The real cost of the Budget

So the Guardian scoops today:

Budget will cost 1.3m jobs - Treasury Exclusive:
Leaked government data concerning next five years shows hidden costs of austerity drive.

So where are those millions of jobs for those currently on incapacitated going to come from?

~

The BBC has picked up on it:

Forecast suggests 600,000 public sector jobs to go.
Some 600,000 jobs are expected to be lost in the public sector over the next five years, the Office for Budget Responsibility has said.

Leaked Treasury documents had suggested last week's Budget could increase unemployment by up to 1.3 million.

A laugh?

If you are in need of a laugh, and I know I do, then I recommend David Mitchell's Observer Column last week.

Whelk ice cream never meant we stopped being a Pot Noodle nation.

Our taste for fancy food that made us look like fine diners during the good times is now exposed as a canard.

It muses on the fact that being in a bust now, means we were in a boom before. Only none of us really noticed, did we? He pens this line wonderful:

We didn't really prioritise food. Like drunks at a urinal, we were splashing out because we were loaded.

Magic.

Millions of People Off Benefits?

Heard on the radio this morning that the aim of the government is "to get millions of people off benefits and into work". Let's look at some more official stats: (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=12)

April 2010

employment : 28.86 million

unemployment : 2.47 million (7.9%)

claiming JSA : 1.48 million

unemployed 12 months+ : 772,000.

Inactive people : 8.19 million (i.e. working age, but not working)

That's relatively high unemployment - especially considering we've just had a boom. Has the bust affected us so much?

Now from the same page:

The number of vacancies for the three months to May 2010 was 492,000, up 7,000 over the quarter.

So for the 3 months to May there were roughly 500k jobs available when at any given time during that period there were roughly 1500k people seeking work, and another 1000k unemployed but not looking (bums like me). That's 3 people for every job going.

Now the government is pursuing a high unemployment strategy and expects (partially) incapacitated people to join the work force. My question is what the fuck are they talking about? Where are these millions of jobs coming from?

The government approach to benefits is to sweep it all under the carpet in a way that reduces welfare spending, but reduces welfare full-stop.

So, the Welfare Madness Begins

News began to filter out today (strategic press releases by the government's spin doctors) about plans to target people on Incapacity Benefit. Anyone getting this benefit is suspected of malingering. Too many people could do some work and so all of us are going to be scrutinised more closely. By whom one wonders? Given that my regular doctors and specialists are at a loss to do anything about my symptoms I wonder how I will be judged by someone tasked at cutting benefits. What criteria are going to be applied? (And who the fuck would employ me). How are they going to test how anxiety and depression affect my ability to work? So far I have no confidence at all that my pain will be taken seriously by any doctor whose agenda is to force people back into work - my pain doesn't show up in the tests I've had so far because the tests are simply not geared for it. (I need to write about this, but some other time).

We need to be clear that the point here is reduce spending.

Budgets are being cut everywhere which will include the NHS. This is going to create considerable conflict. On one hand reductions in spending will cause unemployment to rise. They want this because it will force wages down (though not for senior executives or merchant banker, eh). More people will be 'signing on', and less people will be processing their applications. Overpayments will go up (currently official mistakes make up one third of benefit overpayments).

On the other hand the system for testing the incapacitated will have to be beefed up (paid for how?) and this will push people off the IB on onto Job Seekers Allowance (or what ever it is rebranded to), which costs a lot less (£25 per week in my case). These people will be entering the job market with some incapacity (though perhaps not enough to keep them out of full-time employment). They will not be able to compete with all the able bodied people in the high unemployment situation, and this means subsisting on JSA - which is considerably less than IB. This in turn will mean a higher demand on social services at a time when those services are being cut. Being a job seeker is demanding, so stress on the incapacitated will increase. Many people have been incapacitated by stress related illnesses such as depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue. So increasing the stress means more people will be in crisis, but now they have been judged fit to work so there is no safety net.

Another thing is that at present one has to be looking for full-time work to qualify for JSA. So these people who cannot, and won't be expected to, seek full-time work are going to be covered how? Presumably the details will emerge over time, but the next few days and weeks are going to be uncomfortable for many people, me included.

