Over at MentalNurse I have become engaged in a most unsatisfactory string of arguments with a self styled respectable academic tw@. “Training the next generation of Mental Health nurses”, ‘Beakie’ maintains absolutely that Psychiatrists “have no power” and that the “real” power lays in Government, where it “always has”.

Such an absurd reductionist argument is reminiscent of Marx. Oh well. I can not argue with the tw@ any more because I have been “sent to Coventry” and banned from commenting on the site. I hope “Mental” the owner of the site recognises that running a comfy shop does not lead to running a healthy shop. Perhaps this is the reason Mental Health facilities and services are so often god damn awful. People who work in them are so busy “managing” the patients with chemicals, threats or other devices to keep things quiet, that they never get to the root of the problem - the patients never get to express what it is they need.

Apparantly I have started an “intellectual debate”, with a posting on mentalnurse:

Wow, intellectual debate on Mental Nurse. Somewhat inevitable as I haven`t been around to lower the tone.

I think we are in desperate need of more debate as to the aetiology of mental illness. After all, if we`re not sure about the problem then we`ll obviously struggle with the solution. As I see it, the trouble with TIB`s branch of anti-psychiatry is that it has an almost perverse tendency to drive others into the arms of the medical model, in diametric oppposition to its objective. That`s disappointing for those, like me, who would like to see psychiatry take a bit of a kicking.”

Bees are dying. We may not have enough food in rich countries in five years. We may know hunger. We still do not act. The powerful do not lead us because they have everything to lose from peace prevailing and everything to gain from strife and famine. They will have enough food. The meek shall inheret the earth? Not unless they decide to inherit it and do something about it.

TalkTalk was clearly inundated by the success of their “free broadband for life” offer. The offer being styled as free has of course reulted in a slap on the wrist for Dunstone’s Carphone Whorehouse from the advertising standards council. This was on the grounds that the broadband offered was not free but part of a package.

The company has been finding it very difficult to sustain new customers, is failing to fix line faults, has not purchased enough network capacity to service customer needs, offers terrible “customer service” and routinely fails to make promised callbacks. Pretty soon there will be a mass of complaints overwhelming the company and sinking it.

This is already obvious to many purchasers of services from TalkTalk whose personal experience is that they can not even contact customer services. The phone doesn’t work, or the broadband, or both. Or the broadband works but not at certain times or the phone. The company never seems to fix faults but marks them as fixed or loses the fault report from their system - an innovative customer service solution but probably destined for disaster.

And when one does try and phone customer services, one call in two is touted to South Africa or India - where every operator has a script which says “I am sorry but …. (whatever the customer wants) … is not possible” and the other call either doesn’t get through or after a half hour wait the phone cuts off. Occassionally one actually talks to a customer service person, in the UK, who knows their job (and is therefore probably looking for another one) and something actually gets done.

Charles Dunstone plans to become a multibillionaire. This must surely be looking shaky. To help him along the road to ruin a new website is under development TalkShitTalk.co.uk will become a centralised portal for horror stories about TalkTalk, a help site to identify and resolve customer issues and the beginning of a “Class Action Lawsuit” by customers determined not to let Mr Dunstones “I’ll get rich at the expense of your frustration” scheme succeed. Investors - Beware.

One of the most harmful habits and one of the hardest habits to break is the habit of being right all the time. By being right one sets the other up to be wrong, one instigates conflict from the outset. This way one is always at loggerheads with someone about something. Others who like to be right all the time will spot the challenge you pose and will rise to it time and time again.

It it a good place to start meditation practice “in action”. Spot the moments when “being right” arises. Spot the ensuing thought patterns as they manifest and solidify into the sure knowledge you are right. Spot what follows: there is a rise of tension and even anger as you prepare for battle. Your body runs on stress when you are right all the time.

Using a meditation like this one slowly becomes more and more aware of these patterns, or habits of thinking that lead to negative emotions, actions and words. By becoming more aware or awake one recognises earlier the signs of trouble and stands guard against the mistaken attitude and then by chipping away at the habit with this awareness, you one day find you no longer need to be right. Instead being is itself a pleasure and a joy.

I rarely seem to be taking my usual attitude towards politics and rarer still to be writing a Buddhist inspired take on things, for which I was nominated last year for a “Blogghisattva” award.

This suffering of the body as old wounds have become raw and new ones deteriorated has taken over so much. The Buddha put Rupa first. He stopped his ascetic practices and drank a little from the bowl of life. Rupa is body and to feed a hungry body, to maintain the physical ground of being, is fundamental.

I am also a British Citizen, and Englishman born and bred. I have expectations of my fellow countrymen. Gentlemanly behaviour is always appropriate. I am known, to those who know me, from old ladies in the place I live, to close and old friends, as a gentleman. Those doctors who have done their jobs know this too. Those who haven’t know I can bite back.

Which is where my identity as an Englishman and that as a Buddhist come to a head, and Englishman loses. At the end of the day expectations lead us to greater suffering. Always. People say hope, which is a form of expectation keeps you going. It holds you down. Whether it is met and you are burdened with more earthly ties which inevitably lead to suffering, or not met in which case, generally, one suffers sooner, doesn’t matter.

