The Gates Of Creativity, That Helps Make Mental Health Consumers Survive, What "Birks House Artists" Does For For Me!

Here I am at the close of 2007 and I find myself totally dependant on McGill University Medical Services for my survival. As much as I have bashed the Hospital System for their treatment of me as a person with schizophrenia, I depend on them whole heartedly and the Hospital copes and deals with my anger as Mental Health Consumer. Yes I have bashed the Hospital system in my blog, but we both learned from the experience. I know that I am not a lone, even although I feel it a lot of the time. I love the Montreal General Hospital and the Allan Memorial Insitute, as much as they love their one and only Doctor Goober Mickeal. I took a lot of anger out on the Hospital System through my blog, but I love McGill Medical Services with my whole heart and soul, for they have stood by me through thick and thin. Even although I carry a lot of hatred for being a Mental Health Consumer, the Montreal General Hospital and the Allan Memorial

Institute does everything for me to help me deal with this complex. (Taking a break from writing about McGill Medical Services that stood by me, to help me succeed as an Artist/Writer in Psychiatry, going for a beer and shedding a tear for how the Hospital will do anything for me) So I am back writing, McGill Medical is something really special for how they stood by me. My Psychiatrist and I coped a deal, that I am to have a New Years resolution as to not take my anger out on her, she is a good Doctor that cares about me, she even bought some art off me to support the Hospital Art Group this Christmas. Yes, Mental Health Consumers can carry a lot of anger due to the stigma of Psychiatry and I often shed a tear for what I have been through in the system, battling it out being me. Over all, Doctors, Nurses, Orderlies, Research Assistants and patients, supported the Hospital Art Group by buying art off us this Christmas. It was not just me making money, it was other members of the Art Group as well and I send out a special thanks to the Hospital Staff for supporting the Hospital Art Group! I remember when a Psychiatrist one Christmas, had to have my greeting cards, for he is a very special fan of mine and my efforts to succeed as as a Mental Health Consumer in the Arts. Over all, I feel really touched by the Hospital Staff 's efforts in supporting the Art Group. The image displayed in this posting are the doors to psychiatric patients success at the Montreal General Hospital's Day Center for Mental Health Consumers. When I have nothing else and need someone to talk to late at night when I am alone, I aways have a telephone answering machine at the Day Center or with my Doctor's Research Assistant's extension phone number. Psychiatry is the hardest of all medical professions, for it is not an exact science but a guess and by gosh for treatment to deal with the mind. The Art Group at the Hospital gives me a forum for my creative outlet and gets me out of the house once a week to be stimulated my our Animatrise. The Art Group made some money this Christmas thanks to Hospital Staff being so supportive of us! As I close this posting, once again a special thanks goes out to Psychiatric Staff for coping and dealing with my anger with me being a Mental Health Consumer as the person that I am. Here is the link to the art group's website:

http://www.freewebs.com/birkshouseartists

Art Group At Montreal General Hospital, Is Having A Christmas Art Sale, To Help Raise Funds For Art Group And Putting Some Money Into Psychiatric Out Patients' Pockets

The Animatrise of the Art Group at the Hospital has organised for us out patients to have a table to sell some art for pre-Christmas. We have made Christmas cards along with some Christmas tree decorations. Some of us have some of our own art to sell as well. The Animatrise that runs the Art Group puts a lot of work and effort into our group and she wants to see some of us learn the ropes with selling art and put back into the Art Group. As host of the sale, the Animatrise will get 25% of the total sales, to put money back into the pocket of the Hospital to pay for art supplies during the semester. We only have a small group of patients in the Art Group and we do not have a whole lot of stock to sell, of course part of the problem is the Animatrise having a lack of resources and dedicated out patients to produce art for the Christmas table. Things always take time and building the Art Group has been a constant struggle for the Animatrise. At times I was the only patient she had attending Group but the numbers slowly grew in attendance as out patients became aware of the class at the Hospital. It is surprising hope much talent is actually out there in the Mental Health System and more has to be done to get these patients involved in structured art programs so that they can produce under guidance to learn what is involved in being an Artist trying to make a buck at at. Rumour around the Hospital is such that, Employees intend to supportive of the Christmas card and art sale at our table. Our Animatrise really needs some returns on host of the sale to put much needed money back into the system for art supplies for fellow patients. Last year, I gave the Animatrise about $25.00 from Christmas card sales, her 25% as curator of the table. This year I am a bit more prepared and have miniature clay mandelas along with art done in different mediums. Some of the art was done in group while some of it was done on my own at home. Hopefully we will have a good day selling our wares and the Art Group will get some money put back into it with support from Hospital Staff and the general public. Hope to see you there at the Hospital table sale, for the locals that read my blog and I thank the Hospital Staff and the Animatrise for their support throughout the year as we prepared for this occasion.

A Doodle I Did Waiting For My University Class To Start, For My Up Date On My Situation

Well here I am trying to find words for my posting as the end of November 2007 is approaching, at times I still do not know what to make of it all. I do not want to write another rant about the stupidity of my treatment but I will end up touching up on it in this posting. Over all, the school semester has gone rather well and I really enjoyed the class. Next week is the last class of the semester and I have to hand in my portfolio on my creative process I have achieved over the last three months. I learned quite a bit about writing and the process that is involved, which led me in new directions in my writing process. I got somethings down on paper that have been in my head for a while, along with learning what my weakness' are in the writing process.

As for my follow up at the hospital, well that is as stupid as usual. My Doctor and new Nurse want to increase my medication levels again, it is like they can not accept me for who I am and a change of medication level is going to make the difference to my personality. Either increasing my medication or adding another prescription, like they did, is going to do nothing but slow me down and make sleep more. It is like as if ,I fart the wrong way in front of the Doctor or Nurse, I get more medication prescribed. My parents find no problem with me, nor do the people I deal with on a regular bases. Other than my ensuing anger with the Hospital ruining my life when I stood up for the Canadian National Building Code, when I came across gyp rock being installed over old plaster illegally. I used to earn a living from $14/hour to $18/hr, now I am reduced to Provincial Welfare levels.The Hospital will not admit they pumped me full of drugs unnecessarily because mobster type people said I was delusional about my claim that the gyp rock over plaster style of renovation is wrong and should not be done. The biggest joke at my session at the Hospital last week, was getting a laugh out of the Nurse, when I said the Hospital should teach patients how to masturbate themselves to sleep, instead of the Psychiatrist always prescribing sleeping pills. All this was over the Nurse being pushy towards me regarding the will of the Doctor to medicate me more. It was even mentioned to medicate me to the point where I no longer have my apparitions/hallucinations, all that would gain is making me lose more of my life and I would not be able to get A+ or A-, like some of my marks in University that I have achieved this semester. Psychiatrists should prescribe more music therapy, art therapy, cogitative therapy, stress management, gym class and going back to school to prevent patients from becoming pill popping couch potatoes. I could really make a rant over it but it is not worth it, the Pharmaceutical Companies get rich with the Psychiatrists over prescribing at the expense of Provincial Welfare budgets! Never mind psychiatric patients that work under the table on medical certificates, I always made ends meet being a legal beagle and I am the first to admit it is really hard to make ends meet on Welfare, but I always invested in myself to get off the Welfare budget!