A lot of sick people are going to end up falling through the cracks. This is going to be a disaster for them, but the real costs will be hidden and it will be a PR victory for a government a wee bit short on popularity. Though the way they are covering up the massive reduction in benefit fraud may be cited as a counter-example.

BBC.

Q&A: Incapacity benefits explained.

"Some 2.6m people claim incapacity benefit, or its successor, the employment and support allowance, at an annual cost of about £12.5bn..."

Duncan Smith denies sickness benefit tests to triple.

"Iain Duncan Smith has denied reports that ministers are considering trebling "fitness to work" tests on people claiming incapacity benefit..."

Guardian

Welfare crackdown begins with drive to reduce incapacity benefit claims.

Coalition's plans include taking people off higher rate of benefits if tests reveal they are fit to do some work.

What we are up against

I said to watch the Blue Blog. Watch the comments also. This is a comment from there, this what we're up against:

A good budget. I’m particularly pleased you are raising VAT the one tax we can decide to pay or not by limiting our consumption.

I can never understand why Labour say poorer people are most affected — do the poor regularly buy wide-screen TVs or state of the art consumer goods? I don’t think so, People make do and mend — in any case, everyday consumables such as food or children’s clothes are zero-rated.

Some Truths About Benefit Fraud

In 2009 the DWP published some statistics about benefit fraud. These can be found in the document entitled: Fraud and Error in the Benefit System: April 2008 to March 2009. We are right to be worried about this as it depletes resources that should otherwise go to worthy people. There are three sources of benefit overpayment: fraud, customer error and official error. Here's the graph of the period 1997/8 - 2008/9 for Income Support and Job Seekers Allowance.

There are two main things to say about this. Firstly in the last 10 years there has been a massive reduction in benefit fraud overpayments. This appears to have bottomed out in 2005/6 and to have had a small increase since then. To be clear the reduction is from £850m to £330, with a low of £290m in 2005/6.

Fraud overpayments are less than half what they were a decade ago. How did this get lost in the discussion!?

Now notice that as fraud has gone up, official overpayments have gone up by the same amount. So 50% of the increase (more or less) of the increase from the low figure of £290m is due not to increasing fraud but to official errors (i.e. incompetence).

At the same time there the contribution from the customer has remained much the same -getting as high as £160, but presently at about the same as it was a decade ago.

As it stands about half of the overpayments are due to fraud, ie people deliberately misleading the DWP, and about half are due to mistakes by either the customer or the DWP (with the DWP making twice as many mistakes as the customer).

The DWP are responsible for one third of the overpayments - let's target them for efficiency savings!

Here are the figures from the report in a table:

Year	Fraud	Customer Error	Official Error	Total
1997/98	850,000,000	100,000,000	280,000,000	1,220,000,000
1998/99	780,000,000	90,000,000	330,000,000	1,190,000,000
1999/00	760,000,000	90,000,000	260,000,000	1,120,000,000
2000/01	690,000,000	80,000,000	200,000,000	980,000,000
2001/02	600,000,000	120,000,000	220,000,000	940,000,000
2002/03	570,000,000	110,000,000	250,000,000	920,000,000
2003/04	400,000,000	160,000,000	290,000,000	840,000,000
2004/05	290,000,000	140,000,000	250,000,000	680,000,000
2005/06	240,000,000	150,000,000	180,000,000	570,000,000
2006/07	300,000,000	110,000,000	170,000,000	590,000,000
2007/08	280,000,000	120,000,000	140,000,000	540,000,000
2008/09	330,000,000	110,000,000	200,000,000	640,000,000

The Budget

Government opts for medical exams over form filling. Aims to put all people claiming Disability Living Allowance through examinations - presumably these examiners will be highly qualified experts in every kind of debilitating illness? Yeah right. Ha! not that I even qualify anyway.

Anyway. Comment here at Arbitrary Constant.

Housing benefit cap should not affect me either as I live in low cost housing. Note that the government is unable to reward people who save money, only to punish the profligate - and some people appear to have been very profligate indeed - if the stories can be believed!

