Well, it's been a while. Apologies for my recent absence but going back to work after my week off has been a bit of a grind and, to be honest, the last thing I want to do after a day at the office is sit down n front of a computer.
That said however, I have also discovered that blogging has withdrawal symptoms and found myself itching to get back on here as it turns out the urge to vent is a powerful one. Been feeling pretty low recently, my course of free counselling has come to an end and I'm waiting to get on another one somewhere else.
The mixture of tedium and frustration that is my public sector job doesn't particularly compliment my depression so I've taken up regular exercise and St John's Wort to try and keep a grip. Frustration is perhaps the key word in all of this really, in particular the frustration of ignored.
I didn't strike today, though it does sound like something I'd do. Of the two sides of the argument being presented, ie. the unions vs the government, I certainly side with the unions. For those who insist on parroting 'the money has to come from somewhere' and actually believe that an increase in council tax is the only way top fund public sector pensions here's three other ways, just off the top of my head:
scrap trident - there's a few billion there,
get the hell out of Iraq - a few more,
make the rich pay their fucking taxes - eg. the amount one UK media mogul's accountants managed to get him out of paying in one year was more than the total amount paid out in benefits by the state,
The point here is how we prioritise, what's more important? We have the money to fund these people's pensions, we're just spending it on other stuff, this clearly implies that this other stuff is more important than the people who keep the fabric of our society together.
So I should have joined the union and been out on strike today. Well, as a colleague pointed out to me today, there's a down side. The trade unions are a massive source of funding to the Labour Party and so paying subs to the unions is contributing some of my hard earned, well, earned wages to a party I won't even tick a box for.
So maybe I will strike next time, I just won't join the union. The picture I'm trying to paint here is that I find myself alone, again. None of the representative parties involved in this situation represent me, or rather, my opinions.
Sitting on the bus on the way home today, I was staring blankly and trying to escape the Wizard when a thought occurred. It's funny how these things just drop into your head from out of nowhere, and I wasn't even stoned, well, no more than usual anyway.
I suddenly realised what I'm scared of, I mean what I'm really scared of. From my experiences in life so far I've developed a multitude of ideas, some sit, nicely finished, while others grow and evolve. The thought that sent a chill down my spine was that I would live out my life and die without seeing those ideas passed on or realised.
The frustration of feeling ignored and misunderstood by those around me, not to mention society at large, can feel pretty crushing and, some years ago now, I drew something not unlike this to express just such a sentiment:
Now this is all pretty bleak, a lot of teenage angst bullshit some might say, but it's not the end. I'd love to see some of my ideas realised, especially the big ones I haven't quite worked out yet, but I'm ok with the fact that I probably won't get to rebuild the world in my own image, and that's probably for the best.
The reason I'm ok with this is because of what I'm doing right now.
Writing.
I realised that my ideas don't have to be made flesh. If I could just record them in some public fashion, put them out there into the shared consciousness, they'd inspire and merge with other great ideas I'd never of thought of.
So it turns out that, for me, writing isn't just a hobby, or a dream job, it's self preservation. But hang on, it's all very well getting the ideas out of my head, recording them for posterity, this doesn't necessarily stop me being ignored. Where's the communication I so desperately crave?
I've always found it hard to shake the feeling of that sketch above because it felt right, it was my gut reaction to my life. Through my counselling(1) and places like this or Elephant Books(2) I come to see that the sketch is accurate, just not complete. It should be more like this:
There are a lot of people out here with me, in fact I'm tempted to say that, globally, most people are outside the inside, I just couldn't be arsed to draw them all. The fact is that although it's chilly out here in the cold light of day, at least we see what's really going down and that rosy glow, as tempting as it looks, is actually a prison.
I've encountered a few things recently that have given me hope and made me feel good about the world: Elephant Books of course; the Leeds Film Festival & the Hyde Park Picture House; a voluntary glass collection and recycling scheme and the wonderful services offered by the Burley Lodge Centre.
One obvious common denominator here is that all these set ups revolve around small groups of people who have chosen to do something they care about and think is important for it's own sake rather than to make money. People out there are doing things for themselves, leave the politics and the politicians in the bubble, we don't need them, we can run our society ourselves because we are our society!
Now my depression isn't the easiest thing for me to write about but a big part of this kind of problem comes from the social stigma attached to such conditions. Some months ago my most excellent friend ABEunlimited tipped me off about a publishing company that specialises in literature related to mental health issues, (endless thanks for that one 
)
The idea seems to be to drive a wedge into the mainstream, to get people talking about and recognising mental health and to start some motion towards the lifting of that stigma. I've now actually signed a contract with these guys and am now in the process of producing a collection of short stories for publication.
Obviously I'm chuffed to have made some progress, finally, with my fledgling literary career, but I'm especially pleased that it's through something like this. I'm down, but I'm not out and there's definitely hope to cling to.
footnotes
(1) the counselling I received at the Burley Lodge Centre, for free, was brilliant; I highly recommend that anyone in the Hyde Park area who thinks they may be suffering from depression should visit their GP and ask about being referred, (though I think you can just contact them direct if you'd rather,) anyway the short and the skinny of it is: THEY ROCK, GIVE THEM MONEY.
(2) take a look http://underthecheapseats.blog.co.uk and hit the ELEPHANT BOOKS tag,
