Paid them as opposed to Medicate and leave to their Own Devices at the Bottom Rung of the Ladder indefinitely.  I wonder that a Trust could be set up to Help People build up their Confidence and Self Esteem by Employing them at an Honest Rate of $15 per Hour and Directing them in whatever proves to be their Forte.   Especially in the Coromandel Area there is Scope for more Lodges and Tourism.  I'd Weave Stars and Bake Cakes because that is all I'm Good at these Days.  But I would so love to See Young People getting a Chance at a Good Start in Life.   If there was a Control Group that was given only Medication and another that was paid an Honest Wage whilst Bettering themselves I think my Idea, as a Pilot Scheme, would Romp in.  The Days of "Ad Lib" Psychiatry must Accept that a more Humane Approach would be to Encourage rather than proffer Glib Platitudes.  As a Society, PLEASE, may we come to the Conclusion that Constructive Intervention would be far more beneficial than Long Term Unemployment and all the associated Anti Social Behaviour.  It doesn't Bare thinking about how off Beam I became but We must, as a Nation, and as a World, find a better way to Redeeming Our Youth before We strike Catastrophic Consequences in some cases.

I Rant

But I am Passionate
That there must be Hope
For the Mentally Ill

PLEASE

I When I Argue I Argue
For the Child
That I was
Not the Woman
That I Am
Please
Ensure
That Victims of
Crime
Do not
Become
Increasingly Victimized
Even in the Noble Profession
Of Psychiatry
It is not for Psychiatrists
To Judge and Demonize
The Patient
We Should As a Nation
And as a Compassionate World
For isn't that how We would
Wish to Remember
Ourselves
We cannot go on
Casting Out
The Mentally Ill
As if they were
Some sort of Cast System
That puts Us on the Lowest Peg
Of the Ladder
For Eternity
What We must do
As a Humane Society
Is Plot a Path of Employment
for Them
So that they can Maintain
A Semblance
Of Dignity
In the Community
I Know Vincent Van Gogh
Would have His Fists
Bared for me
And a Tribunal
Especially for Psychiatric Patients
Is a must
We must be 
FORWARD
Thinking
PLEASE
I argue
for myself
As a Thirteen Year Old
Don't let them
Fall by the way
To be taken 
Advantage Of
Are We as a Nation
Going to offer
Psychiatric Patients
Work Rehabilitation 
Before We continue
To Medicate
Ad Lib
Are We Compassionate
Or Dispassionate?
Have We removed
Ourselves
From Their Suffering
As a way of
Coping
That is the Future of Psychiatry
To find People's
STRENGTHS
And not
Underline their 
Weaknesses
And Condemn
I am a Shining Example
Of Why We
Must Not
Rely only upon
Medication
To treat the Patient
And then Scoff at
From behind Pedestals
I was a Brilliant Piano Player
And Good Sports Woman
Perhaps We could put aside
A Whole Island
For the Mentally Insane
Where Nobody
Laughs
And Nobody
Condemns
It is So Boring
Attacking the Weak
And being Indifferent to 
Their Plight
Psychiatry
Must Shake Itself Down
And not allow
The Victimization 
Of Psychiatric Patients
To Continue
PLEASE