Twenty: And then some

At the age of 22 it feels like I'm finally coming to terms with what it might be like to be an adult.

Being dependable.  Having people of my very own to look after, albeit only my boyfriend and our cat.  Visiting Ikea to buy wardrobes for his room.  Having to plan meals in advance and cook. Cleaning and doing laundry not because someone tells you to but because actually, if you don't, it starts to get to you.  Keeping in touch with family.  Learning to express your needs in moderation, and to give a fair hearing to those of others.  Leaving difficult situations in time to keep yourself safe when you feel overwhelmed.

Only four months ago things were very different.  Loneliness combined with perverse "coping mechanisms" I've had a lifetime to learn and perfect imposed a Jekyll and Hyde like structure onto my existence.  The days would be spent pushing down tempests of anxiety -  an almost compulsive fear that worsened if any sort of attention was paid to it. I felt, almost always, on the edge of calamity.  Danger lay in every unoccupied moment, and no matter how carefully I planned my day, there would always be more than one. My classes done, at night (or, on bad days, late afternoon), I dived into chaos.  I was exhausted and I just couldn't contain myself anymore.  The GP on campus had told me that if I continued to starve myself I would not be able to remain at university, and for once I had listened.   During the day I would eat enough to satisfy my appetite and give me the energy to work - but I managed this partly (and problematically) only by shutting my eyes to it. 

I knew the nutritional content of what I was eating.  I knew what constituted a healthy, balanced diet, and I aimed towards it.  My body, however, was aiming for more.  It was aiming for curves, periods, and everything else a healthy woman should have - but for me these things also possess unpalatable and still mostly unexplainable psychological implications.  As soon as it got dark I let go.  I would spend £10 to £20 on food and spend the next two hours eating and vomiting  - gorging also on the kind of trashy tv my day-time schedule would never allow for.  When I was done, and I was reassured that my stomach was entirely empty, I would eat a small meal and go to bed.  Ultimately I knew I couldn't afford to lose weight. 

But it was draining.  Sustaining any sense of self in the midst of a raging war between bits of you that you still don't really understand and  that insist on their fulfillment with ceaseless cruelty is difficult.  It's even harder when you're trying to work towards a first-class degree.  Luckily I was able to get through the term.  Two arterial bleeds and two visits to A&E in ambulance, days when I just couldn't muster the energy to get out of bed and clear up the mess (blood, food and vomit) of the night before and recommendations to take leave of absence from university -  regardless,  I got through.  But my God - it feels a world away from now.  I have enjoyed four of the most healthy months I have had since I was sixteen,  and I'm terrified - terrified - to let them go.

Term begins on October the 10th.  I may have more support  in York than previously, since the psychiatrist I saw on Thursday who works for the psychotherapy service thinks I do need psychiatric reviews and a support worker and is writing to the CMHT in support of both.  Briefly, I would say that this was the single positive of  a difficult and frustrating meeting.  More will follow later.

Eighteen: Recapitulation

I need to write here again, if for no other reason than that after three months essay writing-free I'm beginning to lose my grip on my grasp of the English language.  I'm perhaps three quarters of the way through the mega-reading list I set myself for next term, and I find when I'm annotating texts that there are words I need which were familiar once and now escape me completely.  Not so great if you happen to be doing an English literature degree.

There is still another month to go before I return to York.  As the weeks wear on I realise more and more that I need to cherish the time I have at university.  It is really very little.  Being that bit older than the other students on my course, with friends who graduated last year and are struggling to find their feet in a job-market that is smaller and more competitive than ever, I know just how lucky I am to have this opportunity. 

I don't feel particularly lucky at the moment though.  My reading distracts me, as does my boyfriend, as does the oblivion-seeking sex, drinking and occasional drug use I turn to when I'm really itching to hurt myself.  Apart from one cigarette burn inflicted in Poland I have been self-harm free for months now.  Tomorrow it will be 90 days since I last made myself sick.  I am a healthy 60kg for my 67 inch height, and I try to remember that I have made peace with my body.  But it was always a very tentative peace, and right now it feels particularly fragile.

