Mental Health Thoughts, part one

My name is Ben Preston. I have been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by Dr Farah Anwar, a consultant psychiatrist. I have had this diagnosis since 2009. 

I have been dogged with mental health problems for most of my adult life. I have always understood my problem as depression. I dislike the idea that I suffer from psychotic illness with its warping of reality and its distortions of sense and reason. I believe it has nothing to do with the life I live and the person I am. I believe that it is harmful as a diagnostic category when applied to me. 

I have been admitted to psychiatric wards six times, I was once sectioned under the mental health act. If you added up all the time I have spent on wards it would probably come to about two years. I take an antidepressant orally and an antipsychotic administered by injection. I have taken these two medications (Citalopram and Risperidone) continuously for many years. 

I was admitted to a mental hospital for the first time in 2005 at the age of 28. My last admission was in 2018. I am now 48 years old. I live alone in a council flat in North London. I receive government benefits as I am classed as a disabled person due to my mental problems. 

In 2003 I was signed off work for two weeks with depression/anxiety. I have not worked since then, although I am trying to cultivate a career as a writer/poet. I have many friends in the area where I live and feel comfortable here up on the ninth floor of a block of flats.  

There are many different understandings of my illness among psychiatrists and psychologists. Although I have never read my medical notes I know they are full of contradictions and factual mistakes – almost as if the product of a disordered mind.