An Experiment in Truth

Thursday, 6 January 2011

The Never Ending Story, part LXLVIGIVIAIJFIPAGJAAIVIVIVIVIIIII

We started rehearsals for the new show yesterday. It actually sounds really awesome, so I'm kinda psyched for that, even though much of my job is still pissing me off. We're closed(ish) for 2 weeks however so I have pulled the entire techroom apart, put it all back together differently, and turn it into a decent store area/my new office. It's usually one of the warmest room in the building, so that's a bonus.

However I still have a pay gripe. Yes, I got a raise not long ago, not the raise I thought I was getting, but £1.12/h was better than nothing. I happen to know exactly how much the actors get paid. Partly because I know they're on Equity Rates, and partly because I've seen the contract. The actors get paid £380pw net. I get paid just under £325. For the £380 we are entitled to 8 performances per week, or 40 hours out of the actors. Our rehearsals are running 11-6, with a break for lunch, which only equates to 35 hours. Our shows will have a call time of 1845, and should be done by 2245 at the latest; that's 20 hours a week. Don't get me wrong, I know better than most people that actors don't just do their 'acting work' whilst they are on site and in a show. There are lines to be memorized each night, rehearsals midday at various points even during the show, songs to practice; you're paying a premium for certain skills especially where our specialist entertainments such as stage combat, circus skills, improvisation etc are a big factor in our overall production. But I work at least 40 hours a week, often more, I design and spec all the tech aspects of myself and often have to build/fit/install/maintain/repair/troubleshoot them myself. I go in earlier or finish later than most of the other staff as needs dictate, as often I need to be there when no-one else is to effectively carry out maintenance or upgrade our hardware and infrastructure. I'm now helping out significantly on HSE compliance. I train other members of staff. I manage both in a stage and an administrative capacity. I am heavily involved in pre- and post- production on a range of special events for private hires and one-off nights such as Halloween, Valentines, St Patrick's Day etc. I bring specialist knowledge, skills, tools, and software into the job at my own expense. I routinely work unpaid overtime well beyond my contracted hours. I routinely work weekends, public holidays, and past midnight, and I will continue to do all of this every week of the show, where the actors, as previously stated, reduce their on-site hours to 20 - 25 once the production starts, with only the occasional extra rehearsal or input required on their part.

So why the damned hell is my salary £240 a month LOWER than theirs?!

Saturday, 25 December 2010

It's a Festivus miracle! Or not really...

I tried. I tried really fucking hard. To ignore the thoughts in my head. To make an effort. To face the world. To get myself into the Christmas mood and at least have one day where I didn't just want to stay with the covers over my head the entire time. I should have quit whilst I was behind...

After enduring the morning round of the ever-fun game 'pick on the depressive's physical appearance and fashion choice for the day, I occupied myself by making the obligatory mulled wine. After which we were supposed to go to the market up the road from me, which was laying on a Christmas Eve daytime special. Agreed that we were supposed to be leaving at 2, of course we didn't walk out the door until 3.30, by which time all the stalls were in the process of deconstructing the metal frames and driving off home for the day. Fail strike two.

I tried my best not to be too down about it. I have no doubt it was blindingly obvious I was disappointed and frustrated, but I at least managed to keep my voice neutral, rather than despondant. I'd been banking on wandering round marketyness to get me feeling vaguely in the festive spirit, but that option clearly went out the window.

In fairness, 15 minutes of our late departure was due to me trying to make an effort in my appearance; I showered, shaved, scrubbed, and put on jeans, a vest, tshirt and a shirt instead of the black joggers and hoodie option that had been my staple for 2.5 days. Obviously in light of the fact that going out was a pointless exercise anyway, trying to make an effort to look somewhat decent was well beyond the universe's expectations of me for the day.

One of the Christmas rituals in my family is that we have turkey sandwiches at midnight, and open the presents then. It comes from when I was young and my dad used to work really long hours all the time, so there I was at 10.30 at night, with turkey in the oven, and something happened. Something small, but I broke, I fell apart, and all I wanted to do was go back to ignoring the world, even the relatively small world of Chris and his friend who's staying with us. I realized that all these Christmas rituals only mattered to me, that Chris and his friend would carry on and have their Christmas just fine whatever happened, so there was no need to fight so hard to make sure there were turkey sandwiches, or to think about the fact that I haven't watched The Muppet's Christmas Carol or It's A Wonderful Life this year. Chris probably thought he was being helpful when he agreed that it didn't matter. It doesn't. But it did. A hell of a lot. And no-one even noticed that I was trying, or why I wanted to do these things.

