Mental Health Matters, Part Three: What Have We Learned?

Presenting part three of our series, this time an honest list of things I’ve learned about mental health and wish to share with my readers. Please note that I am not a psychologist, but I have spent well over 10 years dealing with serious depression and its side-effects; I feel confident in the following wisdom because most of it was introduced to me by doctors, therapists, and family who had undergone treatment themselves.

1. Recovery from a serious depression works best when you use the triad-process to heal both body and mind:
   1. Therapy with a mental health professional for the mental and the emotional.
   2. An inquiry into medication for the physical (and the mental too), as well as renewed attention to diet, sleep, and exercise.
   3. Extra attention to TLC—tender loving care, by which you heed your most basic needs and reward yourself often. At this point you must respect the little things. Furthermore:

2. The Little Things. When I let go of my inhibitions and gain perspective, I know that life, in its most intimate, personal sense, creates its own meaning only through our daily moments of pleasure and insight. As Timothy Findley wrote, Pay Attention.
3. Thanks to my first therapist, Cathy, for this little rhyme; as cheeky as it may sound, it holds true and brings much peaceful understanding: Friends are for a Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime.
4. You have no control over other people’s thoughts and actions; you can only control yourself. When someone does something outrageous or offensive, realize that you cannot stop their character but instead must gauge an effective and appropriate response on your behalf.
5. A panic attack will always end. Regardless of the attack’s intensity, remind yourself that it will not last forever and that you still have control. Some steps to calming your amygdala:
   1. Learn how to deep-breathe properly. Breathe in through your nose and with your diaphragm, filling up to your belly button with tension; breathe out with your mouth and release all those worries straight through the top of your head, leaving your body refreshed and cleansed. Practise deep-breathing before sleep and when you feel anxious; beginning your morning with a meditation routine can limit anxiety throughout the day.
   2. There are various ways to cope with panic attacks that seem to snowball out of control, where everything seems dangerous and no light appears. One of my favourite mental exercises is to count backward from twenty and with each number fully recall, verbally if necessary, a positive, safe memory. Chances are you won’t get beyond 16 without having spent so much energy focused on your new task that your body responds to control rather than panic.
   3. Use your senses to stabilize yourself; focus on five specific things you can hear, five things that you can feel, etc.
   4. Use the power of imagination to overcome current circumstances; by mentally placing yourself somewhere comfortable and safe, and re-envisioning your behaviour in that environment, your body will naturally begin to relax.
6. It is important to have a safe zone, a place where you can truly feel vulnerable enough explore difficult feelings and intense memories. Create a place where you are comfortable and can have leisure time too, nurturing your most basic needs to feel safe and taken care of; take good care of yourself and your need for personal space.
7. Family is what you make it; blood ties shouldn’t take precedence over good personal and relational care. Too often a sense of guilt or obligation to protect family members hinders your own progress, so surround yourself with a family of your own choosing, relatives and friends who support the decision to seek mental healing.
8. Knowing what you don’t want is a good place to start. For some people life has become so dark that it’s difficult to envision anything desirable or attainable; happiness is not even an imaginable option. It’s at this point, however, that you can take the brave first step toward change: acknowledging that you don’t want to be depressed anymore.
9. If your first or even your second experience with a mental health worker is unpleasant, don’t be so discouraged that you lose hope in the system. There is somebody out there who wants to help you, and the effort to find him or her will be worth the reward.
10. What matters, matters; what is, is. Peace comes with finally accepting whatever it is that you truly desire—that which you do not want to live without—and the time & space circumstances which created your early being. From that point you can move forward & grow.

Re/Occupy

I am an Occupy Writer. I am writing this to ReOccupy.

A few weeks ago Sunflower Skins sent 100 Feed the Whales books to the People’s Library in Zuccotti Park, hoping to inspire and sustain hope for our fellow protestors of Occupy Wall Street. Our books were part of the collection that was destroyed by the NYPD via Bloomberg’s orders on November 15^th. Those were your books too. Everyone’s. Barely a month after celebrating Banned Books Week and our freedom to read and access information, too. What a terrible, terrible shame.

