Anthony's description of psychosis, the bombardment of schizophrenic episodes, brushes with the Law and debt, credit cards, reading about mental illness, helpful librarians, relationships, Manchester. Brings it to life vividly.

1. Brief Notes on Anthony Scally: Eyebrows and Other Fish (2007)
Page 117: Once I was discharged and back home things seemed to
get a lot better regarding my thoughts. I was having regular
injections so would often be weary or indolent. It sounds like a
contradiction but it wasn’t always easy for me to relax despite the
sedative effect of the drugs. When I wasn’t asleep I was often
restless and sometimes would pace around not being able to sit
(*NOT TO SIT) down and settle, more in a fearful fretting way
rather than an energetic one. I would often go up to bed in the early
afternoons because lying horizontally it wasn’t as bad and I would
soon drop off to sleep. (*IS THIS AKATHISIA?).
Page 120: While he was reading about mental illness at a library with
assistance from a librarian...’I also read about the drugs, Depixol for
example was allegedly used in SOVIET UNION on their dissidents.’
Khrushchev and his cronies clamped down on dissidents.
Page 149: I do not hear voices I have never done my trouble is my
thoughts. He starts a mag called Nil Desperandum.
Page 152: On media profiles of people with schizophrenia: We were
often ‘released’ not discharged, and were often ‘disturbed’ rather
than distressed and we were almost always unpredictable and
dangerous. The imagery used by some of the newspapers and TV was
also very negative usually the photograph being used of the person
was one with mad staring eyes...’with the impression that the crime
was a symptom of the schizophrenia.’

2. Page 184/185: He has been to magistrates’ court and is heavily in
debt. He believes that a headline in the ‘Express’ (Daily Express)
means that the ‘Express’ (American Express) will be a his lifeline.
Page 197: It was mid afternoon by the time I got to Withington
Hospital and I hadn’t slept in 36 hours. There was no force used and
I didn’t need to be restrained I went along voluntarily and I was as
high as a kite. It wasn’t a drug high it was all natural that is unless
the properties of the moke had chemically reacted. I was back in
that ‘zone’, I was invincible, clever, on top of the world, I was
excited, elated and I wasn’t a bit frightened. I actually thought that
the hospital was the forum in which I could get to the bottom of
everything I was Manchester’s very own James Bond.