IT HAPPENED

Posted on May 21, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged abortion, abortion ban, alabama, assault, blood, body, body policing, choice, David Tennant, Doctor Who, DW, emotion, featured, Georgia, julius nicholson, killing, legitimate rape, miscarriage, Missouri, norma desmond, personal, pregnancy, rape, shame, sunset boulevard, thick of it, Todd Akin, twilight zone, visceral, wickwire, women's rights.

by Mollie Leveque

CW: miscarriage, bleeding, rape

Hard as I try, it’s difficult to rewatch David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor without smelling blood.

It’s not his fault. But in a bid to restore a sense of normalcy to the fact that I was miscarrying and just realized I’d been pregnant because of the miscarriage itself, I threw on The Doctor for familiar noise. It happened to be Ten’s era.

Close contenders for comfort media were The Thick of It, The Twilight Zone, and Sunset Boulevard. I like seeing Julius Nicholson squirm. Wickwire providing unwitting astronauts with “eternifying fluid” intrigues me. And Norma Desmond is always a good distraction.Continue Reading

PROFIT BEFORE PEOPLE

Posted on January 12, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged active listening, bart johnson, featured, HMP Norwich, mental health, mental illness, nursing, peer to peer, personal, prison, prison reform, probation reform, reflective writing, samaritans, social work, trained listeners, virgin care.

by David Breakspear

Whilst going about my daily ritual of spending hours in front of a computer screen researching in a variety of areas, one of which being the criminal justice system, I came across this piece with the headline ‘Mental health trust takes back contract for more serious conditions at Norwich prison’. It was a report in an edition of the Great Yarmouth Mercury.

I have served as a prisoner for a good number of years at HMP Norwich, and as someone who has a complex mental health history, I came into contact with the mental health team on a regular basis. I was also a trained listener and would have dealings with the team as a third party on behalf of individual prisoners.

THREE LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS

Posted on July 4, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged arts, berlin, book, Carmen Boullosa, carmen maria machado, Chloe Aridjis, cuba, featured, identity, latin american, Latinx, Law and Order, magical realism, Mexico, mexico heritage, novel, overview, personal, peter bush, queer, review, romance, self, short story, travel, women writers, writing.

by Carmina Masoliver

On a recent trip to Mexico, I decided to take with me three books by authors of Latin American heritage, including two of Mexican background, and one Cuban. All were women. Aside from eating the most delicious chimichangas, learning about the ancient Mayan ruins, and climbing up the Ixmoja part of the Nohoch Mul, I spent a lot of my time reading these authors by the sea with a strawberry daiquiri. Within just one week I had nearly consumed them all and discovered a new love of Latin American writing.Continue Reading

BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER: A REPRESSED SUPERPOWER, PART II

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged abuse, behaviour, behavioural disorder, bipolar, Bojack Horseman, borderline personality disorder, BPD, care, cbt, DBT, eggshell therapy, emotional intelligence, empathy, featured, MAriah Carey, mental health, mental illness, misconceptions, personal, psychology, Raphael Bob Waksberg, research, stigma, superpower, therapy, trauma, UKCP.

by Sunetra Senior

CW: abuse | Continues from Part I here

Both Analytical and Emotional Intelligence

Mystification: go to work in an office to endorse more of that analytical, grounded thinking.

Hidden Truth: having these two qualities in equal measure means you have constant access to an enviable social clairvoyance that does well in advisory and imaginative professions.

The twin pairing is an attenuated, ongoing version of psychosis which means you can control it and draw from it whenever you want. What’s more you can immediately translate profound ideas to those around you, having one foot in the cosmos and the other in the everyday. That same parental lacking when a person with Border Personality Disorder grew up, made them sharp to environmental clues in order to survive. As this person grows older, they will retain this attentiveness, accumulating little signs and symbols – politically, mathematically and socially – to equip them to make impressive and perceptive connections and even predict sociological algorithms.

Additionally, you are likely to be excellent in the arts and in critical thinking because you process such a sensitivity to surroundings and are rapidly processing information and images. You can identify intuitive nuances that make great cinema and literature.

The world needs more dedicated artists, sociologists, researchers and socially conscious politicians, not bankers, marketing executives and legal crooks.Continue Reading

BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER: A REPRESSED SUPERPOWER, PART I

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged abuse, behaviour, behavioural disorder, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, BPD, care, cbt, DBT, emotional intelligence, empathy, featured, MAriah Carey, mental health, mental illness, misconceptions, personal, psychology, research, stigma, superpower, therapy, trauma.

by Sunetra Senior

CW: self-harm, abuse

As a homage to mental health awareness week (14th- 20th May), I have decided to write on an often misunderstood and underrepresented psychological health condition close to my heart, or more accurately my spirit. Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD is characterised as a ‘behavioural disorder’, which is intrinsic to one’s selfhood, and because of its often abuse-induced origins, has been notoriously difficult to treat. It is not the expected actions or the very true fact that the condition is deeply ingrained that I take issue with, but the medical paradigm of dysfunction and negativity implied by the alliterative last acronym.

