Umbrellas, depression and tightropes

A

-nalysing

the rainclouds doesn't make it rain

it allows you to assess the preparations you need to make

before                                   the                                  deluge

in

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er

to

mit

ig

       ate the

       effects

I have a tendency I know to intellectualise and to analyse as a way of addressing my demons.

For me it has to be that way. I have to rationalise before I can deal with the actual emotion although the rationalisation has never itself stopped the darkness from overwhelming me. I'm just trying to understand why I am like this... If I can understand it rationally then maybe I can get a firmer control on it emotionally.

My name is Chris and I am depressed.

I struggle with the word – because firstly, I don't want to be, secondly I don't want to label myself.

I don't want to be defined by the word any more than I want to be defined by a narrow view of what being male is about.

I don't want to use the label as an excuse.

I don't want to feel a sense of addiction to it.

But there is a sense in which this self-diagnosis is helpful. It helps me to forgive myself. It helps me to see my mental and emotional state as the result, perhaps the inevitable result, of the events of my life and the reactions I have had to them. It gives me an opportunity to say 'you did your best' to myself. And now also to say 'You may want to revisit those decisions you made back then and check they are still right for you. You may want to inspect the "rules" by which you have chosen your path in life and see if there aren't some tweaks that it would be beneficial to make. Are those rules still valid? Are they just? Are they relevant any more? Who made them in the first place and do you still respect the rule-makers?'

Depression is a negative thing because it causes the sufferer to feel like a victim of circumstances, to feel they are worthless but at the same time it places them at the centre of it all. 'The world/the universe/life/you have done this to Me...' 'Woe is me!'

The mighty Universe/God/you are all conspiring against me to make my life miserable – impossible even.

Everything becomes about how difficult my life is even though there are clearly those in the world whose physical circumstances are far worse than mine. And that leads to a sense of guilt and self admonishment that drives the depression further in, seats it more heavily within the dark, selfish soul of the sufferer – me.

Everything I experience I am able to fit into this pattern – someone else's wealth, health/fitness, success at some undertaking, artistic creation... all these just go to show how worthless my contribution is, how unsuccessful my efforts are. It's all a fiction, of course, but don't for a moment think that makes it less potent.

And Shame...

for me this is the biggy. I have come to recognise how shame has been passed down through my upbringing and Catholic faith. The subtle insistent undermining and devaluing of human instinct, human appetites, in search of some vague notion of eternal bliss.

I'm not blaming my parents. They were unconditionally loving and kind and warm, but they too were governed by a sense of shame – a moral code that was built upon the Christian understanding of Good and Evil. Everything has been about expunging the Evil, the Dark Side, and honouring only the unselfish, the giving, the loving. I don't know how to 'feel' any different because feelings are such deeply rooted things – they are based on the deeply instilled messages we receive from infancy. How do we rewrite that coding? How are we reborn and allowed to rebuild our world view with a more human/animal based morality – a morality which works for humanity as a social species living on this blue planet at this time in history in the company of a million other species.

Intellectually, I rejected in my thirties the structured religion that I was raised in and yet shame operates still. It's a vicious cycle – I feel shame at not listening to the voice of shame. In some ways it feels as if it's not that I have stopped believing in God, it's just I have determined to live my life without acknowledging God. I know God exists I just don't want to pay any attention to it. So my punishment is still accruing like unpaid library fines.

Shame tells me to behave. It tells me what misbehaviour is and that if I indulge in misbehaviour then I am 'dirty, perverted, immoral, unclean, unfit, sick...' the list goes on.

Shame tells me depression is a 'shameful' feeling – it is not real – it is controllable and simply an indulgence like masturbation, or biscuit eating, or drinking too much. Shame is literally a dis-ease.

So how do we integrate all these elements into one healthy human being?

I don't know.

How do I – without rationalising to some extent – undo the conditioning that has brought me to this place?
I don't know.

All I know is I have to keep asking that question.
All I know is that I have to seek to remove or at the very least recognise where shame is playing its part. Why am I feeling ashamed of what I am doing?

I have become keenly aware of shame having a physical effect upon me. It causes me to squirm, twitch and judder, to tense my muscles against themselves. It is a physical energy within me making me cringe. Sometimes it hits me as a full belly blow – a wrecking ball swinging into my gut. It is literally a physical sensation and a mental image that recurs time and again. The squirming, too – as if I am trapped in my body and that if I can just wriggle and stretch in just the right way I can break free from it and leave all the shit behind like a sloughed skin in the bed.

At other times the energy manifests as extreme sexual longing, an erotic desire for physical love – a sexual feeling of wanting to penetrate and consume another being and to offer myself up to that experience without hindrance from morality and social mores. I want to be consumed in the same way. Feel the passion of which I have always been, yes you guessed it, ASHAMED!

