Surviving Depression.

Isolation and Wishing for Monday to Come

2016-08-13T01:08:00.000+01:00

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.

2016-01-22T10:51:00.003+00:00

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

2015-11-04T18:14:00.002+00:00

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

2015-07-15T11:10:00.001+01:00

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

2015-07-09T06:13:00.000+01:00

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

2015-07-07T10:54:00.001+01:00

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.

2014-11-03T01:04:00.001+00:00

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.

2014-08-22T22:59:00.001+01:00

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.

2014-01-14T09:40:00.002+00:00

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...

2013-12-23T02:03:00.000+00:00

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)

Xmas and Social-phobia/Isolation.

2013-12-04T10:19:00.002+00:00

I spoke of social isolation in my last blog and the weekly work I've done with John to conquer this for the past four years. This time of year challenges what I've taken on board but I fucking dread it. I'm not my best around fake bonhomie at the best of times but December brings it on like an express train of vomit.

The work I do with John is entirely based on my childhood and the schemas that were put in place back then and shape your life. It's a fascinating but scary process. Facing demons is hard but John has shown me that everything I do now, the way I behave, was shaped from about the age of 7.

My Dad died last week. Making this time of year all the more difficult. But that's for another blog. I haven't filtered this properly yet.

I'm not going to be forced into doing Xmas stuff. In the past I felt like I had to go to parties at work or pretend I like being squashed in a pub surrounded by people I don't like very much anyway. I'm selective on whom I like and whom I wish to spend any time with. I operate most of my life solo. I have my close friend and can confide in her.

My big change is that I'm comfortable now to decide I don't like this that and the other. Take away my depression, BDD, social phobia, and I'm quite sure I wouldn't like doing these things anyway. In fact most of the elements listed here don't haunt me as much as they once did. I've told John that I'm not putting myself through hell in a pub or a party just because I HAVE to. I don't have to. I find people who've had a drink repulsive at the best of times. Call it another lesson of childhood well learnt.

I like the things I like. I'm not clever or cultured because I watch French films. I like them because they speak to me. My mind is filled with images. Images invade me. I fall in love at least twice a month. I get crushes that crush me at least once a week. I sometimes skew reality with what I watch on film. Even my poems are for a muse I've never met or seen. I think my single sexless life for 7 years has taken its toll but sometimes the films, the images, the non existent muse, are enough. They are my souls companion. I must sound a right cunt but I'm not. I'm just a tad too honest, not a trait that wins you much kudos these days. I must sound or read like a loser. I'm not. I was dealt a hand that just means I can't cope with things that some others find easy.

When you are a single person, this time of year is extra tough but it's only an illusion. An illusion not helped by TV ads telling you Xmas is a time to be around love ones. Images of the beautiful people handing each other perfume etc. It's all bollocks.

This time of year just highlights social phobia, isolation, awkwardness. If you struggle like me then read this and take it in. You don't have to go to the lousy fucking office party. You don't have to do anything in this life you don't want to do. Instead of feeling like an outcast look at it this way. I don't have to follow sheep. I Make my own life. I'm a one off. I'm an individual. I find my happiness in other ways and not the ways of a society that only appears happy when it's pissed and puking up in a gutter or kissing people it doesn't even know.

This is how I do it.

I am who I am.

Tim, London 2013

Social Isolation/Twitter and I.

2013-11-13T12:24:00.003+00:00

It's very difficult to explain what work I do with John and have done for coming on for four years come January. If you are reading this you will be on the internet. It's called Schema Therapy, a form of deep CBT. Look it up. They are the root to my chronic depression.

I have two schemas that I scored highest on when assessed. Defective and Social Isolation. I have a deep seared belief that I am defective. BDD if you like. I do believe this. I believe I am ugly and have no relation in looks and physicality to any other man. This has been my belief for as far back as my mind takes me. John has proved to me that these beliefs were established in me around the age of 7/8. My learning difficulty was badly dealt with at School. I am dyslexic. John diagnosed this when I was 45!!

So social isolation. Sounds straight forward enough. Far from it. I find it almost impossible to do things that most find so easy. The idea of say going in to a pub full of people will keep me awake for days. Going to the supermarket takes days of mental planning. My life is going to work and coming home the quickest way possible.

