If the man who made an idiotic contribution to a debate on public ethics and private statements on a radio news programme this morning had his way, it wouldn't be in Saint Anne's loony bin that I might yet end up visiting Tony one day (short of being put in the room next door); he might be behind bars for one of his recent e-mail briefs.
"This govt never learns," my friend announced to whet my appetite despite the obviousness of the introduction.
"It fails to see logical inconsistency in declaring that as a lay institution the educational system is qualified to interfere with what girl pupils wear on their heads on religious grounds - rather like the Rugby Union opposing a change in soccer offside rules.
Now it expels an imam (BBC) who has only advocated the beating of women; everybody knows this is a) a human right; b) often necessary; c) healthy exercise."
More seriously (one of the Splendid Six ¼ has a near zero irony threshold), when it when it comes to bothersome interferers, my ears pricked up during a late bath this morning when a chap named Vincent told John Peel on 'Home Truths' (repeated on Monday or available over the Net): "My digestive system stopped working."
A married man and father of three, evidently no wimp, Vincent developed this variant on the Condition because he worked in a small team where the boss was a bully who made his whole life intolerable.
Some other symptoms he described were similar to those that contributed to the breakdown of my own intestinal machinery and also put Vincent off work for several months. He was less lucky than me, however; he explained how he went "mad" to such a degree that he had to separate for spells from his wife to give both of them a rest and he upset the kids, becoming short-tempered and depressed for the first time in his life.
After encounters with shrinks, also a first for him, the diagnosis was "post traumatic stress disorder" (Sanctuary) no less.
Vincent lost his job and said he still had no idea how to deal with men like that boss. Company superiors had offered no support and he described the catch: either knuckle under and the bullying gets worse or stand up to it and ... the bullying gets worse.
I've brought the Kid up to understand that as a rule bullies are cowards, but there are exceptions. Vincent, who was obviously up against one of them, had a happy ending to relate.
He landed a new and equally interesting job and won an unfair dismissal case against his former employer. His persecutor ended up doing some kind of business training course after -- if I heard right with my head under water -- being sacked. But it took an industrial tribunal to have the company acknowledge that the boss was a bastard.
This got me to thinking about people I know have been bullied at AFP, where management is not always as enlightened as it might be and has lost its own share of court cases in my many years there. Today, I've got no complaints, since almost everybody was supportive when I got the Condition. But in the light of Vincent's tale, however, I also reflected on whether I had ever been bullied myself during my career at the Factory and the short answer was "Yes. Several times."
When blogging earlier this week about sexual harassment, I declared that my outlook is to give such people two fingers.
To be honest -- and despite long being a beneficiary of some legal protection provided in France for elected or appointed union officials -- this healthy attitude remains a recent development on my part, which might not have come without psychotherapy, western and oriental.
Vincent still suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, he said, though it's now quite manageable. An odd thing is that while the therapists gave me a similar diagnosis, I only recognised it as such, with that particular label, on hearing his story. I tend to forget that it's past stress that hits me, rather than present pressures.
He had recommendations with which I completely concur for those who begin to suspect they've got the same problem. First, you have to learn to see even the best of jobs as no more than a source of income; that's the bottom line and it's much harder to practice than to preach. Secondly, search the Internet. As Vincent said, it's a vast resource, once you've learned to sift through the nonsense.
Today, I find that the 'Mental Health Sanctuary' even has a (small) list of blogs. I'm inclined to offer my services, for what it's worth. Which category, though?!
To what Vincent said, I'd add a couple of things.
The Obstinate One ½ (first and most stubborn of my visitors) will have realised that when I get a bad dose of the blues, I may hide, but even at the worst of times I know life will improve because it invariably has. Sometimes when you're down, you find it very hard to believe this, but it's a conviction I find more useful than most.
Somebody sent me a multipage Christmas card about counting your blessings. I managed a polite reply, but that kind of syrup doesn't go with my digestion.
The capacity of many people who never get depressed to misunderstand totally those who do astonishes me even today, especially since some of them publish the most dangerous rubbish on the Net. Nine times out of 10, telling someone who is seriously down to "snap out of it" or "pull yourself together" is not only pointless, since there's every chance they're trying hard enough already, but also increases their stress and guilt levels.
Though he didn't say so, it was evident that Vincent learned that the hard way too.
What he did do, however, was to refer to himself as "he", when talking about his spell of madness, which was a very healthy thing to do. It doesn't take a split personality to look at oneself in the third person. Once I began writing about my symptoms last year as "the Condition" and turned it into an object, it became increasingly easy to make both fun and light of it. Too much so for the liking of some, but that was their problem, not mine.
A third suggestion is so obvious it shouldn't need saying, but since I've lived and worked with people who seem incapable of doing it, I shall: don't use ethically charged put-down labels! It's so easy to tell somebody "You're an idiot" or "You're useless" that I do the first of those frequently. But what I should say is, "You're behaving like an idiot at the moment."
Several close and otherwise very bright and perceptive friends spring to mind when I think of people who've been so handicapped by such labels in the past that they still find it difficult to see themselves without the barbs stuck to their back.
Maybe I rebel against labels today myself because when I was a kid I had a back like a dart board.
That's enough.
It's far too glorious a day to go on about depression and stress. In any case, as a woman said in a shaggy dog story at the end of 'Home Truths', you never know when your number might be up.
It was a good sad story, about a Jack Russell terrier, a lamppost and some faulty electrical wiring.
5:25:33 PM link 
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