RESPONSIBILITY

RESPONSIBILITY

That word ‘responsibility’. I don’t like it. It is a sleekit curled up whisp of a word with so much that needs laid at its feet, in fact the word ‘Responsibility’ has a responsibility to own up for what it has done to our community.

Responsibility is about duty and it is about accountability and being upstanding and doing what should be done by any right thinking moral person. It is about doing what normal people who care for themselves and those around them do.

But I am not right thinking and I am not always capable of being a fine example of citizenship and neither are many of my companions or at least not in the way people say we should be.

I was brought up to be responsible; it was not only expected that I would earn and work and have a family but that I would be very successful in that. And not only successful in this but in the activities I did, the people I knew, the values I held, and the life I led. That legacy is, in some ways, something to be proud of; doing whatever we need to do, to achieve, is attractive. The idea of being free from self-pity, of being self-reliant, independent, autonomous; the need to cope even when you feel you cannot cope. I still yearn for that and in some ways have managed this.

I do not know why I have kept moderately quiet over the last decades where the tantra of “with rights come responsibility.” Is so routinely touted around. It just isn’t true or not completely; our human rights are inalienable; though some of them can be restricted; we just need to be alive and human to have human rights; no other obligations than that.

And that neo liberal right wing import of ‘recovery’ from America; the tantalising; you can lead the life you wish in the presence of absence of symptoms, but you need to take on hope and you need to start taking responsibility for your own life. Why was it so appealing?

I still see it said by close friends who themselves have a mental illness and by carers who witness illness in their loved ones and by so many professionals.

As far as I am concerned this is just a slightly more brutal way of saying all would be well if you just pulled yourself together. If you just took your meds, wrote your advance statements, participated rationally in your care plans then life would be hunky dory and really, if you don’t, then a swift kick up the bum might sort you out. It is as offensive to me as words like ‘attention seeking’ and ‘manipulative’.

It is the rhetoric we campaigned against decades ago but for the last few decade or so has been dressed up in a glossy sheen which cuts away at us; fills us with guilt and self-loathing and the misery of the knowledge of what we have done to ourselves and those we love by living irresponsibly.

I live what I think is a responsible life, but I know if I was truly responsible I would not exist at all. Knowing I am responsible for global warming and covid; knowing the tragedies people I am close to suffer from my existence. I know if I were to be truly responsible I would stop the meds that blunt that knowledge and confront that reality. Is that the right approach? Or should I be grown up enough and so capable that I can abolish Schizophrenia by an act of will power and logic?

I know I am responsible because I have worked nearly all my life; even, for the last twelve years, on a CTO. For me, to think that work is beyond me has always been a step too far but I wonder. I am not healthy at work; sometimes I think that contributed to my divorce, my alienation from my son. Sometimes I look at how much more pleasant and capable of functioning I am when I am not working and I wonder just how responsible I have been to carry on working come what may.

I do not know what my duty is or how to be accountable. I barely function in social situations although I can give the appearance of doing so but it is utterly exhausting. My partner checks I take the medication that is in pill form because I forget it all the time. She makes sure that I do not buy and wear the clothes that embarrassingly mark us out as the community care cases we are. She does so many things that I just cannot do without; that unstated support that keeps me appearing ‘normal’ and managing to function.

Having said that; we are responsible; my friends and me. We do our best, we are kind and we look after each other and we really do contribute but sometimes getting out of bed is beyond us and we cannot pull ourselves together to get dressed or do the shopping or tidy the house. Sometimes when we think the Ministry of Defence has bugged our houses and is spying on us the thought of drawing up an advance statement is beyond us and seems irrelevant and sometimes when we are surrounded by beautiful spirits telling us that we need to walk barefoot without food or water in the wilderness and that the longer we fast the more likely world peace is likely to happen we do not think about turning up for work or even looking for work; why would we? We have greater causes than that. We should be responsible for this? No, of course not and when we live alone, sluggish, feeling hopeless should we be responsible and pull ourselves up by our boot straps? Do you know how hard that can be?

We do try to be responsible and we are; many of us manage on a pitiful income in isolated, stigmatised, alienated lives. We have few friends and live in poor accommodation and we get it wrong. Why do we get it wrong? Because mental illness is a real live thing and the effects of our pasts and upbringing can irreparably damage us.

Sometimes we think we are the worst of all people; we lacerate ourselves with this knowledge both figuratively and literally and yes of course we stop being responsible. We sometimes lose the ability to and sometimes the right to care for our children. Some of us take far too many drugs to cope with the unendurable pain we experience. We stop paying our rent because we have stopped sleeping and coping and we just cannot manage life anymore

I have met people who have turned themselves around; left addiction, prison and homelessness behind. I have seen people who have found new lives; whether supported by medication or the bonds of their community and they are so wonderful and so inspiring to meet and learn from.

But me? For some reason I keep on hearing people saying;

“If only they would take responsibility for their illness.”

It tears at me; that terrible sleekit guilt inducing word. I don’t in my heart believe I have an illness. I do think I am utterly disgusting. I have lived a life as if I don’t have an illness: do you know the toll that has taken? I wish so much that forty years ago I had said;

“No, success, status, managing and coping are beyond me. I will take benefits and yes I will still contribute but I will stop trying to be normal and I will stop working.”

I question myself for saying that because I have worked and I have been more or less responsible, despite what are seen as my impairments. I have actually managed it. But I see my peers, many of whom do not work, acting responsibly all the time, but within the limits of mental illness and that might sometimes only extend to smiling at someone who doubts themselves but often it is by acting as a heart and hub to a community, just not part of the fine and upstanding community who have their own ideas of how we should act and to which we do not belong.

If my son had known me as someone who had always struggled, someone who found life hard but who had the time to love and think of the occasional thing to do, instead of that driven man who went in and out of hospital; working right up to the moment he was sectioned and starting back at work within moments of being discharged, might he have had a better upbringing? Might the responsible thing have been to not force myself to be something I really never could really be?

Might the people who see what I have done in the world of mental illness and who think it is a great achievement have been better off saying;

“Why the big pretence? Just accept it. There is no need to try to live up to everyone else’s expectations, be truly responsible to yourself, your friends and family not to those who have decided what people like you should be and can do. You do not need to prove your ability over and over again, you are allowed to admit to illness and the effect it has on you. It really is ok to admit to disability and the limits that can have.”

(Photo; Dash and Me at Ardmore on a slant! June 2022)