Anyone who follows @KnightAberrant on twitter will have read my sexual, passionate yearnings, for yes he is that part of me. And then sometimes he dies inside me when the shame is too strong. He is a most, in some ways THE most vital part of me and yet I cannot own him... for Shame! Bastard Shame! So I seesaw between binging and suppressing him, it, my sexuality...

And I have suddenly realised that I am writing this for public consumption. Because I can't SAY it all to the people I love but they need to know it because it is affecting every part of my life and not in a positive way.

Depression is a tightrope along which I am walking. As long as I keep my head up and don't look down my feet will find the tightrope and I can function. If I look down, if I examine how narrow this path is, how constricting it is, the whole thing begins to wobble. But I have started to look down. And some of you have seen me start to wobble. Maybe it's time to let myself fall off. I don't have to stay on the tightrope at all. Yes maybe it'll hurt hitting the ground but how much more will there be to explore down there? Down there where I don't have to live on a fucking tightrope! Whoever thought that would be a good idea? Such a narrow, constricted, dangerous existence.

And I know some of you are there with your arms stretched out to catch me... which makes me feel that this tumble may become more a stage surf. Could even be a pleasurable experience if I can just pluck up the courage to jump.

I'm working up to it.

I just hope you aren't disappointed if the person you catch isn't quite the person you thought you knew. He is trying to be more honest and more open and more energetic and passionate. He's trying to be a better human.

And if you've read through to this point I count myself truly blessed in having you in my life.

down the corridor

I have never told you
have I
about the girl
whose name I never knew
with angular features
a long sharp nose
and shaped eyebrows
skilfully shadowed eyes
with hair
cut short
and gelled up
into a fine comb

who had a room
down the corridor
from you in halls

I never told you
did I
how she and I
caught each other's eye
from time to time
how she would smile at me
even while you held my hand
and how
while we were studying in your room
you and I
I would listen for footsteps in the corridor
Fancy a coffee?
I would say
and you always would
and I would dutifully trip along
to the kitchen
in the hope that she might be there too

and sometimes she would be
and while the kettle boiled
we would courteously
dance
a light flirtatious gavotte
between sink and cupboard
kettle and coffee jar

and I would fail to say
all the things to her
that I had planned to
because of you

and she would ask about you
because that was a respectful
and a safe
thing to do

Swinging at the end of a rope.

Something of a departure for me, and feels perhaps like an excerpt from something larger... The prompt was 'Swinging at the end of a rope' and I seem to have taken it very literally. 
I'd love to know your thoughts... 


