The Voodoo Case Study Review - omega oil & fish oil supplements on psychosis and schizophrenia, ADD and ADHD

Yes, I'm still here. And I mean that with slightly different implications to merely being a returning wordbot into the blogosphere.

I'm still here living a chronological life on this planet, as part of this family, learning something new every day and finding something to laugh at, usually in the process of ridiculing myself. I still work, I still function, I still make mistakes and pick myself up again - but there were moments in my teens, twenties and thirties when it appeared that was all going to stop.

I had post-surgical, sudden-onset schizophrenia aged 19. I woke up one day and it seemed like everyone around me was suddenly speaking a different language. I didn't understand it. If I said something, they didn't understand my meaning in return.

It was like waking up in the story of a horror movie, on the day that you knew the first victim was going to die, and that victim was going to be you. And everyone on the planet was either conspiring towards it, or in the audience, waiting for it to happen.

I'd had my thyroid removed three months earlier after 4 years of the autoimmune hyperthyroid condition Graves' Disease, and the surgeon had decided during the operation to leave a strip behind to see if it would continue to function. So I had no thyroid, and no replacement thyroid hormone supplement for three months. I'd just received a letter from the specialist in London that my last blood test showed no remaining thyroid function, and I would start tablet replacement for life at my next appointment in two weeks' time. I lasted about two more days, and then as my metabolism failed things started to shut down physically, and I woke up that one day and knew I was due to die.

It took me two days to get across to my family that I wasn't messing around and something was wrong, by which time I was screaming repeatedly "Put me in a mental hospital!" - considering this was 1991, and it wasn't cool, I think if my mother had access to the loft she would have put me up there instead and pretended I'd moved away, given the opportunity :)

So I stayed in the ward back in London, and started my thyroxine prescription, along with a load of other antipsychotic stuff like Melleril, Largactyl, Diazepam, Temazepam etc etc - but as my brain and body started to function again after a couple of weeks, my family got bored of being told I was "textbook schizophrenic" and sprung me out before the section ended. All the anti-psychotics got left behind and I kept taking the thyroxine. Unfortunately I also left behind something called Liothyronine, which they were giving me to encourage the thyroxine absorption. My mental recovery would have been a bit quicker if I'd continued taking it, and I wouldn't have suffered the same breakdown a year later under similar external stresses, resulting from my initial dose being too low for long-term replacement. I found myself sectioned again a year later exactly, and this time what was playing out in my head was more like a mystery thriller, not a horror film. One of those made-for-TV crime cover-up stories - Nancy Drew meets The Godfather :)

So, after escaping from hospital, going back, hearing from my mum that the doctors had written to her saying I was obviously some sort of delusional homeless drifter (a great surprise to both of us, considering I'd only been away at college) and she replied confirming that no I wasn't homeless or delusional, and yes I was an author training as a motorcycle mechanic, exactly as I told them - they did eventually let me leave. Only like the last time, on the promise that it was only for a weekend. Again, my family reneged on that, as they knew my purpose was to get better, not be studied.

Fast forward about ten years. No relapses, I'd learned to suppress them, and to use any crazy thoughts creatively. Holiday romance baby. Coping as a single parent. Then, for no reason, I stopped opening the mail. Or answering the phone. I started getting cramps and losing my appetite. My sleeping patterns got weird. Everything else was normal - as far as I could tell. So I walked to the GP's office with my toddler in tow and a list of symptoms written down, to see if my thyroxine prescription needed adjusting. The doctor was out at lunch, so I left it with the secretary who noted my concern about my dosage and said she'd tell the GP.

My doctor rang me about half an hour after I got home, and asked me to go back and see her that evening at six pm at end of surgery. She sat me down and said I'd listed all the symptoms of clinical depression, and she wanted to give me Citalopram.

"I thought it was my thyroxine."

"Depression is a physical illness. You need something to correct your serotonin levels - and if you're not sleeping as you should, it can quickly become a vicious circle."

I trusted her as she'd been my GP for nearly nine years, and took the Citalopram. Within a few weeks I was sleeping better, opening the post, paying the bills, studying again, digesting food again... and after three to four months I stopped taking the Citalopram and was applying for Uni. Things were back to normal.

