In the Middle

There’s always different ways to tell stories. We will always need them in different ways at different times. I spent a really long time not being able to take in new stories. I couldn’t watch a TV drama, but I could walk from room to room and waste time in every way possible. I couldn’t invest in other people’s stories or lives or distinguish the weight of anything. I could re-watch episodes of the same thing, I couldn’t read a book but I could scroll through twitter. The moment I feel capable of opening a book or starting a new tv series, that is extremely positive for me, it’s a big deal. I have a little party in my head. That is my brain saying it is ready to let the outside in because everything is in order on the inside. Or that’s what I feel like is happening. The same thing goes for listening to music, I could re-listen to Ben Platt and Taylor Swift, but I couldn’t learn artists, there’s literally a cut-off point from when I was about 12 where I stopped being able to remember the names of artists, unfortunately it happens around the time I was listening to The Feeling. This is just a consequence of being cut off from yourself. I always knew there was a disconnect in myself, I knew it was more difficult for me to make decisions about what I wanted or to remember moments that had happened in my life. And these aren’t hugely unusual traits, it’s not that unusual to not be able to remember things that have happened in your life or not have a taste in music so it’s fairly easy to carry on in the world without realising how far away you are from yourself. Especially when part of that is appearing absolutely fine to others and yourself, in fact beyond fine; capable and content.

People often make links between people’s artistry and their state of mental health, perhaps the trope is that artists are often people prone to depression or anxiety. A fairly old-fashioned idea which generally isn’t believed to be true anymore. For me, the moment I could start writing and creating was the moment, I was coming out of a huge dark hole. One which I’d been in at different depths for the past 15 years. Depression was exactly the thing that hindered me. I think it’s easier for creatives to notice when we are not connected because the ideas stop, the work stops and what makes us feel alive stops. Like a circular eco-system, what goes in comes out. So, we notice when things aren’t right because we have a barometer, a way of measuring it. I don’t think this is the case for everyone and everyone interacts with their mental health differently and I’m not just saying this is relevant to people who work as artists, everyone is creative. Potentially, it doesn’t affect their lives in the same direct way. But I think what I want to say is, what I’m writing about is depression, but it would have been impossible for me to write about while I was directly in the middle of it. I was on my way out. When you are actually in the middle of something, it is physically hard to do anything and that’s okay. The thing that kept coming up over the last year was that I needed space, however much anybody gave me, I needed more, and I realise now that was just little me screaming to be heard because I’d never listened to her and I needed to be really still and really empty for that to happen. And I’m really glad that I did.

 When I started writing a couple of months ago, it was a surprise. But it happened after a really fucking good therapy session.  I hadn’t written in that way, since primary school. I used to want to be a writer, I wrote to family members telling them that was what I was going to do with my life, just as a heads up. I still remember metaphors that I wrote in year 5 and how good it felt to write them. Something about snow as flying saucers, it ain’t gold dust but it was good for a 10 year old. I remember my brain going faster than my pencil and the absolute thrill that that gave me.

And then I don’t know where it went. I remember being at school and everyone around me being incredibly clever and while English wasn’t exactly their favourite subject, they still could smash out a complex and accomplished story without too much effort.  I wrote a diary every day but that’s about it and in them I would just list the things I did. Makes for a very dry read. I ended up going into acting, because I wasn’t passionate enough about anything else and it seemed like a sensible choice (rogue, I know.) It ended up being the best choice and I wouldn’t change a thing. But I was fumbling in the dark for the reason of why I wanted to do it and to be honest, I couldn’t find it at the time. I can find it now, but I also hate the drawbacks of the acting industry. I hate how small it can be make you feel and when life is so short and the world needs happy people, sometimes I don’t know if it’s worth it. I hate nepotism and I love nepotism. It baffles me why so many people want to be actors but I know exactly why. I worry that people who want it so desperately will never be accepted by the industry because the industry acts like the cool club at school and if you’re too keen to want in, they’re never going to have you. So, balancing your efforts is a complex and soul-destroying endeavour and one I don’t have much interest in partaking in.

Writing fills me up, it makes me happy and the act of it gives me physical joy. But I know, realistically, I’m not cut out for it. My brain only goes so wide and I can’t sit still for long enough to write anything of a decent length. So that leaves me somewhere in the middle. A place most performers fit into. The multi-tasking creative who has fingers in all the pies, some people want to be in this place and some people don’t. I think I’ve figured out this year, that that’s exactly where I would like to be. Teachers at drama school will always tell you to find something else that you love so that you don’t rely on acting but how can you navigate that as a young adult? I know stories of actors, and personally from actors, who have been successful their whole lives and they are miserable in themselves. Success is not the thing that makes you happy, it just isn’t. It helps, but only when you feel you deserve it and to feel deserving of something you need to have all sorts of self-love and that can take time when you’ve lost your way from yourself.

I didn’t really mean to write about acting at all – I wanted to write about the stuff that I have written and how it feels important to have written it. When I’ve been depressed, in the very middle of it, it has brought me no peace when people have told me it just takes time. Okay, maybe a tiny fragment of peace, yes I can wait, but I have to get through today, and tomorrow and next week, and this evening, I need to go to sleep tonight, I need to wake up tomorrow. And one of the most comforting things I could do was read accounts of people who have been in a similar place, to not feel alone. To read something, or hear something, experience something that resonated, vibrations that shifted something inside of me. The vibrations physically moving a blockage, or a something stuck inside of me that needed hearing. Even if it meant, I felt fucking awful at the time. That resonance was so important, and it allowed me to let things out that had been building up. I needed to write about it. Not to remember it but just for the physical act of writing. To let something out and let it exist outside of me as something that shows me what that experience was like. I could not have written anything if I still felt depressed, I simply wouldn’t have known where to start. I’m under no illusion that I’m a brilliant writer but I know there is difference for myself between not writing at all and writing even a little bit. And I could feel that the writing was coming from a genuine place. The writing was my way of navigating out of a feeling that was indescribable and I was attempting to describe it.

 I know there will be a point when I look back at some of the stuff that I’ve written and be mortified, it will feel so raw that it will feel embarrassing and uncomfortable and that I shouldn’t have shared it. But if I get to that point, THANK FUCKING GOD.

For so long, I would see people go through the world and just marvel at how they did it. I couldn’t understand how people did anything. I couldn’t watch TV dramas because I would have to think about the people who wrote and directed, filmed and created it and I could not fathom how anyone could do that and it overwhelmed me. But anything created, when it’s good, comes from a genuine place and we can feel that when we see it. And it becomes less overwhelming when you get glimpses of life with connection.

On that note, I’m going to go and watch many more episodes of The Umbrella Academy – considering we’ve been in near lockdown since March, this is pretty much the first drama series that I’ve sat and watched back to back. Trust me if you want to waste the day away and feel terrible about yourselves, there’s worse ways to spend the day than watch excellent TV, (subject to debate.)