Yesterday I was a sad panda.
It started when I had to cycle to work because I had no
money for train fare, a mere 13 days in to the month. Then, when I had started work I looked at the
diary for next week and found I’ll doing a few things I’d rather not be
doing. Then I had to sit through a
meeting taken by my insufferable buffoon of a manager who, like many managers,
has no ears to hear when we are telling him why shit aint working. Then I had
too much to do and lost my temper and swore at a colleague who, though being a
knob at the time, really didn’t deserve it.
In the greater scheme of things I have absolutely no “right”
to be sad. I have a roof over my head
and food in the house. I’m not seriously
ill and neither are any of those who are dearest to me. I am married to a woman who has lovely
breasts and still lets me see them. I
have two lovely cats who give me lots of love and I get to play on the internet
a lot when I can’t afford to go out, which is most of the time. I get Sky, Spotify, have a Kindle Touch and
am a Planet Rock subscriber so most of my media wants are taken care of. I’ve repaired the relationships that I
damaged in my past, or at least the ones that matter. So why so sad, Glad?
First of all, when people say things like “you’ve got no
right to be miserable” they are talking utter pig-poo. Of course one has the right, we live in a
relatively free country where despite what the right-on may think thought
control has not gone as far as telling people how to feel “or else”. If I want to be fucked off then I bloody well
will be. If you win £100 million on the
Euro lottery thingy you still have the RIGHT to be pissed off if you choose to
though you will of course look like a total dickhead.
Secondly and most pertinently, people who are depressed
don’t generally choose to be and on the whole would rather not be. I got past the idea of being withdrawn and
insular as a way to impress girls when I was 18 and even then I never thought
it was a generally good approach to life in general. Depression is an illness that many are prone
and have little choice in, notwithstanding medical treatment. Can you imagine a world where we say to
people “what right do you have to get asthma?” or “how dare that millionaire
football player say they suffer with Ulcerative Colitis”? Yet change either ailment for depression and it
seems to be fair comment. Stan Collymore
is a fairly reprehensible person by most standards but I when he announced he
was suffering from depression his manager at the time insinuated he was some
sort of fairy, as if depression was a made up illness for weak and lazy people. In his case, mental health issues would
explain a lot of his subsequent behaviour. Sadly, mine too.
I have been prone to bouts of depression since my teens and
it has no doubt affected many areas of my life; a crippling lack of confidence
at such a vital stage of my mental and emotional development has had long term
repercussions on my “success” in life.
It may sound big headed of me but I have underachieved academically and
in vocationally; most people that know me well would probably agree. Most of this is down to self-confidence. True confidence makes up for so much
else. I don’t mean that superficial,
wear-it-on-the-sleeve kind of confidence that so many young people like to
announce they have because clearly they don’t.
I mean that deep, ingrained belief in oneself, that idea that anything
truly is possible with enough application.
I’d very much like to be more handsome, slimmer, more stylish and so on
in many, many regards but with enough confidence one can more than compensate
for any lacking in those areas. Sadly, I
am not that confident. It varies from
day to day but my opinion of myself varies from thinking that I’m an ok guy
with some good points to utter disgust.
Some years back now, when the brown stuff hit the ventilator
and I went to see the mental health nurse for a diagnosis I was in such a state
and so alarmed at my unpredictable behaviour that I thought I was
bi-polar. I was not. Most people who think they are bi-polar do so
due to extreme mood swings, like the ones I was having that lost me so many
friends but like me most of those people are not bi-polar. People with bi-polarity disorder are effectively
crippled by the intensity of their lows and a danger to their own well-being
when high. I was not suicidally low and
though my highs led to some foolish behaviour, particularly regarding spending,
I was not going out and trying to buy aircraft carriers on credit. It sounds interesting to say “Oh yes, I’m
bi-polar” but believe me, you don’t want to be.
So I got diagnosed which was actually quite a relief.
You know those cards you can get for your desk that say “You
don’t have to be mad to work here… but it helps” or some similar banality? I want to get one made up that says:
“You don’t have to
have traits of a borderline personality disorder to work here but if you do
you’ll fit in fairly well”.
There, I can’t even be mental properly. “Traits of”!
Effectively I have some elements but not all of a Borderline Personality
Disorder with underlying depression; coupled together this causes anxiety that
I shouldn’t really have as I have little to be anxious about! The “borderline” part of the diagnosis needs
to be understood. It does not mean that
this is almost a proper disorder (though in my case it is almost a proper
disorder). Borderline means pretty much
on the border between different behaviours; manic, depressive, disorganised,
compulsive, obsessive and so on. This is
where the wild mood swings come in.
Though my “traits of” diagnosis did in part make me feel I was making
much ado about nothing it was also a relief in that the actual process of being
diagnosed had made me write down how I thought of my own behaviour in many
different aspects, thus helping me recognise what was fairly normal and what
was, frankly, just a bit odd. As a consequence I can in most situations now
tell when my feelings, which used to overwhelm me, need to be controlled and my
disorder taken in to account. As an
example, I used to often feel bitterness towards groups of friends if I felt
that I was being left out in some way, now if I start to feel that way I can
talk myself up again, make myself realise that I am entering a destructive
cycle of withdrawal that will alienate me further if I am indeed alienated at
all. The thoughts still come but now I
can step back from them, analyse them and tell them to fuck off.
As for fitting in fairly well in my work place, I can think
of at least three people in my office who are considerably more mental than me,
who appear to have quite serious defects in their personality but appear to be
oblivious to how they are perceived by others.
Another colleague is quite open about having depression, indeed has it
much worse than I ever had, yet her behaviour is a lot more normal than my own,
at least to my eyes. Ultimately it is
far too easy to pin how we behave to some medical or psychological reason
rather than admitting we are at fault in other ways. I could say I snapped at my colleague
yesterday because I have traits of a Borderline Personality Disorder,
depression and anxiety but it is more likely I snapped because I was pissed off
and didn’t want to deal with the ‘phone call I was dealing with. The increasingly bizarre behaviour of some of
my colleagues could be down to a personality disorder or they may just be
oddballs with no sense of self-awareness.
And I may have lost friends, got in to debt, flirted and got drunk for
mental health reasons but it may just be that I was an arsehole. Either way, I am reapplying for admittance to
the human race so please bear with me.
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