Together

"All I want to say is that Leonard has been so astonishingly good, every day, always; I can’t imagine that anyone could have done more for me than he has. We have been perfectly happy until these last few weeks, when this horror began. Will you assure him of this?" 

I have always found a huge comfort in the prose of Virginia Woolf and especially her diaries; when reading them I feel as though a best friend is talking to me across the years. Even though I know where the diaries end, each time I get there I am overwhelmed by heaving sobs for a life lost, for all the words she didn't go on to say, and for all the stories that stopped with her life. She, a stranger and yet she holds my hand, and although I know her life ended when it shouldn't, the fact that she survived her illness at other times, put her pen to paper and clawed out her thoughts has always given me strength. 

But Virginia Woolf couldn't write when she was in a depressive state; her diaries go silent for months at a time. Her depression is almost completely invisible, in fact, reading her diaries it is hard to find any evidence of it at all. Here instead is a woman who is lively, opinionated, deeply intelligent and well loved.

Where we do get a glimpse of the voice behind her depression is in the two suicide notes she wrote, one to her husband Leonard, the other to her sister Vanessa. The letter to Leonard has been widely published; it is in fact a beautiful and even romantic letter of love to the man who tried so hard to save her. Less known are the words she wrote to Vanessa (as written above), imploring that Leonard be made aware of what he meant to her and how much he had helped her. 

This for me is the hardest part of depression, knowing that the illness directly impacts those around you. I am happy to write my experiences for strangers to read but always when I publish anything I have my Mum and my sister in the back of my head, will this provoke them to worry?

Silence is depressions weapon, depression does not want you to talk about it, or even challenge it because it knows that we are always better together than we are alone. It is when we are alone that it gains access to our thoughts; in the silence it can hear our fears, our doubts, and in the silence it can whisper them back at us. 

"I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know." - Virginia to Leonard Woolf 

My depression has been a little loud this week; in truth I am just feeling normal emotions about something that has made me a bit lonely and sad but sensing a weakness the voice that was whispering around the corner started to shout: you are not good enough, you will never be happy, you will never be successful, you will never be truly loved, there is no point. Give up Hannah give up now. If you tell anyone, you will upset them, you will worry them, you will make them angry.

Only a bully wants to keep you isolated. 

Only a bully wants to take what makes you 'you' and turn it against you.

Only a bully wants to lead you to the river with stones in your pockets.

Only a bully will watch as you drown all the while crying out how worthless you are.

Only a bully…

"I have fought against it, but I can’t any longer, Virginia" - to Vanessa Bell

On Monday as I sat alone with the tears that simply wouldn't stop, there was a knock on my door. It was my sister and with one look at my face (which try as I might would not stop leaking water) she enveloped me with her love. Quietly, calmly and gently she sat with me until my tears had dried up, until my eyes had brightened, until a smile appeared. She stayed with me until I had spoken a bit about how I was feeling, until I had calmed, until the voice had been silenced. I know that if you asked her, she wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else but beside me as I cried. My depression knew this too so it had to shut up shouting that no one cared, that no one wanted to hear me talk, that everyone would be better off without me. By being together, we silenced the voice, even if only for a few hours. 

"I know that V. will not come across the garden from the Lodge, and yet I look in that direction for her. I know that she is drowned and yet I listen for her to come in at the door. I know that this is the last page and yet I turn it over." - Leonard Woolf 

History is made up of men who have loved women as full heartedly as Leonard loved Virginia and as my family and friends love me. With Leonard by her side she had recovered from her illness before; it was only in the silence of solitude that she was able to write her note to him and walk to her death. Here, on her own, she chose to turn her back on him, on her sister, on all those who loved her; she chose to turn her back on life. 

On her own she was helpless to the voices that marched her towards her death.

On her own...

“All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are 'sides,' and it is necessary for one side to beat another side, and of the utmost importance to walk up to a platform and receive from the hands of the Headmaster himself a highly ornamental pot.” - Virginia Woolf, A Room of ones own

  

When we leave people alone, when we leave them outside, when we stay silent, we are all contributing to the depression of the World. We are watching as someone drowns, we are turning our backs as someone cries, we are putting the stones in our own pockets and allowing the current of the river to pull us under. We are better together: men and women, black and white, East and West. It is when we pull each other apart that we flounder.

“It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly. ... Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated.” - Virginia Woolf, A Room of ones own

Period: Full Stop

Period - a definition: 

"A rather large interval of time that is meaningful in the life of a person, in history etc. because of its particular characteristics: a period of illness; a period of great profitability for a company; a period of social unrest"

And of course: a period of menstruation. 

Hi Gents!

Do you see what I did there? By using the most common name we use for it I've managed to get you to click into an article you would not have read if I had used one of the other names we use to remove ourselves from the cold reality of the fact that women bleed once a month; until of course they stop bleeding and get hot sweats and a whole host of other shit hormonal symptoms. 


