25-11-2021: Day 168
Angela Black was staring glassy eyed across the table, into the penetrating gaze of the judge, jury, and executioner – her psychiatrist – who was sitting peevishly in her comfortable hospital throne. In this TV psychological thriller, the power rests with the psychiatrist, not the patient, as is the case in real life. And so, the TV shrink dishes out a detention order, diagnoses, and drugs to Black like dispensing candy in a sweet shop. The power balance is laid bare. Stripped back to the bone marrow. Check to check mate.
Spoiler alert. The story engages the viewer with twist upon twist, and the plot thickens as Black is processed by the system, framed by her controlling and violent husband, and locked in a psych ward for her delusional beliefs.
And it all floods back in a wave of painful memories, of sitting in the same psychiatrist’s chair, pleading innocence and sanity to the medicating power of the state. We all need warm eyes, ears, and hearts in these times of a mental health crisis, but so often it falls tragically by the wayside.
27-11-2021: Day 170
I awaken from a dream in the early pre-dawn hours, take a leak, get back into bed, and attempt to reconstruct the dream, piece by piece. Dreams are like jigsaw puzzles, and this one, delivered by the Sandman, is a particularly cryptic one, which requires a keen eye for detail.
And so, I begin recounting my dream, writing it down in the Dali Journal for posterity. The dream unfolds in a tiny squeezed flat somewhere in the proximity of Hove, and I’m partying with friends not seen for decades. The weed is flowing, smoke billowing to the ceiling. It’s 10 o’clock in the morning, the morning after the night before. No-one has slept.
My close friend hands me a Richard Ashcroft CD. It’s unlike any I’ve seen before. I study the cover, and it’s covered in cryptic symbols. Upstairs, someone is showering. Water is spraying directly through a gap in the ceiling – a sign of deep-rooted emotions, purity, and rebirth. I realise my teenage daughter has stayed up all night with me, and, feeling the time has come to leave, the dream ends.
29-11-2021: Day 172
I was staggering up Ship Street in the early hours of morning, where centuries ago the fishermen of Brighton used to haul their hemp ropes and nets down to the ocean edge. I was feeling buffeted and blasted, after an excessive combination of booze and pipe, and was on the hunt for an off license of a twenty-four-hour nature. However, my Brighton navigational compass was not what it used to be. It was a time of serious celebration, and I was a man on a mission.
Feeling the edge of my high, I wandered the streets keeping eyes peeled on the party people and street folk drifting out of the shadows. Falling over bins, time called on the drunk tanks, these were the city streets of nights that masked a thousand sins.
After walking in a circle of the Brighton Laines, I return to the hotel and the original scene of carnage and celebration. So, it was two rum and cokes, at premium prices, charged direct to the room, please bartender.