So I have a sketch of myself in this posting image, the little man and the natural magic mushrooms in my genetic make up, that give me my religious apparitions/hallucinations, that the Hospital calls just mere hallucinations. Well, I am happy having such a source of inspiration for art and writing and I am not hurting anyone, nor am I delusional over my approach to the subject matter. The Hospital Medical Science really has to go back to school like me and learn to accept the science of Theology. Theology has become a science with carbon dating of ancient scrolls etc and I have studied some Theology at the University level. Psychiatrists and I will never find a common ground, they will always insist on medicating more than necessary and I will always fight back to be the person I enjoy being, at my reasonable accommodating medication levels.

(Note: The population of Montreal for 2007 is 1,039,500, with 1% of the population being persons with schizophrenia, 1% say are bipolar, that makes 20,790 mental health consumers between the two diagnosis. Lets say 10,000 hold down a real job, volunteer work or are in a mental health program, that leaves 10,790 that need some form of follow up treatment between English and French Hospitals, to get back working somehow either in a real job or volunteer work. Lets say 790 are dysfunctional or are Institutionalized. I can assure my readers there are not 5000 mental health consumers in the English Hospital system actively enrolled in the rehabilitation system, so how many pill popping couch potatoes do we actual have? I heard my apartment building has quite a few! It would be something else to hear the actual statistics! Detox patients are not calculated in these approximate calculations and there are always new people entering the mental health system)

Art Work Of An Apparition/Hallucination That I Had During This Past Summer
During the later part of this past summer, when I was laying in my sofa/bed with the lights off, I had the above apparition/hallucination. Just before I had the sighting, I was reflecting to myself on my ancestors. Where did my blood line originate from with my family coming from Scotland? I have always felt close to my Scottish heritage and proud of it! I was just thinking to myself, where did the Scottish people originate from coming out of cave people? There are lots of theories dealing with the origin of the human race and some of these facts were running through my mind when I had the above apparition/hallucination. Right away the image I saw, which I reproduced in art with oil pastels, made me think of Noah's Arc, as it does look like what is portrayed as Noah's Arc from Biblical stories. In my family name, when it is translated from Gaelic, it means "son of a boat man". So here it got me thinking about the great boat man himself, Noah. Do my roots go back to the blood line of Noah? It would explain the part with being a son of a boat man. After all Noah was the greatest boat man of all time if you believe in Biblical stories. On the other hand, I have done some reading in the past on the mythical city of Atlantis and when it supposedly fell. It was felt in the book, that I read on the subject , when Atlantis fell there were survivors that made it to other parts of the World by boat, once again here comes in the concept of a great boat man as some survivors of Atlantis. Now I was stuck with two options to question, which lead on to some other ideas of thought. What if the great city of Atlantis fell due to loosing the powers of its Godly force that fueled its foundations. If this was the case and a great flood of the World was created to destroy Atlantis, was it Noah in another part of the World that had the premonition from his God to build a great Arc in preparation for what was going to be this great destruction of the World for the fall of Atlantis? Now from the book I read on Atlantis, it was felt that the survivors of Atlantis made it to Egypt and helped build the great pyramids with their technology. I have come across information that the Scottish bag pipes can be found inscribed inside the walls of the pyramids of Egypt. No further ahead with figuring things out on the origin of the of the Scottish people, I was also left with the thought that may be there was more than one great arc of similar design, Noah's and one carrying survivors from Atlantis and dropping them off on higher ground, like the hills along the coast of Scotland or Noah dropped some people off along the coast of what became Scotland. I was left no further ahead with coming to a direct answer to my original pondering but felt quite amused with having experienced the apparition/hallucination when questioning the roots of the Scottish people. When you take the fact that Celtic art forms have a similar type of style as that of the North American Indian, where was I left with the puzzle in my mind. There are always survivors from any great disaster and as a strong survivor of the the Mental Health System, I was left flexing the muscle of my mind to believe that I am somehow a descendant of Noah, the Great boat man, or a great boat man from the mythical city of Atlantis with both being survivors of the great Biblical flood and perhaps the fall of Atlantis. Either way, it keeps me amused and I enjoy how my apparitions/hallucinations help guide my thinking process in a positive fashion, along with giving me entertaining subjects to do art and write about in a healthy way.

Prolific Dreams Of Creative Writings Are Coming To Me With My Creative Process, During My Course At University, Pre- Halloween And On Halloween Morning

Now that I am following at discipline of thought for a creative process in writing at University level, I am now dreaming of my hand writing of stories and articles when I never used to dream much. The course at University has been really good for me in other writings besides my blog. For this reason I have not been making blog entries as much but I figured that I would get this post up for Halloween . My costume for class like suggested for the Halloween class room lecture, is the image in the photo. So I am in this other humourous writing process that takes time away from writing my blog. I have lots of things I want to create out of the process of creativity I have gone through. I am part of another art show at the Musee des Beax Arts de Montreal, the show is in the community hall between MacKay and Crescent Street below Sherbrooke here in Montreal. The Museum is hosting the show of works produced with help of the Museum for Mental Health Services here in Montreal with two Hospitals. I have four pieces of work on display and they are all signed with my pen signature for my art Doc GM. Things are moving along and I must get off to school so Happy Halloween!

