Mental

With my first book away with the proof reader, I’m beginning to think about the next one. How do you follow a somewhat aimless out-of-season trawl around Corfu? Obvious: by writing a memoir of my life as a mentally ill person. It’s obviously obvious. Build up a readership keen on pound shop travel writing and follow it up with a few hundred pages about depression. That’ll be a good stocking filler for the kids, eh?

I came up with this brilliant idea just before my latest session of psychotherapy. I was lying in bed, just as the sun was beginning to rise, unable to get back to sleep as usual, and my minded started to wander and wonder. I have had two constants in my life: writing and mental illness. The story of my life in itself would not be that interesting (“Got up, went to work, got bored, went home, ate tea, went to the pub”) but perhaps there would be a bit of mileage in the dark stuff.

As I explained to my therapist, until the last year or so, I kept a lot of this mental stuff to myself. I was open enough about it at work with my bosses, but it wasn’t the type of thing I would bring into the conversation in the pub. In fact, my mum went to her grave (well, urn actually) not knowing anything about my black dog and I never felt much like bothering my dad with it either. So I carted it around as a sort of unwanted appendage. But when I finished full time work a year ago, I thought I might as well come out. “My name is Rick Johansen and I am a clinical depressive with four types of anxiety. In short, I’m mental.” And there was my working title: “Mental”. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

I have now reached the stage where I do not particularly care who knows I am mental. Most people wouldn’t notice anyway because us sick heads have techniques and processes for covering these things up. But I have one area in my life where I am thinking: “Can I afford to be honest?” And that’s with a future employer. I am thinking of taking some part time work from September. Not that I really want to, but my writing career is not quite providing me with sufficient income in order for me to be self-reliant. So far, in a year my profit and loss account is heavily in the red with an income level of approximately zero. As things stand, I do not expect to be adding to that total any time soon. But what do I tell a prospective employer?

If it’s a job where I am not bothered if I actually get it, I might as well come clean (although why would I be applying for such a job in the first place?) and spill the beans on my CV or at the interview, if I get that far. The reaction could be along the lines that, “Oh no, this bloke’s a nut job, like the Germanwings pilot who had depression and flew his plane into the Alps. Next?” I suspect it would be, actually, because that’s what a lot of people think about mental people like me. But would I have to be less honest if it was a job I really wanted? “Do you suffer from any long term health issues, Mr Johansen? I need to know this before I offer you this part time 12 hours a week writing job for which I shall pay you £100k per annum, plus car.” Oh shit. What do I say now? “Well, there is an issue, actually. I suffer from severe clinical depression and four types of anxiety, but don’t worry: I’m taking medication, I go to therapy and I rarely go sick from work. It won’t be a problem, will it?” “Thank you so much for coming in today and for being so honest with us. Now if you don’t mind, we have other, less mentally disturbed, candidates to see. Close the door on the way out, please.” Or do I lie through my teeth?

It’s getting hard to consider lying through my teeth. I may have told the odd porky along the way, but these days I find it very uncomfortable. I have come across those who have been less than honest to me and to people around me. I find I don’t respect them at all. I have not always been an angel, either, far from it, but I pride myself on my loyalty and, especially these days, my own morals and principles. The moral dimension is complex: would I feel comfortable in my own skin if I was dishonest in order to improve my income and possibly my life? Would it be worth it?

We discussed this on this blog the other week when Ruby Wax said that the last thing you should do, if you were mentally ill, would be to tell your employer. I did not and do not think there is a simple right or wrong about what she said because it depends what your employer is like. I’m inclined to agree with her on that too, so that’d me then: Mr Consistency. I believe simultaneously in being honest and in being dishonest. Perhaps I should toss a coin and see which way it lands?

My therapist says the choice is up to me, which is right, of course. And there is the fact that being economical with the truth in this instance could be justified. I’m thinking about it.

The book could definitely be a runner, though. I’ve had loads of therapy over the years, four therapists in the last three years alone and I’ve been through enough medication to fill a small chemist shop. The current round of therapy had taken me back as far as seven or eight years of age when I think it all started on a small scale, through my teenage years with night terrors and anxieties and then ever since with varying bouts of deep and not so deep depression.

I am not sure my black dog will ever go away. I love to read people’s stories about how they have been pretty well cured and I hope against hope it will happen to me one day. But I am not raising my hopes too much. My brain rarely shuts down, often dwelling on the many bad things, the things I cannot do, rather than the things – whatever they are – that I can. Carrying the black dog around forever is something I can live with. I do not expect a cure, although one would be nice, but I would like to learn better coping methods and strategies.

Maybe writing about it will be an exorcism, or perhaps a kind of catharsis, which in itself would be something. It would be gruelling reading and much of it would probably appear to be self-pitying, which I can assure you it isn’t. In my travels through the waiting rooms over the years have led me to meet people in a far worse state than me. Some are no longer with us.

The depression is there every day. It is not a question of the illness coming and going. It’s either bearable or unbearable. As with everything else in my life, it’s all very black and white. I felt it today traipsing through Queen Square, with my legs getting heavy, my brain turning into papier mache. It passed quickly, as knew it would – I know my black dog well, but then I bloody well should do since most dogs don’t live this long.

Whether anyone would want to read “Mental” is quite another matter but if one person, sometime in the future, picked up a copy and thought, “Blimey – I feel like that sometimes. I am not alone. Perhaps there is something I can do about it?” That’s kind of how I felt when famous people came out. They were far more brave than me. Do you remember The Sun’s sensitive handling of Frank Bruno’s descent into mental turmoil? “Bonkers Bruno Locked Up!” was the headline writer’s best effort. I’ll bet the hacks were laughing all the way to the pub when that one hit the news stands. How nice for Bruno’s family to read over their tea and toast.

To hell with the haters and the ignorant. I’m reserving judgement as to what to say to a prospective employer but I am inclined to just tell the truth. “I might be mental, but I am as good as you in most things and better in others, all right?” I probably won’t say, but you get the idea.