Welfare Reform

The Guardian are at it again today:

George Osborne to axe benefits in race to slash deficit

Welfare targeted in £85bn package, but safeguards for education, defence and transport

This is an article with no content. Don't read it. It is a lot of speculation and reporting on the opinions of Tory think tanks. Total facts? One.

The government is going to announce a budget on Tuesday in which welfare will be targeted for reductions in the amount spent.

Despite all the feverish guessing, the papers do not know what the government is thinking. Note the words here are slightly different from the previous headline I discussed. Now it's not war and bombs, it's axes and slashes - we will be maimed, but not killed, which is an improvement I suppose.

So what are the media up to when they do this? They have no information to present so they basically make stuff up. This is creative writing, it is not investigative journalism. No one can provide pre-emptive analysis. Or perhaps this is gambling. One makes a prediction on the basis that there is a pay off for getting it right (in terms of kudos and perhaps readership, which sells advertising).

Now you have to add to the mix that the Government employs spin doctors who purposefully leak drips of news to the media. They do this to mainly to sustain the media interest in the Government - in promoting a brand the main thing is to keep their profile high; and these days the government is a brand. It also helps to soften the blow of negative news, and drags out positive effects.

So why do the media buy into the government's spin program?

Why do we buy into the media spin program?

I will also point out that in making massive reductions in spending unemployment is going to to increase. Labour pursued a low unemployment/high borrowing strategy. It did work all that well. The Con-Dems are about to pursue a high unemployment/low borrowing strategy. So spending on welfare is only going to rise as many more people claim unemployment benefits.

BTW My prediction, for what it is worth, is that the government will try to rebrand unemployment payments - which are already called Job Seeker's Allowance, which fools no one but does expose the role of Public Relations consultants in the government.

Some random stuff

"This time the oil is invading America" - a UK comic

UK World Cup. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. How do you spell schadenfreude?

Even if I do become a UK citizen (which I probably won't because it costs £750) I still won't be English.

I used to read The Times website now and then for a bit of balance to my left-wing habitual tendencies - now they want me to get ads and pay. No thanks. Now I wouldn't even link to it.

News Quiz is off, Now Show is on. Can we not have both? Have I got News For You is off, Mock the Week is back. What ever happened to I Sorry I Haven't a Clue? BBC comedies make life worth living. David Frost's doco on satire, mildly amusing.

Spotify offers £4.99 all you eat, but only at your computer (not portable to iPod), cranks up ad intensity as an incentive. The race is on to generate enough income to stay in business. It's tempting in many ways.

I'm homesick which is usually a bad sign. I day dreamed about going back to live in Taupo recently. Watched "There is no Depression" on YouTube. Then the AK79 reunion concert - Spelling Mistakes! Woohoo. Then the beached Whale clip - discovered there are more!

Still melting down

Still feeling fragile and not wanting to talk. I have not been talking to anyone, staying in my room when anyone else is home. I'm dreading the weekend. I have talked to a couple of old friends on Skype which was OK.

Continuing to reflect on the motivations for my previous conscientiousness around the house, and how that is different from other peoples approaches. I care for different reasons and that had made me vulnerable. It's as though the other guys are not sure why they do what they do - things like cleaning - and are just going through the motions. So they do the dishes but don't pay attention to cleaning them, they continue on with water that is saturated with fat and has no suds left, they don't clean the outside of things. Similarly despite having lived here for 2 or 3 years they are unsure where to find things, and having taken an item from place, they put it back at random (so it's impossible to find things).

I would love to move, but I'm not sure how I would manage, nor how I would accomplish that. I hate feeling like this.

I have been continuing to read LeDoux's 'The Emotional Brain' and finally getting into the fear response and related brain mechanism. One has to overlook the fact that his results have come from vivisection of animals - deliberately injuring their brains and observing the effects; or from experimenting on them while alive and then sectioning their brains after they die. The knowledge gained is fascinating and perhaps invaluable, but I for one often find myself revolted by his methods. But I haven't put much effort into ART - I haven't given up completely, but I'm feeling wary of setting off something I can't handle.