Here I am getting back to my blog posting between school work, the creative process course that I am taking at Concordia University here in Montreal, has been so inspirational and has been getting me to read other works of literature that are proving to be most inspirational. I have to put together a portfolio of creative works produced during the semester along with a creative process journal. It all has been a wonderful experience so far, thanks to a resourceful Professor with a poetic flare for giving lectures. I am maintaining a good grade average and proud of the direction I have been lead into with my creative process. It is like I wrote at the beginning of my blog when I started it, there is more to schizophrenia than meets the eye and my Professor seems to be able to draw the very best out of me. Reading creative works of my fellow students has proved to be enlightening on various different aspects of society on the whole. One does not realize how much creative energy is out there that is looking for direction and honing of skills. Morally, it has been fantastic being part of the scholastic system again and my Psychiatrist is proud of me as well, with my mid term evaluation. We are still fence mending our patient/Doctor relationship and she has taken a keen interest in my school work. Over all, the Hospital is proud of their Doctor Goober returning to school and I am proud of the Hospital with bearing with me through my anger and frustration while being a Mental Health Consumer. All Government levels have a responsibility to inject monies into the Mental Health system, may it be through local municipal sponsored programs to the Federal and Provincial Governments making more money available for treatment programs out side of drug therapies. My parents have injected money into my life over the years and they still do with care packages, not all Mental Health Consumers are as fortunate as myself and they depend on Government programs more and more as family resources are not always as resourceful as my own. So may God spare the Mental Health Consumer and may they succeed through the poverty stricken system, as well as I have fared with my own resourceful ways.

The End Of September Has Got Me Sitting Prettier With My Life As I Get In A Healthier Daily Routine

Well here I am finally getting back to writing my blog again, did I ever slack of doing my blog as I was kept busy with other things. With the start of September I began school again at Concordia University here in Montreal. The course I am taking at the moment, is a creative writing course that is keeping motivated and stimulated. It has also proved its self beneficial by giving me my life challenge back. The course has also given me a certain direction in my creative writing and has got me reading other writers to expand my horizons. With getting used to being a student again and getting my home work done, at times I wonder where the time goes, I really feel for students with a full course load. I do have a full slate all the same, with the other activities I have committed myself to.

I attend the Stress Management Group with the Adult Educator at the Hospital on Monday mornings. I really enjoy our Adult Educator, for she puts a lot of effort into her courses and she has a very positive way of dealing with people with her French Canadian background. The group lasts an hour and we review various aspects of how stress is part of our life, for the positive or negative, along with how we deal with these stressors in our daily routine. It gets me interacting with other out patients and I learn different perspectives on my own character that I had not really noticed. After group we have a lunch break, I take my own lunch and indulge in filling my belly and having a cigarette break before the gym class right after lunch. At the beginning of the semester when I met with the Adult Educator, she offered me three groups to be part of, the gym class was one of them. So after lunch between one and two o'clock the Adult Educator make full use of the gymnasium by giving those interested a bit of a physical work out. We start out with simple stretching exercises, along with some crunches and push ups etc. Once we are limbered up some what, we take to jogging around the gym, frontwards, backwards and side ways. At this point with my smoker's lungs, I always take to hacking something up and clearing out my lungs a bit. Once we have done with the jogging exercises we play some babmiton or volleyball, depending on the number of people present for the group. For the last legs of the hour in the gym, I usually set up two exercise mats with a distance between them, and jog back and forth between them while doing more endurance exercises on the mats. By the time I am starting to work up a sweat, the hour is just about over. After the first gym class, I almost completely died the next couple of days. I knew that I was out of shape with week lungs but I never realized how badly out of shape I had become. I do feel energized after the gym class and head off to work afterwards to clean the building where I hold down my part time job. Feeling good after the work out has given me a more positive attitude to doing my job. I have not got a whole to do on the job, just basic cleaning of the building but I just feel a whole better doing it after exercising in the gym for a bit.

I have Tuesdays off and I find myself doing some of my University home work on this day while I have the break. Wednesday morning gets me up and going to my guitar lesson and music group at the Hospital with the Music Therapist. My guitar playing has come a long way as I learn new styles of playing. Recently I have been directing my energy at finger picking on the guitar for I find it relaxing to play with all my stressors I am getting over. With being used to doing things with my fingers as a trades person, finger picking comes easily to me. Last session with the Music Therapist, he had me jamming with him on guitar. There we were, playing away and I was keeping the beat with him while finger picking. I really have to catch up on some guitar playing, during my mini mid life crisis during the summer I really slacked off practicing guitar. Then with the start of University I had no time but I am finally getting into a good healthy routine of balancing my interests that I cover all the necessary ground to get ahead. The Music Group its self proves to be rewarding with some of our musical improvisations we come up with. I usually hold down the beat on the conga, which I am getting pretty handy at. Sometimes I will be creative playing a melody on my mouth recorder as part of an improvisation. The Music Therapist is trying to get me to play more guitar during group and I promised him I would spend more time practicing songs that he leads the group with, Beetle songs are quite popular with us. After the Music Group, I head home to later return to the city core to go to my class at the University come evening time. It makes for a complete day!

It is late by the time I get to bed after getting home from my class and I get to sleep in a bit before getting up to attend the Art Group at the Hospital Thursday afternoon. There are not many people in the group but we are well animated by the Hospital's Adult Educator. I recently have been taking my own art supplies to group and started producing in art, one of my apparitions/hallucinations I had during the summer. The medium I am using to create this piece of art is oil pastel, it is a great medium to learn how to use. While producing the art, we get therapeutic conversation with the Adult Educator and other group members. It is kind of a place where we get to voice our complaints about the mental health system to one another and share the positive and not so pleasant experiences we have gone through. The Adult Educator gets to learn more about a system she has become part of and her sympathetic ear is comforting, sharing experiences with other patients proves rewarding as well for we all help each other with our own personal insight about the mental health system.

Friday is another day off for me but I have no time to slack as I keep my healthy routine going, between University home work and preparing for my Saturday Writer's Group which meets in a Cafe on Saturday afternoon, it keeps me busy. The Writers Group has been good for me with learning how to effectively recite poetry or read a short story so all can here. The feed back and constructive criticism on our work is helpful in guiding our writer's hand. Patrons of the Cafe seem to enjoy hearing our words of creativeness and we are often given positive feed back from strangers who have enjoyed our recital. We are putting together a chap book of some of our creative works and I am eager to have the publication completed. It will be neat to see my pen name in print along side other poets. Going through the motions of putting the chap book together has given me a foundation on how to go about putting out my own chap book with some of my creative writing, it will come in time.