People say, 'you live in London, how can you avoid people ?'. Easy ..London makes it easier in that I can get lost in crowds of strangers. It's the up close and personal stuff that I find impossible.

It has cost me much. I am a total social recluse. I can't establish relationships, love, sex, and all the messy stuff. I've been single coming up to a decade. It has cost me just experiencing things.

Some things are not so hard to do now. I can plan to go the Theatre in advance.

Strangely I can sit in a bar in Paris and feel ok. It's as if the language barrier somehow protects me.

I live alone. I have just the one friend who I trust my life with. I live in a darkness that is so hard to put into words. Desolate. Empty. Noisy silence.

I've never written anything for sympathy. I am not looking for it. I write and tweet truths about it just so people may understand a bit more or someone may think it sounds familiar and that they won't have to feel alone.

And that brings me to why I tweet. It's my company. My lover. My mate. My outlet. My pub.
People dig at me for the time I spend tweeting. Because they are perfect. Always strange how they tweet me this info. It's allowed me expression, creation, proper friendship. My shell opened up on it.

I'm an ok person. Not mad. Never been arrested. I work hard for the down trodden in my community.

Twitter is my small entry into a social life. It is mainly safe. I've been tweeting for 4 years. Folk who have followed me that long kind of know me. I've never known anyone for 4 years apart from my parents.

It will sound very melodramatic to those who don't suffer the side dishes of depression but it saved my life to a degree. I know this to be 100% true.

I started the Pinter acc and it's loved. And despite the big names who follow it
the big joy for me is been a kid says he picked up a play and read it for the first time because of it. That's my being social. I exist most days. So don't judge me.

Tim ...London 2013

Depression...the real last Taboo

2012-10-20T00:54:00.002+01:00

You know me by now...you know me by now because you follow me on twitter. I tend to speak off the cuff. I don't shirk the issue. I am a truth teller...well, ok it is my truth. Facing the truth will free you.

Here we are late in 2012 and depression is still a taboo subject. And coming from a man???..shock horror..shoot me now!!

I get a little pissed off with the 'celebrity' depression. They check in to The Priory because they can afford the £500 per nigh fee's. They normally check in after a tabloid has caught them with their nose in the coke bag. Best to say you are having a break down rather than just casually experimenting with Class A drugs. For some reason this kind of 'depression' will win you kudos.

I am not saying for one minute that because you are famous you can't suffer depression. It is an illness that knows no divide. It is just that small number of assholes who can see their career going down the shitter and turn to depression and The Priory to court sympathy.

Bipolar seems trendy with this sort of person at the moment. I have been in hospital with people who suffer bipolar....it is no to be mocked...and I find it astonishing the high level jobs the trendy bipolar celeb has. Presenting TV shows...etc etc....I will leave it there.

Depression kills....depression is something that people would rather not talk about. Well tough...because talking is what is needed.

I have had a good life, up to a point. It could have been worse but it could have been much better. Depression has cost me so much.

I have been in recovery now for 3 years...as you know my therapist is a genius. He pulled me from my gutter. I have to fight it everyday but these days I tend to win.

It has cost be relationships...the reason I am long term single is so that I could deal with this black dog on my shoulder and not bring my gloom on others. So now I am 48 and, well, maybe the 'big love' has passed me by. I will not get depressed about this...(promise...it's a joke)

I shall be doing some blogs in the coming weeks and try and tell my side of what it has taken to beat the darkness.....beat is a bit final....I am beating it...that sounds more active.

I love life...I have my 'own way'. Others would see it has lonely, maybe...but I like what and who I am now.

It took 20 years but ...I would not change it. It has shaped me......odd that really.

T.R London 2012

ATOS ..The Shit That Stinks The Sewer.

2012-08-30T08:02:00.000+01:00

I am not someone The Daily Mail can put a label on. Never been a ponce. Paid my Tax. Worked since 16.

A couple of years back I did need the help of the benefits system for a very short period of time, like most normal people will do at some point in their working lives. The majority of us have uncertain jobs. We are not all Civil Servants who appear to believe they are entitled to everything.

Because of my various battles with Depression/BDD I was forced, by one of the best Psychologists in the business, to take time out of work.

I found myself sitting in front of an ATOS health worker. The whole experience was humiliating.

I don't mind someone questioning mine or anyone else's health condition if they hold a qualification within the particular field of expertise in your condition.

