Paranoia-Inducing, Projection, and Internalisation

To begin this article on paranoia, I first want to say something about paranoia-inducing, paranoia projection, and the internalisation or introjection of this. Some people in power and society, will try to induce paranoia in people diagnosed with mental health problems, because they get a kick out of it, it makes them feel superior in terms of power and awareness, and it makes them feel and think that they have a better grasp and understanding of reality.
 
For example, whilst it may be argued that the drug cannabis induces paranoia, there is also the reality of the discrimination against the drug and its use, because it is illegal, and which can also induce paranoia.
 
By persecuting, terrorising, and hounding individuals, this can be a way of making the victimised person feel frightened, angry, paranoid or upset, and which are all ways to control and label the person, as having symptoms of so-called mental illness. This may also be a projection of paranoia - perhaps a mass paranoia - upon individuals or small groups. This projection of paranoia, can then become internalised by the person, but could also be an awareness of what could happen, if this discrimination and abuse to induce paranoia, became extended to actual or more violence, became more extreme, and got out totally of hand.
 
There is also the matter of sensitivity with paranoia. Some people who are labelled as paranoid may have a sensitivity to their local surroundings, and be sensitive to some aspects of social and cultural animosity, that others cannot see or admit to about themselves, or are not as aware of. Paranoia can be a more social way of thinking, because it is connecting to others, albeit in a negative way.
 
One opposite of paranoia, is the denial of power abuse, repression, and oppression in society and reality. A normal person may be tolerant towards some abuse and oppression, whilst the so-called paranoid person is aware of it and protests against it.
 
Paranoia can also be part of a creative process, where a detail or details get enlarged or exaggerated for atmosphere and effect, whilst there is some corresponding so-called delusion thinking, although once the blocks or delusions have passed, and the person can see the whole picture, this can then be part of a personal, cultural, social, or political critique.
 
Paranoia labelling can simply be a denial of rights to protect persons and people from persecution, discrimination, abuse, and oppression. On the BBC TV programme The Doctor Who Hears Voices, a female member of the Manchester Hearing Voices group, said that she was frightened that aliens were going to take her away, remove her eyes, and blind her. This might mean, that she is frightened that she could be sectioned, or incarcerated, in psychiatric hospital, if she told others about the voices, and that she could become alienated, and have her perceptions and thoughts about the experiences of the voices, taken away from her by psychiatric incarceration and drugs.
 
What is curious and interesting, is that in my experience, paranoia can be taken as a general personal criticism by another person - particularly a parent or other family member - even though the critical aspect of the paranoia is not directly about that person. Again, this might be because the paranoia is warning people of what could happen, if things became extreme or out of control, because it highlights the so called sane person's denial or tolerance of abusive power and repression, and because it is in a way seen as mad, irrational, and delusional. It is at the least, an extension of the so-called sane person's intolerance against another person having a different opinion or experience.
 
Paranoia that exists alongside or are also delusions, can stem from the fact that harm, abuse, and bullying has been done to the person in the past, and that events are somewhat overlapping in the mind. What the person needs is to understand are that the events are separate, but that they are also somewhat interconnected and interrelated.
 
Paranoia can also be about the person needing love, reassurance, and protection, and about his or her way of expressing that need. Paranoia can also stem, from the way that children or young people can be threatened or told that bad things will happen to them if they misbehave. This can induce paranoia in the child or in later life.
 

Hallucinating Music and my Appreciation of the Composer Wagner

I woke up at 8.30 this morning, after only having four hours sleep. I then went back to bed at 10.30 a.m. and slept until 2 p.m. I had the most amazing experience when I woke.

When I woke, I could hear some great and unique classical music that I've never heard before coming from my radio. I remembered turning my radio off though and thought "That's weird!". Then I turned the volume up, and it got louder although it didn't go up to full volume. I thought it was strange because I usually leave my radio tuned to Radio Kent who don't play classical music. Then I checked the switch to see if my radio was on, and it wasn't switched on. I then heard some seagulls outside my window, and this created and blended in with more amazing and unique classical music. After about twenty seconds the music faded.