I get that my being majorly depressed is trying on Chris. He doesn't know how to deal with me at the best of times, and he can't relate to the place my head finds itself in, so it's hard to judge what to say or do, or how to react, when to force an issue and when not to. And I know he's doing as best he can. And I know it's unfair to sit here, and spout out a bullet point list of failings, because that's not accurate, and it only tells half the story. I'm the cause of these problems in the first place, and I know that. But sometimes that boy can be so goddamned obtuse. Like when he wonders at me why I seem to be so much worse than usual this year, if it's just that I put on a face when I spend Christmas with his family, or mine, because I've never been this bad before. Why at the moment, nothing good seems to make me smile, and everything bad is so severe and dramatic. How when all the frustrations of having to deal with a depressive boyfriend, completely understandably, get to him, he decides that the most appropriate person to vent angrily about it to is said depressive. How all he wants to do, is just tell me to cheer the fuck up, and we both know it.

...So much for a relaxing 5 days off work before my 6 weeks non-stop marathon. I escape to Joel's tomorrow for the day, so maybe that will calm me down.

Oh yeah, merry fucking Christmas. I bet this is exactly the present the bf wanted.

Monday, 20 December 2010

These are a few of my favourite things.

Friday, 17 December 2010

The Resolution

A clarification on the previous post.

I don't find it hard to tell people I hardly know a lot of detail about me. I find it very easy in fact. I completely disassociate from it, and with the likelihood that I never need to deal with this person in my life again, it's not a concern that this person mind discover intimate details about me, or have the awareness and perceptive abilities to be able to read more about me than I'd like. And there's a handful of people in my life that I'm very close to, that I will happily tell a lot to, because I trust them not to use it to hurt me, and because I can hurt them just as badly back if necessary. The concept of mutually assured destruction is such a satisfying deterrent in the world.

It's the people inbetween that are the big, big problem. And generally, people don't traverse from one end of the spectrum to the other without being an inbetween person at some point - though, at least half of the people who are very close to me did exactly that through some rather inexplicable process when I think back on it.

But yes, fine, I can go to the new doctors and with a relative degree of (outward) calmness tell them plenty about my current state of affairs. And assuming I don't have an all out full blown panic, start vomiting every 5 minutes, or attack them violently, I could probably tell the psychiatrist a fair amount about me in the initial session before I start to get completely paranoid about their intentions. It's the fact that I have to go back that causes (further) issues. It's that you're supposed to establish some kind of rapport with them (which I will do, it just won't be a positive one, I guarantee it). That's where the whole idea starts to fall down in my head. Beyond the risk of violence, physical nausea, random and sudden disappearance etc, that is.

And to top everything off, I have to ring my mother at some point and decide whether I'm going to Christmas or not. Well family Christmas on boxing day. We always get together every year, and it's fun, and I love my crazy big family get togethers and Christmas is the best one of the entire lot. But like so many family Christmases, it's also hell. I struggle to get through it without at least some alcohol or a cigarette in me; it involves, even more than the standard get together, facing endless questions from each and every aunt and grandparent about what I'm doing with my life and how I compare to everyone else in the family. It's a constant dodging and minefield stepping of social interactions against people who offer you no mercies in their probing or judgement and who never forget to recall each and every past action good or bad that you ever made. I'm not sure, given I'm going crazy and having to face one hell of a nightmare to deal with it, as well as working like hell due to a crisis that's occurred at the venue (I did 20 hours work in 24 yesterday, and have to do 12 - 14 today), that attempting to deal with the love/hate joy that is a family Christmas gathering is something I'm prepared to put up with right now. And further, this will involve explaining all of this to my mother, and trying to get across why I'm not just blowing off family Christmas and being an arse, without panicking her by telling her I'm suicidally depressed right now. I haven't quite worked out how I'm going to do this yet.

Thursday, 16 December 2010

The first step

I've never written about my extreme and passionate hatred and distrust of mental health professionals. I kept meaning to, but I kept never getting around to it. I would call it a paranoid phobia, because the level of my reactions is that extreme, however I would also argue it's based on fair experience, so it's not completely irrational.

I had to go to the psychiatrists several times as a kid. I remember being about 6 or 7, when I was seeing them because I had rather severe issues with social integration (I know, you're shocked), and them getting me to play games, and they asking lots of questions about why I'd arranged the game in a certain way, or what if 'x' situation hypothetically happened. Even at that age, I found their questions rather contrived. Anyone else who's ever had to deal with the psychs will know exactly what I mean. One of the main reasons why I have such an issue with mental health professionals, is that they're basically they're to judge you. Yes you might have put yourself (somewhat) willingly in that situation, but they eye you with a condemning suspicion, they second guess every motivation or desire you have, ask leading questions that seem to encourage a certain modality, they expect you to tell a complete stranger the deepest and darkest parts of you that you wouldn't even admit to yourself, and let them judge you as a person on that basis. I don't believe any degree has been invented to give someone that right. And the questions they ask tend to be fairly idiotic; honestly, I defy any 'normal' person not to feel despair at some point, to drink because it's easier one night, or god forbid, hear voices (this one tends to happen especially when others are in the room I've found). I know it's actually a matter of frequency, but any evaluation questionnaire I've ever encountered doesn't actually seem to factor that in for some reason.

