Isolation and Wishing for Monday to Come

When, only on the odd occasion thankfully these days, melancholia pays me a visit, I don't even have someone I can call to have a coffee with. I literally know no one on that kind of basis.

I was born and raised in London but don't know a soul. During the worst of my depression, 10 years ago or so, I found that anyone I knew dropped off one by one.

Being a man of my vintage it becomes harder and harder to strike up friendships / relationships. Particularly in London.

So the point of this blog is not to ask for the violins but to try to make folk understand how isolating life can be once you come out of the void of a long term illness.

This year has been extra tough because I've had a health scare I'm still going through and hopefully I'll finally get sorted in September. I've spent much of this year having scans and blood tests - worrying but I have perspective on these things. 

I think I'm a mildly ok sort of person and at times I feel angry that I can't strike up meaningful friendships - as I said - it's very hard in London.

I spend my weekend looking forward to Monday because my only human interaction is at work - I often go the whole weekend without ever talking - unless I talk to myself. 

The upsetting thing for me is I don't know how it came to this - I'm not a bad man - I've no criminal record. Never been in trouble. 

It's upsetting also because I'm missing out - on life - adventures - though I do go away - there's nothing more shit than a holiday on your own.

So, if you know someone who has had depression or someone who still has, then don't let them down - be a mate. Let them know you are there.

One of the reasons I use Twitter is to help my isolation - to help me have a chat with adults - though these days it's not much good for that either. 

My films and books are my company and its why I talk about them on Twitter - to try to engage with folk.

I get by - I work hard - but I bet I'm not alone in wanting Monday to come so that I can rejoin the world. I've tried every way of meeting new potential friends. But when you're a 51 year old man it's difficult - and folk look at you with suspicion when they find out you have no social circle, so on it goes. Your past problems with depression don't leave you. 

Tim - London - 2016 

Not Drowning - Waving - / Twitter Trolls - Really Useful Discrimination.

I am visiting a person weekly at the moment that is helping me with my self esteem – this is separate from the 6 years of therapy I have had with John to deal with my chronic depression. Depression is not something that now runs my life.  It revisits me from time to time and I just have to ride it out.

My twitter persona is not real. I am someone who is withdrawn, socially inept, quite isolated, and afraid of people and life. Social media probably gives all of us an opportunity to be the person we want to be rather than the one we really are.

I have not been able to work since August – not because I don’t want to. The situation I found myself in has meant that folk will not employ me. So it has been really tough. I am not used to not working. I have worked since I was 16 and I am now 51. I am finding this period very very difficult but it won’t kill me so I have just got to ride it out.

I received no support at work for my mental health issues. The whole twitter incident was just an excuse for them to get rid of me even though it was I who walked. The fact that I have always been open and honest on social network about my long term fight with depression has not done me any favours.

I was being watched for a long time in terms of my social network activity by my employers. I still believe that the whole trolling thing was set up – that is not paranoia – I have quite a bit of evidence to make a good case. They presented me with months and months worth of my tweets. Like the secret police investigating a spy.

I went down the road of seeking legal advice for constructive dismissal but my problem was I could not afford the fees to take it on further. 

It was very clear I had been discriminated against in terms of my depression and that nothing was done during the investigation process to help me. 

The equalities act went straight out the window. 

For two weeks I was treated like a common criminal by the Really Useful Theatre Group – I ended up convinced I had committed a dreadful crime. 

The level of corporate bullying by one manager in particular is something you would find hard to believe.

I have to move on from all that now. I am not playing the victim here at all – that is not my style. Plus I would not give that awful company the satisfaction.

Hopefully I will sort out my personal problems very soon and get back to work. It is tough because I find it tough facing people. But work is all I know and I need it to feel normal and accepted.

Just wanted to put the record straight in regards to my situation and how dreadful a large Theatre company treated me.

Tim – London - 2016

Twitter and my Mental Health - Social Media No More

You will be well aware that most of my adult life has been blighted by chronic depression. At times it has been stronger than other times, to the point that in 1999 I had 12 courses of ECT Treatment – known to the commoner as electric shock treatment. Not pleasant. 

Over the past couple of weeks I have had a really bad episode. When it’s bad I tend to get suicide ideation which is not good. It’s a very dark desolate place, particularly when you are on your own day after day and night etc. During the past two weeks I haven’t spoken or had any contact with anyone ....not through choice. It’s just that I don’t know anyone. At just 50 I am isolated like an elderly person. This happens a lot in London when you reach a certain age and you have no family around you.

This brings me to Twitter and why I used this platform. It was to communicate – to end the silence I live in at times. To express myself. To have an opinion. To grow the confidence I have never had in the real world. To be creative. To take me out of the desolation and isolation. I started Pinter Quotes as a small hobby. It grew a bit.