It was another two years and another major operation that triggered the next episode. I had my eye disfigurement still from Graves' Disease as a teenager, and although earlier operations had alleviated it, I still wasn't normal. I went to the eye hospital again and volunteered for the new operation they did now, which would almost completely deconstruct my eye sockets to make room for my eyes to fit into again.

It was a massive operation, and the physical shock was nothing compared to the mental shock of seeing a complete stranger in the mirror, for the first time in 20 years. The last time I looked normal, I was still a child, so this was completely unexpected. I'd got used to tiny changes, but I didn't think I could be 'fixed' overnight like that. The result was another post-surgical schizophrenic episode.

This one was the weirdest. I didn't believe I'd woken up from the operation.

The mental health care had changed too. The medication - no more zombie-inducing 1990s drugs, now stuff like Olanzepine, Zyprexa - things that put you to sleep, then you woke up not knowing what you kept in your own wardrobes or kitchen cupboards until you opened the doors. It completely switched off your ability to hold an image in your head when it wasn't in front of you. And the aftercare - they wanted to see you and chat every few weeks for about two years following. God, that was boring. The first thing I did was get them to change the prescription from the downers to Citalopram.

"I'm already depressed," I told them. "I don't want to be any more down or switched off. I've had to label all my cupboards, I can't find anything. It takes me two hours to make a cup of tea."

They heard me, and I got the right medicine, which I only needed for about six months. Although it took a while getting used to the new appearance, and I still had nearly a dozen more operations to go through since as my eyes settled down, everything else went much better. But I was still vigilant for the psychotic thought patterns. My thyroxine wasn't a factor in this one - my brain had found an old short circuit it had used before under stress, and that pathway was still wide open.

I'd started studying Diet & Nutrition ITEC by 2006, and our tutor was a well-known and thoroughly professional nutritionist with decades of experience. While covering mental conditions suitable for consulting on. I was reading the online handout about ADHD and ADD in children and adults.

I realised that my daughter was a 'textbook' example of one, and I was the other.

After class the next session, I spoke to the tutor, and she recommended Fish Oils - starting with 3000mg a day for me, and 1000 for my daughter, who was then eight years old. I could then reduce mine to 1000 after four to five months. She knew we already took a general multivitamin and mineral supplement suitable for each of us.

My daughter's improvements came first. She stopped being distracted in class, her reports got better and better, and what she didn't gain in friends, she found happiness in being academic and being able to talk to adults and being recognised for learning well instead of reprimanded. She later started to show interest in trying different foods, and although her basic dietary demands are unchanged, she still 'tries' something new every couple of weeks - a recipe she's found online, or something she sees on Food Network and asks me to make. Her hearing is still hyper-sensitive, but academically she's cool as a cucumber compared to before, when she didn't have an attention span long enough to remember what happened after 'Good morning, class' as a child. I home-schooled her for a long time too when the bullying phase happened, now she's in college and the same kids have come up to her and apologised for stuff that happened years ago, it's awesome.

The first thing I noticed myself on the Fish Oils (I take Evening Primrose oil as well, for the additional omegas in the range), was that I started to get bored at work when there wasn't a problem to sort out. I'd always had a little narrative in my head before, filling in the gaps and finding things to be distracted with, so finding any moments of boredom for my brain was astonishing. Now I could be bored for three hours straight if nothing was going on. Wow :)

The next thing was, I put a movie on, and actually sat and watched it all. I didn't get up to do laundry, or wash up, or start writing, or mend socks, or type emails, or tidy up Lego, or do knitting, or pick up a psychology book... I sat and watched a whole movie, on my own. I only got up once to get a cup of tea while the opening titles were on. Usually I'd put a film on and barely see any of it, I'd be so busy with other distractions.

The rest was pretty gradual. I noticed I no longer had such devastating unrequited crushes on guys. I sort of miss those, but they were basically delusions too, in a way, so I haven't missed out on anything in the real world - just the imaginary emotions that would carry me along for a while :)

Over the next few years, the old psychotic pathways in my head started to fade - like routes that just grow over with trees because they're no longer used, until eventually you'd never know there was a path there at all. I wrote down what it was like moving on from that, used it as a character in a story, maybe so I wouldn't completely forget.