Needless to say, when I had to see psychiatrists at 10 and again at 14, it didn't go very well for me. Or for them. In the first instance, the prospect of having to see one again made me psychosomatically so violently ill that I threw up all over the reception area. The second time around, I threw a chair at one. I missed. It hit the window. But understandably, even as a minor no-one could get me to go through that kind of ordeal long enough to get a full and official diagnosis.

My perspective on psychs was only further confirmed when my mother suffered from PTSD after a car accident. I was driving by this point so it was my responsibility to take her to her sessions, as she wasn't allowed to drive herself at the time. She got fed up with them and let me fill out the evaluation questionnaire. They seemed a little confused at some of the helpful comments I wrote in the margin to each answer..

I don't mean to knock the work they do, I know they can truly help some people, but my experiences have never been positive; very much the opposite, and the overwhelming majority of people in my life with mental problems of one kind or another (and being me, I know a LOT of people like that), aren't exactly sold on them either, and know all too well what I mean by the above description of judgement and suspicion.

But anyway, through persuasion, begging, coercion, and probably some sick twisted sense along the lines of morbid curiosity, I somehow conceded to go and seek some help in regards to my previous blog post.

After battling my way through the daunting realm of the NHS receptionists on Monday, and finally getting her to let me register, based on the fact that yes, I was in the right catchment area, and yes, I did have ID and proof of address on me at the time, and yes, I did have an hour to spend filling in forms, and yes, I will hand them to her because leaning forward to reach the extra 15cm required to pick them up off the desk once I'd completed them, I spent my early morning ringing for an appointment, and convincing them that yes, it probably was fairly urgent and thus in need of an appointment that day, rather than scheduling one for some time after Christmas.

Appointment time comes around and I spend my time sitting quietly in the waiting room having an internal panic attack and dreading the concept of trying to convince an NHS doctor of ANYTHING, because ultimately, any action on their part involves some form of budgetary spend and they're strongly discouraged from ever actually doing that. Eventually a doctor - not the one I was supposed to be seeing, but I was randomly assigned one when I booked the appointment and it was my first time at the surgery so it didn't really bother me, comes and calls my name and off I go to plead my case.

I basically tell her the symptoms I listed in my previous blog post. She naturally asks me a few questions and tells me that there's a crisis team at the local A&E (which I know is the place to go in dire emergency anyway). She then comments that I seem quite calm, controlled, and together; I've got to the surgery, I've got myself dressed and don't seem malnourished etc. This point irritates me a fair bit. I understand the point she's making, but it also suggests that unless I'm about to jump off the chair with the rope around my neck, or have to be forcibly referred by the police and hospital departments, that it's not a huge concern and they don't really want to get involved. Which, granted, knowing the NHS as I do, I appreciate is completely the case. Not through any fault of uncaring on their part, but again, there are budgets to think of, unless it's an urgent crisis the money to deal with it isn't there. Which isn't a great situation to be in when you've just gone and asked for help because you're feeling suicidal, if not actually on the brink of committing it.

I explained that yes, I'm controlled, it's a skill I've learned from a childhood spent in and out of hospitals, from experiencing acute physical pain at least once a week, and moderate to severe pain on average 3 days a week. I can have a panic attack and I can do it perfectly quietly, so that other people wouldn't notice. I'm used to suppressing the physical signs of my internal struggles, physical or emotional. I further explained that I'm a damned good liar. Chris lives with me, he sees me most of the time, and sure he can tell that I'm down and feeling depressed, but he had no idea how bad I was until I posted that blog post. No-one would . Even Joel can't read everything about me, and if I don't want the world to know something, you'd be surprised at how well I can cover it up. This, combined with her asking if I had any methods in mind, and when I mentioned bridge jumping as one of them, and she asked if I knew specifically, to which I could respond in full detail about the bridge, method of getting there, expense, jumper mortality rate, speed of impact, and the various circumstances of that particular locale that gave an increased chance of a successful plan, seemed to convince her that maybe she should go ask the senior partner what to do with me. (for those weirdly interested, golden gate, obviously a plane, about £500, which isn't really a concern if I'm that committed to it, >98%, ~100mph, solid impact of water at that speed, almost certainly fatal neck, spinal or head injuries at the right point of impact, or failing that, significant bone breakage, leading to severe internal bleeding, organ puncture, combined with strong undercurrent and very low water temperatures, as well as low visibility in fog periods)

Anyhoo, I was deemed not to be at imminent risk (I was having a relatively good day yesterday), and with people around and close to me who knew what was happening, so another appointment is scheduled for next week, and in the meantime they're trying to find me a psychiatrist who can start seeing me before Christmas. Things always happen to me at Christmas, it's the worst time to be needing medical help - last year I had to go through all of Christmas and New Year eating only soft solids because my wisdom teeth were boring holes into the back of my head and I couldn't get them removed till Jan 4th. So begins the long process of diagnosis, should there be any to give, but most people in my life reckon there is. I might not make it through the process, I will most likely get angry about it at various points, things will be thrown, and Joel may be forced to accept a unavenged punch to the face in the name of being a caring friend. I might get therapy. I might get drugs. It might all be pointless. I might not quite be crazy enough to actually get anything; I always seem to miss the bar by a fraction on a lot of things in my life.