But—do not lose hope. You cannot bear to lose sight of that beautiful vision of the future, one free of corporate corruption and endless greed. Please do not give up.

Resist despair.

I am writing this for myself too. I need to remember this every day when I read the news, when I see continuing police brutality and social injustice. Mass arrests on peaceful protestors. Pepper spray used on the elderly. Batons on the unarmed. I could go on, become distracted—disillusioned—even as I write this. But today is the Day of Direct Action and everywhere everyone has been called, including myself. I cannot physically be present at any of the occupations; how I wish—desperately wish—I could be in Foley Square at this moment. And so I must write this for myself, and for you—reader, story-teller, protestor, citizen: protect your books, honour your free expression, uphold the First Amendment and the Fundamental Freedoms, your democratic rights and constitution. The police state may try to squash it, but we continue to grow stronger, and if the 1% do not honour, as you do, your right to an equal, economically-just society, have heart yet; you can destroy a book, but you cannot destroy an idea, a movement, a revolution. Resist despair.

Please visit the People’s Library and Occupy Writers.

Banned Books Week & Kathy Acker’s BLOOD AND GUTS IN HIGH SCHOOL

September 24^th – October 1^st is Banned Books Week in the United States, celebrating our right to free speech while recognizing the problems of censorship that still prevail in communities all around the world. Just this past week the Missouri school that removed Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” and Sarah Ockler’s “Twenty Boy Summer” from its shelves has allowed the books back into their library—on a shelf closed to students without parental permission. As I have suggested elsewhere in my writing, restricting access to information, historical accounts, art, and ideas that may not necessarily agree with our own is not where we begin to cure problems of racism, sexual abuse, violence, and intolerance; that is simply more intolerance. Free speech requires responsibility, so let us enjoy our freedom and responsibly continue to create and share provocative, inquisitive books that perhaps take us out of our comfort zone and challenge our own ways of life. For more about Banned Books Week, visit the American Library Association’s statement about celebrating the freedom to read. Canada’s own Freedom to Read week is February 26 – March 3, 2012.

Taking part in the Virtual Read-Out, Sunflower Skins presents a selection from Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts in High School:

[Though I didn’t do my best Acker imitation, which is, I’ll admit, pretty good, I donned my Kathy-in-her-undies Nymphomaniac tee. Thanks to Thom for patiently putting this together.]

 And now some of our favourite moments in ‘scandalous’ literature:

“Kidney of Bloom, pray for us

Flower of Bloom, pray for us

Mentor of Menton, pray for us

Canvasser for the Freeman, pray for us

Charitable Mason, pray for us

Wandering Soap, pray for us

Music without Words, pray for us

Reprover of the Citizen, pray for us

Friend of all Frillies, pray for us

Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us

Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us.”

(Ulysses, James Joyce)

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’ – and tore it up.

(The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain)

He kept standing there. He was exactly the kind of a guy that wouldn’t get out of your light when you asked him to. He’d do it, finally but it took him a lot longer if you asked him to. “What the hellya reading?” he said.

“Goddam book.”

He shoved my book back with his hand so that he could see the name of it. “Any good?” he said.

“This sentence I’m reading is terrific.”

(The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger)

“It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The heavens do not fall for such a trifle. Would they have fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn’t he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn’t. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark—too dark altogether….”

            (Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad)

Finally Brother Leon looked down.

“Renault,” he said again, his voice like a whip.

“No. I’m not going to sell the chocolates.”

Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence.

(The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier)

That evening while the Stupids were watching television…

… everything went dark.

“I can’t see a thing,” said Mrs. Stupid.

“We must be dead,” said Mr. Stupid.

“Oh, wow!” said the two Stupid kids.

