Month: December 2019

Living With Depression III

I’ve written two posts about my experience with depression so far, so I thought it would be rude not to make it a trilogy. And now seems like a good time to do it, I came off my medication a couple of months ago and got a job a couple of weeks after that, and generally I feel as close to pre-depression me as ever – albeit a bit older and a bit heavier. I’m sure some people saw me share this post and thought oh no, Liam’s writing about his depression again, I can’t believe he’s still exploiting that for his blog. To those people I say hell yes I am! The past two depression posts have got great numbers for me, and if there’s something I love it’s getting great numbers on my blogs. But also I have had to live with this for four years, and the least I can do is exploit it for views. It’s also good to talk openly about our mental health, it might just help someone down the line, and that would be a good thing.

So what has happened since my last depression related post? Well, actually, before I wrote that, I broke up with my girlfriend – or rather she broke up with me. This seems like a weird place to start when we’re talking about the improvement in my mental health but I think the consequences of that, apart from the bit of heartbreak, have been really positive. It meant that I left Guernsey to move back to the UK, which felt like a fresh start for me and gave me something to look forward to.

And then I moved back and was on universal credit for about a year. This was less than ideal, the money you get from that is… not very much, and I still struggled with my finances, mainly because my impulse control was non-existent. It was easy to think when I had a bad day that buying something would make me feel better, and it might do in the moment, but when I came to check my bank balance the feeling was much worse than it would have been had I not bought a completely pointless takeaway or whatever else I felt would be a good mood booster. I eventually realised I couldn’t keep haemorrhaging money as I was, so I started to budget, cancelled some subscriptions and, luckily, started feeling better in myself, finding it easier to control my impulses.

While I was having no luck finding a job it was recommended to me by various people to do some volunteering somewhere, to boost my CV but also to get out of the house a bit and get back into any kind of work, to see how I would feel mentally. I wasn’t sure about volunteering at first. I held some bitterness about the difficulty I was having trying to find a job. I applied for quite a lot and never even got an interview. It seemed to me like I was being ignored because of my mental health issues and that made me resent the idea of giving my time up for free – did people only want me if I wouldn’t even demand payment for my labour? One suggestion that sounded like something I could do though was to volunteer at Citizens Advice, so I applied for that at the end of May this year. I went for an interview and was offered a role there. I was really happy, I had been turned away from so many places and to get a yes was such a huge relief. I was in a group of about five people who all started at the same time. We went for a few training days and then I was assigned to help out on the web chat service. For the first time in a long time I felt like I was doing something worthwhile and I felt proud of myself. I had filled in the application, gone to the interview and got the job. Maybe I could do it. Working seemed like a real possibility for the first time in a few years.

I applied for my job at Morrisons in October, I still hadn’t really got an interview anywhere else so I didn’t hold out much hope, but it didn’t take long for the email to come through inviting me to an interview. I would finally have to bring out the suit I bought about ten months ago. Again I was offered the job at my interview, so obviously I make a fantastic impression in person. I was so pleased to have finally been offered money in exchange for my work after a year of searching. I have been at Morrisons for about six weeks now and I feel like having this job has been a real boost for me. Work was one of the main factors that led to me having depression, and for a while there I felt like I would never be able to work again. But I do now and, as I said, it has had a massive positive impact on my mental health. Having the routine of work is great, my sleep pattern has been consistent since I started, and, with the job being active, I get exercise every day, either through work or going to the gym – something else I have more motivation for since starting my job.

I stopped taking my tablets a couple of months ago. I was starting to feel stable and the side-effects were less than ideal things to deal with long term. One of the medications I was on massively increased my appetite, leading me to put on a lot of weight in the couple of years I took them. The other tablet had some… unfortunate sexual side-effects. Probably something you don’t want to read about but, if you’re curious, the medication is called sertraline. If you’re not interested, that is something that will stay between me and my many – by which I mean not many at all – sexual partners. Since I started work though I’ve managed to lose a stone of weight through the combination of my active job, going to the gym more regularly, and eating much better. I’ve been trying a predominantly vegan diet too, which has definitely helped me to lose weight and increase my energy levels. I would recommend anyone considering it to give it a go.

So to sum up, although it has been about four years since I had a breakdown in my bedroom in Guernsey and couldn’t get out of bed, I finally feel like myself again. Of course, I’m not the same person I was back then. There are aspects of the depression that I think I will live with for the rest of my life. I’m not quite as laissez-faire as I was back then (although I am still very laid back). I’m not quite as boisterous as I was – I haven’t sung in front of anyone for a long time. And I will always have days where I feel a bit down – take election day this year for example. But I have a lot of what makes me me back. I dance around the kitchen goofily when I’m cooking and listening to music. I’m a sarcastic prick. I’m bloody hilarious. I take care of my appearance. I wear great clothes. I am myself, and I like who I am. That is how I know I’m back to my best. Even if my best is a little different to what it was.