Diary entry, 3rd August 2011 (I was still in Poland):

It just keeps getting better.  After a call from Dr S of York Psychotherapy Services, in which I was informed that my therapy at the Tavistock would cease to be funded in October, I found out from A (my therapist) that even this may be in question.  There is something of a row developing between the Finance Department of the Tavistock and York, who are apparently refusing to pay for any of the psychotherapy I have been having at the Tavistock since I moved from London. (I have since been told that the reason they are giving for this is that the Tavistock have prevented me from engaging with their local services - the only problem with this argument being that said local services proved on several occasions to be unwilling to engage with ME).  I don't know quite how this will affect me, but it does mean that money-wise my therapy with A is even more in the shit than before, and it is unlikely that the Tavistock will themselves finance any extension to the October deadline.  I did feel a glimmer of hope when A (I called her from Poland when I received the news, and we had a brief conversation over the phone) hinted at our previous discussion about paying (her?) privately.  But only a glimmer.  I'm sure A will think of a dozen different reasons before I see her again at the end of August as to why this arrangement would be unworkable.

As I understand, A is still fighting to build a case as to why my therapy with her needs to continue.  I have been invited to a meeting in York on Thursday with Dr S (consultant psychiatrist/psychotherapist) and a therapist to discuss whether the group therapy or individual therapy they may be able to offer me would be suitable.  Talking to these people is not at the top of my wish-list at the moment, to say the least.  I envisage throwing things - if not objects, then hard words.  It's childish.  But I am not inclined to give them any more of my time.  There are a number of reasons why I do not think it will be beneficial for me to either enter group therapy (again) or establish a new, short-term psychotherapeutic relationship.  Experience has taught me however that my opinion falls on deaf ears - if anything, it will be seen as further evidence that I am refusing to co-operate, possibly as a result of an unhealthy dependency on my therapist in London.  My boyfriend wants me to go to the meeting, and has said he will accompany me. I still haven't made my mind up.

This brings me to the question of what WILL happen if my therapy at the Tavistock is terminated at the end of October.  A has tried to discuss this with me in our sessions.  She says we need to talk about our options.   I am,in effect, stonewalling her - it's just to painful.  I cannot see any "workable" options being made available to me - rather, in anticipating the conversation I see my last hope, of her agreeing to see me privately (at a cost I would be able, if only just, to afford) being crushed.  Again, M (boyfriend) says I need to have a frank conversation with her.  Not knowing is draining me.  I don't know how much longer I can go on in this state without resorting to the ways of coping I swore (sort of) to forsake once and for all at the beginning of the summer.

I dread Sundays, because they signify two full days until Wednesday, when I have my session.  I dread Mondays and Tuesdays proportionately more.  A keeps apologising to me for what is going on.  It doesn't help.  I have a lot of rage inside of me - rage I do not want to direct at her, but which seems to be blocked whenever I aim for more appropriate channels.  I cannot help but feel that I am just not being heard.  I have come so far, and I refuse to give up something which has helped me so greatly -something that has given me my life back and which I believe needs to continue to fully restore me to health - without a fight.  But there seems to be nothing to take on but smoke and mirrors - the thin veils of bureaucracy.

If there were a God I could believe in, I would ask him to help me through this.  For the lack of one I must try to believe in myself, and my strength - which has surprised me before and may surprise me again.

                                                           Street art, Wrocław Poland.

Seventeen: In brief

Very, very annoyed.  I managed to delete the post I've spent the past hour writing just as it was autosaved.

Take two will be greatly limited, seeing as it's already two o'clock in the morning and I have an early start ahead of me - we leave for Poland on Thursday (I'll be away three weeks) and there's lots still  to sort out. 

Before my finger slipped, I had basically written out what took place at my meeting with the psychotherapy service in York last Thursday.  The psychiatrist I saw is only involved in CBT work, so he said he would discuss with his team what we had talked about and meet me again possibly with a colleague who knows more about psychodynamic work.  Though he gave me no clear indication as to what at this point he thought he was likely to advise the commissioners regarding my treatment, we discussed the various options and he agreed with my boyfriend's mother that it is extremely unlikely that funding for open-ended therapy as provided by the previous Trust would be granted.  There is a possibility that I could be assessed for psychotherapy in York, though this would last a maximum of two years and I did say that I was ambivalent about whether it would be beneficial for me to pick up the work with someone else.