He was used to this by now, the gradual greying of the light in the cell. Winter light fading.
He sat on his cot in the usual place. Watched the sky thicken through the small high window.
From the bowels of the building he heard the sound of others. Voices echoed. Doors clanged shut. Orders barked, reverberating down the cold, stone corridors. Metal buckets scraping on floors. Someone calling out in pain - anguish rather than bodily sensation perhaps, but they sounded the same in this dark place.
The distant growl of a group of persons approached, consolidating itself, defining itself into the scuffing of feet, several pairs, moving purposefully. Growing louder. The sound growing denser, seasoned with short vocal snaps. A female voice among the male.
And at its peak the sounds transformed from travelling to entering. The feet shuffling by the door. The viewing panel sliding open then closed. The key entering then turning in the lock. The tumblers falling, handle turning, catch disengaging, hinges grinding. Further, further. Voices opening with the door. Filling the air.
"The prisoner will stand."
He had already gathered his feet beneath him in readiness. Felt the chill of the floor against the skin of his feet. Felt the unwilling muscles of his legs tighten as he pushed himself to standing.
In the gloom two officers had entered. One carried a lantern. Shadows flickered.
"Visitor," said one.
Between the two, she entered. Portly, regal, a ship under sail but seemingly creating the wind rather than being driven before it. Behind her a third officer appeared carrying a wooden chair. He placed it in the centre of the cell facing the prisoner.
The woman glanced at the chair then placed herself upon it.
"The prisoner will sit," the guard barked.
He sat again upon the edge of the cot as the woman arranged herself upon the chair straightened the drape of her coat over her knees. Lifted the gauze veil from her face. Placed her gloved hands precisely in her lap.
She looked at him for some moments. He returned her look but could not bear the accusatory glare. He dropped his eyes, wrangled his fingers together, felt the woman's disapprobation. It triggered sensations in his face. An itch at the side of his nose. His right earlobe needed pulling. The actions were involuntary. His hands went from nose to ear performing the necessary tasks then to his head where it ran across his crown, chasing down the coarse stubble that remained of his hair.
At last she spoke.
'Well?' her voice impatient, hard, unforgiving.
He looked at her. At a loss.
He glanced nervously at the two guards. But he said nothing. She noticed the glance, turned to the guards irritably.
"Leave us," she snapped and immediately turned her penetrating focus to him while she waited for the order to be fulfilled.
He saw the guards flick a glance at each other as if in some silent debate then evidently they came to an agreement. One knocked twice upon the door and the sounds of the opening scattered the silence in the cell.
With the guards now outside, her demeanour slackened a little. Her voice previously imperious, commanding, now coarsened slightly.
"When?"
For the first time he recognised his mother.
"Dawn tomorrow?"
"You fool," she said with venom. "You careless fool!"
He could not look at her. He had anticipated this moment and, in many ways he could not comprehend, had dreaded it more than the events that would take place the following morning.
"I know," he said.
"You got caught."
"It wasn't..."
"Don't speak! You utter fool. Have you learned nothing?"
Still he could not look at her save for the black toes of her shoes.
"Of all the brothers it was you caught. Pah! So now what? Now that I must wash my hands of you..."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry? You're sorry? It is I who am sorry. It is I who will be left to carry on for who will follow me now? Tell me that. Who? Diccon? No, he is a hothead. Barrett? He is a thick head. It was you I was relying upon. But this was my mistake, my grave mistake. Bah. I have only myself to blame. What species of fool was I to think it could be you?
You?! I should have seen it. Your father was no better. Clumsy. Careless. Even in your very conception he showed that."
"My father? Careless? No, father was a thoughtful man, a considered man."
"Oh, be quiet! I don't mean Harold, for Heaven's sake. Your real father. Wyatt. Wyatt."
"Wyatt? Who is Wyatt? Why did you not tell me this?"
"Ah,what does it matter now? You have ended in the same manner as he, swinging at the end of a rope. And for what? Nothing. Because you were careless. Proud, arrogant and careless. One moment of carelessness and you end like this. Ah, what is to become of me?"



Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The heavy table

Another recent piece written at an Electric Tomatoes session.  The prompt was The Heavy Table. Family members will recognise some of the ideas in this piece. 