Sometimes it echoes a bit, when I have maybe PMS combined with some insomnia and haven't been eating properly, but it's not the same - I just get to observe it and reminisce a bit :) Nothing has the power to make me enact anything, or react 'in character' whatever that perceived character is. I get to choose my own brain pathways.

I suppose you could describe the difference, mentally, as having an all-zones all-transport travel pass and unlimited free time to enjoy it in and complete control over where your journeys start and stop, instead of a fixed-route reservation-only timetable-restricted ticket that means you must do THIS thing NOW at THIS prompt, with no control over the speed or destination you travel to.

I still take the high-dose fish oils - once I stopped for about two months when it ran out and I didn't buy more for a while. I noticed a tendency to overthink things sneaked back in, but nothing drastic. So it suits me to keep taking it.

Unlike the 'early risk' control groups I've read about in recent reports, I was already well down the mental illness and personality disorder road when I started taking it. Since 1991 I'd seen things written down about me ranging from schizophrenic and myxoedemic psychosis to the utterly baffled phrase 'multiple disorders' so there is no reason that anyone should think "It's too late for me" if they want to try it out and see if it helps. Maybe writing all this down might help someone, I don't know. I'm still amazed it helped someone like me - I just happened to have the right teacher at the right time.

If you're allergic to fish or are vegan/vegetarian, there are other sources of the same Omega 3-6-9 range - look up vegan Omega oil supplements, various seed and flower oil supplements are available. I haven't tried them because fish works well for me - you can read up the important parts of the oils that scientists are now discussing on one of the many reports here - http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/fish-oil-supplements-could-prevent-onset-psychotic-disorders

L xxx

The Voodoo Viewpoint: Is new media stealing our souls and our memories?

Originally posted on lisascullard.wordpress.com

I haven’t blogged for a while, having had new things to deal with through the summer and autumn along with writing, and waiting for other things to be resolved – everyday life has got in the way, and all of it worthy of my time – so I can honestly say I don’t feel I’ve missed anything by not procrastinating online too much.

This post has been on my mind for a while over the past year, and I’ve turning it over further in my mind since a topic came up on Facebook regarding the well-roasted old chestnut of ebook vs. print books, and what might supplant them in the future. When I made my comment, I didn’t realise how much of an observation it really was. But the thought of it keeps returning to me, so I’ll attempt to dissect it further now. (I’ve used ‘Voodoo’ in the title as I was originally going to post it as Voodoo Spice first – but there is another relevance to the reference).

My comment on the post was:

I think real books will stick around for another reason – the same reason as real music disc collections, and real movie DVDs, and real photo albums. The death of these things will mean the end of being able to remember lost loved ones. Imagine going into an elderly relative’s last residence, and instead of shelves full of their favourite media that you can pick up and read and smell, and admire, all that’s there is a computer tablet full of password-protected cloud-storage erotica. Supposing they’re survived by 20+ family members all wanting a memento? Will they have to take turns hacking into his or her tablet to read their, erm, favourites???

It’s not only the issue of having physical objects with which to remember a loved one, though. When you first make a new friend, visit their home for the first time, you see immediately by their books, music, film collections, and photographs what you have in common. Without those, it takes far longer to define. How you learn about a person who wears nothing on their sleeve in real life? Are they hiding something about their personality, their cultural and entertainment tastes, behind password-protected anonymous digital storage products? How much of their social media persona is genuine – do they really like Top Gear, or do they just ‘Like’ it on Facebook? How long does it take to make early judgements of compatibility when all you see in their home is the faceless packaging and housing of technology? Is this creating the hacking, snooping, prying, suspicious culture that troubles present-day relationships?

Are we sacrificing our personalities, our ability to connect with one another in real life without the social media screens, in favour of electronic packaging?

Back to the subject of bereavement and memories, there is another agenda surfacing to consider.