He said that resources for mental health are very stretched at the moment - for instance in York no patients are being sent to private treatment centres any more.  I asked him about the CMHT consultant's claim that the view of the psychotherapy service is that the only effective type of therapy is short term and goal oriented, and he said that although he cannot speak for individual practitioners this is largely true.  His own personal view is that therapy needs to be conducted in short, repeated bursts and he told me that there is no research whatsoever to evidence that psychotherapy "works" (this infuriated M's mother, when I repeated it to her later).  He also said that he was incredibly surprised, given my history and his own experience, that I had managed the transition from twice weekly to once weekly therapy, commuting from York to London.   He commended me on what I have achieved in managing to maintain my weight and keep myself well enough to be at university, considering everything that has happened.  In his view my psychiatric history is extensive - he said that he had had to take notes from my notes before meeting me.  He asked me about the intention I had expressed a few months ago of wanting to open an artery, and when I said that I had in fact managed it seemed slightly amused.  He told me that if I was to do it again our discussion would be futile, as there would be no point in discussing therapy I wouldn't be alive to undergo.

All I can do now is wait.  And not think.  I'm sick of thinking and agonising over something that I really cannot change.  While I'm away I want to focus on building on and consolidating the things that I have been able to change recently, particularly regarding my eating.

On my way back to the station after the meeting I saw a painting on the side of the house that would have offended me not too long ago, but makes me smile a little (if wryly) now:

It's a strange World.

Seven: "Ghosts in the Machine" - Locating the Soul in the Bionic Age

Parts of a group presentation I'm giving tomorrow, for my "Bodies and Minds" module.  Since I ended up writing nearly the whole thing myself (which I'm bloody annoyed about, but hey, these things happen...), there shouldn't be a problem with me putting it up here.

Metropolis - Fritz Lang, 1927

The phrase "ghost in the machine" was coined by the philosopher Gilbert Rye in his book, “The Concept of the Mind”.   Rye criticised Descartes' mind-body dualism, arguing that the terms "mind" and "body" should not be considered as belonging to the same category, and that mental and physical states are inseparable.   In the film “I, Robot”, the phrase is used to refer to inexplicable actions by robots that possibly hint at the existence of a soul or mind that works beyond their mechanical bodies.

As a group, we examined our own beliefs about the soul, or more generally, what it is that for us separates man from machine.  Of those that we examined, we selected the ability to love and make ethical decisions as the most “human” of human aspects, or those that a machine would find hardest to imitate.  As our presentation will demonstrate, however, the increasing sophistication of Artificial Intelligence problematizes this assumption.  

We have placed the examination of these issues within the context of the "Bionic Age", which we define as an age in which machines and mechanical parts are used by humans to carry out tasks that are difficult, intricate, or dangerous.  The question of where and how we locate the soul as man and machine become ever more closely linked continues to be explored in science fiction film and literature, and across the fields of science, philosophy and psychology.

R.U.R

Karel Capek coined the term 'robot' in his 1920 play "R.U.R." in defining his artificially created creatures, the word 'robota' in Czech literally meaning "work", or "labour". Traditionally, "robota" was the term used for the work period of a serf, an unpaid member of the lower classes required to work for their superiors. Serfdom was banned in Bohemia in 1848, but this obsolete term would have carried its meaning across to Capek's early 20 century audience. This immediately colours the way in which the artificial beings of R.U.R. are viewed, reduced by the concept of slavery. They are introduced as "goods"(p3), and are a highly demanded product: willing slaves in attaining the ultimate human ideal of an elevation to a god-like status where "Man will do only what he loves doing, free and sovereign, with no other task than to better himself"(p23), unfettered with the need to labour. From Domin's point of view, this is ethically sound. The robots' intended purpose is to work; they are "without will, passion, history or soul"(p20).

However, young Helen arrives, adamant to dispute this. She is determined to see their usage as exploitation, her "League of Humanity"(p17) extending to the "liberation of the Robots" (p20). Immediately the audience is posed with a contradiction. The robots seen are apparently soul-less, unable to comprehend human emotion, yet their complete assimilation of outwardly human manifestations staggers her. "Can't tell the difference, eh? Feel this hair we gave her! Soft and blonde! M-mm, lovely!" (p11). JD Humphries, in his introduction to "The Robots are Coming", draws attention to the problematic nature of " 'other minds' ". Humans "cannot be directly aware of any other consciousness in other human beings […] One has, therefore, to assume, in terms of similarity of appearance and overt behaviour, that other people are in fact much the same as oneself." (p18)

 Helen is unable to come to terms with the fact that "they're not bothered what you feed 'em […] And no-one's seen them laugh yet!"(p20), when they appear so absolutely human. By her understanding it must be unethical to treat those who appear so similar to ourselves with such flippant disregard for their welfare. Yet apes are similar to humans, and we treat them also as soul-less. Humphries continues his introduction by stating that "Theologians argue that though man's thinking processes may be similar to those of an ape, the man possesses something extra - his 'soul'. In “R.U.R” it seems unethical to treat the robots as if they have no consciousness, or personality, or however our sentient conscious "soul" is defined, yet unless the existence of such a soul can be empirically proved, their status as slaves cannot be contested.