 

You can find my other Living with Depression posts under the Mental Health tab.

The Election Post

The UK general election takes place this Thursday (12th December), and as you probably know, I love politics. And by love I mean deeply despise – hate with every fibre of my being – even thinking about it makes me want to punch, kick, suplex everything in sight. Or cry. But politics is important; it’s my life, your life, your kid’s life. Even your Tory dad’s life. We’ve suffered 9 years of Tory dads and Theresa May literally strangling children and murdering the poor and this election is a real chance to stop them doing that, which would be nice.

In this country, and just about every other country actually, politics, or rather mainstream politics, is viewed through a very narrow window. We get our news from a limited number of sources, most of which have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo – owing to their ownership being millionaires or billionaires who are doing very nicely right now thank you, and we have a public broadcaster whose politics editor is so far up the backside of the Conservatives she could give Nick Clegg a hug. All of this means that most news output at best skirts around the real issues that the Conservatives have caused. Usually it just ignores them, and at worst, it lies about them. This means that people can be uninformed about the problems the Tories have created, or have been given the false impression that they have done good things.

This week, The Sun posted a story about how Jeremy Corbyn is at the centre of a massive far-left conspiracy, citing trustworthy groups called things like ‘Aryan Unity’, and ‘We’re not Nazis, Promise’. Of course, being a responsible bastion of real news only, The Sun took down the story later in the day, just after everyone they wanted to see it had done so.

Laura Kuenssberg popped out of the arsehole of the Conservatives to provide us with information as to how Matt Hancock – the man who got an erection listening to Wendy Maisey promising that the Conservatives will build a new hospital in Warrington – a thing that will definitely not happen (we may never know if he was feeling sexual towards his speaking partner, or the lies she was telling about a new hospital) – was attacked by a Labour activist. Of course, the attack never happened, but Laura had to report it as soon as she could, otherwise that tempting job offer to become Conservative press officer after the election would disappear. And a Conservative source told her it happened. The Conservatives would never lie! The actual physical assaults of Labour activists out campaigning are, of course, of no interest to anyone.

While the focus of the media is on very real things, the actual record of the Conservatives in government might not be that well known by many. We might be interested to know that austerity has caused around 130,000 avoidable deaths, or that with another 4 years of Conservative government, child poverty will increase to 35%. We may also not want to know that, so we can peacefully do as we’re told and vote for the party of ‘killing the poor or, if we can’t do that, making them homeless’. Rough sleeping has increased by 165% under this government.

Of course, these things not being news suits Boris Johnson, the man who will likely win this general election by saying GET BREXIT DONE over and over and stealing a reporter’s phone on the rare occasion that he’s held to account. This is a man with no discernable talent other than doing and saying evil and racist things and having the overwhelming response be ‘oh look Boris is at it again’ but not in a ‘that guy is being a complete evil racist wanker again’ way, more of an ‘isn’t he a buffoon’ way. But not in an ‘I don’t want that buffoon as my Prime Minister’ way, more of a ‘look at that buffoon, he would make a great Prime Minister’ way.

It’s easy to mock these people because they’re fucking weird idiots, but they’re fucking weird idiots causing pain and suffering to a great number of the population. The Tories are the party of evil. They are quite happy to forsake the majority of people in this country to give their rich mates tax breaks and maintain power, aided by an unbelievably friendly press. This election is a real opportunity to vote for actual, real change. I know it is hard to feel any empathy at all for the downtrodden people of our country, the people dead because of austerity, the children in poverty because of the political choices of this government, the homeless who could really have done with the extra 250,000 houses the Conservatives promised to build and then didn’t. It’s hard to feel empathy for these people because one of the key aspects of helping them is to tax the super-rich a little bit more. The super-rich are the ones that really need our help here.

But that is the essence of your choice at this election, do you want to be on the side of the people who really need a Labour government, or on the side of this current, evil government, who have caused so much unnecessary pain and suffering to your neighbours in order to give tax breaks to the mega rich and hold on to power.

It is difficult to make this point without sounding aggressive, and I don’t really care if I do sound aggressive. A vote for the Conservatives this Thursday is a vote for evil. If you vote Conservative you are endorsing their record in government. You are endorsing the avoidable deaths of so many people. You are endorsing the selling off of the NHS. You are endorsing homelessness. You are endorsing families not being able to feed their kids. If you don’t like that I have a simple solution:

Vote Labour.