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About MeThe essence of my social, economic and political values is given in a manifesto I drafted for my ideal global society. My interests include alternative economics, scientific philosophy, writing and programming. My main pleasures are nature, food and music. My main aspiration is true friendship with like minded people. |
I am a full-time carer (care giver) for my wife and one of my sons who both suffer from different types of schizophrenia. My wife has suffered schizophrenic relapses many times throughout our 35 year marriage, all of which have required police intervention. I am keen to hear from others who are caring for spouses who suffer from a mental illness. I would particularly like to get to understand the f-perspective from wives who care for mentally ill husbands to see similarities and differences with respect to my male perspective in caring for my wife. So please eamil me robmorton@clara.net.
I worked in the IT industry for 25 years as a programmer, systems analyst and technical writer - 10 years as a corporate employee followed by 15 years through my own business. I started my business in 1976 because the sporadic but catastrophic disruptions to my working life caused by my wife's illness made it impossible for me to meet the 9 to 5 requirements of formal employment, let alone the away-from-home times demanded by multinationals.
My business was never successful. Although I worked at home, I still had to travel to get work and compete with people who did not have the other physically and emotionally demanding drain I had. In 1991 I got to the point where I no longer had the stamina or resources to sustain my business. I signed on unemployed.
Over the next 10 years I was officially a job seeker existing with my wife, daughter and two young sons on a miserable pittance they called Jobseeker's Allowance. The medical profession still - as they had done from the beginning 33 years ago - refused to recognise that my wife's illness presented such an all-encompassing problem to me or the children. Consequently, while under the unbearable yoke of dealing with the ramifications of my wife's illness, I was burdened even further by the stress of being continually harassed by the Jobcentre to buckle down, get off my lazy butt and get a job while under the constant threat of having my welfare payments terminated.
At last, in 2001, after I published what they termed a defamatory account on the Web for which they threatened to sue me, the medical profession have finally accepted that my wife's illness is a problem. But this is not because of my wife. It is because of my son. During my wife's relapse of Autumn 2000 my son and I had practically no sleep for two months. This eventually drove my 21 year old son to a breakdown. Now I have been formally recognised as my son's carer. As a result I get an additional pittance called Invalid Care Allowance. It makes little difference to the amount of money I receive but at least it has removed the constant and devastating stress of the Jobcentre.
All this experience fired me to turn my analytical skills to an incisive analysis of the society in which I live. I then used my acquired writing skills to turn this into a book. Researching and writing my book is what has kept me sane for the past 10 years. However, having finished it left me realising that over the past 30 years, circumstances had meant that I had never made any lasting friends. Over the past 10 years I have never had the time, energy or resources to see or have any interaction with anyone outside my home. And it has hit me like a sledgehammer.
With the children growing up and two of them leaving home, and my wife's condition being nowhere near as difficult to deal with as it was in her strength of youth, I think I must now take the time to seek real compatible friends via the Internet and hopefully get a life. I think I have served my time.