            (The Stupids Die, Harry Allard)

Guam Harasses Some Returning Students

Welcome back to London, UWO students! I say that with all the sincerity and enthusiasm of a hermit English grad who still lives on Western Road. I see the house across the street has filled up with its usual array of athletes and businessmen — o those silly, drunken buffoons. But who better to greet our new neighbours than Guam? We went to the bus stop with our cup of coffee this morning to say hello, among other things.

The Myth of Pornography: An Open Letter Regarding Statements Made by Megan Walker

Censorship of any kind concerns me, in particular when relied upon as a blanket argument: “Mainstream pornography sexualizes and normalizes incest, sexual violence against children, and the rape and torture of women” (Megan Walker, The Truth About Pornography).

I do not know Megan Walker, so please do not misunderstand this as a personal attack. I am writing this because, as an artist, her remarks of late worry me very much. By overstating the obvious (“pornography sexualizes… incest”) and using the same arguments against pornography as could be said for any middle-of-the-afternoon television commercial (“Although the women in these pornographic videos are indeed over the age of 18, they are presented in childlike ways: petite, with small breasts, childish expressions, and hair in braids or pony tails”), Walker suggests that all pornography is violence-related and only for men: “While pornography is often discussed as a women’s issue, it is largely about men. It is made primarily by men for men. Men profit from selling it to the men who masturbate to it. Pornography is, at its core, an issue for men.” I believe that Walker’s six-page array of sensational descriptions and accounts from “porn users” as a means to ban any type of pornography is the wrong message to send to our youth, to our artists, to visitors of London—and to all the women and men who live here. As a recent graduate trying to establish myself in the London community and getting to know my peers, my focus is on censorship because that is what affects my friends, my family, and me the most. I am saddened Walker’s recent anti-pornography calls amongst the community, as well as the recent ban of the Everything To Do With Sex Show at the Western Fair District; it is strangely disarming to discover how conservative a city this truly is, especially one that prides itself on being neighbours with arts-oriented Stratford.

Not all pornography is violent, perverted, paedophiliac, non-consensual, or in some way bad. That is the myth about pornography. True, there is that which crosses the line, whether legally, emotionally, physically, or morally (incest, pedophilia, non-consensual, trafficking), but what I really wish to stress is that pornography cannot all be described by, and therefore judged by, one set of standards. If we blanket-censor pornography and access to it, we will begin censoring a lot of sexually-related texts and works of art or media that aren’t actually pornographic. Censoring all pornography sends the message that sex is bad and that we shouldn’t discuss it in any safe, public situation, like in a demonstration or in a library.

There are many things throughout Walker’s letter that worry me—not just the suggested prohibition of “any directly or indirectly city funded boards, commissions and departments from leasing or renting space to any pornography industry sponsored events” or the recommended “immediate filter [of] all London Public Library computers against access to pornography;” not just these newly-proposed policies but the “facts,” statistics, and often far-fetched conclusions Walker uses to defend them. Briefly I want to mention some of the absurd points in her anti-porn statement:

Firstly Walker blatantly ignores the female sex workers who willingly participate in and even enjoy the violent aspects of sex and pornography; they aren’t all sexual deviants who were abused as children. In fact, there are probably many sex workers who would be quite offended by the idea that their work supports “rape-culture” and pedophilia; what they do is for consenting, legal adults, and whether their work is misconstrued and misused is not by their choice or in their control.

Secondly accusing the average healthy adult male who enjoys pornography of supporting rape culture is an awfully lot of guilt to assign to an individual who is, more often than not, far from the original source of said “rape culture”; aren’t these men becoming a little bit like victims themselves? I understand that Walker is trying to explain that not all sex is consensual and that a lot of women are taken advantage of by men, however I feel that she is taking advantage of men in general as a scapegoat for larger problems, specifically, as Jon Stewart says, the mass media’s “bias towards sensationalism and laziness” (Fox News Sunday). Mainstream pop culture uses scare tactics and phrases to overtly focus on deviancy in easy targets rather than actually attempting to build a better social structure though more effective means such as education.

