6. A Postcard from Brain Hell

    You last found me prancing around topiary versions of giant smiling Pacman heads, throwing petals over my shoulder that transformed into butterflies before they hit the ground. I had spent a month and a half off booze and was convinced I would stay this happy forever in the pink cloud. Well you guessed it I didn’t look where I was going and ended up feeling like I had just walked off the side of a cliff.

For no reason that I can pinpoint my mood changed and I was outflanked by sadness. The first day after posting the last blog I felt a little numb. Things weren’t right but things weren’t bad. The second day three lots of exercise had only generated enough endorphins to fill a gnat’s thimble. HITT training followed by an hour of yoga followed by a 25 mile bike ride. There was nothing. My superstition started to kick in and I thought by posting a Blog about how happy I was I had basically laid down the gauntlet to the universe to do its worse.

And thank you the next day was worse. Two more shitty days at work followed. During the day my temples felt like they were being squeezed by a giant’s thumb and forefinger, the classic symptom of stress. I felt more and more disconnected and less and less interested that the disconnection was happening. I felt ashamed it was happening to me after all the effort I had put in. I felt like a failure as my little experiment seemed like it was doomed. Life was joyless. I felt embarrassed and a little stupid that I had been so optimistic and positive in the first place. Could I be the same person?

I deleted my Instagram Bio as that mentioned the blog and the fact that I was Sober and the next step would be to delete the Blog and the next step was to head to the nearest shop that sold booze and delete myself or at least the current feeling of myself.

I came home from work on the fourth day and just lay on the bed fully clothed and waited. I gave myself half an hour and then I would pull the ripcord and head out. I don’t know why but I didn't do all those things, I fell asleep with the ripcord in my hand.

Over the next few days I re-engaged with my mediation and with yoga again and started to come back. I knew I was better when I finally picked up a garden chair that had fallen on the grass in our back garden over a week ago. It had laid there for a week and I had stared at it everyday through the kitchen window. I fucking hated that chair as it seemed a symbol of my ineptitude. 

There is a scene in Rick’s Café in Casablanca where German and French national anthems are both sung at the same time and it ends up getting messy. A fist fight breaks out and tables and chairs are knocked to the ground. Rick the café owner enters in the foreground played by Humphrey Bogart and he straightens a glass on a table. With that he draws a line under the dispute and an end to it, at least in his place. When I picked up the chair I knew it was over for the time being.

I couldn’t do more things to fix myself so I did less. Like when a computer crashes your instinct to to click a load of things to get it working again when in fact you are slowing it down even more. When you press “Ctrl+Alt+Del”  you can see all the processes running in the background taking up system memory.  I hadn’t realised my ego was chewing up about eighty percent of my energy. “What, where, why, when” were consuming most of my thoughts. My Ego was fed up there was nothing in my abstinence for him and I had started to question everything as a result. The Ego wants to stand alone as it is only in opposition can it define itself.

If I had bought a bottle or two of wine and drank them it would not be the end of the world, but I would have been empowering the destructive force of cognitive dissonance which leads to more bad choices and more suffering in the long run. 

During this T.P.E. ("Two Poem Episode") I was more aware of how mental health is portrayed in the wider world. I have decided I have two main problems with how it is discussed. Firstly it is usually from a position of current strength and resilience and two it is often overplayed to the point where the sufferer is cast in depression shaped carbonate for as long as humanly possible with the greater the length of suffering the better.

Han Solo after receiving news his garden chair had fallen over

Many discussions by celebrities on television focus of mental health like it is a scout badges they have earned along the way. They usually involve them speaking from a current position of strength. "Yes I have my anorexia badge and my self-harming badge."

Television and print media would have us believe the world has laid down on its back to have its tummy tickled. Everyone is lining up to give touchy-feely examples of how they “battled” depression like it was a dragon attacking their castle. I approve of all discussions but why is it only acceptable after we have emerged from it? It is like having an historic drug or drink story makes you a three dimensional and interesting, but to have one less than 24 hours old makes you sad and dangerous. Show me a radio DJ or TV presenter that admits suffering now and not one month before Christmas when they have a biography to flog. If we are moving in to a world that talks about mental health issues then there needs to be safe place to discuss current ones.

There are those that have “recovered” and who have run five marathons back to back dressed as kangaroo or are attempting to climb Kilimanjaro with just their teeth to raise awareness for mental health issues. Surely what they are doing are reasons enough to still question whether they still have it all together? Just because that is your response does not mean it is any more heroic than someone who drags their arse out of bed just to make tea for their kids. The ones that talk about mental health issues when still suffering they are the ones to listen to. Don’t tell people from your nice dry boat what a life preserver looks like when they are drowning. Get back in HMS Token Gestures head back Ego Island.

My second problem is not with people, who after all are “only doing their best” it is the language we inherit to talk about these issues. The term depression is such a fucking depressing term. It seems so final, long winded and drawn out. Like someone has just told you that instead of standing on grass and being lost in a field you are in fact now standing in a treacle and its on another planet here some tablets, good luck getting home.

Yes I know there are clinical definitions and these have to be respected but the western world has a chronic problem and we have all the advantages. So something is going wrong. These advantages don't allow us the space to talk they merely allow us to be distracted. Can we not just admit we are sad and disappointed that sometimes life isn’t all we expected. I count myself as among the lost and as among the broken if that is what we are, but because I am searching does not mean I am lost. Where I break I now the fix will be tougher than before. If I had allowed myself to drink that would not be the case.

It feels like we have to lock ourselves in quiet cages, dislocate our voices so we cannot articulate where we put the key. I suggest people are allowed the freedom to descend and ascend from personal brain hell in ways and speeds that do not define them in the long term. 

I do not want to shut other responses down but I want different voices to be heard and I want it to be OK for those feeling vulnerable to be able to speak without being seen as weak. Most of all I would like my chairs to stop falling over.