depression – and so she thinks

Will Green – Default Setting: A Nervous Breakdown

admin — Mon, 16 May 2016 18:42:02 +0000

Edward has a history of alcoholism and substance abuse, as well as self harm. When we meet him in Default Setting – A Nervous Breakdown he has just split up with Jess, the girl he thought was the love of his life. She’s gone off with someone else. And so begins his descent again.

Will Green‘s debut novel tells the story of Edward Staten (29), a recovering addict whose broken heart triggers a relapses into a self-destructive, alcohol and drug fuelled nervous breakdown. A miswiring in the brain, a bad situation, a broken relationship – such events can be triggered by anything and quickly spiral out of control. There but for the grace of God go us all. Will wrote the novel as a way to both communicate the experience of depression and a nervous breakdown, and because the process of writing was one that enhanced his own wellbeing. It’s not an autobiography or factual account, but inevitably some of his experiences and emotions linger through the text.

In fact, much of what Ed describes in the first person narration will be familiar to anyone who has encountered mental distress or ill health in any way. In the street people edge away from him ‘like they are scared that my sadness is infectious.’ He has friends, but for the main these are pub and club buddies, and besides, when you ask someone how they are, no one actually wants to know. Isolated and fighting, he tries to run away from his reality and emotions. But salvation and happiness isn’t to be found in a piece of cake, a glass of wine, or the harder stuff that he resorts to.

This short novel is punchy and to the point, detailing his pub fuelled nights, coke binges, dealings with dealers, fights and police warnings, and a suicide attempt that sees him in a psychiatric ward. It’s not for the easily shaken, because it does not glamourise addiction, depression, or suicide, but paints them in the stark and bleak colours that they cloud lives with. Simply written, it’s never going to be one of the literary greats, and certain areas of Ed’s life, such as his teaching career and relationships with family are not as satisfyingly developed as they could be, but this honest depiction of a harrowing experience is well worth a read.

Default Setting: A Nervous Breakdown is available as a download for £2.99 on I-tunes, Amazon, Google Play andKobo.

My Beautiful Black Dog

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 21:50:27 +0000

It’s running late, and if we don’t start soon, I’ll have to miss it.The packed line up at the Southbank’s Changing Minds festival means I’ve booked events back to back and delays are screwing my schedule. A one woman musical soirée about depression – I get where this is going, it’s fine. But I am aware it sold out super quick, and many others gathering around me are talking about how it’s their second or third time seeing the show – they love it so much. Perhaps I’ll stay for a bit.
I stay until the end. And I’m so glad I did.
Taking its name from Winston Churchill’s famous moniker for the depression which reared up throughout his life, My Beautiful Black Dog is not about sadness or gloom, but ultimately a play about life. This is acceptance of life.
Bridget Aphrodite and her boyfriend Quiet Boy tell the story of depression through song, poetry, comedy and glitter – so much glitter. It’s both a performance of celebration and acceptance. There’s not a happy ending, but it does end with smiles.
Shimmer, rainbows, high heels and flamboyance are counterpointed by black holes of despair, self loathing and a void – in both her life and on stage. There was a time in her life when she was either paralytic from alcohol at all times of the day or unable to lift herself up from the heavy weight of depression, once not leaving her bed for three weeks. As she says flippantly, things were so bad that she couldn’t even watch Clueless, the movie she deems to be the best ever.
There’s some beautifully tender moments, like when we see Quiet Boy bringing Bridget the radio to listen to Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service, and their warm smiles at the end, or when Aphrodite reads a punchy and sensitive letter to her familiar. The entire show manages to be tender as well as direct, as slang and made up vernacular becomes infused with the brutally affecting emotion of the situations.
Around me are grinning faces, shimmying chests, people tapping their feet and laughing. But there’s also those being hugged by friends as they cry in recognition of those days Bridget evokes on stage. Insightful and entertaining, it is a joyous piece of entertainment that reflects without knocking the complexities of life. Acknowledging whilst not resigning herself to its difficulties, there’s a sense that Aphrodite finds herself now in a wholehearted embrace of the vicissitudes of life.
As she sings ‘there will be sunshine after the rain’ she adds the comment ‘but it will rain again.’
Fast paced, chaotic and ramshackle, it’s not always an easy and ordered watch – but you know what? Neither is life.
And it’s all the more beautiful for it.