As to my relationship that was falling apart with my Psychiatrist, we are in a bit of fence mending right now. I did have to go see her to continue my follow up, did I ever let her have it from what transpired with me being in her research. I think the whole hospital heard my complaints from her office with how I felt I was being mistreated. I did feel like I was a human Ginni Pig and my own personal needs were over ridden by her drive for her research results. Where the inter muscular medication she had given me, which hampered my sex drive severely and threw me into my mini mid life crisis this past summer, some things have been rectified. I am on the pills again instead of the injections and my manly blessing seems to be as operational it can be for a man my age. (age 47) The Doctor even sent me for a blood test so she could have lab results from a blood test indicating my testosterone level, I think. (What ever gives me my sex drive) Then while waiting around the Hospital hallway for the blood clinic to open up after lunch, I ran into a Psychiatric Nurse I know from way back. He ended up having his lunch standing talking to me in the hallway and he has taken an interest in my case. Apparently he is hooked up with my Doctor now and offered to arrange for me to be able to talk to him in regular sessions about my anger with being a mental health consumer. It should prove to be interesting for apparently he has his Masters in Nursing now, at least I will not be alone with my male aging process! So my Psychiatrist and I are in a stage of her earning my trust again, I do not naturally trust Psychiatrists and having a female Doctor play with my balls through medication levels did not help our patient/Doctor relationship any. The counter balance of possibly having a male Nurse to relate issues to, has given me hope that somehow the system does work for the patient and not just for a pay cheque for Hospital Staff. It is a case of plugging away with sheer determination as a person with schizophrenia, in a system that is not always so pleasant.

Music Therapist Gets Me To Open Up In Group, About Resentment Towards Psychiatrists, Through Studying The Song "Walls" By Tom Petty

Two weeks ago my Music Therapist at the Hospital got his group to listen as he played and sang Tom Petty's song "Walls", then we had to draw a quick sketch of a wall we felt we had in front of us to discuss in group. We then got to pick the type of music and instruments the group would play, for our musical improvisation on our individual wall that was in front of us. My therapy session on the subject continues through my blog! If I had got $1000.00 each time I have said "the fucking Psychiatrist" or heard another patient say this phrase, I would be a very rich man. So they are going to get one of my literary beatings in this posting, they are tuff enough to take it because they know they are the "bad person" with being the one that prescribes the medication and the detested side effects. First and for most, when I opened up in group, other members voiced similar feeling that I had about the "Block Heads" that are the corner stone of our treatment. A very common hurt we out patients have, is feeling like just another medicare number, sometimes we feel like we are not being treated like a real person. One present issue I have with feeling like this is when my half hour is up, I am then pushed out the door. On many occasions I have left the Psychiatrist's office feeling depressed, angry or dam right frustrated with them. Many a time over the years I left the session in one of these states of mind from the Psychiatrist putting me there, then headed to my Psychologists office at the local bar to talk to a barmaid because of having no one else. At times I feel the Psychiatrist is not listening, an example of this is from dealings with my present research Psychiatrist. She wanted to put me on inter muscular injects in her comparative study instead of pills. I was not keen on this idea from the very beginning, one reason was having lots of experience with loosing my orgasm on inter muscular medication and I expressed this concern to her. In time she got her way with me and I started on the injections. As she played around with the injection levels, (slowly increasing them and decreasing the pills), I first lost my orgasm, then lost my juice before the drugs made me impetent. I was taken off the injections, it took me talking to the bottom of my beer bottle and leaving telephone messages to her Research Assistant insulting the Doctor like a drunken sailor for her to get the message. She was deaf to my complaints of the sexual dysfunction as they slowly came upon me, it drove me into my mini mid life crisis this past summer. Another complaint I have is the fact that the Psychiatrist calls me delusional for having hallucinations, like I say to her, "strap the Pope to a bed and pump him full of drugs for believing in the Holy Ghost". Psychiatrists should really consider getting cross trained in philosophy and theology, maybe they would learn to deal with us "schizos" in a less insulting manner. A lot of persons with schizophrenia are philosophers and baby theologians when dealing with their apparitions/hallucinations, when we bring up these subjects in the clinical setting, it is like the Doctor of medical science can not relate to these subjects. They deem us delusional when we try and discuss these subjects and how it relates to our personal life. It totally royally pisses me off!!!! I never have a problem talking about these subjects to "normal people". Even trying to get a Psychiatrist to talk about my apparitions/hallucinations is impossible, never mind me insisting that my Psychiatrist try to find the time to read my blog to get insight into the "grey matter of my brain". The TV or mini cartoon version of the Psychiatrist taking notes while one is laying on the Psychiatrist couch and talking does not happen, last time I saw a Psychiatrist's couch it was being used as a filing cabinet. One time in Hospital when the Psychiatrist was trying to figure me out with out ever really talking to me, he wanted to change my diagnosis to bi-polar, I quickly responded, "I built my life as a "schizo", you are not ruining that too by making me bi-polar". He still kept pumping full of drugs but kept the diagnosis as a person with schizophrenia. I once had a Psychiatrist say to me when I was reaching out to him about my apparitions/hallucinations, "Oh yea, you like playing with your hallucinations" while he was punching in medication levels into his calculator. It is like I need therapy now from having dealings with Psychiatrists and I do get get it from various sources besides the Music Therapist. A Psychiatric Nurse that has known me for years, can be more therapeutic than my Psychiatrist, when the Nurse gives me a enriching conversation dealing with psychiatry on part of her lunch hour and she is no longer a Nurse of mine. When the Psychiatrist made me impetent this summer, my conversational therapy over it, came from the Animatrise that leads the Hospital art group. I was alone with it all until the start of September when she came back to work and she admits she is not an Therapist but an Educator. The Psychiatric Nurse from the art group has proven to be therapeutic in conversation compared to my Psychiatrist as well, laughter therapy about old times is one example along with referring to me as an example to other patients, she also has know me since the beginning of treatment here in Montreal. The Social Worker's telephone answering machine has been very therapeutic over the years, these are Professionals that get a lot of the brunt of patient's frustrations. I remember when I was on the Court Ordered injections, my Social Worker at the time, always got a earful of anger from me on her answering machine. I remember saying to her once on the phone in anger, "your medication does not exactly make us fuck like rabbits", she was a silent listener at the other end of the phone. Powerless Student Nurses have been very therapeutic when I was a inpatient, they were always eager listeners with questions and I could always get a air hug out of them! Professors at Concordia University past and present, proved to be therapeutic in theology and philosophy with course formats and reading material, I have probably spent more time in a Psychiatrist's office getting damaged than I have spent in a class room at the University. Many a time since I started going to Java U coffee shop at Guy metro station, which is close to the Hospital and University, the waitress' have been therapeutic through treating me like a real person, some of them know I am a person with schizophrenia through me giving them my promotional bookmarks containing my web addresses, the waitress' make for good laughter therapists as well! So the Psychiatrist got a much deserved beating today. I do have my morning manly blessing back and have a full sack of juice again, along with orgasms due to forgetting to take my medication a fair bit during my mini mid life crisis this summer. The Psychiatric System has change over the years but still has much to be desired and it needs fresh blood to make psychiatry at better place for the Mental Health Consumer.

