The Pen is Mightier than the Bored

These days, for reason unknown, I just can't seem to write. It's as if my brain won't permit me to do something I enjoy now that I have given myself the freedom to do so.

I remember once someone said to me that I tried to destroy anything that made me happy as a way of punishing myself. It's something I've pondered on long and hard and I think that, whilst once it was probably true, nowadays I have come to terms with it and have adapted my life accordingly. I take the easy option these days as, since I retired, my challenges have become less and I have the luxury of walking away from those that don't appeal. Perhaps I'm just getting bored with writing? I had certain things I wanted to get out and (maybe) they are all now released therefore the desire has been assuaged.

Personally, I think I have just put a pressure of expectation upon myself: a bit like when you're asked to give a specimen. You can rest assured it's the one time you can't co-operate.

I hope that, one day,I can get back into unconscious writing and thus rediscover something that gave me so much pleasure and was a real therapy once upon a time. Perhaps I'm scared of writing? Early this morning, I was re-reading some stuff I wrote several years ago when I was fairly screwed up and the sheer intensity and "nakedness" of it made me almost wish I was back there. I wrote because I had nothing to lose. I wrote because I needed to release things within me. I wrote, I think, because I had nothing else to give.

They were interesting days. I was asked if I wanted some time away from the world, which I gratefully accepted and my private health insurance paid for a few weeks in a lovely old building in Hove which had been converted to a Clinic. At that time, I had really withdrawn from the world and to be somewhere that I could be myself with no pressure, surrounded by others who understood my feelings, was just wonderful.

I wasn't totally gaga - I'd apparently "burned out". I just wanted time and peace and solitude. A place to relax where I could do what I liked, when I liked and how I liked. At first I just read, relaxed, wrote and chatted to the other people there. The nursing staff left me to my own devices as I was effectively on holiday and I was free to come and go as I pleased. They did try to get me to come to discussion groups but I wasn't very good at those as I kept disagreeing with the lady running them to the extent that, one day, I was asked by her if I wished to take over their running. A challenge which I accepted and we all had a great time.

Sadly, I was looked on as a bit of a rebel (funny that!) and was once told that I should be setting a better example to the younger residents as they looked to me as a leader. Oh. I led alright. It was great being classed as psychologically poorly because you could do anything and get away with it. We had food fights, practical jokes galore, all sorts of silly pranks - and they couldn't touch us for it! It was the 1998 World Cup whilst I was there and we decorated the smoking room with banners, flags and other assorted football accoutrements and had a thoroughly wonderful time. I used to drive home at weekends but really looked forward to getting back on a Monday - a little oasis of allowable madness in the great insanity of the outside world.

I was there for several weeks in total and they were some of the happiest and saddest times of my life. I met real people, stripped of all pretensions and controls. They were being themselves, as, at long last, was I and that forged some really strong friendships. The problem was, of course, that we all had problems and it was both a privilege and an agony to see veneers removed. We shared great highs and dreadful lows and there were many times when we would sit there all night, secure in each other's company, talking about our doubts and our fears. Often, this would be therapeutic for those involved but, just sometimes, I would see the results of the agonies within. Someone would disappear for a while and then return with bandaged wrists or freshly-scarred bodies. Their agony became our agony as we all closed ranks against the world.

I was never very good at allowing my feelings to show and tended to pretend I was fine. Once, for reasons I forget, I allowed myself to let out my emotions. It was a strange experience: half of me wanting the uncontrolled sobbing to continue whilst the other half of me was desperately fighting it. I was doing fine until a (rather nice) Norwegian nurse came up and cuddled me and that was the signal to regain control. Lesson Number 1: never let them see.

You see, I can talk about it now because it's impersonal. Should people read it, they don't know me so they can't judge me. It's also predominantly historical now so I can talk about it freely. When I finally finished there I don't think I walked out a different man but who knows? I'm certainly better these days although I still have my periods of introversion, isolation and self-doubt. But then, who doesn't?

I'll leave you with something I wrote in honour of my time there.

Owed to T********** Clinic

Life is just a bowl of corn flakes
You wake up every morning and it's there
The world's in collusion to enhance the illusion
It's a cereal killer beware.

They send us men to mend our minds
If we've got minds to mend
If they can't find it, never mind! It
Proves we're round the bend!

Another session to combat depression
To learn, perchance to live.
So much travail, to what avail?
I'll take, why can't I give?

Pretence is my defence.
A ruse by any other name.
A fraud, a sham, who gives a damn?
The whole thing's just a game.

To blur is humane: to forget, divine.
Just hide behind the mask.
Plus ca change, mais where's the new day?
It's such an uphill task

Secure withing my counsel house,
Unsure of what to find.
Potions and pills merely camouflage ills.
I'm scared of finding my mind!

Religion is an opiate.
Oh God, please let me sleep.
Is this all dreams or what it seems -
A thought that's gone too deep.

Come Morpheus, take me to your arms,
We've got a date to keep.
I promise true I'll dream of you
But I just can't get to sleep!!!

© GH 23 July 1998