Sadly my Twitter activity cost me my job back in August and this pleased many people. They said I had it coming to me. Maybe they are right.

I have learnt over the past two months that I really am operating solo in this world and that no amount of activity on social media will solve this or make it better. In fact it makes it worse. You convince yourself that you have all these people who will back you up when the shit hits the fan but the truth is they don’t – and it is very daft to think they will. I have been sent to Coventry by an industry that I have worked in since I was 16. 34 years ago!

Let’s not beat about the bush – I was treated appallingly by my former employers. It was disgusting. The manager who led this campaign against me is a sorry shit of a human being. Her little power trip has cost me more than my job but it hasn't cost me my pride which is why I walked out. I would not have been able to live with myself if I had stayed.I was bullied by the corporate fascists.

Is'n't an irony that Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber (I worked for his company) used Twitter for his snivelling statement as to why he was in the Lords to vote for the attack on the poorly paid - it just so happened that he flew in from the USA to do some work on Cats - yeah right - but it just so happened that he was able to vote for an end to tax credits for the poor. His PR monkey was happy to use Twitter to get the statement out but poorly paid workers like me are intimidated away from social media. My chronic depression may have me on the floor right now but I can still see and read. 

But obviously my mental health has taken a battering over the past two months – no one will give me a job – I actually feel like I committed some unspeakable crime when all I did was was exercise my right to free speech.

I would rather be me than the stuck up cow that set out to have me fired just for tweeting – I would rather be a free speaker than be a corporate fascist with her tongue up the management arse. It’s this that saves me – I know I am right and free to speak my mind and being away from Twitter has reminded me I don’t need it to do it. Social Media is now loaded with media wankers  ponces who want to dictate the narrative. It has employers spying on their employees. The cowards. Gutless cowards. 

So I am going to carry on doing what I do. Being honest with myself. Telling the truth. But just not on social media. Because you can’t. They won. The right wing bastards won.

I might not be able to find a job but I would much rather starve than compromise my belief system.

I have to address the ridiculous isolation I find myself in. The silence is really noisy at times.  

End of.

Badly Drawn Man part 2 - Isolation

If I told John I've titled a blog 'Badly Drawn Man' he'd think I was having a relapse back in to Body Dismorphic mirror dodging hell. Thankfully this is not the case.

However, it is how I see myself and have done as far back as I can remember. But these days I can just accept it and laugh it off.

I live in relative isolation. I have one genuine friend and soul mate who remains one of the only people I trust on this earth. But I still spend 95% of my time solo. Don't get the violins out. That's not the purpose of this blog. This is more about the long term effects a lifetime of depression can reap on you and how difficult it is to shed.

For five and a half of the past 10 years I lived alone and spoke to no one apart from when I was at work. I wonder how many people you know who know no one ? I ended up living like an elderly person who had lost everyone. It wasn't a choice. It was a fear. You fear people when you are depressed. You fear rejection, not of your physical self, but of your depressed self.

I'm trying to use this space as a confessional. It might be uncomfortable to read and I can promise you it is uncomfortable to write. I've not had a physical relationship in over a decade. I was never popular with the girls when I was a boy growing up - the teenage sweetheart passed me by. This continued into adulthood and would explain some of my disasters in the relationship department.

When I first met John, my therapist, 5 and a half years ago, I was, in his words, one of the most complex cases he had come across. You don't get 5 years therapy on the NHS for nothing. My diagnosis sheet was long. He couldn't box me. All the other therapy I had had in the previous 15 years was barking up the wrong tree. According to John I should never have had the ECT treatment.

John had to teach me how to do simple things like going out shopping - I couldn't function as an adult anymore - I avoided any social occasion for years. The idea of being in a room with a group of people was horrific.

Even now I have to build myself up sometimes to do what most folk would consider easy and everyday. I'm ashamed to write this stuff but it is important because I know that some who will read it will be able to relate and, I hope, not feel so fucking alone with it.

I can write this and face people I now know because for the main part I don't give a fuck what folk think of me and that's a massive sea change.

It has cost me jobs - relationships - fun - laughter - but it hasn't beaten me and these days I'm much stronger and want to be able to hammer the point home that if you know someone with a depressive illness then please don't shun them. You can't catch it. They won't do anything horrible to you.

They just belong in the family of badly drawn humans. Something doesn't click. Something was broken many years ago and it's not a quick fix.

We live in a very shallow country so image rules. Of course this is utter bollocks. Just one look on Facebook or Instagram and you'll see a very modern mental illness - narcissism!!