I've hallucinated music before, usually jazz, but not quite as loud and vivid as this. I then played the parts of what I could remember from hearing the classical music on my guitar, and will remember how to play it now. This makes me wonder, if I could have been a great composer, and if this is how a lot of classical composers create music, is that they hear the music from the outside or the inside of their heads first. Maybe some of them hallucinate it.

I'm a great fan of the composer Wagner, and I gain a lot of psychological insight about human beings from listening to and experiencing his music. I said this in a mental health chat room, and one user in the room said that Wagner was a Nazi sympathizer and a racist, and that his beliefs went hand-in-hand with his music. I explained to her that the Nazis weren't around during Wagner's lifetime, and in any case the Nazis just used what part of Wagner they wanted to for their own propaganda and ideology, and then they dismissed the rest. Wagner did have some anti-Semitic views, but he also had Jewish friends and colleagues throughout his lifetime.

Wagner was not simply a nationalist and a racist. He started off as a socialist and an anarchist, but then got into nationalist politics. He then returned to his socialist and anarchist views towards the end of his life.

Wagner was interested and influenced by the philosopher Schopenhauer. Shopenhauer was a pessimist who believed that the human will was the source of all evil (unlike the philosopher Nietzsche who believed that it was the source of all good). In light of the strength of will of the Nazi's, Schopenhauer would have been right that it leads to evil and destruction. Instead of will power, Schopenhauer believed in transcendence and was influenced by things like Hinduism and Buddhism, and he saw salvation, deliverance and escape from suffering in aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and ascetic living, and he thought that music was a very important part of that transcendence.

When I listen to Wagner's music, I do not hear conflict or racial hatred, but I hear both subtle and immense human emotions and love, tragedy, humanism, and ordinary people's struggles against poverty and oppression. I can hear Wagner's socialism and anarchism in his music, and when listening to his music on the bus on my Walkman, I realized the immense hidden love within ordinary people walking along in the streets, and their struggles against war, violence, and oppression. This is what I hear in Wagner's music, and which is why for me he will always be one of the greatest modern classical composers

Art, Transcendence, Rationality, and Consciousness

A while ago I had a brief conversation with an artist. He said that modern day teaching methods for art are useless and don't encourage people to think for themselves, but just focus on correct materials, still life, and copying from photographs. He also said that music is less aesthetic and less directly perceived by the senses than art, because art is visual and in direct contact with a person's consciousness, whilst music can be experienced with the eyes shut and is transcendent (beyond the ordinary range of perception), and so therefore less conscious and aesthetic.

The fact that modern day teaching methods for art are useless and don't encourage people to think for themselves, but just focus on correct materials, still life, and copying from photographs, implies that there is a lack of imagination and perception that only applies to form and not to emotions and finer or subtler perceptions which could go along with some transcendence.

As a musician, I disagree with the artist that music is experienced or played as less conscious as visual art, as a lot of great music requires a lot of consciousness to fully appreciate, play, or understand it, and I don't think that hearing is less of a direct or valued perceptual sense than seeing. I also don't think that transcendence is equal to a reduction of consciousness, as I partly feel that this is a very Western way of thinking, and which is culturally determined by different ideas on consciousness itself (with the East equating transcendence as higher and not lower levels of consciousness).

For example, in Kant's theory of knowledge, transcendence means being beyond the limits of experience and hence unknowable. This also means being above and independent of the material universe, and so the Western model may be a more materialistic view of consciousness than say a spiritual one, or it may be assuming that transcendence is beyond material reality, when it may just be beyond ordinary, formal, or mundane perceptual experience.

The Western model on consciousness also seems to me to include certain ideas on madness, that if madness is regarded as transcendent, then it is therefore according to that model something less conscious and less aesthetic, when again transcendence might mean a higher consciousness on some level.

