blood nerve and bone

  I got the answer to my life's problems last month. Well, at least that’s what some people would expect, and maybe to an extent a little bit what I expected. I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder in early January after a few months sitting on NHS waiting lists and a lot more years of being – looking back – obviously fucking bipolar . Like I said, I expected it to be the answer to my life’s issues, the thing that I could point to and be like “that’s why I felt that way.” It’s been helpful, but it’s not all that. There are so many misconceptions around what bipolar disorder even is, or looks like, or feels like. Really, I can never say any of my life was that way because I’m bipolar; it’s too varied and personal. Instead of talking about how my psychiatrist fixed my life (I’m actually going to talk about some damage my diagnosis has done, not just the good), I just want to talk about my experiences with mental health pre-diagnosis that could’ve pointed to the new diagnosis, the ...

 plurality is a weird thing. i found out i was in therapy, at seventeen, and wholly unprepared for such a realisation. it's a real world-view shifter - i'm grateful for it now, of course. i'll preface this with i don't like saying i have did/osdd, just that i'm plural, even though my plurality definitely did come from trauma. also, many of us share memories, which is how i'm able to recount a lot of what i do here in such detail. anyway, it's pretty hard to form a cohesive sense of identity and self when, right at the brink of when it's 'supposed' to come to fruition, you get ripped 4000 miles away from everything you've ever known. that, though, is a story for another day. my first plural memory, my first memory of dissociation, is actually from the day i found out that was going to happen to me. it was a tuesday, and we would move on the friday. my dad had been working in abu dhabi for a few months alone at that point, with some friends fro...

  Oh, look, Lucas tries to write a book review! Thank God it doesn’t have to be academic here. My worst uni grade was a book review. So, consider this more of a book yap than an actual review. I’ve deleted my main social media for a week or so. Plenty of time to do things I’ve been meaning to do, to actually use my brain outside of the minimum required for university. For a while now, I’ve been meaning to read Cohen’s ‘Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness” in full. I can hear you screaming at me through the screen – how haven’t you read it yet? That’s right up your alley! Listen, I know, I read the intro chapter and chapter three a few months back. I loved it, and then I got busy. I don’t have much else to do in my spare time at the moment other than read and write, so, I figured I would write to you, computer, and teach you something as I read. Maybe it’ll stick it all into my head better this way, too, since I’m forced to reword and understand if I’m writing. ...

  in my house growing up, i was only ever really told of my welsh background by my dads parents. my dad, too, but less so. they told me all about how i'm the only one in the family without a welsh name (ha! not anymore; luc is welsh!), about how the last welsh speaker had only died a few years before i was born. i didn't think much of it, honestly, my identity was very much in other places. before my teenage years, i was a third culture kid living a very average middle class life in a gulf country. my sense of nationality was a kind of puzzle; i was british, but i didn't relate to british kids. i spent every day surrounded by mainly indians, pakistanis, south africans, palestinians, malaysians, iraqis, syrians, and the list goes on. i learnt arabic and french in school, not spanish. my uniform was different, my school trips were different, my days were different, my lunches were different. i didn't know all of these hymns sung in assembly; to me, normal was outside lunc...

 cws: suicide (incl method discussion), abuse, grief hello again - i have no idea what im gonna end up writing here. its just 2am and im just sad waiting for meds to kick in so i can sleep, i want to talk about my dad, but i feel like ive said everything and nothing at the same time somehow. i didnt think six years would be the hardest so far since maybe one or two, this years just been really bad for it. the sicker i got, the more i got it, the more i get it, the more i miss him. i hadnt really missed him before...? not properly anyway, id felt sorry for myself for dealing with this, ive missed the idea of having a dad, but now i kind of miss HIM. like, MY dad. the shit one. because i think we might be closer now - hope might be a better word than think. i *think* hed still be weird to me, and i know if he wasnt dead i wouldnt have been able to largely forgive him for the abuse he put me through. i think hed still be doing it if he was around, but at least i wouldnt be so alone in...

Recently, I wrote an essay for a module on nuclear politics and strategy (yes, I am the classic international relations student, but I swear it’s in a red way, okay?). I was answering a question I’d put together myself – “Why is the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (1946) incomplete in its overview of the impacts of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima?” I formulated that essay question thinking it’s a pretty simple answer; the more subjective, emotional, human impacts go practically ignored. The survey speaks only of ports, roads, fires, deaths, radiation sickness, the influence of the bomb on Japanese surrender and warfighting morale. I took understandable issue with that omission, so I decided that would be my criticism, my answer. But, as I pushed my argument further and kept asking “okay, but why?” as I made each subsequent point, I kept landing on my arch nemesis – psychiatry. Now, this isn’t something I could exactly center my international relations essay on. It can be made re...