Play – intro. 

One possible way that we could attempt to measure and quantify the soul in articulate beings is via the “Turing Test”, an idea introduced by Alan Turing in 1950.  Designed to  discern intelligence, a human judge engages in conversation with one human and one machine, programmed to appear human.  If the judge cannot correctly guess which is the machine, it is assumed to be an “intelligent” entity.   The concept of the test has inspired the short play that follows, in which we attempt to distinguish human from robot by posing a series of ethical questions.

                                                                *****DRAMA*****

Class questioned.

                                                                              Play – conclusion

As our scenarios illustrate, finding a universal definition of what it means to be human is exceedingly difficult.  It is not possible to say that being able to adapt to new situations, communicate and interact with others, feel love and empathy, and respond appropriately to ethical questions are characteristics shared by all humans. If it were possible to create an organic, intelligent robotic being, would we be able to differentiate it confidently from one of ourselves?

 LOVE.

As we have tried to do with ethics, could we design a Turing Test for love?  If a machine behaves in a way that suggests loving emotion, should we assume that it is capable of loving, whether it is itself, other robots or even human beings?

In understanding how our attitudes towards robots who love are shaped, it may be helpful to examine the ways that love is conceptualised in Western philosophical tradition. 

Rousseau’s second Discourse, in which he discusses the views of Thomas Hobbes, proposes three different kinds of love:  amour- propre (base self-love), amour de soi (gentle or at least benign self-love), and charite (love of God and things public).

In stating that charité is a "natural repugnance at seeing any sentient being, and particularly those similar to us, suffer pain or death",  Rousseau placed the capacity to suffer above the ability to reason in describing what makes creatures worthy of compassion. 

This view is one that is widely held today, but love in the philosophical tradition has not always been held to emanate from compassion.  In the thirteen century, Thomas Aquinas picked up on the Aristotelian theories of friendship and love to proclaim God as the most rational being and hence the most deserving of one’s love, respect, and considerations.  Accordingly, in the Summa Theologica, he states: “Each human being has a share of the eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called natural law” ( Summa Theologica, 1a2ae, 90.2)

 Could YOU Share a bed with your Robot?

Perhaps the real question is not whether robots, possibly the most rational creatures of all, are able to love, but whether we, as humans, have an appetite for robots to have this capability.

Extolling the virtues of sexbot cyborgs trained to help humans improve their sex lives, David Levy hypothesises that marriage with robots will be legalised in some countries by 1950.

Even if this rather outlandish prediction is fulfilled, however, our creation of beings that are allowed access to our deepest needs and desires has profound implications for how we understand ourselves as human beings.

As Sherry Turkle says, in her book “The Second Self”,

"We ask [of the computer] not just about where we stand in the world of nature, but about where we stand in the world of artefact.  We search for a link between who we are and what we have made, between who we are and what we might create, between who we are and what, through our intimacy with our own creations, we might become".

The darker side of robotic, soma enhanced and psyche reduced love is explored in Aldous Huxley’s 1931 novel, “Brave New World”, where soulless, impersonal love is a form of social control.  Unlike R.U.R, the protagonists of Huxley’s novel are all ostensibly human, and yet in Brave New World it is only in the past that “there was a thing called the soul and a thing called immortality”.  The tragic irony at the heart of the novel is that the marginalised “savages” appear more human than those that inhabit the civilised, sanitised world where physical pleasure is maximised and love forbidden.   The novel warns of the danger of a creator becoming engulfed by his creations – where love is deemed redundant and unnecessary, there is no place for a soul – it is literally destroyed by the machine of society.