Why I am Opposed to the 11-Plus

I recently had a brief conversation, with someone about grammar schools and the 11-plus. She said that it was wrong of the Labour government to close some grammar schools, whilst I said that I disagreed with the 11-plus, because it brands children as unintelligent from an early age. She replied, that without the 11-plus we would have mediocrity, as if mediocrity doesn't already exist in society, with things like the vast majority of parenting and the media.

The main reason why the 11-plus is wrong and highly damaging, is because it doesn't take into account the influence of the home-life on the child's learning, mental, and emotional development. I was abused at home, and which prevented me from concentrating on school work, as so much of my time was spent on dissociating from the abuse, and suppressing very painful thoughts and emotions. We need women into work, college, or university, so they are not housebound, and basic child development and parenting skills taught in schools, but what we have now in terms of parenting, is a state of ignorance and the worst kind of anarchy.

The other main reason I am opposed to the 11-plus, is because children develop intellectually and academically at different ages and stages in their lives. Only in my late teens, did I become very interested in reading and learning, when I was free from the school bullying and domestic abuse, and then I wanted to learn about politics, psychology, and sociology, because these things were not taught in schools. I later stopped reading, because I mostly read to improve my vocabulary, and because I then wanted to focus on my own experiences, observations, findings, and ideas.

In some ways, I believe in more freedom in society, but I can also see a case for more rules or order in certain areas of society, especially in the area of educating young people, and foster parents, in basic child development and parenting skills. We are having a society of children brought up by amateurs, who have no basic learning or training, and it is a diabolical situation, and state of affairs. People on the right-wing always talk about children needing more discipline, but the adults or parents are allowed to get away with blue murder, and do exactly as they like, without any basic training, and understanding of basic children's rights. We live in a society that elevates amateurism, and which most children are nurtured and brought up by uneducated morons and imbeciles. That is mediocrity of the worst degree.

Delusions and Reality

There's a widespread belief, amongst some Marxist and communist people - even those on the center of Marxist or communist politics - that religious people believe in things that don't exist, such as God, and that the psychiatric hospitals, are full of people, who presumably don't believe in things that exist - therefore, all religious people are mad and irrational - and all diagnosed mad people are irrational and deluded.

This reductionist view, pertains to be a view about objective reality, but is in fact an opinion or value-judgement about sanity and madness. It also doesn't take into account, that a person can be both deluded and aware at the same time, and that so-called delusions can have a real basis to a person's life experiences, and in a wider personal, social, or a more cultural aspect of reality.

I have had so-called delusions in the past, when I have been very mentally unwell, where I absolutely believed in things that were not real, and yet I have also got to the stage where I knew I was deluded, but still wanted to have some aspect of the delusions up to a point, because I could learn from the experiences.

I find that Marxist or communist people are prejudiced, mentalist, and not very nice towards psychiatric diagnosed people, and treat us as socially and mentally inferior, when they are supposed to believe in equality. Obviously, their equality means, as George Orwell put it in his book Animal Farm that: 'some animals are more equal than others'. Not to say the least, about the way that diagnosed psychiatric people, and political and religious dissidents, were treated in the old Soviet Union, and locked up for life, simply for having different opinions and experiences.

Am I Normal?: Spirituality

In this TV programme, shown on the 28th of April, 2008, on BBC 2 at 9 p.m., as part of the documentary series Am I Normal?, Dr Tanya Byron explored what some consider the fine-line, between religious devotion and so-called psychiatric disorder. She began the programme, by asking what place does religious belief - which depends not on rational thinking and scientific proof, but simple faith - have in the modern world? She asked, are people who devote their lives to something that can never be proved, wasting their time?, and is the very idea of religious belief, evidence of flawed, or even demented, thinking?