Electronic media itself has no re-sale value. The tablets and electronic devices can be re-sold, but they lose value in the very short term. Unlike physical books, vinyls, cassettes, picture frames, CDs, and DVDs – when you buy anything in digital format, to watch, read or listen to, its solvency value is zero. So even if your descendants, friends and family don’t want to share the digital tablet and know your passwords to enjoy your *ahem* favourites, they can only sell the tablet itself. Even if you have bought 70,000 books, movies, and songs in your lifetime, they do not add up to £70,000 worth of house clearance on ebay to divide among the mourners. They add up to zero.

They money you spend on electronic books and media to fill your device has gone for good. You cannot donate the products to an Oxfam bookshop after you have enjoyed them in order for others to benefit. You cannot have a yard sale or a car boot fair stand of portable entertainment to fund a party, or to pay a few bills. You have not invested your money in anything physically reminiscent that can be enjoyed as part of the soul of a lost loved one, or liquidated as an asset in the future.

The money has gone for good, into the great black hole of the business that also sold you the device to enjoy it on, or to store in some online cloud.

So in the future, without personal possessions for family and friends to remember us by – not even the chance to flick through the same books and photo albums we held, and no idea how to access our family photographs and music – and more and more social lives being conducted online – how will anyone remember their grandparents and great-grandparents beyond faces on a screen?

Will the youngest family members have the sense of identity and individual heritage that children before the digital age grew up with?

Will old people just die and disappear, leaving nothing behind but an online account full of media they spent thousands on, which is worth precisely nothing to their descendants even if they have the ability to access it? Will their living memories and personalities evaporate the second you tap on ‘Confirm shut down/log off device’?

Will folk start leaving clauses on their departure, that no-one is to hack into the tablet at all to avoid finding out how much porn and erotica they downloaded to keep them warm in their old age?

Never mind what to do with Granny, the last Will and Testament says we have to burn her Kindle first… aptly named device, if ever there was one. I see a new business opportunity looming – the “Kindle Crematorium” where dirty old reading habits go after you die…

It’s a mystery that leaves me very curious. I already find houses without books, music, photograph or film collections very odd – rather like pictures of home interiors in advertising, with no identity of the occupants visible. Sterile, like a showroom to sell a product or furniture lifestyle – not a working, living home. And if that is what remains in the future, when individuals die, what is left to know of them? An indentation in the sofa, perhaps – where they sat while playing Candy Crush Saga online?

So never mind that a computer tablet doesn’t provide the same decorative impact as a bookshelf, or provide the same soundproofing from your neighbours. Never mind that it’s a good way of hiding your reading habits, and a bad way of storing your nekkid selfies. It’s also a good way of spending your children’s inheritance – permanently. Throwing your small change onto the Kindle Fire (literally), never, ever to return as second-hand small change, ever again. Quite possibly thrown away along with the material potential for any of your descendants to remember you for more than one surviving generation…

HHappy Halloween! :) xxx

IIf you want to learn to how to format a print-on-demand book, publish and distribute for free, click here for my tutorial. You can also learn how to format ebooks and multimedia books. If those still light your candle ;) x

What does Voodoo do?

Zombie Girl Racer for the inaugural Hastings 1066 Walk of the Dead, November 2012

There's something very pleasing about a wardrobe full of fancy dress costumes. Costume party gear, not red carpet dress. Although that can be pleasing too, I imagine.

When I'm not being a ranting Voodoo, or writing - and I've recently rediscovered the joy of drawing - autumn is my favourite time of year, as it features Halloween. Even if I'm not involved in anything, it always feels a bit special. My best friend from school and I used to rent 'The Lost Boys' every Halloween. And it was Halloween when we got in one night and her mum told us that River Phoenix had died. That felt like the end of our childhood to me.

My first novel, written over 23 years ago now, revolved around Halloween, in a reality about five degrees askew from our own. So that's what I'm currently looking forward to.

But what else does Voodoo do, nobody is asking? Amid the multitude of internet rant-bots blogging away into the void, what does this one do, when not cultivating her own brand of attitude problem with the rest of the media world and its endearing, fear-mongering, attention-seeking foibles?