I don't have or want a social circle - I don't give a damn if someone finds me unattractive - boring - geeky - or a cunt even. I like being an outsider now - with John I've managed to turn this into an art form. He would much rather I had a massive social life and a band of friends but I always told him this was a battle with me he'd never win.

As I stated - I don't want violins - this is not a woe is me exercise. It's an account of a depressive. A mainly former depressive but a depressive all the same.

Isolation is not always a prison sentence. It can be a very welcome break from the vacuousness and vapidity of modern life.

Tim - London - 2015

Badly Drawn Man

I took a telephone call on a ward of The Maudsley Hospital where I was an inpatient for chronic depression in the spring of 1999 to be told, by a stranger, that I would not see my son again until I proved I was not a risk to him. This stranger happened to be my ex wife's new husband.

Between Aug 1998 and Aug 1999 I was an inpatient at The Maudsley on 4 occasions. This culminated in my receiving what you will know as Electric Shock Treatment, or to give it its proper name, ECT. I was given 12 courses of this in Aug 1999 and this was the last time I spent time at The Maudsley.

Now I will be careful here not to use this blog to attack anyone or use it as some form of revenge. Ignorance toward depression is rife in the UK. It is normal and sadly accepted that people with depression will face and suffer discrimination.

This is because we live in a pig ignorant country where it is perfectly ok to binge drink, cause violence and puke in gutters every weekend and folk think you're hip and cool.

I will, however, use this blog to have my say and put the record straight.

During my 19 years in the "depressive community" I've met all sorts of folk. Maybe the most refreshing aspect of this awful illness is the fact it doesn't discriminate. You can be rich, poor, black, white and suffer depression.

But I've never met a violent depressive. The very nature of depression is that it makes you a very passive person. The energy is simply not present for you to rage against anyone - only yourself. Because you self harm doesn't mean you will harm others. A depressed person is not psychotic.

My depression didn't just arrive. It was a seed planted in me as a young boy. During my 5 years work with John, my (psychotherapist) from 2010 to present, we have investigated the root and cause. This has been achieved using Schema Threapy. I won't go into details. Look it up.

John was able to pinpoint exact events which, as a child, planted this seed in my thought processes and grew as I became an adult. I didn't decide to become depressed. I'm not part of some trend. It grew inside me via life events - things I saw - things that were said to me - an appalling attitude to my education from inept teachers - many many things helped plant this seed.

I've lost many of my quality years to depression. I'm much better these days but I can never take it for granted. I have to manage myself correctly. But I haven't had a bad episode for well over 2 years. Not even a mildly bad one.

I'm angry that this illness was used against me in terms of my being able to see my son. I was eventually given access at an access centre where I shared a room with ex convicts and wife beaters. I've never hurt a fly but as a depressive I was considered to be in the same bracket as the aforementioned scum.

The reason why I can't single out anyone for this attitude to me at the time is because it is an attitude which many still have toward all forms of mental illness. You must be a bad person.

The reality is I left my wife for another woman. This was in no way connected with my state of mind.   I didn't cover myself in glory 20 years ago but I didn't commit a crime. I was unhappy with my entire life and circumstances. But when I say unhappy I mean normal unhappy. Nothing to do with my depression.

I felt controlled and manipulated during my marriage but if I'm to be honest, much of this I allowed to happen. I went with it. I was far too young to have got married. I can link my then "needy" self to my depressive illness but that's about it. And John will tell me that the choices I made back then were driven by my depression even though it had not manifested itself quite yet. But I don't use this as an excuse. All I know is that the days I lived away from London, my married days, are the darkest days I can remember in my life. Darker than being in The Maudsley.

Most of that life is now a mist. I've never been able to hold a relationship down - not in that way. Not in a sexual loving way. I'm a car crash of contradictions when it comes to women. I've a friendship now that money can't buy. You know who you are. It's the most important relationship I've ever had. I'm useless at love in terms of in the bedroom. I'm useless at relationships with anyone.

My work with John has been largely about putting this right. To teach me how to be. How to relate to other humans. I still don't socialise with strangers much. I didn't develop correctly and this was because of the Schema's which dictated my life and grew into full blown chronic depression.

Spend a bit of time with me and these traits come out. I'm socially the most awkward cunt you'll ever meet though I'm a bit better these days.

I have my best friend. My Theatre. My cinema. My books. I like my life now. I like living. I like life.

I hope by writing these blogs that at least one person will read them and relate.

Tim (London, 2015)

Melancholia and Art as Therapy

I've been inspired to write this blog after reading the piece by Mark Lawson concerning the power of heavy 'high end' Theatre used as a tool to help lift the darkest depression. It just so happens that I'm going to see the same play this week - 4 hours of Greek tragedy at The Almeida.