Tanya Byron spoke to a street preaching born-again Christian, who when asked if he ever wondered that people might think he's crazy, said that people who say this are crazy themselves, and trying to push their craziness and negativity onto others. She then spoke to a nun, who said that monastic isolation helped her to face her inner demons. The nun said that she knew her beliefs in God were true, but it was not something she knew with her head, but more similar to something a person knows with their heart.

Tanya Byron then said, that a lot of mental health professionals, say that a high percentage of people with diagnosed schizophrenia have religious beliefs, but that this helps them with their problems and life in general. A psychiatrist said that religion has had a bad press in psychiatry. Because of religious delusion, the psychiatrists tend to see spirituality as something that needs treating. The shrink continued by saying, that this prejudice about the religious beliefs, of people with mental health problems, stems from the fact that religion and science have been separated, in the history of psychiatry, and that we need to bring science and religion back together.

Tanya Byron then mentioned that it has been said, that if you talk to God, then you are religious, but if God talks back to you, then you are a schizophrenic. Former MP, and newspaper columnist, Matthew Paris said that he had no problem with many Christians, but that he got irritated with laziness of mind, using bad arguments, and finding comfort in something, that they know in some part of their brain just isn't true.

Richard Benthal, the author of Madness Explained, said that we all have an inner voice, and that it's well known in child development, that at age 2 we are start talking to ourselves. He said that diagnosed mad people are treated as another species, and considered that they are deluded, out-of-touch with reality, and that others have a privileged access to reality, and diagnosed mad people are seen as not responsible for their actions and need controlling.

Tanya Byron then said that, what if people who hear voices are not mad, but are just unhappy people who have had bad experiences in their lives, and that they need to be listened to, and not labelled as mad and feared. She attended the Manchester Hearing Voices group, who are working with the University of Manchester's new research, to look at hearing voices in a new way.

Peter, from the Manchester Hearing Voices Group, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and been in a out of psychiatric hospitals, said that his negative voices, were taken over by more positive voices, of his mother and grandmother. He said that psychiatrists trying to suppress the experience of hearing voices, were not helpful, because we need to not fragment the voices, but integrate them - have a relationship with them - get to know the voices and understand them. Tanya Byron concluded the programme, by saying that we need to accept the spirituality of diagnosed mad people, and not label this as part of their diagnosed mental illness.

I thought it was a good programme, but I have one major criticism of it. It's not a simple matter of religious belief on the one hand, and rational thinking on the other, or religion and science, and simply bringing the two together. It's a slightly more complex matter, of the dialectical relationship between the two, and that they can be connected or related, and yet still remain very separate. As a writer, and experienced person on mental health matters and creativity, I am basically a rationalist and a scientist, but I also believe in creativity, and realise the importance of things like spirituality too, in order to further the rationalist and scientific quest.

As a voice hearer, I hear positive, educative, friendly, caring, and supportive voices, which are female. I need to have these hearing voices experiences for my own well-being, and to create and think fully and effectively, and I would be depressed and devastated without them. I often initially have to create the voices with my mind, by setting up a basic dialogue with another in my thoughts, and then the voices have some autonomy from my conscious thoughts, and engage in discussion and debate with me.

When I am not hearing the voices, I know that they are not real, and are just an extra function of my mind or brain, but whilst experiencing them as autonomous, and relating and engaging with them, I have to suspend rational thinking and belief, and believe that they are real people, otherwise I would not hear or experience them, and otherwise I would not be able to come up with new knowledge and findings, and write about them.

This means, that the rational belief aspect of the mind has to be suspended, for a different modality of thinking and feeling to take place, and in order for new rational and scientific thinking to occur. Even though this involves temporarily believing in things which do not exist, it is not laziness of mind, or bad argument, as Matthew Paris simply put it. It is often a much more complex, and more deeper way of thinking, which is a more dialectical thinking, and a different mode of consciousness.