Conservative Welfare Reforms

It might pay to keep an eye on "The Blue Blog", especially if you are interested in welfare reform.

"If people genuinely can’t work, we’re going to look after them. But if they’re found fit to work, they will be transferred onto Jobseeker’s Allowance. From there, we will offer people targeted, tailored, personal support to get a job."

Pardon? How is this different from the current policy? In fact this is what happens now. These rich bastards have no idea what being incapacitated is like. Even if they were ill they would receive a much higher standard of care down at Harley St, have no fear of losing their homes, and know that they will never be forced to live on £9500 per year.

What we have here is rhetoric. Scary rhetoric because of course it will affect people's lives, and may of us will be anxious about being forced into worse straits than we're already in because some politician wants the electorate to think he or she is 'tough'.

I'd encourage everyone to comment on their blog - comment is free and most of the comments are by Tories so far. Let them know what you think!

Meltdown

Yikes. The last few days have been a bit strange. I've been hypersensitive and reacting to everything with rage or tears - everything is a threat to my well-being! I get this occasionally when I'm overloaded. I've been getting a bit dissociative - just blanking out and feeling like I'm floating just slightly out of my body, observing but not participating in my experience. It's a bit mental, but it can make life bearable at times. I think having taken on the Amygdala Retraining Technique I have loaded myself up with expectations. I'd given up before. Now there's this. But it's quite demanding - lots of things to do, and especially one thing to do up to hundreds of times a day -100, 200 or 300 Ashok says. FUCKING HELL!

I've been on board because it all makes sense to my scientist brain. There is a rational basis for the explanation of fibromyalgia and a rational basis for the ART. But then he introduces stuff like "alternate nostril breathing" - deep breathing but alternately closing of the nostrils. And I'm sorry but this just seems like bullshit to me. It is not accompanied by the kind of well thought out and well presented facts that the first part of the program is. It's just a "powerful" technique. Powerful? What the fuck does that mean? What does it do? And why does it do it? Given that the answers to these two questions are available to the first part of the program it seems fair to expect answers.

I must also say that Ashok overplays his one peer reviewed journal article in 2002 (8 years ago) - it was in "Medical Hypotheses" not in the Lancet or Nature. There is a reason why you've never heard of this journal before - it is obscure. It appears that there has been no subsequent research on his technique, so the idea is hardly causing a medical revolution (it means that no one has been impressed enough by his hypothesis to set up a trial and test it). I don't doubt that research would be favourable and that the understanding of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia would be confirmed. I even think that the hypothesis will shed light on many forms of anxiety and depression - I clues into my own insights and into what people like Joe Griffin of the Human Givens Institute are saying. But only the uneducated are going to be impressed by what he calls his "medical paper".

One of the good things to come out of my ruminations in the last few days has been a realisation. I do stuff around the house. I do it with the expectation that others will appreciate what I do and like me for it. This is a mistake I've made before (to my cost). People I live with, some of them anyway, don't give a shit about me or what I do. They don't even notice that I clean up after them, or make an extra effort to make the house look nice. I can't always be good company, but I do more than my fair share. But if I'm doing it so they will like me (and hopefully not reject me) and they are even aware, then I'm knocking myself out for no good reason. They don't care. They don't even know it's an issue. So why am I putting myself through this?

Honeymoon is over

Well that didn't take long. I've had a very difficult couple of days - swamped by disturbing thoughts and images and feeling ill equipped to deal with them. Swinging from rage to weeping. I came a bit unhinged at times. What set me off? Someone took two bites out of a slice of bread and then left it on the cutting board beside the loaf. I just went nuts - fucking slobs!!!! etc. But it did me more harm than good. I definitely need to turn the volume knob down, to be much less prone to these overreactions. It was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, but I live with slobs and I need to find better ways of coping. Maybe I should take up smoking pot again? I never bothered about a bit of mess in those days... [joke].

I see very clearly how ART is supposed to work, but getting on top is going to be difficult. I find myself doing the technique so often it's exhausting. My negative thoughts are largely NOT about my body and symptoms, but about frightening experiences past and (imagined) future.