Lastly, “In the world of pornography, women do not exist as human beings with a sense of privacy, boundaries or authentic desire. No part of the female body is off limits to male inspection, evaluation, use and abuse. In this world, women are f**k objects.” In other words, no woman could ever appreciate, enjoy, create, or support pornography. I and my friends prove otherwise. I view pornography—certain types, of course—as art, as do many of my fellow artists, academics, and, I believe, fellow Londoners. And even if it isn’t high art, I should still have access to it and the right to partake in it if I so choose.

Walker writes, “No one claims that all men who use pornography become rapists, or that rape would disappear if there were no pornography,” however the rest of her letter, the Conference on Pornography that took place in June, and the growing anti-pornography mob screams otherwise; the movement to ban all city-funded access to pornography and its industry suggests that censorship is where we begin to “cure” sexual abuse. As a concerned citizen I hope that my city doesn’t fall for the old censorship trick: that all is either good or bad, and that everything will be better if we ban what’s taboo. Let us not require another sexual revolution in 30 years because we’ve gone too far in the wrong direction.

Read Megan Walker’s full anti-porn letter here.

Guam Sees Guam in Duo-Vision

Adapting to the Black Pelt Oil Crisis

A Message from Thom Roland & Britani Sadovski

From woolly mammoths in snowy prehistory to elephants on the hot African plains to the many endemic species of the Galapagos Islands, evolution relies on the ability for life to adapt. Following suit of the planet’s ecological state, animals have evolved as steadily—as complexly—as human beings. Until human beings, that is. With our grand delusions of destiny and entitlement we’ve begun to destroy this planet (though some of us try to stop it).

In times of ecological crisis or severe change, animals are faced with a drastically new environment, one to which they must either adapt or become extinct; they are forced to evolve much faster and more radically than the natural progression, or otherwise be obliterated. These environmental changes are either natural or artificially induced by humankind.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, though finally capped, will result in more ecological damage than environmental experts can predict. Despite skimming efforts, oil-slicked birds collapse on shores, too heavy to lift a head, and fish lie belly up by the thousands in shiny waters. Oil has destroyed breeding grounds, infiltrated fish eggs, and contaminated algae. Plankton—the food chain’s most basic member—now contains traces of oil, feeding into the larger sources, as fish are eaten by bigger fish—and those in turn by even bigger fish. The entire fishing industry itself will be irreparably harmed once the oil completely spreads throughout the coast and washes to the depths and the shores. As a result of this spill, marine life is forever altered.

The good people in the Sunflower Skins offices are distraught with the idea of losing part of the ocean’s population, yet we retain hope for evolution. While hair growth may provide short-term skin protection, we fear that an equally beneficial reverse-effect is unlikely; forced ecological change, particularly as a coping response, induces premature, accelerated development. Not only will the whales, and potentially the global food supply, have to cope with the oil crisis, they must also learn to behave in a new manner in their new bodies. More than 100 days later we wonder if they’ll survive—and if we, too, will be able to adapt.

Please visit Feed the Whales for more information

Briton Self Releases Statement Regarding his New Novel

News from the front:

My agent has suggested—let’s face it, has politely yet firmly ordered me—to release a statement about my upcoming novel. It is in progress, but those in higher positions regard it a wise move to appease my fans—which is, I suppose, whomever is reading this—if you are. At the present time I am not interested in revealing the finer details of The Riot Act, but after some careful deliberation, I feel able to identify what it is and what it is not. Consider this a warning.

It is not about my misspent youth. It is not about the woman who left me (and returned) or the dog who became my loyal companion in the interim. It is not a bildungsroman or a mimetic-pragmatic solution to current world affairs or a reaction to the dying art of literature and the corporate up-rise of plot-driven, hollow-bodied, epiphany-less narratives.