The Cult of the Ordinary Person or People

In democratic societies, you tend to get something which is called the cult of the ordinary person or people. It is considered by very conventional thinking, that ordinary people are more moderate or moral, but this is not an educative or enlightened approach, and it is a myth that ordinary people are always more moral or moderate, because they also supported Russian communism and Hitler.

The cult of the ordinary person or people, is much more an aspect of modern fascism and totalitarianism, than the superman or superior race concept, because whilst the cult of the ordinary person or people is on the one hand liberal, pragmatic, and democratic, it is also characterised by ignorance, anti-intellectualism, and the extreme conformism and dictatorship of mediocrity.

The cult of the ordinary person or people, is anti-fascist in a way because it is anti-intelligentsia, and puts ordinary people in charge, without the fetters and rules of the experts or state, but it is also anti-liberal, as it puts experience, over and above, intellectual or academic teaching and learning, when the two are equally important. The cult of the ordinary person or people, is therefore what might be termed an empirical approach, but it one based upon ignorance, and based upon putting people in charge over equally moral, intelligent, and educated people.

Not all intellectual or academic knowledge is accurate or relevant, as knowledge is different when applied in reality along with experience, but we need some sort of building ground of knowledge, that fuses intellectual or academic information with practice and experience.

There are many very good qualities to ordinary people, and most ordinary people are fine, but on the other hand, they tend to rule en-mass over very extraordinary people, and rule out any difference, uniqueness, or individuality. There is also a serious lack of democracy, under the cult of the ordinary person or people, as there are no representatives to choose from, and no real participatory democracy. Also, the rights of minorities are not cared for and protected.

One good example, of the bad aspects of the cult of the ordinary person or people in this country, is the foster-care system. Foster-care parents in this country, aren't required to have any real training in terms of child development and parenting skills, and the only basis that they are chosen, is they are so-called respectable and have plenty of money. If a child gets mistreated by an older child or adult in a foster-care home, such as being pushed over by an adult when they are playing, it is considered that this is how they learn. That is the basis of most foster-care parents idea of learning, and there are no basic children's rights in terms of treating children equally.

Smacking a child, is also justified from the perspective of the dictatorship of the ordinary person or people. Labour politicians, to their shame, have refused to ban smacking, when we know from experience that it can be misused and become part of abuse. If an adult were to smack another adult without consent, then that person could be prosecuted under the law, but for an adult to smack a child is considered acceptable, although it is still an act of domination and humiliation.

Often children are smacked just for offering a different opinion, or defying an adult or parent. Whilst discipline is no doubt good for children, it is also natural for children to be somewhat defiant against parents or adults, because this is how they form part of their own identity as individuals. Do we really want mindless conformism and ignorant mediocrity in our society?, or do we want a society based upon true democracy which doesn't put the rights and power of one group over and above another?

Creativity and Sensitivity

In my previous article on Creativity and Self-destructiveness, I wrote about the receptivity and sensitivity of creativity. I'm not entirely certain though, whether some people are naturally more sensitive than others, or whether other factors are at play. Certainly, a persons past and present experiences, can make them sensitive to certain triggers, which can bring back feelings or memories of things like abuse or bullying. Sensitivity, can also mean sensitivity towards others, and which is also a part of creativity, and our ability to love and care for ourselves and others.

Part of the creative process, is a filtering of masses of perception into smaller parts, and which sometimes gets mistaken as misperception of facts, or as physical, emotional, and intellectual dissociation. At the same time, there is a selection process to creativity, which enlarges certain details for atmosphere and effect, whilst there is also an enlargement of the whole.

I'm also interested in whether being very sensitive, can lead to more erroneous or more accurate objective description of facts, sensations, thoughts, and feelings. This whole area doesn't seem to be looked into much. I think that whilst the raw masses of information, received at the initial stages of creativity, are disorganised and over-lapping, that at some stage a structuring process takes place, and which involves more elemental and holistic thinking, and with attention to subtle and finer details. This is certainly required for effective studying, learning, teaching, and creating.