I can concur with this piece. During my deepest moments of Chronic Depression I found myself engaging with a particular type of Cinema. Films with a message and a soul. Most of them come under a term I hate - Art House - World Cinema - my particular passion is French New Wave.

I feel drawn to the images. Most folk go to the cinema to escape reality but I'm a big fan of realist cinema, books, theatre. After all, we're all looking for answers. I just find mine in unlikely places.

I took on a project in 2010 to read novels that I had previously been genuinely terrified of. These books were out of bounds to me at school. I challenged myself and felt a great sense of achievement at the end of that year.

I once feared a certain kind of play at the Theatre. It was an irrational fear which I can now laugh at. I feared I wouldn't understand the piece - but then I discovered that I could come to my own conclusions.

My Pinter Quotes account on Twitter has 28,000 followers. I enjoy Pinter. I enjoy the menace. The complexities. The fact that you leave the Theatre with more questions. It's s gym for the mind.

On the surface it doesn't make sense. It is assumed that a depressive, during a bad episode, can not concentrate. This is not always the case. In fact I've found my ability to engage with the heaviest, deepest art is far more likely when I'm in the pit of melancholia. It can be a book, a piece of Theatre, a film.

From my own personal experience I've found that my mind opens up during a depressive episode. It becomes more concentrated. The images that I'm presented with become clearer and I think it's because this kind of more intelligent art is really reflecting life - realism.

Comedy was the last thing I wanted when I was depressed. I craved the darker art.

There's much research already in to the benefits of performance art for the depressive mind and I'd like to see the NHS look into this more - ok so it would cost a lot to send patients to the Cinema or Theatre but what about the long term benefit and possible savings ?

The NHS has embraced Mindfulness as a genuine treatment for depression and the results have been staggering. I believe there's a connection between Mindfulness and what is awfully known as High End Theatre / Cinema.

Your mind is massaged by great work. You enter a world which doesn't reject you ...it allows you in - it doesn't throw you out. It existed before you were born.

Part of me has always believed that melancholia is a twisted gift. I'll pursue this thought process



Tim - London 2015

Nearly 50.

I've been treated for chronic depression for 20 years now. I've gone almost a year without a serious episode but I can't take that for granted. The black dog tends to bite when you least expect but I'm more confident I can fight it off now that I have the tools.

I've lost some quality years because of it but I'm not at all phased at becoming 50 at Xmas. In fact I see it as an opportunity to kill off two dark decades. I only see John every two months now and I continue to try to embrace mindfulness when I feel the need.

I do have some regrets. The way my depression has dictated my personal relationships. The way I've treated people because of it. It's not something I had any control over at the time but I still regret it or become angry because it has cost me so much in terms of experiences and friendships.

I view life differently now and hopefully I'm a better person to be around. One day I will try and do chronic depression some credit and hopefully be able to help others who suffer. This is difficult because it is such a personal experience.

I have found twitter has helped me. Not in some deluded way. I know the limitations and falseness of social media. It has given me a voice though and many amazing things have come from it. I've always been happy to speak of my depression on twitter despite it being such a public platform. I've experienced mainly positive feedback for being open about it as well as some nasty comments but as in life as on social media.

Once I cared what folk thought of me. Now I don't. I enjoy the banter, good or bad.

Anyway this was just a brief check in to say everything is ok and I continue to fight it and survive it.

I've always appreciated the feedback and I'm always around for anyone out there suffering.


Tim - London - 2014

The Depressive v The Addict..An imbalance in Empathy.

It's been a very interesting week which started with a discussion about men and depression which was recorded and podcast. The reaction to it has been really positive but the problem is the message will soon get lost again. It takes the suicide of a major movie star to get folk talking about an issue that is such a major killer of men in the UK.

Depression is not trendy. It is a dirty word. Addiction is trendy and is not a dirty word. In fact in terms of the celebrity world addiction appears to carry with it much kudos. Obviously addiction is part of a wider issue for the sufferer and the person will almost certainly have an MH problem at the root of their addiction.

Depression just seems so dull and draws a picture of a man or woman with slumped shoulders and a melancholy tune playing constantly in their head. The reaction to someone confessing to depression is normally to tell the person to pull themselves together. The addict will find empathy and folk stating that they have suffered in life and that their addiction is a reaction. The addict finds a queue of people ready to hug them and support them.

The fact is most depressives will have had a life event that set off the depression. Not always. Depression can just be a chemical imbalance. The depressive who has had the perfect life really is the hard done by one. No one deserves depression or asked for it.