Reasons To Stay Alive – Matt Haig

admin — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 13:15:00 +0000

In the last couple of years the topic of mental health has been afforded more column inches, and there have been many campaigns and movements to encourage us to speak more about our mental wellbeing. Yet we are still light years away from ‘parity of esteem’ with physical health, and as the illustrations from Robert Hugs shows, comments such as ‘chin up’ and ‘it could be worse’ are considered to be helpful.
There’s no rhyme or reason to depression, no cause. The rich and beautiful are not immune, as the tragic death of Robin Williams last year demonstrated. Abraham Lincoln, Halle Berry, Jim Carrey, Emma Thompson, Mozart, Tennessee Williams ad Buzz Aldrin are all successful people who also suffer or suffered depression. Scientists disagree on the neurological basis of it. Haig suggests that one cause may be the Pressure of the modern world and its overwhelming bombardment of stimulation and demands, but he certainly does not lay the blame here. The problem is that the brain is so complex, infinitely unfathomable. Our brains alone have a hundred billion cells, each cell being made up of roughly a hundred trillion atoms. The brain is capable of great things and vast thought, as well as ‘the capacity to feel a whole universe’s worth of darkness.’
Although the signs were there earlier on, it was Haig’s first intense anxiety attack aged 24, whilst living a hedonic lifestyle in Ibiza, that triggered his severe depression. Describing the physical sensations of this mental illness – sweating, dizziness, asphyxiating pressure on the lungs, a chest feeling like it is about to cave in, thirst, tension – as well as the sensations in the mind of darkness, ominous fear, consuming fire and a strangling intolerable sadness. Over the next few years he uses the tools of yoga, reading, writing, running – and love – to life himself out of these severe phase, and find reasons to live once again. It’s not easy. As he says, ‘People say “take it one day at a time”. But days were mountains and a week was a trek across the Himalayas.’
For a book centring on suicide and depression, this is an uplifting read. It’s sad to know that the brain is capable of feeling this way, but also reassuring to see a way out of it. There’s a calmness that comes with the thought that to ‘just be’ is not only enough, but a viable alternative.
This is a book about finding that ‘break in the clouds’ and noticing it, riding the flickers of hope until moments become minutes become hours become days. Haig is not angry at his illness, but thanks it as the ‘price of feeling life.’ And of course, it’s testament to the wonder of writing. Before depression Matt Haig was not a writer. Now he is a published author and award winning novelist. ‘The process of writing, combined with an increase in self-esteem that being published gave me, has helped more than I can say. It was a defence mechanism. It gave me purpose. It might have even saved my life.’
Published on March 5th 2015 by Canongate.

Mindfulness for Black Dogs & Blue Days: Finding a Path Through Depression

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:54:24 +0000

Author: Richard Gilpin
As a counsellor, cognitive behavioural psychotherapist and meditation instructor, it’s fair to say Richard Gilpin is knowledgeable about the workings of the mind. But as a sufferer of depression – the ‘black dog’ that hounds one in five of us – he has also had first-hand experience of the mind’s ability to mould, meddle and warp our perceptions and experiences of the world. In this book he examines the relationship between mindfulness and a healthy mind.
While primarily focused on the application of mindfulness for helping to relieve the debilitating effects of depression, this book also makes a compelling argument for the commonsense reality of recognising things for what they are. Mindfulness and meditation can be dismissed as ephemeral fancy, but Gilpin’s explanation of mindfulness as simply being aware, an ability to see what is really there, and therefore make the space to take action for what you really want, seems so blindingly obvious and sensible that I wonder why I have not thought of this before.
A wizard with vocabulary, sometimes the language is a little overly florid, which won’t help convince anyone who is not already interested in the concept of mindfulness and connecting with the inner self. Take this summary of waking up and getting out of bed in the morning: “Galvanized into action by one effortless act of will, I discover myself rising, casting off this shroud of a duvet, pulling back the curtains and becoming enveloped in light.” Quite.
Essentially the suggestion is one of perspective, and mindfulness and awareness is positioned as transformative and empowering, by offering the opportunity to reconnect with what is there. When depressed, there is a huge difficulty in recognising what is actually going on, and the more that the positive is filtered out to focus on the negative, the greater the downward spiral of despair that a sufferer finds themselves in.
This blinkered approach to life is not unique to depression, and in today’s stressful, busy, and demanding lifestyles, the conflicting pressures often mean that we lose sight of some realities. By being mindful and aware, we are offered a freedom to choose that which matters to us.
The final chapter in the book is introduced thus: “The path of mindfulness leads us back to where we started the ordinary and immediate experience of being in the world. There never was anywhere else to go.” This for me encapsulates the message of the book. Depression, indeed life, cannot be run away from, squashed or avoided. By recognising the world as it is and our emotions for what they are, we are better prepared to respond in a way that is positive and developing, rather than react in alarm. Gilpin couldn’t have a healthier message for the mind.
See the original post on Positive News