Paranoia is another area which interests me. Paranoia is, in a way, a social thought process, because it involves being connected to others, albeit in a negative way. I think paranoia and delusions occur when the details are enlarged or exaggerated, but the background and factual information processes are blocked or omitted. It does seem to me that when a person is deluded, that they are more sensitive to experiences, but are unable to connect a detail or details to the whole, including factual information.

Fetishism is another area of some relevance. Fetishism, is not, as is often assumed, a splitting off of an area or part of the body from the whole. In its initial stages, it may be a kind of split or fixation, but it is simply about appreciating the beauty of an area of the body, which is usually overlooked or not aesthetically or sexually appreciated. In this way, it is about appreciating the beauty and sexual attraction of the whole body, and a fetish can very easily become integrated into an appreciation of the whole.

There is a view in medical psychiatry, that people with so-called schizophrenia can't filter out experiences and information they receive, unlike other people. This view says that because diagnosed schizophrenic people can't filter out experiences and information, that they are overwhelmed with experiences which oppress them, and distort their thoughts and feelings. This is one reason why heavy psychiatric medication is prescribed to voice hearers and others.

There is a filtering process to creativity, and which can take place at some stage towards more objective thinking or recovery. A filter is different to block, but sometimes the so-called filter is indeed a block, and can be just something like ignorance, prejudice, discrimination, or narrow mindedness.

Punishment, Hooliganism, and Discipline

Some people say that children need more discipline in schools, and that otherwise it will lead to hooliganism. Whilst I agree that some discipline is important, I do not believe in corporal punishment and the use of the cane, as it was misused in my school.

When I was 11, we had a teacher who used the cane and the slipper, although the slipper was actually a rubber plimsoll. This teacher allocated a kid in my class, to put ticks next to the names of people who were talking in class. The kid didn't like me or my friend, and so he put ticks besides our names even though we weren't talking.

As a result of this, me and my friend were caned six times each, and it was extremely painful leaving red marks on my skin. The second time I was caned I was indeed playing up in class. I remember that after receiving his caning, the other kid who had also been playing up, starting laughing when I was caned, because I screamed out loud, to which the deputy head teacher said "Do you want some more!?". This was only three strokes of the cane and wasn't so painful though.

The third time I was caned, we were all lined up outside a classroom, waiting to go into class, and a teacher who had a red nose walked past. Some kids shouted out some insults, to which he just pulled me out at random and sent me for the cane. Again, when I had said nothing. I was caned three times again.

On another occasion, I remember being in the school assembly, and because one kid was smiling, he was pulled out in front of the school and caned six times. I thought this was very unjust, just to cane a child for smiling, but the kid told me afterwards, that the deputy head caned him because the deputy head was also a magistrate, and the teacher did not like the kid's uncle who had been in prison.

So it seems to me, that the cane can be used selectively, against certain children some teachers just take a disliking to, and I've seen this happen. I'm also against caning, because some teachers gain sexual pleasure from inflicting it.

Also, some of the bullies at my school were caned, and this made no difference to them, and didn't stop them from bullying. Indeed, the bullies seemed to feel that being caned, had made them harder and given them a mark of status and respect.

Whilst some people say there's not enough discipline in schools, and not enough respect for teachers, a lot of this is to do with bad parenting, as is hooliganism. Maybe some basic parenting skills should be taught in secondary schools, so that when children get older they have some idea of how to be good parents.

I also don't agree with smacking children, because this can be misused too by some parents who use it to abuse a child, along with hitting, kicking, pulling hair, knocking glasses off of the face, throwing things at, etc. I was abused in this way, and smacking was also a part of this, and I was often smacked for no reason.

I'm also against smacking because in itself it's a form of bullying, saying that I am bigger and stronger than you and can hurt and dominate you. Whilst some discipline is important, children also need to be taught self discipline and respect for each other. Bullying is a big problem in schools, and I think that persistent bullies should be expelled from schools in order to protect the other children.

