Psoriasis? Or something more sinister?
Easter 2025
Easter 2024 I discovered an itchy, scaly rash on my buttocks and on the back of my legs. A routine trip to both the doctor and the STD clinic (was it Money Pox?) posited I had either Psoriasis or Eczema. Both conditions apparent in my immediate family. It didn’t really occur to me these diagnosis were not consistent and I should really have sought a third opinion.
By late January of this year and quite suddenly the painful and desperately itchy rash had spread all over my body and I woke up to specs of dried blood all over the sheets and pillowcases. I tried a little on-line diagnosis of my own and bought some scabies cream just in case. After two weeks the situation had become dire.
A trip to the dermatologist in Canterbury and a helpful doctor friend seemed to point in an altogether more sinister direction. The consultant immediately put me on a very heavy dose of steroids which, may have helped with my skin but my mood plummeted. The pills make me jittery and thirsty, I became snappy and impatient. The steroids catastrophically compromised my already shaky emotional and mental foundation.
I knew I had to get out of the RCA as soon as possible. I had to get out of the studio… as in this highly charged environment I was likely to say the wrong thing or react incorrectly to a bunch of much younger people who understandably could not easily empathise with an old man with a bad diagnosis.
The problem with Steroids (Alex my studio cohort and Anthropologist turned Artist told me) steroids have three emotional outcomes: Glad, Mad or Bad. Mine was decidedly bad and mad. I felt terrible.
After two biopsies things became a little clearer. Still not crystal clear… but much clearer. Although sinister there are two flavours of the same sinister. I will know the (bad or less bad) outcome on Tuesday 22nd April.
I fled to Portugal to be on my own. I’ve been sleeping until Midday every day since I arrived in the Algarve. My skin is healing for the most part, the pustules held back by the steroids.
I am less grumpy because I am totally isolated from other humans.
The spector of my insanity in retreat.
When I was happier I wanted to do a PhD: Artists and Insanity.
An article in the New York Times by Tara Parker-Pope uses the work of Martin Ramirez, an artist with schizophrenia, to ponder the well-worn perception that artistic creativity and mental illness are somehow inevitably linked.
Emotional disorders are not afflictions that sometimes come with built-in creativity. It’s time to kill this stereotype and the stigmatising statements that often come along with it.
We with mental health issues are still not understood when we present for the most part as normal. Like a trans person I seek to pass without being noticed until I am caught chatting to myself or saying things I wonder why… why did I say that?
It became obvious, very quickly… even though I had made my life-long mental health struggles very clear to the RCA administration before I arrived, my concerns were not being passed onto the correct department.
This may have had something to do with a messy transfer of power from the brilliant and enigmatic CAP head of department (now Dean) Chantal Faust to firstly Jordan Baseman then to Dr Harold Offeh.
Crucial information was not communicated. Two long term hospitalisations in psychiatric hospitals, ongoing mental health care, a massive head injury when I was a child. There really wasn’t any kind of support or help from the College.
I suppose, because for the greater part of my life, I manage my condition.
I am used to going as far as I can before the wheels come off but after a couple of incidents (I will write about these at a later date) I begged the student union for help. Help came in the form of a very level headed guy who talked me through what was happening.
When I discussed my health I found the staff in my department prone to infantilisation. They looked at me with fixed, wide eyed grins as if they were placating a baby.
I mean… they are just artists. They are not doctors, they are not therapists. I understand they were just trying their best.
So I wrote to Harold Offeh the head of CAP and told him I desperately needed to get away because I knew I was holding back a dam of emotions that could not afford to break at the college.
If I were epileptic and had a seizure… how would they react? A seizure is very scary for other people. It is confusing. It can be triggering.
That’s what mental illness looks like. It is something I have struggled with all my life. Periodically I can hold my head above the water and get things done then I am dragged deep beneath the waves.
When I fight my way up again gasping for air… things were not as they were.
I’ll write more tomorrow.