So I will drop my expectation. I will attempt to carefully and fully explain that which is “wrong” with my body to doctors, for now I direly need their help. And if ever and when I am up and walking tall again, I will remove any inflamatory references from my website.

I don’t wish to fan flames. I just need a body that works. Mistakes were made. It happens. A lack of speed and grace in dealing with it can be excused. Now the time has come for things to happen promptly. My body is very weak.

Yet still I smile at everyone I see. Smiles and sunshine cost nothing is my favourite piece of wisdom.

I met a Doctor who seems to know what the right thing is when he sees it, or in this case attempts to investigate it. I met some relevant bigwigs who are willing to investigate and prod.

I hope soon there will be a really positive development, so that when my friends and family call I won’t still be telling them my health has worsened. If some of these people are allowed to do their jobs or helped to see the need, I might still be here after all to answer the phone if it rings.

After life, the only thing I want based on ego right now is the love of a good woman and the chance to have a family.

A very stupid police officer from the Metropolitan Police in Borough of Newham attended the accident in which my Land Rover was written off last week.

How do I know he was very stupid? Well apart from his behaviour - insulting me, a disabled and incontinent man for needing to pee after a road traffic accident and not being able to wait until i got to hospital - he stole a number of X rays and MRI scan films from my car. He Also Breathalysed me in the Ambulance in a neckbrace for which he required special permission. All this was in vengeance for my percieved wrongdoing.

The films were in the car at the time of the accident as I was on the way to see my Chiropracter to get a comparitive set of films taken. I showed the films to two witnesses to the accident as I waited for the ambulance and discussed my situation with them to pass the time. So there were witnesses to the presence of these objects in my car immediately before I was removed from it. The films did not travel with me to the hospital in the ambulance and to make sure I have checked with the Accident and Emergency department and ambulance control, neither of whom have them.

Once out of the car I handed my keys to the policeman who told me he had parked and secured my vehicle before he handed the keys back. So he had access to the vehicle at a time when I was not present.

Once out of the hospital later that afternoon I returned to my car with a friend and we removed everything I wanted from the vehicle. The next day we went back to check for these X rays which were not there. I then checked with the local police station to see if they had been recorded in “book 66″ the valuable property book which records all objects the police remove to secure in such circumstances - they were not recorded.

So there was one person who had the opportunity and means to remove these films - the policeman who parked my car. The only thing missing from the traditional policing picture as to how to solve the crime is motive - but the man was so stupid he even explained this to me - he was one of four officers disciplined a few weeks ago for the way he treated me and he was fool enough to point this out to me. Not happy to gain vengeance he also made his need to do so perfectly clear with his behaviour and his words.

This man should not be a police officer. He is clearly not only prepared to bend the rules in doing his job but he is prepared to commit a nasty crime potentially damaging to someones health and steal some hundreds of pounds worth of medical images.

I am unsure as to whether I should complain about this officially. I would like to. I do not like theft nor violent crime and I am called by some of my neighbours a “grass” because I am prepared to report things to the police. If I do and the Metropolitan Police fail as abysmally in their duty as usual, nothing will happen to the officer concerned save for a little telling off at best. And next time he sees me it might be in a dark alley when no one is watching. He has already shown that he is prepared to break the law, risk my health and insult another human his need to seek vengeance.

By the admission of one of the local inspectors - the one who disciplined this officer for his previous behaviour - people like me are a rarity in this part of London. There is, she said, “a generational” distrust of the police service. I wonder if they wonder why?

Lies are woven into my fabric, they are the shifting ground upon which the abused child builds the shaky house of self. The abuser uses lies to create the myth of his omnipotence over the child and their very life, thus creating the double binds which ensure the silence and brokenness of the victim.

The black and white thinking concommitant with a history of abuse and the subject of lies and truth are interwoven in the psyche of the victim through this double bind and the edge of rage which lies at one side of it and the chasm of fear that lies at the other.

The fear engendered in me by people lying to me is more related to the original fear of my abusers than related to the fear of what the lies can do to me. It’s simple: you lie: there is no trust: there is no trust you are not safe.

To me lies and truth matter more than anything. It is only when i am relating to persons with whom I do not fear a breech of honesty is likely that i can unfold and become myself in a relaxed way. As soon as the walls go up in fear of being lied to I will not relax again.

As a victim it is natural to create the situations where these feelings will arise and then fall back in a manageable way. This expression of the latent instincts and its repression are a major factor in the internal walls of denial that allow the whole charade to sustain.

To get the feeling one is being lied to and to challenge it head on in an appropriate way is a hard learning curve for the victim. It involves scaling the wall of fear created by the abuse and related threats or violence used to ensure silence is not broken.

This wall of fear, and fear that one will explode with rage, are however really quite empty when looked at closely. They are traces of the past, lines in chalk marking a place you were in once. As such they can be overcome with patience and compassion. Then one starts to find oneself in a place where one can ask the question “are you lying to me?” without it being the end of the world, whatever the answer.

Oh, and for those who know me, now you understand why I don’t do lies.