The Doctor Who Hears Voices

I recently watched a TV programme called The Doctor Who Hears Voices, broadcast on the 21st of April 2008, on Channel 4 at 10 p.m. The programme basically showed, that how someone who heard negative and intrusive voices, could be helped to recover or cope, and get back into work, using psychotherapy, and without psychiatric drugs, coercion, or hospitalisation.

This was however, a psychologist (Rufus May), helping one individual client (played by an actress with the name of Ruth, to protect the identity of the real person), and I wondered how this could work, or be put into place, for everyone who hears negative and intrusive voices. It would require a lot of trained professionals and resources, and which I'm not sure would ever be delivered by any government. Rufus May had himself in the past heard voices, but I didn't feel that enough was said about his own hearing voices experiences, or how he coped with them or recovered.

I thought the programme was quite good, but I was concerned that the very beginning of the programme - when Rufus May was demonstrating what it's like to hear a voice - could be triggering to some psychiatric diagnosed people, because the voice was saying "Go cut and kill yourself, and kill others!" etc., and that this might have prevented some people from watching the rest of the programme.

There was also very little in the programme, about voices being positive in tone and content, except one part of the programme at the end, where Ruth said that her voices went away for a few days, that she missed them on that occasion, and that they sometimes made her laugh when they took the mickey out of other people. I could relate to the fact that the contents of the nasty voice Ruth heard, was that of a guy who used to bully her at secondary school for two years; as I was also bullied at secondary school for two years, and have heard the voices of my tormentors in the past, when I've been very unwell.

It was good that so-called delusions, were shown to have a personal and social meaning to them, in the programme, but I didn't really understand the ending of the programme. It seemed to me, that a huge chunk of information had been left out. Ruth went back to work in the end, and said she felt more powerful than the voice. I take it that she still heard the voice, but it had less control over her. This left me wondering though, had she recovered? and what was the full process of that recovery?

All in all, it was good to have another programme broadcast on hearing voices, and I'll look forward to the next hearing voices programme called Am I Normal?, broadcast on the 28th of April 2008 on BBC 2 at 9 p.m.. This forthcoming programme might show the more overall positive aspects of hearing voices, as it will be about hearing voices and spirituality.

My Experiences of Being Abused as a Child and Teenager

(This article has recently been edited, because my aunt protested that I should not have written about my mum and dad's sexual relationship, as this is a private matter that my dad at least would not want to be discussed in public. Needless to say, that I still believe that bad or unsatisfactory sexual relationships between parents or adults, can be a cause of child abuse).
 
From as young as since I could remember, from the age of about five, and up until my early teens, I was physically, mentally, verbally, and emotionally abused by my mother as a child and teenager. She would violently attack me all the time for no reason, making me cry, and then she would violently attack me again for crying (a psychotherapist I saw some years back, said that whatever emotion I expressed as a child, was suppressed and considered bad or wrong).
 
My mother attacked and terrorised me, and I lived in constant fear of her violence or the threat of her violence. She would often slap me around the head or face, knocking my glasses off, kick me, pull my hair, and sometimes punch me, and she would often throw objects at me.
 
My mother abused me in these ways, whenever my father wasn't around, and my brother was an instigator to some of the abuse, even though he was very occasionally abused as well. My brother would often lie to my mum that I had said or done something to him, and this would then give her a reason to physically and verbally attack me. She would also often come into my room at night, wake me up, and drag me out of the bedroom by my hair, so she could violently attack and abuse me again.
 
Although my mother never sexually abused me, she seemed to get sexual pleasure from abusing me, and on the odd occasion, she would abuse me for long periods, making me cry repeatedly, then she would force me to sleep in the same bed as her at night. This was yet another way for her to emotionally and mentally abuse me, as I slept in fear of her violently attacking me again.
 