I sat in front of someone who had 'Nurse' on their badge. Now I am not trying to be a cunt here but I would not discuss my health to an NHS nurse. A nurse is a nurse. A nurse is NOT a Dr. Is NOT a consultant. Nurses are marvelous but they are not qualified to have opinions on clinical conditions. They are there to serve the condition.

From the moment I walked in the ATOS office I was struck by the coldness of the staff. In their eyes you were guilty as charged with Daily Mail crimes. ATOS employees are bastards.

I had the advantage of not having to worry that their decision on me would ruin me. I would return to work at anytime. Because of this advantage I took on the person who interviewed me.

He had a list of set questions that had no relation to my problems.

I asked him what right he had to question a very experienced 58 year old Psychologist. I asked him what he knew about BDD or Chronic Depression. He had no clue the former existed and he did not know what Chronic meant. I kid you not.

The whole attitude of ATOS staff to me would have made Hitler blush.

They are sub human, these people. No one can possibly love them. How do they sleep at night? Where is their humanity? Where are their ethics if they are nurses/Dr's. Ask any Dr worth his salt and he/she will say they have no clue who ATOS Dr's are or where they came from.

I don't hate them because they cut me off....they didn't. I was successful. I hate them because of what they represent.

There are people out there taking the piss out of the system. Just come round here and check the amount of people with Blue Badge disabled car parking permits. These same people get around perfectly OK. There is a woman on my block who has not worked for 15 years and many of us here could not say why. She has a good life on benefits and yes she should be held to account.

But 99.9% of people who have to go through the system are genuine. They deserve better than an amateur organization like ATOS.

ATOS is a fake company. No one who works for them is a genuine Dr. If they are then the ethical body that looks after Dr's and Nurses should strike them off.

The contempt I have for ATOS knows no bounds. They are the scum of the earth. As low a form of life that you can find. I include every single one of their employee's in this.

I would rather starve and live homeless than ever let these people dictate my life.

I can only wish the most awful things upon anyone who works for them. The planned occupations of their offices is, in my eyes, not enough, but it will do for now.

London 2012

Recovery and Living

2012-03-25T09:31:00.000+01:00

I often receive moving emails, comments, regarding my vlogs and blogs about mental health issues. Total strangers step out from the dark.

My own rehab and recovery has taken 15 hard years. Time I will never get back, but if my role in life is to speak out, it will all be worth it. I will not stand by and watch the discrimination and sending to Coventry of those who live in darkness. this 'thing' has been part of my life since a teenager and now I feel like I have cut the chains....

I have sacrificed happiness to get my head right....that is probably the wrong expression....a chronic depressive sacrificing happiness!! What I mean is, I have had to do this on my own. Year upon year of coming home to total silence. Everyone turned their back....but I am their loss...

I have met so many people on this path that I would never have met, so in one way I am grateful to my demons. I have also been treated by the most amazing inspiring people. I am lucky but I had to fight for it. Depression and BDD are aliens in our society of bullshit and shallow ideals. I do know now that I will never step inside The Priory again.

I have been with John for 2 years and 3 months now. He has changed my life and I owe him everything. I know by my recent relapse that this will never really be over....but I also know by the way I dealt with it that I do now have the tools to help myself.

I will never plan life......I never have. I just go with it....I am far more chilled then I have ever been in my life.

Someone said a really amazing thing to me at work the other day....they said ''you are a happy person''.....this means so much to me...that I outwardly now look like someone who is always laughing and having a laugh. Inwardly this is also true 80% of the time.....the other 20% can go and fuck itself.

I now feel like the radical I once was again.....going to work back in Theatre again is just the cherry on top....it completed me. That is why I love it. Was my first love at 16....

I now know the limitations of everything and the potential of nothing.....that is how you keep a level head.

Thanks for reading..............

Tx (London, March 2012)

40 years repaired in 2 years

2011-12-27T06:31:00.000+00:00

I will never be totally free of my demons but I hope I now have the tools to manage them.

The past two years have been tough in terms of therapy and the work I have had to put in. I have not finished with John quite yet but I am a different man now.

My body issues still always pop up in conversation and there are some aspects of me I will never be convinced about; I just feel now that these are not running my life any more. I am getting bolder socially and I walk around with a 'bit' more confidence.