Grandma died.
On the first Sunday after Easter.
Granddad said she stayed home from church because she felt a bit queasy but when he got back there she was on the scullery floor. She'd been taking clothes out of the twin tub he said. Heart attack.
He said he hadn't known what to do with her so he phoned the ambulance even though he knew she'd gone. He phoned the ambulance and then he carefully stepped over her and finished taking the stuff out of the washing machine. It was his shirts mainly. He just used her wooden tongs and slumped the shirts over into the spin dryer while the water drained. But then he noticed he was splashing her and knowing how noisy the dryer was he thought it best to wait until she'd been... taken care of. That's what he said.
We had the funeral a week later and when everyone was gone Dad had said he was going to talk to Granddad. He took him out into the back garden. But only a few minutes passed before Granddad came back in.
'Where's me pipe?' He said. 'Where's my effing pipe?' He sounded cross.
It was there on the side table next to his chair, hanging in the pipe rack Jack had made him.
'It's there Grandad,' I said.
'Where?' he said. 'Fetch it for me, lad.'
I ran and rattled the pipe from its stand. Dad was standing in the back doorway watching him with a grim look on his face. Mum came in from the kitchen and caught Dad's eye. They didn't say anything but I saw Dad give a little shake of his head.
'Do you want tea, Dad?' she said.
'And the pouch, lad. Don't forget my baccy.'
I popped back to the table and looked for the pouch.
'In the drawer, in the drawer.'
I slid the drawer open and grabbed it and the plastic lighter that rolled up to the front, the smell of stale tobacco rising bitter in my nose.
'Dad?' said Mum again, 'tea?'
'I'll take it outside,' he said, and with his smoking gear he walked past Dad in the doorway.
I could see them through the window. Granddad sat squinting on the bench where he would always sit and Dad stood looking at him. Mum poured the tea into mugs and carried them out. I couldn't hear what they were saying but they weren't smiling.
Then Jack came thumping downstairs. He been up in the guest room looking at the old stack of Beanos and Dandys that Grandma always kept for us.
'A-Team!' he said.
'Oh!' I said.
He ran out to Mum and a moment later was back turning on the television.
'Can we?'
'Yes, but we have to keep the volume down low.'
Hannibal was just lighting an enormous cigar and had a huge smile on his face as Granddad came in quietly and sat at the table. Mum and Dad came in too. I could hear them talking in the kitchen but not what they were saying.
I watched Granddad lift the tablecloth from the table as he sat there. Just the edge. And fold it back. He exposed the wood and ran his hand along it as if he was checking it was smooth. He curled his finger around the corner as he reached it then slowly slid his hand back along the edge again. He saw me looking. Pulled his mouth into a sad smile. I smiled back.
'Anthony,' he said - pronouncing the 'th', no one else called me that. With everyone else I was Tony or Tone or even Ant but with grandad it was always the full Anthony.
'Anthony,' he said, 'come here.'
Even grandma called me Tony.
I went over to him.
'Give me your hand,' he said.
I held it out as if to shake hands.
'Put it there  pardner...' I said.
'No, flat. Like this.'
He stretched his hand out palm up. The skin of his open hand was dry - a little shiny in places. The creases across his palm spelling a clear M.
I pushed my hands out like his, fingers straight, tight together. There were the feint lines of an M on my hand too. 'Man' it would say one day, Grandma had told me, but I couldn't pretend it said that yet.
'Looser,' said Granddad.
'What?'
'Relax your fingers let it go a bit floppy.'
I did as he asked and he then carefully took my upturned hand in his. Cupped his under mine. Then slowly led it to the underside of the table.
'Now... just under here,' he said, pressing my fingertips lightly against the bottom of the table.
'Just under here... .' He slid his hand to one side with mine in it still touching the wood.
'Just under here... Can you feel it?'
'Feel what?'
'Feel again, very gently.'
'What is it?'
'No mouth, just fingers. Feel.'
I carefully spread my fingers brushing the under surface. It was slightly rough.
'It's rough.'
'It is.'
'Like dents in the wood.'
'Pop down and have a look.'
He swung his knees to the side and made an opening for me next to the table.
'Go on,' he said.
I dropped and looked up at the underside of the tabletop where my fingers had stroked. It was dim, dark, but I could just make out some marks along the edge.
'Is it... it looks like... is it writing?'
'It is indeed,' he said. 'Can you read it?'
I peered at the marks that were clearly words forming a sentence but could make out nothing.
'No, it's too dark.'
'And,' said Granddad, 'it's in German.'
'German?'
'Yep!'
'Why? What does it say?'
'It says "Diese Tafel ist für Josef". Can you tell what it means?'
'Er... No.'
'Well what do you think "Diese Tafel" means?'
'No idea.'
'Well, "Diese" means "this"...'
'This?'
'Yes. So "Diese Tafel" means... this...?'
'This... er...'
'Well, what is this?' He banged his hand down onto the table just by my nose.
'This? It's a table...'
'Exactly... ."Diese Tafel" This table...
'Right...'
'"Diese Tafel ist für Josef"', he repeated "This table ist für Josef." Is for Josef.'
' Oh! I said. Who's Josef?'
'My dad! Your great granddad. Josef was my dad and he married my mum, Anna Maria, and they came from Germany to London just before the Great War.'
'Right! They were German?'
'Yes.. Well, Alsatians..'
'Alsatians? Like the dogs?'
'Alsatians are people from Alsace. That's where they came from.'
'Right... So who wrote this then?'
'That was written by my grandma, your great great grandmother, Elsie Dreyer. When Elsie died she wanted to make sure that this table went to Josef, my dad, so she wrote on it. She wrote on other things, too, but this was the only thing for him.'
'And he left it to you when he died?'
'Yes, but he didn't write on it.'
'No?'
'No, he didn't need to. Nobody else wanted it. It was too big and heavy.'
'Right.'
'But I love it.'
'Me too,' I said.
Mum came through from the kitchen.
'Tony, Jack, go wee. We're going now.'
'Why?'
'Because... It'll be bedtime before we get home and you've got school in the morning.'
'But.. Granddad!'
'Yes?'
'He'll be...'
'Oh don't worry about me lad!' said Granddad.
In the car, Mum turned off Sing Something Simple and turned round to us, leaning over the back seat. She spoke in her soft voice.
'So Tony, Jack, how would you to like to share a room?'
'What?'
'What! Why?'
'Because... because we've asked Granddad if he'd like to live with us.'
'What!'
'Yes.'
'What did he say?'
'He's thinking about it. But he'd need a bedroom.'
'But what about all his things?'
'Well he'll bring all his clothes and things of course.'
'And his furniture? Where would we put it all?'
'Well we wouldn't be able to take all his furniture.'
'Oh!'
'So he could bring his favourite chair perhaps, and his radiogram, but we'd help him sell the rest.'
'What? I said,' but not his table?'
'The table?'
'Yes, Josef's table...you can't sell that.'
'Yes, well, it's a bit big. We'd have to sell that. If we could find anyone to take it.'
'It'll go in the auction,' said Dad, 'somebody will take it I expect.'