Update Sept 21 2007: Was at the the Montreal General Hospital's Emergence yesterday after my Hospital Art Group, getting my prescription re-newed and taking steps to get a new Psychiatrist. I was interviewed by two young Psychiatrists in training who re-instilled my faith in the system. I actually felt really good heading home and I am left feeling empowered today, it is a wonderful feeling. I even got to discuss one of my apparitions/hallucinations and how I dealt with it, thus giving the Doctors insight into my thinking process. When I corrected one of the Doctors regarding the use of the word " schizophrenic", he started using the phrase "....as a person with schizophrenia", which honestly made me feel good. Keep up the good work guys, you two are going to make a difference in the system for the better, nothing like fresh blood! I am now looking forward to the challenge of dealing with a new Psychiatrist and I hope it will be as positive as yesterday's experience with Psychiatrists.

I Am Going Back To Concordia University September 2007

It has been quite sometime since I studied at the University level, this September I will be returning to school after having not been in University for years. When I first came back to Montreal back in 1985, I took a couple of courses at the University level while I was finding a new direction to my life. I first enrolled in Concordia University's English Literature program back in '85 before I took other courses in the Engineering field at the CEGEP level in Quebec, Canada. Now that I more or less left working as a trade person to earn a living, while pursuing my artistic endeavors, I decided to return to school to enhance my educational back ground in the arts. This fall semester I will be taking a creative poetry course to strenghten my writing skills around poetry and I plan to take another course during the Winter semester as well. I started saving money from my monthly disability allowance to prepare for going back to school. During this time period that I was saving my money, I came across information that the Schizophrenia Society of Canada was giving out bursaries to persons with schizophrenia to return to school. Taking the bull by the horns I tracked down the Schizophrenia Society of Canada on the Internet and got them to send me the bursary application. After much ado with the application, along with getting my Psychiatrist to fill out her section of the application, I faxed it off before the dead line and waited for the response. By the end of July 2007 I got my bursary cheque in the mail and all is set to return to school this coming September. The bursary will cover the cost of a course and books during the fall 2007 and winter semester of 2008 and it gives me time to prepare for my schooling come September 2008. I started with taking one course this fall to help me get back into the grind of studying again and evaluating how I do in school. I am really looking forward to starting school and learning again for I felt that I was stagnating a bit while on disability pension. I lacked my mental challenge that work used to give me, hopefully being in school at the University level will give back the every day challenge that I miss. Grant you I am only in school one evening a week but to produce and get good grades will be a challenge all the same. The social structure of interacting with other students will also be good for me, for I do spend too much time by myself. The summer will soon be coming to a close and it is back to the grind after Labour Day weekend. The Art Group at the Hospital will be starting up again after Labour Day as well, I was only off from my music group at the hospital for the month of July with the Music Therapist being on vacation. So as it goes I continue to forge out a career for myself in the arts with skill development. The music lessons at the Hospital, the Hospital Art Group and returning to school all lead to me bettering myself in the arts so that I can improve my artistic capabilities so that I can make something of my life again through the arts.

It Has Been A Balancing Act Walking An Iron Fence Through

The Mental Health System For 23 Years

No system is ever totally fair and I always walked the spikes of a iron fence through the mental health system, if I had constantly listened to Psychiatrists, I would probably still be a walking medicated zombie as they have made me on several occasions over the years. Grant you, I did go into semi psychotic states over my apparitions/hallucinations when I was younger, due to the isolation caused by speaking of the subject matter. The medication never changed my thinking process nor my approach to the subject matter I had to deal with, it just numbed me out so I could not function like other people. Apparently, having visual hallucinations as Psychiatrists call them, is one of the rarest forms of schizophrenia. When hospitalized as an inpatient, I was pretty well on my own as I was out of hospital. The Nurses never really had the time to sit down and discuss my schizophrenia with me, you would only see them at medication time or tending to other patient's needs. If I complied with taking my medication in Hospital, I got discharged after three months observation. During the first seven years of my treatment I was put on inter-muscular injects for being a non conformist and tried to hold down a job. In twenty three years I have never had a intelligent conversation about my apparitions/hallucinations with hospital staff, the limited conversation revolved around taking medication and side effects of the drugs I was consuming. It was like I was not allowed to be my happy go lucky intelligent self, the hospital staff preferred me heavily sedated so I could not function to my full ability. Perhaps their own ignorance of what my schizophrenia was all about, led them to over medicating me, if only they could have taken the time to talk to me about my situation. A lot of the time when not an inpatient and taking pills, I self medicated at lower dosages and got a job in my field of expertise. When working, I consumed my fair bit of alcohol and marijuana thus pissing out the limited medication that I was taking or caused a difference when on injections and found my conversation around my apparitions/hallucinations in bars and at parties. Over the years I have heard all sides to the subject matter of visual hallucinations and have personally grown by discussing them. Continuing my education at night in the engineering field while working, kept my mind trying to attain a higher level of self understanding with my condition through principles of logic from the engineering discipline. With the passing of the years, I have come to a conclusion that there is a logical discourse to my apparitions/hallucinations, my theological foundations evolved out of it, thus my shaman antics with my ritual of prayer and belief system came into being. My apparitions/hallucinations are a guiding force that keeps me faithful to my Gods and Goddess', I have seen many a ghost and ghostly things over the years and have learned not to put excessive meaning into them but use them for reflective meditation about life in general. They serve me well as does my limited amount of medication that I now consume, even although I detest it sometimes! At the present time, I take my perscription of 3mg of risperdal and it can take the edge off my anger with how my life turned out. My Psychiatrist seems to believeI should be on more medication but people that know me say I am my old self again, especially my parents! I still have my apparitions/hallucinations on different occasions, as they do have a way of guiding my faith in something greater than us humans, the Lord speaks in mysterious ways!

