Ups and downs 2

According to Radio 4, there are 60 million bloggers in China. 60 million blogs. 60 million! What do they all say? Can there really be 60 million separate opinions in the whole world? Are there 60 million ways to arrange the words in a short journal entry or do some of them look identical?

I’m willing to bet that about 55 million of them have more content than this one usually does.

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When I started this blog, which was carefully (well, not carefully at first but now more carefully) designed to not be found by searches on my name and therefore to be safe from access by boss, parents, Son’s school friends and some of my professional opponents, the intention was that I would be able to write anything. In some ways it’s worked; I’ve been able to write about what it actually feels like to be high, or low. I’ve been able to throw out a few intemperate and not particularly thought out political opinions. I’ve been able to bore people rigid with a description of tonight’s menu and the fairly common bird I saw the day before. But it’s still self-censored, and I’m wondering why.

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Many years ago, when I finished my professional exams, I applied for a job with one of the Big Four firms of accountants, in their investigation department. I had two interviews with managers, which went well, and I was told that I had the job subject to approval by the head of department.

So I trotted along to the building again for a third interview. Before it took place I was asked to copy out about half a page from a book. Then I had the meeting, which also seemed to go well. All was smiles as I left.

The next day my recruitment agent rang, in rather a state herself, to say that the job offer had been withdrawn. Officially it was on the basis that he Big Boss had decided that I was “not a team player”. Unofficially she, like me, put the blame directly on the graphologist’s report. Apparently the investigation group had previously had a member who had talked about someone under enquiry in public and the press had got hold of it so they were paranoid about security. Their own personnel department had said that it couldn’t select for security risks through standard personality tests but the independent graphologist had assured them that she could.

I took out a couple of books from the library on graphology to find out what had gone wrong. Turned out that I left my o’s and a’s open at the top; a definite sign of inability to keep a confidence.

I was just a little bit livid at being denied a job by pseudo science, although I did console myself that I really didn’t want to work in a department with a head who relied on it. It would have been a disaster as it turned out- big accountancy firms and bipolar don’t mix too well. But there you go; I didn’t know that then.

The irony was of course that I am completely hopeless at keeping secrets. These days my o’s and a’s are closed and I am a little better at it than I was then, but not very much so. My secrets, shared secrets, other people’s secrets- I’m crap at keeping them all.

I’ve been sort of keeping one for five years now. Only something like 5 people know, (and everyone they happen to have told of course). Strangely enough, other people seem to see no need to spread it around. Hell, I don’t know- maybe everyone knows by now and is too polite to mention it. Me, I drop occasional hints. Ask me directly and I’ll tell you. I don’t really do secrets, even partly for other people’s benefit- 5 years is definitely getting past its shelf life.

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The odd thing about talking to psychiatrists is that you tell them things. Even when you have no faith in their judgement, when they already have the wrong end of the stick, when you just know that what you’re telling them is making things worse not better and they aren’t going to understand no matter how you explain- still you tell them all the things you don’t normally tell anyone.

Partly it’s maybe the fact that they are doing their job by listening to you; that they supposedly want you to tell them all this deeply personal trivia that you wouldn’t usually tell anyone that you weren’t drunk or naked in bed with at the time. They don’t get that “I didn’t want to know that” look; they don’t consider that you are just showing off, they aren’t bored and waiting for their opportunity to tell you about their peculiarities. They are making some dreadful judgement about you of course, but that doesn’t show at the time. So you can talk to them about the fact that you rehearse conversations with other people for hours in your head, or that (and that’s the crux of it. I typed two lines and erased them again. What is it that stops me from leaving them there?)

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There is nothing about my life that I wouldn’t tell any one of my friends, alone, late at night, over a bottle of wine or two (the wine’s for them, obviously). But how often am I alone late at night with them? And what makes me think they want to know? It’s not an easy jump to make from a conversation about Battlestar Galactica. Maybe we are all better off as we are. We might be safer that way.

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I could use my blog to say anything and everything. I’d like to. But I know, intellectually if not by gut instinct, that the barriers between people don’t get blasted away by information. If I told you on this page what I dreamed last night then I might cause embarrassment, shock, amusement maybe but no more understanding. Maybe I’ll tell you over that drink sometime instead, and just maybe you’ll tell me yours as well.

From today's online Guardian; http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialcare/story/0,,1987681,00.html

"The government was defeated in the House of Lords last night over legislation to strengthen powers of compulsion in the treatment of mentally ill patients in England and Wales...........

The Department of Health said later: "The needs of patients and the risk posed must determine whether compulsion should be used - not their decision-making ability. The amendment places patients' decision-making ability above the imperative to protect them and others. It risks excluding them from legislation that should protect them."

I'm waiting for the DoH to apply this rather new and startling principle of compulsion to other areas such as treatments for giving up smoking, losing weight, taking medication for epilepsy or heart disease, vitamin supplements and so on.

Of course the big difference is that smokers kill other people in a gradual and easily overlooked way. Mad people, it is generally known, are inclined to wave axes around, even when they appear to be sane and able to make their own decisions. This has nothing to do with protecting us, and everything to do with protecting you from us.

Polar Bear Girl may be paying a visit to the Health Minister......

Long gap, some reasons.

Excellent Xmas, New Year, recovered from work stresses. All set to go again and then I fell asleep, pretty much completely. Apparently my thyroid had deteriorated a bit further- should be OK shortly but meds have 7 day half life so it's taking a while to wake up properly. Looking forward to the promised general alertness and possibly even thinness in due course.

Battlestar Galactica last night- was all a bit horrible really. Two years of characters in one context and then throw them all into a rather different one and torture them a bit. Very good though, if somewhat nauseating.

Not awake enough for anything further at present.