HEAVEN IS A MAD PLACE ON EARTH

by Simon Morris

  The `Mad Pride' virus is now loose and the term will no doubt begin to enter common currency over the next few years, leading to its eventual recuperation.
  Mad Pride is the first `survivor movement' that's really appealed to me. Mental health resource users are now actively encouraged by statutory health authorities and by many charities to get involved in improving the psychiatric system - firstly purely as volunteers, and now increasingly in paid employment. This is all well and good, but it defines us forever as the (ex) `patient' - it defines us only in terms of our involvement with the control system that is institutional psychiatry. A far greater and much more pleasant part of our lives is made up of drinking, shagging, drugging it, takeaway curries, blagging vast amounts of loony benefit, and myriad forms of (hopefully completely out there) creativity. For me, Mad Pride takes the user movement into a higher realm of political awareness and the challenging of social roles.
  Anyone who's ever read anything about shamanism will recognise certain parallels with what's termed `mental illness' in modern western culture. The model of the `shaman' in our society is often claimed to be rock stars (Jim Morrison springs to mind - unfortunately). Mad Pride offers the slogan `Madness is the new rock `n' roll!' There really is so much that's positive and exciting about `illnesses' like `schizophrenia'. All of us who've experienced `deep sea fishing' will know the sensation of heightened awareness, of consciousness enhanced far better than LSD could ever do it, of feelings of wonder and terror that can't be verbalised... and then have these visions which effortlessly outstrip the alienation of daily life dismissed as `delusion' by some fucking shrink. Nearly everything that's `bad' about madness is caused by the reactions of the restrained, shrivelled and grey majority to someone near them being beautifully crazy and alive!
  I was always a mad kid. At junior school I had a punk band called The Headbangers - my stage name was `Mental Moz' and I tried to live up to it. We did a gig in our back garden and threw buckets of water around like on Tiswas.
  I was always mad because I never wanted to be part of the shitty straight world - what kind of pervert actually wants to go out to some job they hate day after day, kneel to a boss they hate, buy the right car/ right clothes/ right computer/ right CDs and still feel empty? Fuck that con!
  I was always mad - bunking off early from school when I was 15 to go home and stare at a self-constructed dream machine while tripping out to Throbbing Gristle and Butthole Surfers records. And spending the 15 years since then making demented, wilfully unlistenable records of my own.
  I was always mad, and it was a lovely thrill to realise that there were plenty of mad girls out there who liked mad boys and mad sex. I still love them all - even the really crazy ones.
  I was always mad, and OK, being caught by the psychiatric system was no fun and sometimes the enhanced awareness that comes when I'm VERY mad can be a bit much to cope with. But I'm still glad to be mad - beautiful, clinching evidence of concrete outsiderdom (my tattoo reads `ONE PER CENT'). Well-meaning halfwits who spout on about `social inclusion' are barking up the wrong tree as far as I'm concerned. One campaign I would support would be a Mad Pride Campaign to Repeal the British Licensing Laws Immediately. So many of us are insomniacs and it'd be great to be able to go down the pub and meet all your nutty mates at 4 am. The hours are a clear-cut case of discrimination against the psychiatrically challenged at present!
  The user movement is currently being empowered to learn to hold meetings and enter the more than 36 chambers of bureaucracy. Mad Pride empowers us to rave in space at the very least, and at best to take our dreams for reality. This train is bound for the Western Lands - hold on tight.
  I was always mad - I hope I always will be. My crazy life is wonderful. The `sane' really don't know what they're missing.