My Port Hole In Life Was Certainly No Setting Sun

This image was taken when I was young and a seafaring man with nothing but dreams for my future, how I now know nothing but shattered dreams. As a young man I thought I would build my fortune as a seafaring man then go on to meet a woman and have a relationship that led to a Church wedding to settle down to have a family. Instead I ended up in the bowels of the Canadian psychiatric system in Newfoundland , Canada and returned to Montreal diagnosed with schizophrenia. OK, I worked hard at being a functional "schizo", took my medication and got a job and returned to school at night to build a life for myself on land, still dreaming of meeting a special woman and getting married in a Church. It did not exactly happen that way, three relationships later and spending most of my adult life by myself, I feel lost at turning 47 years old with only a state subsidy with a disability pension along with a Quebec Government welfare payment to bring me to a minimum allowance as a bit of a starving artist. What woman would want me now? With parshly being stricken with extra pyramidal side effects (EPSE), I am not fit to work as a trades person full time any more. Last time I worked a full summer as a trades person, I found myself up a 20 foot ladder being stricken with EPSE with a plastering tool in my hand, it did not make me feel exactly comfortable, it was like it was time to retire as a trades person and plug away trying to earn a living at a desk job as a full time artist. Now I can only fantasize of having a woman in my life, ideally she would be a career woman that would not mind using me as a tax write off. Fat chance of that happening! Then on the lighter side of things, Mom & Dad are planning to re-write their will to accommodate my situation. At present they are looking for a way to put my limited inheritance into a trust fund to facilitate my financial situation, I can get cut off part of my Government income if I inherit any amount of money, thus I would have to live off my inheritance too soon until it runs out and ending up back on a welfare plan with my disability pension until the day I die. Sure I am happy having the apartment I now acquired with my little art studio, with the intent of returning to school in September in the arts at University level. Once again trying to make something of myself again, except this time a bit late in life. My heart stills pangs to have a decent woman part of my life so I do not go to my grave totally sexually frustrated in my old age, Psychiatrists were always good at making me impetant or taking away my orgasm with medication, until I fought back for my own dignity. I am not young any more and I notice the difference in my manly blessing from its youthful desiring abilities, what a way to put it but it is part of growing old that I have to accept, along with spending most of my adult life single and only fantasizing about having a woman. The dumb life I carved out for myself, first standing up and applying the Canadian Shipping Act in the offshore oil industry which led me ending up in psychiatry to get diagnosed with schizophrenia, then standing up for the Canadian National Building Code regarding bad renovation practice as a "Schizo" Engineering Technician and getting Court Ordered Injections administred on me along with long term ensueing EPSE out of it. OK I am no longer on Court Ordered Injections and take pills again but I still have the the EPSE that put a damper on my life. I can look like a bit of a freak in public when stricken with them, but still plug away and call Psychiatrists assholes for pumping full of drugs instead of spending time talking to me about my apparitions/hallucinations, oh I forgot, that is a Psychologist's job at $60/hour which I never had! After 23 years in psychiatry, my file is so thick my Psychiatrist gets lost and has a lack of insight regarding me with reading it and I end up paying the price tag with bullshit, with no setting sun in my port hole of life!

Glowing Light Appeared In My Hand With A Witness At My Side

Persons with schizophrenia are usually alone with their manifestations that they witness, on two occasions I had a person beside me that saw my "hallucination" with me, both times it was the woman that I was dating. Grant you it was two different women that witnessed my "hallucinations" with me, my two last girl friends. So here I am alone as a single man thinking a lot about my life and how schizophrenia has made a mess of it by dragging down the tubes of poverty. It has left me thinking about the manifestations that occur to me that can not be totally explained other than a Psychiatrist saying I have irrational hallucinations. I put my own type of personal meaning to the manifestations and ignore what the Psychiatrist says about them, it helps me cope better and be more of a mystic rather than just a "schizo" as determined by modern medicine. I did the sketch in chaulk pastel of the manifestation last week, that I had with my ex, in preparing for my blog posting.

When I met my last girl friend, she accepted me as a intelligent mystic/schizo, for I told her my medical condition when we were just starting to get to know each other. As the relationship progressed, I was soon spending all nighters with her and sleeping along side her in her bed. It was very early in the relationship and I was spending a lot of time with her, sometimes more than I should have, any way we had retired to the master bedroom for the evening and were laying in bed together having our evening talk in bed like we usually did over a cigarette. Sometime during these moments in the dimly light room, my hand ended face up above the bed sheets. Then a warm whitish yellow light started to glow in the palm of my hand. I spoke up to my girl friend at the time and asked her if she could see the light in my hand that I was seeing. She responded that indeed she could see it and it left us both speechless and amazed. I then reached with my left hand to try and pick up the light between my thumb and finger, when my left hand reached the glowing light in the palm of my right hand, it seemed to disappear from our sight. We were left speechless and amazed but had each other to reflect on the experience to keep our nerves steady. Years later, talking to my ex about the manifestation we both witnessed together, with what seems like so long ago, she still finds words to describe the experience like awesome, unbelievable and mystifying. It is funny how when I am lone and have these type of experiences, I am brushed off as a delusional "schizo" most of the time, when I try relating the experiences to a fellow human. Having a witness to such an experience leaves one with a very powerful feeling, like I am not alone with it all and more than just a "schizo that needs medication for hallucinations. What ever the case may be, this posting is about just one of many manifestations I have witnessed, that I am not alone with, I have my ex girl friend as a witness to the event. I take a minimal amount of medication and still have what my Psychiatrist calls delusional hallucinations. The mystical experiences I go through did not ruin my life, it was the the Psychiatrists pumping me full of drugs to stop the experiences instead of trying to talk to me about it. It is kind of like an atheist trying to stop God, it does not work to good, so I keep my mystical experiences to myself and only share them with people I really trust or through my blog.