This pervasive perceptual context, reflective of the attitude towards many mental health issues, permits an entire trail of prejudice, extending to the defining symptoms of BPD. Common misconceptions are “attention-seeking, manipulative and over-emotional”. This comes from the high numbers of those with BPD who self-harm, especially during their already tumultuous teenage years, their expressing the need for special care or extra-vigilance and seeming not to be able to cope with the interpersonal and social challenges that everyone else can.

It is time to not only put the record straight, but to add some fucking colour.Continue Reading

WE ARE EUROPE AND REMAIN SO

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged agriculture, Article 50, Brexit, Britain, british empire, citizens, class, education, EHIC, EU membership, Europe, european, european life, fair play, featured, mobile phones, mobile roaming, monarchy, NHS, opinion, personal, public services, travel, uk.

by Kelvin Smith

On the eve of the EU Referendum I published a piece, A European Life, that concluded: “My whole life has been lived in the context of this complex and sometimes conflicted continent and whatever the result of the referendum tomorrow, I am just one of very many British people who are not about to leave Europe. We are Europe.” Now, one year into the Article 50 period, one year from the deadline date of 29th March 2019, has anything changed?Continue Reading

PLATONIC POLYAMORY: A 2018 VALENTINE’S CONCLUSION

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged affection, Ash Sarkar, cbt, Community, Elf Lyons, emotion, empathy, featured, february, humanity, individualism, intimacy, LGBTQIA+, loneliness, mental health, network, Novara Media, personal, platonic, politics, polyamory, relationship, romantic, sentimental, single, support, unity, valentines.

by Sunetra Senior

This Valentine’s Day was distinctive. In addition to the usual encouragement of self-love, and sending of gushing gifs amongst female friends, more people were sending greetings to family members and stressing the importance of acts of love within the community. Ash Sarkar, Senior Editor of Novara Media, said emphatically in a video message: ‘when you stop a charter flight from taking off and deporting asylum seekers, that’s love’. Perhaps an effect of delayed liberal mobilisation, after such angry right-wing resurgence, the concept of growing close to one another is being gradually – literally – redefined to be more liberal.Continue Reading

FROM PRISON TO PODIUM

Posted on February 17, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged achievement, Community, conference, creative writing, criminology, david breakspear, education, event, experience, expression, featured, growth, HMP Norwich, norfolk, norwich, personal, prison, progress, reform, speaker, UEA, War of Words, writing.

by David Breakspear

Saturday the 10th Feb 2018, a day that I will always remember. I had been invited to speak in relation to prison education and the arts. I was speaking to an audience alongside Jacob Huntley, a lecturer in English literature and creative writing from the UEA. I met Jacob whilst I was a serving prisoner at HMP Norwich. One of my roles at HMP Norwich was as an education mentor and I was told that there would be a new creative writing course starting, which would be facilitated by Jacob. I have always found that penning emotions onto a piece of paper allowed me to free my mind.Continue Reading

I AM LUCKY

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged alien, belonging, children, choice, economy, familiarity, featured, home, journey, migration, personal, perspective, privilege, risk, Scotland, travel, Uganda.

by Stu Lucy

This week I’d like to offer something a little different. Rather than an article gunning for the Western neoliberal establishment and its detrimental effects on a particular aspect of African society, I would like to take a more pensive stance on an issue that many of us, to me at least, seem to have assimilated and normalised into our daily lives. I hope this article provokes a thought towards those in ever more increasing numbers that lose their lives in a desperate attempt to achieve something more than the lot they’ve been given.Continue Reading

LIFE PLANS AND MONTHLY REMINDERS

Posted on February 3, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged baby, children, chronic illness, disabilities, disability, eds, ehlers danlos syndrome, featured, genetics, health, invisible disabilities, invisible illness, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, medical negligence, medicine, Migraines, parenthood, period, personal, Perspectives, relantionship, studies, treatment, university.

by Alice Thomson

Ten years ago, I was in my first year of University at Aberdeen, studying to be a Primary school teacher. It was a daunting, but exciting time. I had plans for my future and much to look forward to. I decided I wanted to be a teacher to help learners, like myself, that struggle in the education system. After achieving my degree, I planned to establish myself as a teacher before going back to University to gain the qualifications I needed to become a Special Educational Needs teacher.

I had always wanted a family and so my plan was to enjoy my early 20s, find someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, get married and have two children. A teaching career seemed like a good match with the challenges of having a family. In my mind I had it all worked out. I’d decided that by around my 30th birthday I would probably have given birth to my last child. I’m going to have my 30th birthday this year, and my life didn’t go to plan.Continue Reading

personal

IT HAPPENED

THREE LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS

BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER: A REPRESSED SUPERPOWER, PART II

Both Analytical and Emotional Intelligence

BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER: A REPRESSED SUPERPOWER, PART I

WE ARE EUROPE AND REMAIN SO

PLATONIC POLYAMORY: A 2018 VALENTINE’S CONCLUSION

FROM PRISON TO PODIUM

I AM LUCKY

LIFE PLANS AND MONTHLY REMINDERS

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