On the Bright Side

Description

This book is a mixture of poetry and short stories. The poetry is about my daily life as a paranoid schizophrenic and issues that concern me, and hopefully will concern you, the reader, as well. The issues covered include current affairs, relationships and family. The short stories are about a variety of topics including a mental patient on the run, a cannibal woman, a child-molesting murderer, discipline in the army, life as a single parent and terrorism.

About the Author

I have been in Mental Health Services since 1985, when I had a huge mental breakdown after serving in the Falklands with the army. Since then my life has been something of a rollercoaster of mental illness until meeting my wife Jane seven years ago.

I have been in and out of hospital from 1985 until 2009. I had an illness which I attributed to my father and resulted in me stabbing him in 1997 and going to the Edenfield Unit in Prestwich Hospital for 6 years. This is when I started to write poetry to keep myself sane and give me something to focus on.