Acknowledging My Father On Father's Day, For His Efforts In Helping Me Succeed Through Out My Life, Especially While Diagnosed With Schizophrenia

My Father is a very special Dad that has always been there for me through out my life! I choose the Kings from my Rider-Waite Tarot Card Deck for an image for this posting. The Kings are symbolic for how he has been an extraordinary man to my Mom and his children, through our battles and struggles, financing us, being a friend and teaching me power of prayer. Dedicated to raising his family with ultimate ability, he has aways been there for me in countless ways as far back as I can remember. He worked as a researcher and problem solver in the Canadian Military Engineering field and had excellent skills as a Father and family man. He taught me how to bate my first hook for fishing and was there for me as an assistant leader in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts for the camping excursions that we did. When I was a paper boy delivering the Montreal Gazette as a teenager, on really bad stormy mornings he would get up early with me and drive me in the car through my paper route so the papers would not get soaking wet while I was delivering them before school. I have many a fond memory of him leading the family through cost effective summer camping vacations in the Adirondack Mountains in the Northern USA along with through eastern Canada. The family car broke down once pretty badly and the engine needed a complete over haul, I worked with him rebuilding the engine and diligently instructed me on proper engineering practice, it was a step up from rebuilding my ten speed bike that's for sure! When I was planning to go into the Canadian Coast Guard College after high school, he got permission to take me on sea trials he was part of, on a Canadian Naval Destroyer to give me a taste of sea life before I tried to get into the Canadian Coast Guard College. During my seafaring voyage with him, he even poured me my first beer from his hand while among men at sea, it really made for something special for me! While in College following his foot steps in engineering, Dad always tried strenghtening my engineering skills with his own expertise, I know I made proud at graduation. When I returned from the coast diagnosed with schizophrenia and shattered dreams he was there for me through trying to guide my future as a person with schizophrenia. I remember one time that I was pumped full of anti psychotic medication I made him angry and proud at the same time. He had a small piece of mechanical mechanism home from work studying it and trying to solve the problem with its malfunctioning. I was just bumbling around the house and came across him at work, I stood watching him for a bit and I figure I knew what type of military equipment the mechanism was from. So I asked him, "Is that off a.........?" It pissed him off a bit because I figured out classified information but it made him proud that his son still had engineering skills in his head while working out his schizophrenia. When I finally got back working in the engineering field as an industrial mechanic he was always there with his wallet helping me with engineering courses I could not afford while studying at night and working while taking my medication. When my life fell apart while standing up for the Canadian National Building Code and I ended up on Court Ordered injections when I was disagreeing with my Psychiatrist on medication levels, he bought me my computer when I got out of hospital at Christmas. He wanted me to have a future and learn something new while living out the Court Order. We really have a good relationship now and he is as proud as ever with me pursuing my art career as I work with my Doctor controlling my Extra Pyramidal Side Effects from long term use of anti psychotic medication. Dad still pours me a beer, sneaks puffs from my cigarette when Mom in not in the room, (he quit smoking for Mom) and is still there for me with moral support and always thinking of something special I need to get ahead for birthdays and Christmas. May God bless his soul and take special care of him in his old age, he is not young anymore and I worry about him as he worries about me!

Words Of Poetry Voice Thoughts And Feelings Of Being
A Mental Health Consumer

Sometimes poetry can be therapeutic in expressing ones feelings about certain issues, along with being a common voice for a community. The poems published in this posting were written in the last nine years when I went through a lot in the Mental Health System, even although I can be some what critical of the system, the Medical Professions that deal with me take it in stride and do try to improve the system from my voice of constructive criticism. Since I started in the Mental Health System twenty three years ago, a lot has changed, more will change for the positive in the system, as voices of concern by Consumers are heard and poetry is one avenue in the arts that can portray a message to try and implement change for the better. So here are four poems that were written when I was bitter about the system that was treating me, hope you enjoy them!

Lies Society Told Me

I always dreamed of having a semi-normal life
Chasing my own desired fife and drum
While marching to the beat of my own success

A Psychiatrist said, "He will amount to nothing but a dysfunctional schizophrenic"
Chasing legal drugs of mental ruin
While strapped to a bed without my own success

Now I am having a semi-normal life
Chasing my own fife and drum again
Marching to the beat of my own success

Society gives me the psychiatric stigma
As I play life's melody
While keeping my marching beat on my drum of life

Psychiatrists told me many a psychiatric lie
Chasing their own demented psychotic bluff
They were making the money so I had no personal success

Mutual philosophical investment came to pass
As we both chased my desired fife and drum
Propelling me into some formal success

The Political Asylum

Overtaken with the burden of the "schizo"
Every graduation through society's system
Reels me back a notch or two in survival
Its not my mind that rots my life as a "schizo"
Its how the system is designed for us not to survive
What is there to boast about the system
That processed me with the burden of the "schizo"

Overtaken by the metaphysical, hence "schizo"
Changing in graduations through my psychological system
Taking back a notch or two in survival
Its not the metaphysical that rots my life, its the label "schizo"
The striving force to design a system to better survive
Is where I have to boast about my system
To process the Political Asylum as not to be "schizo"

Mystic Prison

Caught up in the demolition of my sacred soul
The Courts rule the injectable poison
Smothering my inner desires to be free
Of my delusional medical overseer
Who is caught up in his own dogma of thought

My past is held against my intellect
The present brings conflicting ideologies
Which makes the future not so quite mine
Modern science has put the mystic in prison
The psychiatric rule of thumb is up their ass

The power of one's mind is a delicate issue
It can self destruct the body of being
Then again it equates the justice of freedom
Finding balance through the knowledge of the years
Which is disregarded with an injectable cure

The middle ground for survival is torment
Living out Court orders is not a cure
It robs one of intellectual integrity
Delusional at what may I ask
Being a mystic at heart and lived it

Poverty

Does poverty breed its offspring into poverty
Or is it cast onto individuals like a heavy shadow
The chains of poverty rattle around our ankles
Like shackles of condemnation in a system
That blames nobody but the poverty-strickened

What makes some of us poverty-strickened
Were our past lives to blame for our present paths
An avenue which has very little compassion hanging in the air
I really think that poverty is truly unfair
Because some of us have to live in such despair

The glimmer of hope is not just a hand out
Helping us to attain our long forgotten goals
We do want to march to the tide of success
For at present we don't have much left
I never came from a poverty-strickened system

It was the system that condemned me to its shackles of despair
But the system did not know that I really cared
About one day riding the powerful tide of success
A priceless thought for the poverty-strickened
For it is the system that is loaded down with the fool's gold

Fool or no fool, some how I'll find that gold mine
I paid for my plot of poverty over and over again
Staying sane through laughing off my despair
One day my prayers will be answered by an angel
My labours can not go unanswered for ever

Hope you enjoyed these words and reflect on our system of humanity, to one day make it better for those concerned!