Well, I'm self-employed. I work for a number of clients who shall remain anonymous, all with high-profile professional careers. Some have been household names, and you'd certainly recognise their work. However, they're only just starting to grasp the idea of social media and having to do their own promotion, now that they're expected to. So that's what I do, for five minutes and two pennies to rub together. I set up the platforms and do the tutorials. Sometimes a bit of formatting and editing, and general I.T. support. A bit of film clip and showreel editing here and there, to enhance their profile content. It's an evolving business, so there's always more to add.

I've been asked interesting and thought-provoking things in my job. Such as 'How do I make all these other people on Google with the same name as me disappear?' and 'Why is this horror movie appearing in my Youtube (this list of Youtube search matches for my name) and can we report it to them?' and 'why aren't any of these people clicking on my Amazon widget?'

All I can say is, if you'd tried to make sense of any of this 30 years ago, people not clicking on your Amazon widget would be the least of your worries. But for people who didn't grow up with computers, and are only just discovering the blunders of technology, there are techno monkeys like me who just assume everyone can do it. Until I find myself consulted to troubleshoot everything from failed Paypal orders to failed ebook conversions.

Occasionally work gets more interesting, and I get to proofread and edit something different, like a feature screenplay about to go out on spec. Film is something else I've studied, and it's an entirely different kind of writing to books. So recently I was handed a screenplay that needed a bit of a rewrite and edit, based on a true story. It had been through group planning meetings several times in the past before being consigned to a cupboard for a while. I'd read it about three years ago when the writer was showing it to me as an example of earlier writing that she planned to rewrite as a book, but when this year some outlets for the screenplay emerged, it was dusted off for another round. So I read it more thoroughly.

Now, there are writers out there who obviously just sequester themselves away and write. They don't watch Family Guy or The Simpsons, they don't read Viz and they've never sat through a night of QI and Mock the Week, or The Big Bang Theory and CSI. They've never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Star Wars, and definitely not The Hangover. Whether this is for artistic reasons, or religious reasons, or generational reasons, they voluntarily miss out on those things.

However, their potential audience won't have missed out so much. So when you're writing your blockbuster historical epic, and the last big movie you saw was Titanic, it's probably safest to get a more general consumer of popular culture to give it a quick once-over.

First of all, the Looming Great Mountain.

• You set your movie in the vicinity of a famous mountain. One or two scenes are placed in proximity to the mountain. This is enough reference to the mountain that a true story needs. Any further mention of the mountain 'looming' or characters who pause to stare at it in mid-scene every five pages or so, suggests that by the end of the movie, aliens are expected to fly out of it. All good if your movie features aliens, or is to be directed by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Avoid attaching misleading significance to the scenery, unless it is going to monumentally explode at some point.

Secondly, the female romantic lead whose lines of dialogue begin repeatedly with 'Oh *insert male romantic lead name here*'

• Try not to make your heroine unimaginatively irritating. Give her something original to say. But make sure, when you do give her a line, it's not something that Quagmire on Family Guy or Chef on South Park would say. Forbidden fruit, mmmm. Giggety giggety.

Thirdly, ethnic minorities who, once their familial relationships are established, continually address each other as 'My father', 'my brother', 'my son' etc...

• Also, try to avoid conversations between ethnic minorities in which they remind each other constantly about 'our ways' and 'our culture'. There is a little thing called 'show, don't tell'. It applies even more so to screenwriting than novel writing. Do not treat your ethnic minorities in the same way that Vulcans are treated in Star Trek. If the line 'Greetings, Earthling!' would fit in with the others you've written, you are in Star Trek dialogue territory. Equally, if they also speak to one another in flashback, out-of-vision, Obi-Wan Kenobi style. I scribbled Use the Force *insert name here*! at least once on my copy.

Fourthly, do not play fast and loose with various ethnicities' perceived grasp of English (copied from 'Allo 'Allo and Dad's Army).

• The screenplay very nearly had a full cup of tea spilled on it when I read the line 'Are you with us for long time Colonel?' spoken by a Japanese officer, followed by much repetition of 'Yes yes, very good, yes'. My annotation in black pen was Ooohh Me Love You Long Time Colonel! Yes Yes! :)

Fifth, over-use of 'Come' as an entire line of dialogue from the romantic male lead.