2011 has been so important for me and I am a little bit proud of myself. The work I have to do on myself will never end but I am happy to do it.

Depression and BDD have both blighted my life in a way I am not talented enough to be able to express in words but I now hope I can live with some quality of life....I aim to carry on exposing the discrimination that persons with mental health issues face in so called 'normal' society.

We are all normal; its just that some of us are brave enough to admit to our demons and fight them back.

Tim (London 2011)

I will FIGHT in your corner

2011-12-12T11:25:00.003+00:00

There is no end to depression....there is just the management of it. This last two years has changed me and having found John is the best thing that ever happened to me. He is a top class therapist. But it will all be wasted if I let go of what I have been taught.

My role now is to fight for the rights of those who suffer the stigma and discrimination of mental illness in whatever form it takes. I will go after the bastards who make life hell for those already in a type of hell.

I don't care who you are, if you continue with the attitude this Country has to depression I am going to expose you in public. Name and shame is the game.

The rest of my life will be spent looking out for those who have no voice. I am an activist and it is what I was put here to be. Your move.....but be sure of one thing. You do not want to pitch against me.

Tim (London December 2011)

Big Men do Cry...Depression and being a Man about it.

2011-11-29T07:07:00.001+00:00

Nobody knows why Gary Speed took his life and I have no right to speculate so I won't. However, his suicide has prompted a debate on both radio and television regarding men and depression.

I have often wanted to do a blog so that I can do this subject justice, because as you know I am a walking expert on chronic depression, but I always fear my dyslexia will prevent me from really hammering home how desolate this cruel illness really is and how society still shuns it.

I have suffered and when I say suffer I mean really suffer. I tried to take my life, and no it was not a cry for help. I just wanted out of the darkness. This attempt resulted in my being locked up on an acute mental ward back in 1998. I spent 4 other occasions on such a ward. I also received 12 x ECT...known to you as Electric Shock Treatment in 1999.....I am still here. And I have a voice.

Really from that day on people started to shun me; it was a rapid process. I mean I am a man and I am not supposed to be 'weak'. Women treat you the worst believe it or not but that is for another day.

I have been in and out of therapy now for 17 years and it has been tough and I have now sustained the longest period of my life without having a depressive episode. The last one was a year ago this month. I was lucky in that I met John and with his brilliant method of Therapy over the past 3 years I am getting there but it has been so hard.

We have a problem in the UK and men seem to be taking the brunt of it. Who are we and what are we these days? Who cares for male issues? We have a society problem in that as men we are not supposed to cry or suffer and if you do it is seen as weakness. Don't believe all that a woman likes to see a man cry.

I have spent year after year after year on my own. Night after night after night. How many people reading this have gone over ten years without the security of a simple arm around your shoulder? I have learned to live with silence and isolation and made myself a better person for it but by all accounts I should be long dead.

Depression is a dark hole and lives behind the eyes. Don't pretend you know what is going on with someone just because they appear to have it all. Depression does not discriminate in any way.

Men are asked to 'open up' but when they do everyone takes cover. Men told that they need to go and speak with someone; well your first port of call would be a GP and lets face it their surgeries all appear to have been built for women only.

We live in a country where being a man means you are very much diluted when it comes to health. I could write a book on this subject but I would bore myself with it.

The stigma for men with depression or any mental illness is 10 fold on what it is for women. And it is the great scandal of the early 21st Century that this country is more than a little in the dark ages in attitude.

Don't shun people with depression if you know someone because you will lose them one day. We don't listen to melancholy music all the time and cry. Most of us will find a dark room and suffer alone until it passes and then we just get on with life. But do make sure you talk...talk to those you
know.

Me? I will survive......I am going nowhere and doing life solo has taught me much. I kind of love me now but only kind of and that is a better place than I have ever been in.

We live in a country where macho men are lauded and where so called weakness is bullied. It is us who look in the mirror and acknowledge our problem who are the real macho ones. Big men do cry.

Tim (London Nov 2011)

NHS Embrace Mindfulness

2011-08-13T09:21:00.001+01:00

I am at a critical part of my long term rehab and therapy with John. I told him yesterday that I am aware how lucky I am not have had 19 months of hard core schema therapy on the NHS. I have built in values that make me appreciate this fully. I am different now....I am not the broken person who walked into Crisis 22 months ago.

