Nirvana Paradox.

12th March 2024

Mental health seems to be big on everyone’s agenda at the moment and I think I understand why.

Someone asked recently if it’s aways been like this or whether there is more mental Illness (or shall we call them issues) now than there was?

I don’t know the answer.

When I was young my Dad had ‘mental health issues’.

It was always refered to as “Suffering with his Nerves” which resulted in him spending a lot of time being depressed. He would be very sad and cry a lot, which was a bit of a shock for us three young Boys.

My Dad was known locally as a Hard Nut.

He was a Scrap metal merchant by trade and he mixed with some pretty unsavoury characters and held his own. When he was younger he was built like a brick shit house with muscles on his muscles. As kids we loved to see the Tattoo of a lady which he had on his bicep.

I think this was done in India during his National Service but we always believed it was a picture of my Mum, though he didn’t actually know her at that time.

When he was really ill he spent some time in Barrow Gurney Hospital (made Famous by Adge Cutler and the Wurzels) a place we kids feared. It was always a challenging time going to visit and it must have been extremely hard for my Mum, getting three kids ready, getting ’em on the Bus and then off to see her Husband who was mad as a loon.

In reality, he was always quite calm when he was in Barrow. I guess they managed his anxiety and got his drugs right. It was only when he came home and had to face the challenges of bringing up 4 (by now) children on the shit money he got paid at the scrap yard.

To make ends meet he used to “Fiddle”. In modern terminology he stole a lot, usually from Mr Pike, who owned Habgood’s but he was up for anything.

Back in the day the Paper Mill next door to the scrapyard used to take in the Embassy Coupons and pulp them up ready to be reused.

You got 5 coupons with 20 fags and saved them up till you had enough to purchase something, a toaster or a TV.

People would send their coupon in wrapped in sellotape, or in plastic bags, with elastic bands around them or tied into bundles. This meant when they went into the pulping system many of the coupons in the middle of a bundle would stay dry and untouched.

The Old Man would sneak into the factory (usually with a bit of assistance from one of the workers) jump into the pit, grab a few huge bundles and carry them back to the car.

Once at home our jobs as kids was to peel them off and dry them. My Mum would Iron them and then they would be bundled up and re used.

It was a real family business. We were, I like to think, ahead of the curve on recycling.

Our house was like Danny Bakers house in ‘From the Cradle to the Grave’ a fabulously funny series based on the book, ‘Going to Sea in a Sieve.’

There was nothing in our house that didn’t at that stage come from the Embassy catalogue.

This life style took its toll on my Dads health but he still continued.

Many years later he was arrested for selling dodgy cigarettes.

His “MO” (Modus operandi) was the same, only this time it was at Avonmouth Incinerator where surplus cigarettes from WD and HO Wills factory were taken by Customs and Excise to be destroyed.

He was the crane driver. So he would drop the grab into the back of the lorry and lift a huge bucket full of fags, which would then disappear into the incinerator where he was supposed to drop the load on a conveyor belt. Instead, he jumped out of that crane and into the other one. He would then reappear. and pick up the remaining fags.

Once Custom and excise had left, there was a whole bucket full of fags siting 60 foot up in the air, waiting for the blokes to divvy them up.

We had hundreds of thousands of Fags in our house for years and it was nothing to open my van door and find he had loaded 10,000 fags in there ready for delivery.

Happy days.

So I’m familiar with mental health issues, which might explain why me, my Brother Andy and my Sister all ended up working in mental health. Andy and I were both qualified nurses and my Sister still works with children with special needs.

Recently I’ve noticed people are far more anxious, far more agitated and more aggressive than they once were.

I’m sure there are lots of reasons for this.

Financial, Political, cultural as well as environmental.

I have been (as some of you will know) looking at my diet lately and trying to eliminate the unnecessary additive the big corporations secretly put into the food chain to increase their profits.

I always thought my diet was reasonably good. If you asked me, I would have said it was reasonably healthy, I ate low calorie, low fat, high Fibre when ever possible, but my weight was about 97-100 Kilos and that was way too much.

So I went on the Low carb diet which initially meant cutting out, Bread, Rice, Potatoes and Pasta. I missed the bread most.

And it worked.

What I didn’t realise initially was that Carbs are also Sugar and Sugar is secretly introduced into almost everything we eat. So when I thought I was eating healthily, I was actually consuming huge amounts of Sugar and only when I reduced my Carbs did I actually reduce my Sugar intake.

I started following people on Instagram (See Eddie Abbew )learning which foods were good but more importantly, which foods were bad and which were really bad.

It soon became obvious that some items I was consuming were not only bad for me but were actually toxic and some were poisons.

Now I won’t bore you with the details, if you’re remotely interested you can do some research and you will quickly find the culprits. But as an example.

Honey is often polluted and diluted with all sorts of ingredients which makes it cheaper to produce and as a result, it makes more profit. So trying to find good Honey was my task this week.

Usually I buy Honey from a guy in the village who keeps Bee’s but he hasn’t had any for sale for ages, so I have been buying in the shops.

Here’s the potted version.

Lidl’s own Brand Honey comes from China .

Rowes Honey comes from unidentified countries outside the EU so the control and quality assurance is suspect.

White Bread has so many additives it is probably one of the worst foods to consume and in my case, it was a major contributor to my IBS and stomach bloating.

But some of the ingredients of our food is poison or at least toxic and we make it so by spraying chemical onto the growing produce.

Who knew strawberries were one of the worst foods to consume because of all the Chemicals they are exposed to during production?

Now there is no clear line of sight.

No smoking gun, but if you are eating food that is coated in a chemical that causes mental health issues, it’s hardly surprising if you start to have symptoms?

Our food chain is corrupted and it’s corrupted by greed. The same greed we witness in our political system, which is very often fuelled by the same companies who market these toxic products. It’s a Cycle.

In the past there was talk of a Sugar Tax but big business lobbied and got this watered down to the point where it did them no damage and we carry on feeding our Children a bowl full of Sugar at breakfast each morning, thinking its healthy.

It seems the only way of avoiding the effect of these foods is to take personal action and avoid them, there is no one else willing to help.

This is, as I know, harder than you would imagine and many of us just don’t bother.

The apathy amongst the population is tangible, and most people have just given up.

“What’s the point in voting” I hear people say. “They are all the same.”

Most of us have just given up.

But we can all try. We can all at least have a go. We can and should at least make one small change to our diet.

The power of small Michelle Obama calls it.

If we each do a tiny bit , the sum of those small bits becomes a force to be reconned with.

It’s hard and most people can’t see the outcome is worth the effort.

Its called the Nirvana paradox.

“What’s the point in me recycling plastic if the Chinese don’t cut their reliance on Coal or the Americans don’t reduce their petrol consumption “?

The argument goes,:

If we can’t get it perfect, then there is no point doing anything.

Well I don’t buy that.

I am gonna try to avoid the worst of the Shit in my food.

I’m gonna keep going to the Gym and I’m gonna keep moaning about corruption.

I’m gonna keep hassling my MP and I’m gonna get myself off to the Sun as soon as possible.

Now that’s my Power of Small.

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