There was no escape from her violent rages, and I would often cry myself to sleep at night. She also verbally abused me, often screaming at me that she hated me and wanted to smash my face in, and she often used to call me a "fucking kid!". My brother was also occasionally abused by my mother. She sometimes used to drag him to bed by his hair, and she once threw him out on the streets, in his slippers and pyjamas, on a freezing cold day. I remember seeing him in the street, and asking him what he was doing in his pyjamas and slippers, and he said that she had kicked him out.
 
She also used to threaten me and my brother, with sending us away to boarding school, and which I found very distressing and frightening, as she said that she would phone the boarding school up, and they would take me away from home, and that I would never come back.
 
When I was 15, I started to tell my dad about the abuse when we were sitting in the living room of an evenings, whilst my mum was asleep on the sofa. She wasn't properly asleep though, and she could hear what I was saying to him. This didn't stop her from violently attacking me though. In fact, it made the abuse a lot worse. When I was 15, my mum once came into the toilet after I had used it, and she grabbed hold of my hair and started pulling it. I retaliated on this occasion though, and started kicking her, telling her to let go of my hair, and which eventually she did. I don't regret retaliating, because I had to defend myself.
 
My mum also started to verbally attack and threaten my dad. She would sometimes threaten to stab him and stick a knife in him. My mum and dad were having rows with each other all the time, and one day my dad and me left her for good. When we left my mum, I remember unleashing a lot of anger upon her, with my nan begging us not to leave her daughter.
 
Since the abuse, I have tried to understand my mum and understand why she abused me. I don't believe that it was because she never loved me, although she never in the past showed me any love or affection as a child. I've since learnt about her, that she came from and grew up in a very poor, rough, and emotionally hard background and environment. Also, whilst her father was a very loving and nice man, he was also authoritarian towards her on occasion. My nan suffered from manic depression, and so maybe that's where she learnt that power-relationship from, of being neglected emotionally, or she was rebelling against powerlessness in a way, and in that way associated my nan's powerlessness with me as a child. I've since learnt that wherever violence occurs there is also poverty and powerlessness. My mum was also house-bound and in an unsatisfactory relationship with my dad, but she wanted to work.
 
Because my mum abused me, when I left home with my dad I refused to see her for four years. In hindsight though, this was a very cruel and stupid thing for me to do, because my mum was a changed woman and she was feeling very guilty and crying and grieving over me. She was genuinely sorry for what she had done to me as a child, and I should have forgiven her there and then. I got into Buddhism and learnt that all life was basically made up of suffering, and this made me realise that my mum must have been suffering, at the time of the abuse too. I also think that she was suffering from some kind of hypomania and possibly depression. Hypomania is where a person goes into a rage and can't control themselves (it could be said that they choose to lose control), and it is marked by racing thoughts and constant elation or irritability, and it is a symptom of manic depression. I've since learnt that different people respond differently to depression. Some people become more withdrawn and passive, whilst others can become volatile and angry or even violent.
 
When I was 17 and living in a flat with my dad, my mum came to visit me, and was crying, in a very bad way, and she looked drained of life-force and like she was having an emotional and mental breakdown. I unleashed all my anger upon her, some of the anger stemming from the way that my dad and his partner were nagging and bullying me at the time, and I pushed her over and kicked her, asking her why she violently abused me, and then I threw her out.
 
A psychotherapist I saw some years ago said that I had a right to be angry, but some of that anger involved some hatred, and I always regret violently attacking my mum on that occasion and rejecting her. Again, I was wrong, and should have forgiven her. I don't like anger, because when a person is angry they can lose their thinking faculties and self control. I think that if anger is integrated with love, understanding, and forgiveness, then it is OK, but by itself, anger can very easily blind us and turn into hatred.
 
It was when I left home from living with my dad and his partner, that I decided to see my mum again. I tried living on my own but found it hard. I moved into a bedsit, and then into another flat, but I eventually moved into my mum's house where I have been living ever since.
 
As an adult, my mum has been very good to me, and the way I look at it, she has made up for being a very bad mother towards me as a child.