It is not about complete truths or whole truths, or even half-truths—I can’t claim that much anymore, for age provides such perspective that, suddenly, I have several childhoods. And this is acceptable. This is ok. Must I confess more or will you leave me be, pounding angrily on a window, forehead wrinkled in anger and surprise?

Until further notice, I remain your faithful servant,

Briton Self

June 3, 2010

For more information, see Briton’s MySpace.

August Underground and the Horror of Reality

The most deadly of all horrors is the horror within, not the horror that is unknown but the familiar, that which we recognize. And what is closer to us than our own bodies and the decay we witness in others and ourselves every day? Snuff films—or those cinematic experiments which purport to be snuff films—push the limits of what we will watch, what we choose to put our minds through as we see that decay amplified, exploited, and exhausted.

August Underground wants you to watch whatever the body will take—and we’re fascinated by the sickness, by the filmmakers, and by our own curiosity. Why are you turning away—and why are you not turning away? This is the closest we can get to death, that last great unknown, and we are reaching it through the body. Yet it is the body of another, turning us into voyeurs.

We live in a voyeuristic culture. Blogs, webcams, Twitter updates, FaceBook, MySpace—they turn us into peeping toms, and we get off on it, wanting more and basking in anonymity. Canadian writer Hal Niedzviecki calls it Peep Culture, as in, peeping into one another’s lives. August Underground’s handheld camera works on several levels: it creates the illusion that we are watching a private home video, something no one else was meant to see. This is exhilarating, to say the least, and also unnerving. The handheld also gives a very distinct point of view—specifically, one which the viewer can adopt. In the first of the AU trilogy we never see the “man behind the camera” and so we step into that anonymous role.

It is not merely the special effects which make AU films appear so genuine—though we must, in any discussion about snuff films, acknowledge the impressive effects: Toetag Pictures produces vividly lifelike severed limbs and bloody wounds, and it is partly the appearance of real violence done to the body which ensures the success of the films. It looks as real as we imagine death is. The other important part of the work, though, is the way it is done: the careful camera angles, the handheld shakiness. Many cinephiles argue that AU does not have good cinematography, that anyone can do what they do. The shots, however, are painstakingly thought out and edited, for proper blocking techniques with both bodies and objects are absolutely necessary to the effect; the result of what we do not see because of a carefully-placed killer’s back or because of the struggling “other hand” of the cameraman creates the illusion and sustains it.

Fred Vogel, the director, writer, and mastermind behind AU films, may balk at the suggestion of symbolism in his work, yet he deliberately includes short scenes where nothing violent happens, where we see the murderers carrying on their everyday lives. This heightens our sense that these are ordinary people who have daily routines and acquaintances. Amidst these scenes, character is developed and we are admitted into the true horror of the murderous deeds. In the first film, simply entitled August Underground (2001), the killer and his companion, the cameraman, visit a slaughterhouse and are given a quick tour by a friend. We see meat hooks and dead pigs and hear about the gutting process in unrestrained detail. Our expectations are high as we imagine what the slaughterhouse could be used for, but nothing gruesome happens. The cold, detached manner with which the scene plays out emphasizes the lack of humanity in the characters and the story. Another non-violent scene, similar in emotional starkness, demonstrates the killer’s power over the people he tortures; visiting “Little America,” a roadside attraction, the killer stands Godzilla-like over the tiny city, revealing how big he builds himself up to be, how much he loves to be in control.