I'm trying to read Joseph LeDoux's book The Emotional Brain. There is a long (I mean at least 5 chapters) introduction to the history of research into the neuro-anatomy of emotion which is dull at times. Hopefully we'll get onto his research into fear soon. There are two main points from the first 5 chapters. Firstly that the contents of the consciousness are largely the result of unconscious processes about which we mostly can't be conscious. We make up stories to explain how we feel based on previous experience etc. We can be completely wrong about the reason we feel as we do.

Secondly the idea that there is an 'emotional centre' in the brain is probably wrong. Specifically LeDoux demonstrates that the so-called Limbic System as defined by previous researchers (and still a feature of neuroscience texts being published today) doesn't really exist, or do what they say it does. An aspect of LeDoux's thinking is that different emotions are produced by different parts of the brain. Fear, and especially fearful memories, for instance are associated with the amygdala and it's interactions with other brain systems. This is the fact that Ashok exploits in the ART.

Anyway I'm fed up with the slobs and I starting looking into council housing and found that as a non-citizen I have to go the extra mile to prove I qualify. So I can't register online but must take my passport in. Registration takes 8 weeks to be processed (why does everything take so fucking long in this country!). Then the system has changed and one has to keep an eye on the listings and put in bids for desirable places. 3 bids per bidding cycle. So now I have to decide whether the slobs are bad enough for me to tangle with the bureaucracy and red-tape and all the stress that brings.

Welfare Reform

The Independent's helpful headline: Osborne's Bombshell: Chancellor declares war on middle-class welfare (By Andrew Grice, Political Editor).

Great example of a paper going beyond commentary in order to provoke outrage and upset in readers. They all do this all the time. There is no simple reporting any more, if there ever was. All the media are striving with all their might to get an emotional reaction to the story, rather like the way advertising no longer informs you about the specifications or quality of a product but tried to create an image. Newspapers trade especially on stimulating our fight or flight response - driving us all towards anxiety, depression and the like. Note the language here: bombs, war, i.e. death, destruction, mayhem. Is this accurate or true? No. It is a lie. A lie designed to stimulate fear and keep you buying newspapers.

I need to be informed about changes in welfare because I am wholly dependent on it. Is there anywhere I can get the facts without the hyperbole and the emotional string pulling?

Have you tried...

Earlier I wrote that I hate getting medical advice from ordinary people. Any sentence (let aone conversation) where the opening gambit is "have you tried..." is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned. Not interested. Actually I've noticed that very few people can take in the complexity of my illness. They tend to latch onto one symptom and ask about that. For the first 3 years people would ask about my hands.

"How are your hands?"

"My hands are fine. I've never had a problem with my hands. What hurts are my elbows, upper-arms, shoulders, my back, my neck, and more recently my hips, and thigh muscles."

"Oh...."

Then the next time I see them.... "How're your hands?"

The other thing that people can relate to is sleep. I've often in an advanced stage of sleep deprivation and struggle to know which way is up. So then I'll get:

"Sleep OK?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Sleep OK?"

"No."

"Oh."

etc for weeks on end...

I stopped joining my housemates for breakfast years ago. (besides they eat loudly which disgusts me)

I know it comes from concern but somehow concern for me gets tangled up in their own views of the situation. They'll ask my about a headache I had 3 days ago.

"Head OK?".

"What?"

"You had a headache..."

"Yes, on Monday I had a headache, it's Wednesday now. You saw me yesterday and I apparently did not have a headache then either."

"Oh".

It's like somehow humans lose the ability to communicate effectively with me because I'm in pain. They focus on the pain that they can relate to, and forget to relate to me as a person. Or something. Fucked if I know really, but it's frustrating. I know I'm grumpy and that doesn't help. So what is wrong with me?

Pain in the tendons around my elbows, the ends of my deltoid muscles and all of the muscles/tendons around my shoulders and shoulder blades. Pain in my mid, upper back and neck. Pain in my jaws. All of my muscles are quick to fatigue and slow to recover.