• Does he own a dog? In which case, 'come' may be acceptable once or twice, if the dog is also in a leading role (pun intended). However, if his romantic counterpart is female and human, over 17 years old, the audience is over 17 years old, and he is not a Bohemian vampire or a monosyllabic heroin addict, 'come' is the least romantic word I can think of, due to its over-use in the last thirty years or so of teenage vampire movies and soft porn. My annotation here, following a page of notes saying Enough 'yes yes!' and Enough looming great mountain! and Enough 'Ohhh *insert name here*' was Enough 'come'! 

Sixth point - make sure your characters stay in character. And your timeline stays characteristically true to time.

• For example, a police officer who calmly states what constitutes illegal activity in an opening scene should not suddenly become a superstitious mess in the middle without due cause, just to get a certain piece of info-dump across. And do not have small children impersonating aircraft at the turn of the 19th Century, unless their surname is Wright.

And seventh, the info dump.

• Make sure that if your characters in the early 20th Century feel the need to engage in lively historical exposition about events going on in the world at the time, it isn't verbatim information taken from Wikipedia. Unless they are still alive, and revered contributors to the Wiki community...

Anyway, it was all taken in good humour by the writer, and the edits were done and it's already being rejected by grumpy agents, from what I hear. They don't know what they're missing out on. I spent a whole six and a half hours on it! In my own bedtime! :)

I've heard funny things about higher profile first drafts recently (postmen driving mail vans and mobile phones in houseboats set in 1929), so I'm starting to wonder if the affliction of screenwriting is more common than we know.

Maybe that's why second anticipated movies are never as good as first hit movies. The writer/director has been told they're a brilliant writer, so they stop asking for second opinions or for proofreading from their friends and family. You never know...

...So that's what Voodoo does, when not hanging out on here, or slinging words around elsewhere in a cavalier fashion, making books out of them. Just in case you ever wondered what a rant-bot does in real life :)

L xxxxx

With Jeffrey Archer at the London Book Fair 2013

Can you guess which one is me? :)

(Photo by Mark Lefebvre of Kobo Writing Life Author Relations)

Lxxxxx

Voodoo New: The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum

Out now on Amazon Kindle USA, UK, Canada, and Smashwords for all other devices and online reading. Available in paperback from Lulu.com - paperback coming soon to Amazon.

When keen Forensic Anthropology student Sarah Bellum has to attend an interview in her housemate's place, with the enigmatic vending machine entrepreneur Crispin Dry of Dry Goods, Inc, it sets off a chain of events that will alter her weekend plans for ever...

Sound familiar? Good - it's a parody. Of many stories - almost all of them famous. Just check out the chapter headings for an idea of what's in store!

Finding herself drawn hypnotically to this dark and complicated (and dead) man - Sarah, her housemate (name as yet unremembered) and their friends become embroiled in a family whose business is steeped in history. Or maybe just lost in it.

An action-packed adventure of love, loyalty, war, alcohol, zombies, rickshaws, and squid. Some things will be changed in your hearts afterwards for evermore - but hopefully not the bits that work.

Read on - if you dare...

I know, the moment I see him.

The black suit. The pallor of his skin. The attractively tousled, unkempt bed-hair. The drool. That limp… oh, God, that limp…!

"Crispin Dry?" My voice catches in my throat.

"Miss… Bellllummmm," he moans softly, extending a dirt-encrusted hand...

The Voodoo Christmas & New Year Revue: EA$Y MON£Y

Comedy short film, which I wrote and produced :)

Happy New Year!!!

The Voodoo Promo: Two books FREE on Amazon Kindle today!

Death & The City: Book One by Lisa Scullard

Death & The City: Book Two by Lisa Scullard

Both complete books (crime fiction/romance/humour/lit-fic) in the Amazon Kindle store FREE worldwide until midnight tonight 11th Dec PST.

Full details, excerpts and additional free promotion dates for your Christmas and New Year Kindle diary here:

http://lisascullard.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/all-books-great-and-small-book-events-promotions