I have also been part of a group that investigates the complexes of emotions....but I have been even luckier having been invited to a group that investigates Mindfulness....meditation. It has yielded good results in helping chronic depression....it is now on the list of repairs for depression by NICE.

I am starting to try it but concentration is one of the hardest things for me so I will have to work harder.

I am fascinated by two facts....a Buddhist Monk was put through an MIR scan and his brain make up was different to the average.....but so was a London Taxi Drivers....how mad is that?

Knowing what fucked my head up as a kid is something that I can now get over....having the tools etc kind of helps. I have also been allowed to embrace who I am....I sold him(me) down river slightly...victim of a working class stereotype....I like the things I like and it is ok to be different....as for my sexuality, I don't give a fuck what anyone says about it anymore.....I am who I am.....

Tim (London August 2011)

Self Harm..Some Truths and Myths

2011-07-26T14:40:00.000+01:00

Some of the journalism recently has spoken nothing but festering dog shit about self harm. I imagined that going to university improved your brain but it appears they all leave them there...here are some truths to take away some myths.

Firstly, as is often said, self harm is not attention seeking in the vast majority of cases. It is something very private and something that most hide. I am asked about the healed fab burns on my arms. If the person can handle the truth I will tell them it but they are not medals of war so I avoid it.

At its height I self harmed everyday for about 4 years....mainly burning and self medicating. I am lucky that most days I never think like this anymore.

Self harm can lead you to elation after you have just tried to fight off a tension to do something far worse...it is like a pressure release from a deep pain....a pain that has no word to describe it suitable in the English language.

When you are in mental pain/anguish you can not see it....it is 100% invisible. Self harm is part of ownership and control.....if you are in pain you may as well feel some. It is a way of retuning your brain...this is physical pain and that is mental pain.....believe me the mental one is far greater than a burn or a cut.

The idea that someone wakes up one day and says, ''uhm, think I will stub that fag out on my arm' is a ridiculous one and an opinion held by utter cunts (pardon my french).

The whole world of chronic depression and self harm is a very private affair....the isolation, desolation...the darkness. You would not wish it on a person you hate to the pits of the earth.

So all media wankers....do some research...ask some real people....or keep your collective mouths shut.

Our attitude to self harm in the UK is vile....cavemen would have known better.

T A Roberts ( London July 2011)

Don't Walk..........in Silence (self harm and near death)

2011-07-25T20:31:00.002+01:00

About 11 years ago I woke up to what I was doing to myself with self medication...I mean, I literally woke up.

All I remember was hearing my two telephones ringing and I woke up head down on my bedroom floor, fully dressed. My family had been trying to get hold of me and were quite mad at me....as I spoke on the phone I assumed it was Thursday, because it had been Thursday the last time I checked. The fact was it was Saturday and somehow I had lost two days...nights.

I have lived on my own for many, many years and it is almost a dead cert that no one would have rung on my door bell apart from the Postman. This little episode scared me because I was on my own and out of it....I ended up in A&E for two days after this whilst the medication left my body.

At this point I had not been in an acute ward for two years and my shrink was playing tough love with me by saying he would not stick me back in the mental hospital.

It still took me about 4 more years to pull away from self medication and burning my arms...when I have a deep depression now I have more of the tools to deal with it and I have not even thought of self harm....but the one thing that has really kept it at bay is that thought of dieing alone.....in silence...and maybe it being weeks before anyone found me.....

It is a strange kind of self therapy but it worked for me.... I am beating my demons....1 by 1....its a slow game one has to play.

T A Roberts (London July 2011)

Self Harm..The Ticking Bomb....Amy Winehouse

2011-07-23T19:17:00.001+01:00

Keith Moon self destructed at 32 but he had been self destructing from a young age. Yes it looks good in the papers.....sex,drugs, Rock n Roll. A book on Keith was written 10 years ago that suggested he suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder.

It is easy and ignorant to say that Amy Winehouse brought this on...it is plain fucking stupid.

Addiction is very rarely a route that anyone would choose....it is a mental illness....self destruction and self harm are not spoken about in the UK....it is easier to turn a blind eye and ignore it or point fingers and call the person weak. Well life must be so fucking perfect for you then and how lucky you are.

Most mental health issues are planted in you from young age...some may come via genes and some come through life experiences.....some are just a chemical in balance.