When I say pain it varies. It can be burning with aching (as now), or just a dull ache, or a deep unsettling ache as if in my bones. It can be sharp frightening pain as bad as any I've felt.

Frequent headaches. Migraine. Insomnia - trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, early waking. Un-refreshing sleep. Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS). General fatigue. [I also have problems with my teeth, psoriasis, I'm obese - sounds attractive doesn't it?].

I have trouble concentrating and remembering things (I used to be clever). I am constantly anxious, sometimes to the point of paranoia and panic attacks. I experience repeated bouts of clinical depression with suicidal thoughts (I took an overdose in 1999). I'm given to bouts of (mostly internal) rage.

Along with all of this my marriage ended. I lost my job. I'm stranded on benefits in a foreign country. I'm unable to do things like play a guitar (after 25 years of it being one of my main interests). I've had many diagnoses such as: Major Depression, Borderline Personality Disorder, Fibromyalgia. Many people want to label me with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - again it seems to be what they've heard of - and they're like people who's only tool is a hammer: everything starts to look like a nail. Though Mr Gupta acknowledges that the two conditions are different (there's no suggestion of a viral trigger for FM as far as I know) there may well be a similarity in the underlying causes - i.e. a badly trained amygdala.

My last girlfriend left me because I apparently complained all the time. But the cow was forever asking me what I was thinking about or feeling - every five minutes like a five year old "what are you thinking about?". I think about pain, I feel pain. That's about it really. She kept asking, I kept telling the truth. I'm glad she's gone.

I started off today thinking I would list the treatments I'd tried (other than recreational drugs and alcohol in my youth which didn't really work either). I trained in the sciences so I don't have that much time for the airy-fairy stuff - I have tried a few alternative treatments and they have one advantage over drugs. No side effects. However they have had no effect what-so-ever. To date I've tried:

Antidepressant drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, anti-seizure drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs (now I'm a bit anti drugs). TENS, exercise (swimming, yes), stretching, heat packs, hot baths (with and without bath salts), hydrotherapy. Homoeopathy, acupuncture, kinesiology, vitamins, massage, deep tissue massage, shiatsu, osteopathy, active release techniques (McTimoney chiropractic). As a Buddhist I have been engaged in meditation, mantra recitation, prayer etc. In the last 10 years I've had 6 years of intensive psychotherapy - the Karuna Institute, psychosynthesis, body psychotherapy (disaster!). I started but could not finish a mindfulness based stress reduction course (the techniques activated my RLS and just made me worse, a lot worse).

At times some or all of these provided some short term relief. Nothing has made any long term difference.

Now I'm doing Tai Chi and the Gupta Amygdala Retraining Program (ARP). The Tai Chi is very helpful - grounding. Helping me with body awareness without sending me into the twitching hell of RLS, and without demanding the gut wrenching (for me) introspection of meditation. Getting onto the ARP has made me aware of some things. Firstly the grief of the last 4 years is massive and I'm not over it. I'm also terrified of getting a little bit better and then being thrust out of the system only to fall over and go through it all again. I had given up all hope of being well. It's so stirring to think I might get well - I swing from exhilaration to despondency. Big plans, to realising that nothing has helped in the past - or at least nothing has made a permanent difference. I've got slowly worse over my adult life. I'm operating at about 25% of what I might at the moment in my own estimation. It's very early days. I suppose deep down I do want to be well, but I'm terrified (really fucking terrified) of failing again. I was just coming to accept my situation - I'd stopped struggling so much, and was calmer. But now it's all up in the air again and I feel very anxious about it.

Food

My housemates - mostly middle aged bachelors - are a reasonably cultured bunch. Most of us have a university education. They're always popping off to the theatre, to a dance performance or an arty film (where good photography outranks horrendous plots). They like Ted Hughes and Shamus Heaney. Indeed, not so long ago we were discussing our favourite 19th century novels (I had to wrack my brain to come up with a 19th century novel, but realised I've read the collected works of H.G. Wells some of which were written before the turn). They tend to scoff at popular music and Hollywood films. Get the picture? Not really snobs, but...