However, my friends are not without humour. Sean offered the following :

"...well speaking personally I always look forward to the opportunity to experiment with new psychoactive drugs, so if you don't like them, you can pass them on to me. :D"

Saturday, 11 December 2010

Will you still call me Superman?

I'm going crazy.

I mean, I know I've always been crazy, but I mean I'm going more crazy than usual. As in mental breakdown kinda crazy. Sure I go up and down all the time, I have my depressive periods and my manic ones, and I hate them, but I can deal with them. I know them; they're fine, I know they'll eventually pass even if that takes 6 months, and even if they cause me to be somewhat self-destructive in one direction or another, but I much prefer them to being just ambivalently 'okay', which I really don't know how to cope with at all.

The catalyst for this has been the raise at work that I was supposed to be getting, effectively I'm not getting it now. It's more complicated than that, so don't start telling me my legal rights and that, but basically, I'm still permanently broke, and unable to afford so much as the food to live on. This sent me spiralling. I'm now in full blown mental breakdown mode. To the point where I've actually considered taking myself to the doctors and getting either therapy, or drugs, or both. Anyone who knows my violent aversion to the medical profession and mood altering drugs will realise I have to be pretty damned desperate to reasonably consider that as a course of action.

Symptoms include: epic depression, frequent panic attacks, involuntary muscular control - i tend to spasm uncontrollably a fair bit at the moment, totally destroyed sleep patterns - to be fair, these were being really screwy anyway, but this is just compounding matters, as a sample of the last 3 weeks, in various 24 hour periods I've slept 20 hours, slept 40 minutes, got stuck in a 4 hours on 4 hours off pattern, not slept at all, slept for 2 hours in 40 etc. Periodic bouts of suicidal feeling and the all important and symptomatically important planning of it, feelings of dread, being trapped, severe insignificance, psychosomatically induced nausea, severely disinclined to even get out of bed each day, for anything, and a complete lack of appetite; I could happily go 2 days without food at the moment (which would result in even more nauseous feelings as I get really ill if I don't eat), and so on and so forth. All the poster symptoms for severe depression, stress, anxiety, and general mental failure.

I did the NHS direct symptom checker (which as we all know, is infullable), and at best it told me I should contact my GP immediately/ASAP (I don't actually have a GP but oh well), and at worst, that I should call 999 immediately and get myself to an A&E

To stop you all from panicking, I'm writing this at work, Joel knows and is keeping a close watch on me through all possible methods at his disposal, and practically all the time I'm at home Chris is there (which isn't always a good thing - getting time to myself just to unwind proves to be rather problematic due to the chris timetable meaning he's in almost all the time I'm at home, but means i can't do anything too stupid, or at least, i can't overtly do anything too stupid).

Of course, ordinarily in situations like this, I would run away from the world for 2 weeks, but alas I'm not at uni any more, so if I just don't come out of my room for 2 weeks I'll get fired. I'm broke, so I can't go afford to go anywhere. My job takes too much time to get a second one. I can't quit my job because it's more advantageous to stay in it, and even though I'm broke despite working, I'm so broke I can't afford not to work the crappy job I do have. And Chris would pretty much kill me if I went anywhere without him after this summer. Especially if I did it with the complete isolation I kinda need about now. Which I can't really blame him for, it's perfectly reasonable to be honest, and rather a mute point as I don't have the money in the first place, but it's all just compounding issues.

There's a fairly likely chance Joel will end up dragging me, fully kicking and screaming inevitably, to the doctors at some point in an attempt to force them to do something for me. Of course I'm not thrilled about the concept of going to see medical professionals, and any concept of therapy is likely to throw me into fits of vomiting, but nothing's happening yet, so until such point as I am dragged kicking and screaming, I plan to hide from that prospect and ignore it entirely.

Oh, and bonus points to anyone who knows the title reference.

Friday, 10 December 2010

Life

Life is hard. Really hard. A lot of the time. And some days you know exactly why you fight so hard for it. Most of the time I just carry on because I have nothing better to do with my time and it has the small chance of providing some passing amusement in any given day. But overall, I have no idea why we all struggle so much, for something so transient.