Within minutes the second film in the trilogy, Mordum (2003), is harsher and more graphic than its predecessor as the killer and his buddies get bolder. The violence and the special effects are almost absurdly realistic; are we actually watching a guy cut off his own penis so that his girlfriend won’t get a knife shoved up her vagina? It is very easy to believe this is real, which is exactly what Vogel wants out of his audience: a belief in the horror he presents. Mordum has fewer symbolic scenes than the original AU, instead portraying unrelenting sadism and bloodshed for seventy-seven minutes—yet the final scene after the credits, the “epilogue,” if you will, serves as a sharp contrast to the brutality and the abnormality of the acts just witnessed. As the cat eats its freshly killed mouse, we see a natural murder within nature, as the food chain intends, which is a grim reminder that death surrounds us every day. By and large we don’t have a problem with the natural order in the food chain because it is about survival—but the cat plays with the dead mouse, as man has played with his victim. The difference remains that the cat eventually consumes the mouse for food, stressing the unnaturalness in the human murders.

The final instalment, Penance (2007), is probably the best-looking of trilogy; the quality of the picture is clearer, bringing out the fine details of the gore. The actors often place the camera on a steady surface, a welcome relief amidst the dizzying cinematography. Additionally, by using a still camera, action can take place slightly off-screen as the camera focuses on a wall, leaving the viewer to listen to vicious dialogue and use his or her own sick imagination. Penance reveals more character than the other films, exposing weakness as the killer states, “I don’t like myself” during an angry rant. We also witness, more than in the other films, the love/hate relationship between the killer and his girlfriend. Suddenly we are closer to the murderers because they are emotional and vulnerable, even if just for a moment.

The alligator and rat in Penance function similarly to the cat and mouse in Mordum, contrasting a kill for survival with a kill for perverse pleasure. Unlike the scene in Mordum though, we see the direct kill in the final film. Again, in comparison with the human murders, the animal chain of hierarchy seems tame and natural.

We must remember that these are works of fiction, for no “true” snuff film exists for universal entertainment; any such film would immediately be seized by authorities and destroyed. The question, then, remains: Why would anyone make a film like this? We must wonder why the filmmakers go to such extensive lengths with the special effects and cinematography, making the films look authentic, instead of creating a movie that is aesthetically pleasing and a plot with clearly developed characters—in short, how come Vogel and his crew don’t make a regular horror movie? It is the experience of the viewer, the manipulation of the audience, which makes the film a success, and this is accomplished through careful “bad” filmmaking, a home video gone horribly wrong.

These are not horror movies we can easily walk away from, like other films in the genre. Snuff films are too close for comfort. Whether it’s curiosity, research, entertainment, or otherwise, you have to really want to watch it to make it through one of these films. It does not make you brave, but it does take a certain amount of guts.

Briton Self Emerges on MySpace

Briton Self, acclaimed author of Abbreviated Moments, announced today that he is writing a new novel. After four years of silence in the world of creative fiction, fans are excited at the prospect of fresh work from their beloved Brit; after publishing his breakthrough novel, followed over a decade later by the collected works Into the Mud, Self’s fiction appears only sporadically amidst a turn towards political writing. In his true low-key fashion, Self made the announcement on MySpace, of all places, simply by updating his status. If not for die-hard Self aficionados in the Sunflower Skins offices, the act could have gone unnoticed for months, as Self doesn’t have many friends on the popular social networking site. He created a profile at the suggestion of a former agent and rarely attends to it; considering that, the update was a pleasant surprise to many. Self has kept minimal contact with the press, preferring to voice his opinions in articles and essays, but paparazzi jumped at the opportunity to re-establish communication. One source suggests that the latest work is a retelling of the Icarus myth in modern day London, and while Self declines to comment any further, he doesn’t appear to deny the attention he has given mythological and philological subjects in recent years. Last October he contributed research for a new study of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, while the previous summer was spent amongst Aztec ruins, keeping a travel diary for Playboy UK. Blending myth with modernity is a technique well established and Self has successfully accomplished it in non-fiction. Though he seems to disdain publicity, fans must encourage Self’s new work, as it could be the classic this generation has been waiting for; he has shown eager promise before, and, we at Sunflower Skins feel, everything has been leading up to this.

Visit Briton’s MySpace here.

Penguin Classics Edition of Abbreviated Moments