There is no pain worse than depression. Physical pain makes sense. Depression doesn't.

People need to get educated. Read up on it. Maybe then the depressive will find the empathy that the addict finds in our rather fucked up society.

Tim 2015 

Not Drowning. Waving.

This month marks 4 years ago since I pitched up in Johns office a rather fucked up person who had been passed through the system and shat out the other side. They got so pissed off with my depression in 1999 that they gave me 12 courses of ECT(electric shocks). But this did get me on the BBC so it's not all bad. I spent most of 1998/99 in The Maudsley Hospital in South London.

Self harm had been a massive issue back then but I didn't think it was a big deal. It was part of my day to day. I've not done anything like self harm for over 7 years now.

So, I eventually ended up with John. I've been lucky in that he has given me 4 years on the NHS. But, in his words, I was, am, a complex case. I should just stick with was because I am a very very different man now to the one who sat in his room in 2010..  I'm still a complex cunt but a more free of    
my demons complex cunt.

I'm happy to go through life as I am. I have a good and loyal friend. I still don't like people very much  and tolerate them and trust no one. But this is not a bad thing. There are many out there you can't trust. So I have that one person I can tell anything to and not face judgement. I didn't have this in 2010.

I've used twitter as an outlet but I'm slowly withdrawing from it. A week of silence last week did me good. I lived inside my head. I couldn't do this in the past.

John and I now see eachother every two weeks and this goes to once a month and so on. The work has been tough. Chronic depression doesn't just go away.  It will never really go away. You have to be taught how to manage it. And I don't quite have it sussed but I'm 80% there and if that's all I end up with then that will do.

Don't be ashamed of depression. Normally the judges are binge drinkers. Drunks. Believe me. They have a bigger problem than us.

If anyone does judge your mental health condition, do as I do. Tell them to fuck off.

Tim 2014

One for the lonely at Xmas...

Xmas is hard for many people. For those of us with depression it can be extra difficult. I've been trying to figure out why this is so. After all it's just one day. The problem is, this one day is built up to for over two months. A relentless barrage of imagery from advertising. These images are likely to make you feel inadequate if you are not part of a huge family who all sit round a table on the 25th. Or they are likely to make you feel excluded because you don't look like one of the beautiful people applying make up or spraying perfume.

Of course these adverts are all just vanity projects of the cunts who make them. There is nothing real within these images. But have you ever seen any Xmas imagery that represents those cast aside by society? Or an advert depicting a person who can't face days like this, so stay at home isolated and away from the overdose of bonhomie.

The only images you will see of this kind will normally involve the Sally Army cuddling some actor who's been paid to act homeless.

There will be a large amount of people out there who can't cope with the 25th of December but they don't get a look in.

Secondly, and personally, I find the need to celebrate Xmas for what seems like endless weeks is quite disturbing and very isolating. You will walk past the packed pubs and look in and see a world you simply don't feel you belong to or can possibly be part of.

But, my friends, most of the above is bullshit. It's not real.  And Xmas is just 24 hours long. It is way past being anything to do with religion. It is now about greed and excess. It's about fucking someone at the staff party. It's about throwing up in public because you can't handle your booze. Do you really wish to be part of this? And yes, many people do have large extended families but the majority don't.

All of the above isolates people like us. The 'sensitive ones'. You are constantly told that it's a time of year for spending with your loved one. What if you don't have one?  The truth is most of the imagery represents a time long lost. Or it's a middle class ideal. I don't recognize any of the images I see leading up to Xmas. They are alien.

I'm a big fan of January 2nd. It signals normality. Whatever that is. But don't go sitting there thinking you have to love Xmas and that if you don't you are somehow fucked up.

I will be 49 on Xmas eve. I've been through much in those 49 years. Xmas makes me extra sensitive. Not because I'm getting older but because it sets me off on a trip down memory lane I'd rather not go on.

I'm not the miserable cunt I come across as on twitter and I'm not the loud mouth either. I'm a quiet reclusive person the vast majority of time. I'm lonely much of the time yes and this is why I wrote this. For the lonely people who may feel even more isolated and cut off from everyone else. Well, you're not. You, like I, just walk differently from those others.

Switch it off. Put your favorite music on. Shut out the imagery. It soon gives over on Xmas day
afternoon to Boxing Day sales and the death of our culture and the death of the morality of the people fucking mad enough to camp out for a sale. They're the unwell ones.

I find much of Xmas morbid. The way people say goodbye to eachother on the last day of work like a death is about to happen. It's melancholic in the extreme and we already know about that via our black dog. Remember, the TV or magazine adverts are made by pigs for pigs.

You will survive.

Tim (London2013)