Art Created Out Of Fear From Recent Lung Problems Due To Smoking
Putting together some words on my bad smoking habit, I am still trying to find a direction to write about this subject, I started smoking cigarettes a long time ago when I was fifteen, when I quit at the age of sixteen I should have stayed off the dependence of tobacco products! It becomes a hard subject to tackle but I am getting there. After I moved into this new apartment to start a new life while pursuing the arts, I got run down physically a bit and had to take neocitroen for a touch of a bug that got the better of me. During this time period my lungs got sore when I smoked and breathed, flashes of a woman from the local News that caught lung cancer from smoking slidderd into my thought process evoking fear of the worst possible state of my lungs from smoking. I got up early one Sunday morning in April with sore lungs and I headed for the Emergency at the Hospital, it was a good time to go, it was very quite this time of day on the weekend at the Hospital and I figured I would be processed quickly. I saw the Doctor soon enough and had to go for a lung X-ray. I have had pneumonia in the lungs before and it was like what my lungs felt like at that time. It was not long before I was taken for my X-ray from the back and side of the lungs. After getting through with X-ray I told the front desk that I was going out for my cigarette, even although I was scared of what the Doctor would say. While out for the cigarette and smoking away in the part of the Hospital parking lot, the Doctor treating me comes out the Hospital doors looking for me and finds me sucking on my cigarette butt. I tossed the butt and jogged lightly across the parking lot (you are not aloud to smoke too close to Hospital doors), and the Doctor informs me that it is my dam smoking that is causing my sore lungs and I was to take tylenol for the pain while doing something about my smoking. It gave me a bit to think about, I always saw the cigarette as another nail in the coffin but smoked it any way. There was a light drizzle in the air as I walked down the hill from the Hospital to a Metro Station and a Pharmacy. I picked up the tylenol and took them right away from the on going pain in my lungs, what was I going to do, there is more than the nicotine addiction, there is the nervous habit of reaching for a smoke under stress and my life had been stressful inducing some chain smoking at times. Like I said the the Doctor in the Hospital Emergency, they will never take away a cigarette from a Psychiatric Patient but I had to do something. OK, start cutting down and see my Psychiatrist for the patch, it became my game plan! Early in the week I got a hold of my Psychiatrist and booked an appointment to see about the patch to help me stop smoking to save my lungs from any more damage. Thursday came and I saw my Doctor and discussed the idea I had of going on the patch to help me with my smoking problem. Her common sense dictated that I was not ready for it, I had to over come the nervous habit of reaching for a cigarette. After being on the tylenol for a bit the pain in my lungs disappeared even although I was still smoking with consciously making an effort to reduce my daily consumption of cigarettes. I started a Stress Management and Health Awareness Group at the Hospital out of it to help me find a direction in overcoming my smoking habit. Here I am smoking the worst of cigarettes rolled by hand out of the rolling papers. There is no filter except for a piece of cardboard to keep the papers open when the cigarette is in ones mouth. Hence I made my collage with the tylenol for eyes, I drew on cross bones in the tylenol which can not be seen in the image posted. I do not smoke usually between buses and metros when getting around town now and walk further between cigarette breaks. With my life becoming less stressful with having my own place, I feel a lot more relaxed and can go with out a cigarette more often. The only good thing about my hand rolled cigarettes is that they are biodegradable being made of only paper, cardboard and tobacco. Till later, smokers beware and may non smokers be tolerant of our bad smoking habit until we get over it!

Medication Gave Me Blurred Vision, Thus I Have To Wear Reading Glasses Still

It has been about a year since I wrote about my vision impairment caused by medication. Anti psychotic side effect medication can cause blurred vision in some people as it did with me, it still hampers me some so I wear reading glasses. When I was taking the side effect medication procyclidine, I was faced with getting blurred vision which constantly got worse, the medication kemaerin and cogentin can cause the same effect. At one point I was up to +375 magnification for reading glasses. I had been able to reduce to +150 reading glasses a year ago and at present I have good vision using +250 glasses. When I was hospitalized last spring for my EPSE (extra pyramidal side effects) I was put on side effect medication which hampered my vision once again. My vision is still improving as time goes by even although I am 47 years old this year. I end up buying my glasses at the Dollar Stores a fare bit, the frames do not last as long as the more expensive reading glasses that can be purchased in the local Pharmacy. Depending on the quality of the frames one can pay up to $30.00 for reading glasses. About a month ago my Mum bought me a pair of reading glasses in the Pharmacy that were on sale, I believe she paid about $15.00 for them, unfortunately they did not last for I lost them at the hospital somehow. At this point I had to make a trip to the Dollar Store to replace them for I could not afford a pair from the Pharmacy at the time. The frames from this replacement pair are already screwed up some and sit cock eyed on my nose, they really do not last like the better quality from the Pharmacy. With always changing between sun glasses and reading glasses when I am out and around the city, I invested in a neat pair of glasses that come with a case from the Pharmacy. As seen in the picture with this posting, the glasses in the case prove for a reliable pair with the case to put in my pocket when I am out side my apartment. I paid $2.99 plus tax for them in a local Pharmacy, they are not top of the line frames but the included case helps to keep the reading glasses in shape so they sit squarely on the nose like they are supposed to. When it comes to using reading glasses one must get their eyes checked to make sure of the cause of loss of vision. I was checked out at the Hospital Optometrist Clinic to make sure that it was indeed the medication that was causing my vision impairment. When it was verified by the Doctor in the Clinic I continued to use the reading glasses. I do not take side effect medication any more due to being on a limited amount of anti-psychotic medication and the bouts of EPSE are few and far between. It is surprising how long it takes medication to completely leave your system, for my vision does seem to constantly improve. Each time I buy new reading glasses I find something in the store to read that has very fine print. When I am happy with being able to read the fine print on store items, I get the appropriate glasses at the time. I do not know if I will ever be able to see clear enough to not use reading glasses, I always had really good vision and I am just happy with the having the slow reduction of magnification being used. Like anyone my vision is important to me, especially as an Artist trying to paint fine detail or while doing photography. I remember painting fine detail with blurred vision as my eyes were changing, even although I was wearing reading glasses. When doing photography I have to wear my reading glasses to focus the camera, other wise the developed photo will not be focused right. The glasses are propped on my nose so that I can look at things at a distance without looking through the glasses, then I switch to looking through the glasses when I go to read something such as when I am shopping. As time goes by and my vision improves, I will make added notes to this posting, until then take care of your eyes and get them properly checked if you tend to have blurred vision.