In recent years, attempts have been made to tackle our anxiety and distrust about machines that too closely approximate humans.  In Pixar’s Wall-E, the love between two robots (Wall-E and Eva) is redemptive, and leads to the recolonisation of Earth.  The film does not attempt to deny the robots’ mechanical nature, incorporating it instead into the way they communicate their love for each other.  Despite this, it must be acknowledged that the degree of anthropomorphic animation of the robot characters that the film-makers indulge in does not really challenge popular, human-centric notions of what it is to love.

Conclusion

Whilst our terror of hypothetical “ghosts in the machine” must be balanced against the growing needs and demands we have for artificial intelligence and the ways it can serve humanity, it is important to remember that the problem does not end here.  It is not simply a question of whether ethical and loving robots could live alongside their human counterparts.  As we make the transition from the post-modern to the bionic age, we must use the privilege that human status grants us wisely to negotiate the ethical and moral dilemmas we will face in the coming century. We must accept that as we adapt and change the world around us, our conception of ourselves will inevitably change too.     Some of us, none of us or all of us may have souls in the bionic age –but if we are to retain them, they must be guarded fiercely.

Two.

This blog, which is barely a blog (consisting as it does of a whole two entries) is already presenting me with problems.  When I made it I was very aware of not wanting create a public “journal”, a space to whinge about and cling on to issues that have served only to disfigure my life and threaten my future.  This year is in many ways a turning point for me – I have finally, at 21, made it to university.   I have been discharged from nearly all psychiatric care, and… dare I say it… I have started to enjoy life more often than not.   I have moved back in with my mother during the holidays (she evicted me when I was 18, and discharged prematurely from a self harm unit for losing too much weight), and slowly, slowly, my friends and family are starting to trust me again.

I am cautiously ambitious.  I would, eventually, like to go into academia.  I know I will write, and I hope that during the three years of my degree my literary interests will develop in a direction that I will be able to take further.   The course I am on is everything I could have wished for.  I know I am in the right place, and I want to stay here.  I will fight to stay here.  The trouble is, I may have to.  I enjoyed a lot of support in London – as well as psychotherapy twice a week at the Tavistock I had a care-cordinator who I saw weekly, a consultant at the CMHT, a dietician and another psychiatrist at the eating disorder unit.  There is nothing like that available here – although I was referred to the CMHT, they were able to offer me very little.  My experience has been wholly negative – one consultant who assessed me remarked that “frankly, I am very surprised that someone with a personality disorder of your severity is able to do a degree”.  This being the case, however,  he  wouldn’t be seeing me “just to monitor your sertraline”.  Of course, I determined to prove him wrong, and with the support of the GP on campus I did rather well, up to the last few weeks of the spring term.   Stress, weight-gain, fears of losing my therapist and whatever-other-excuses-I-can-come-up-with combined to send things spiralling out of control.  Arteries were opened, ambulances were called and it was all just one big mess where I was being advised to take medical leave of absence, an option that was impossible because I would a) be homeless b) be unlikely to receive any more help than I am currently getting and c) be deprived of the structure of university life, which has been hugely important in keeping me well.

They could not, however, force leave of absence on me unless I was sectioned – and luckily I was able to get a grip on the situation before that became a likelihood.  Over Easter I rested, got back to work, and handed in essays that received a first and a 2.1 respectively.  But what I am trying to say is that however much I would like to erase the past, forget how I have survived it, concentrate purely on my studies and make a blog that deals exclusively with the “un-personal”, the literary, the sophisticated analysis of current affairs,  I cannot do it.  Not quite yet.  At times the two sides of my character seem to be mutually anatagonistic and incompatible.  I must either be wholly sick, or wholly well.  I am either  the determined, “gifted” student with an exciting career ahead of her, or I am the girl who’s spent the last five years in and out of hospital, the  girl whose father killed himself when she was 17 but who was fucked up before then anyway, the girl who hurts herself and those around her again and again and never learns, the girl who by rights really shouldn’t be alive.

Well, isn’t this cheerful!  I  have actually had rather a good weekend.  Booked  a ticket to see Andrew Motion when he comes to York to give a reading in a few weeks, and also secured a place at a conference on “The Literary Eassy in English” being held at Queen Mary in July.  Hermione Lee, Andrew O’Hagan and Adam Phillips (who was actually visiting professor at York last term) are amongst the speakers.  There IS a world outside the stagnant, deadly jungle of my introspective head, and I will dare to take my place in it.  One slightly less self-absorbed blog post at a time.