For all this sophistication the buggers have not educated their pallets. They poo-poo B movies and Big Brother, but would eat chips and beans, and fried egg sandwiches everyday if they could. We're all veggie, so no bacon butties. They serve up an unremitting diet of stodgy curries - often a potato curry with white rice which is about 95% carbs. One guy fries almost everything in an inch of oil and what isn't fried is smothered in an inch of mayonnaise, or covered in piles of cheese - and then everything is lathered with pickle. Another will carefully steam vegetables (using a different pot/steamer for each kind and thereby using every pot in the house) only to pour cooking oil on them "to make them tasty". I'm presently living with the worst cook I've ever lived with (and I've lived in many different set ups and many different people - over 30 houses, and about 100 people). I don't know what he does sometimes: often the food is undercooked (crunchy spuds), but usually it's just awful looking and tasteless. He himself has been known to wolf down plain pasta with nothing on it. He has no concept of what a balanced diet consists of. Ugh. I've started avoiding his cooking day whenever I can. Once a month is about as much as I can stand. I find it depressing and I've put on a lot of weight. Must write about my own eating habits some time.

The contrast between the attitude to food and the taste sense, compared with sight and hearing is astounding. I won't even get into smell - another pet hate! Maybe I should write about why I live communally at some point?

Since I'm doing the Gupta program I'm keeping track of my negative thoughts, and I have to say a lot of them revolve around this. Since I've recently stopped having psychotherapy I have a bit more money which I'm spending on olives, falafels, humous and sushi. Oh, and it's peach season, so lots of yummy peaches.

Amygdala Retraining

So, I've started the Gupta program and I thought I could use the blog to keep track of it.

I find it all very emotional. Basically I had given up. I thought the rest of my life would just be pain, upset, disability, or at best severely limited by these. Never working again, always dependent on benefits, stranded in the UK for lack of money and an inability to handle the stress of moving after 8 years living here. There is so much of value that I've lost. I was understandably despondent about this. To hear someone give a rational explanation for the condition, and then a rational approach to treating it is like a dam giving way. I've wept more than once watching the DVD. But it is very early days.

Modern Maladies

The medical profession has scored some astonishing successes in the last 150 years with the eradication of many deadly diseases, and advances in treatments which save lives everyday - one of the main things, of course, was hygiene and especially hand washing, but I don't want to be too cynical about that because I'd be dead without it.

However alongside this amazing success in treating pathogenic or physically-traumatic problems they have been abject failures to treat the so-called modern maladies: depression, anxiety, psychosis, chronic fatigue/ME, and my own malady fibromyalgia. Many more 'syndromes' which are simply poorly understood vaguely defined collections of apparently unrelated symptoms have been named. About the medical profession's ability to deal with these I think we should be profoundly sceptical and even cynical. They are floundering. Part of the problem is that doctors have become enmeshed in the net of big pharma and often seem unable to think beyond the possibilities of offering some drug or other. Not only are the drugs for modern maladies frequently entirely ineffective at treating the malady, they cause side-effects which themselves can be debilitating and must often be treated with more drugs. At best we get some little relief from our symptoms that outweighs the short-term side-effects, but often the long-term side-effects are more serious (like kidney damage for me)

If you suffer from chronic fatigue, from fibromyalgia or even chronic anxiety or depression then I would recommend taking a look at the website of Ashok Gupta - a medical researcher, not a new-age snake oil seller. He has some very interesting insights into our problems, having suffered and recovered chronic-fatigue himself. I'd recommend signing up for his free introductory video series and taking an hour to watch the first series. If you don't think it's useful after that then you haven't lost anything.

Personally he had me weeping copiously to hear my difficulties described in such accurate detail, but for the first time accompanied by a rational explanation based on solid research. He offers a non-drug program of treatment which is not free, but it is something you can do yourself at home if you buy the DVD. I haven't started it yet, but his insight into the problem has given me more hope than years of doctors, drugs and psychotherapy and I'm excited about getting started on it.

Perhaps there is hope of a normal life after all. I'd given up.