Amy was in pain...mental hell. That was plain for anyone who has suffered it to see. The unpredictable behavior....the need for drugs and drink to escape something very deeply planted.

Mental illness shows no discrimination....none at all...my one saving grace when locked up in a Rehab hospital was this....there were men and women from council estates.....and from very well to do back grounds. Their money did not help their hell and in some ways it made it worse. They could get hold of drugs that numb it all.

I am unusual for a man, my shrink and psychologist said in that I burn and cut and OD. This tends to be women in the main and men will destroy themselves with drink and drugs.......I ended up with ECT x 12...electric shock treatment....

I am very lucky.....Amy played her hell out in the media.....I did not have to and I can only imagine what a shit place she was at most days....no escape....no dark room........

Listen to Black to Black as an album....if it does not hurt you maybe you are not human. What a brilliant talent the curse of addiction has taken from us.....the curse of self harm and mental hell.

I don't believe that a words exists to quite do justice to the hell of mental illness....every existing word seems too nice.....

Good night Amy ... and so the final frame and yes you were self professed and profound.

T A Roberts (London 2011)

I will grow up to be a Man....One day (BDD attacks)

2011-07-16T17:43:00.001+01:00

Had an interesting therapy session with John on Friday; I was made to challange my deep belief system that I am defective....as I have mentioned before, my defective schema is the one that scored the highest and is the one that attacks me the most.

You see I believe that I don't look anything like a man....I do not look like the man types that I pass everyday and I am still in that teen mindset where you can not wait to grow up so that you can look like a grown up...as far as I am concerned I do not look anything like any other man. Even my beard is corrupt!

So I had to do the 'empty chair' method where I talk to me....as if my schema is talking to me....so I gave John quite a headache because he was scribbling stuff down at 100 miles per hour....I give him so much to work with because my condition is so so complex.....and I believe that I do look correct more then I have ever believed in anything else.

I have been under a BDD attack for the past week so it was a timely session.... I feel lucky that I have not had a chronic depression attack for some time now so it allows me to try and work on my body image stuff with a clearer mind.

John explained to me how our eyes see things differently when in a depression....I have often described it as a skewed vision...there is scientific proof that depression makes things look different and this is good to know because this is something I recognize. We also talked about dimensions and LCD.....this is how we roll.

I still know 100% that I am different and somehow do not fit in this world but I am managing it better now. I live an isolated life and do not wish to mix with people......I doubt that will ever change. But as long as I can get by on my own I will be ok................I have up until now...

T A Roberts (London July 2011)

Good Days, Mirrors And Beating BDD/Depression

2011-07-02T12:41:00.001+01:00

Things have slowly changed for me in the past 18 months of therapy. The mirror presents a challenge still but not to the degree that it once did. I shall forever have to fight BDD and Chronic Depression but I am now getting the tools to know how to.

I have returned to embracing the arts and the things that made me me. I was always the black sheep and now I am starting to this as a sign of strength rather than weakness. We live in a country where the majority seem to strive to be the same as the next person. How boring is a world like that?

I am different and I know I am....I only have to read my diagnostic sheet to know that...BDD, Chronic Depression, Personality Disorder, Anxiety Disorder. Makes me sound like a train crash. But I am not, I am just not the same as the rest and I am starting, very slowly, to see the uniqueness in it and embrace it like you would a fragile baby.

I have got away from needing love...sex..relationships....it has been nearly 7 years since I got up close and personal sexually. It was such a big deal to me but now I accept that I am not everyone's cup of tea and that this is part of life and that you have to get on with it. If I never kiss a girl or never have sex again it will not kill me and I need to stop beating me up....and how I did beat me up. The damage I have done to my person is too much to contemplate.

I think the thearapy has dampened my ability to write my poems.......so be it. My dyslexia is improving and I am reading like a book whore addicted to books..........I love this and what I am discovering. I found Theatre again, which is my only real love and my first. Life is good even though I am poorer then I have ever been.

Chronic depression will have its days with me, I know that and I am ready for it....it has been here forever but I will be able to fight back a bit more now.

I am in a good place and it is not all dark out there anymore..............for now.

T A Roberts (London July 2011)

Depression....Self Harm Vlog

2011-05-21T19:03:00.001+01:00