But don't leave.




Periods are everywhere (literally), heck, you could be stood next to one RIGHT NOW(!) From the company who have announced this week that they will be giving women time off for bad periods, to the app launched by a New Yorker called Shvrk (that's a silent V or an upside down A or just a gimmicky pile of bollocks because God forbid the app be called I'M ON MY FUCKING PERIOD YOU MORON), that was specifically designed so your partner, bless him, can know when your on your period without you ever having to say the word. The woman who invented this is 26 - fucking millennials. 

Periods happen, we all know this, half the Worlds population (roughly) knows a lot more about this but we all know this. However, we really don't like talking about them, which is a shame because they won't go away. From the ridiculous Tampon tax, to yesterday's news, periods just keep coming back - which is appropriate because that is how they work. If you're bored of seeing them in your newspapers then imagine how bored we are when they keep coming back month after month? 

I started my period aged 11 years and 10 months; I was so excited I can even remember the date, 15th December 1993. I felt like a woman, I felt like I was part of a club and I felt so proud of myself. But much like when the first pubic hair arrives and is swiftly followed by an unbearable continuous itch as the rest of them force their way through the surface of your skin, I quickly realised they were not much more than a giant pain (literally) in my stomach, back, heart and tear ducts. 

NEWSFLASH: I am actually on my period as I type this. Don't worry, my PMT was last week, this week I am all spots, pain, gassy, overly hot and bloated. Which is a walk in the park after the emotional fall out I always have the week before, sometimes two weeks before, every single month. 

And every single month I forget. People say you forget childbirth, which I can believe because I forget PMT every single month. Every. Single. Month. It happens around the same time every month yet and I can't say this enough, every single month for the last 22 years, 2 months and 20 days (I think - maths?) I forget until after two days of unrelenting, unreasonable, uncontrollable emotions I have a wake up moment: "Oh...I'm due on next week." And like that all the horror of the last two days disappears down a tunnel of memory loss. 

When I try and remember the depths of my depression, I can remember facts but I can't ever quite grasp the memory of the feeling, thank goodness. It has disappeared down the same memory tunnel as my monthly PMT. But the thing with depression, much like a period, is that it never really goes away. It comes back and you have not only forgotten what it is, you don't know you're in it until seemingly a cloud lifts and you're on the other side.

I think, despite all my protests last year, that I was actually depressed and I can only really see it now that I don't feel like that any more. Now I'm working creatively and actively trying to use my skills and the things that make me ‘me’ and that make my life worthwhile the cloud has lifted and I feel happy. Scared, yes, emotional, yes but not the kind of uncontrollable emotions that come once a month for a few days, or with every visit depression pays, these are normal emotions, not that depression doesn't come from normal emotions, it most certainly does, but the emotions become bigger than life instead of life being bigger than them. 

That is also true for the two days every month when I am lost in my pre menstrual fog. Last week that coincided with the lead up to my birthday. Despite having lots of lovely people around me, doing nice things, being spoiled, I had a terrible birthday. I wanted to cry all day and I did for most of the two hours that I couldn't get the Sky go connection to work that evening. I should have been sleeping ahead of an all night Oscar viewing party but instead I was crying into my laptop and wailing "WHY ME? WHY ALWAYS ME?" Yeah, I know - first World problems. But if you'd have said that to me on Sunday, I might have ripped your actual head off with my bare hands. 

Depression, much like periods, is cyclical and like periods we don't like talking about it, especially men. Not talking about these subjects doesn't make them go away. Not talking about them doesn't lesson them. Not talking about them doesn't help anyone. 

And men more than anyone need to learn to talk about all the things that make them feel uncomfortable: periods, emotions, fear, sex, sexuality and depression. It's time to talk, women bleed, men cry and everyone struggles with life. 

Full stop. 

The Jigsaw

A single piece in a jigsaw puzzle is whole and complete and if you remove it from the bigger picture it’s form doesn’t change, the pattern on it remains the same, and it exists entirely as apiece in its own right. Put it next to the other parts of the puzzle and a full image begins to emerge.

Last week, whilst watching a film I found myself feeling full, complete, happy and content in my own self for the first time in a while. It was one of those right films, at the right time, in the right mood moments and with the perfect amount of abstract story to allow me to take the narrative and fit it into the parts of my brain that had been flailing for answers. I left the cinema feeling happy in my own skin and even with a full acceptance that my double chin is a part of me and actually I’m pretty okay.

At the end of January I went freelance, as a writer, as an Actor, as a voiceover artist and as any real odds and jobs (to begin with). The last four weeks have been about exploring and every single day I’m learning something new, about me, about my creative process, about the industry I am trying to get into and about life in general. I feel very alive, even full to the brim. I also feel permanently terrified and lost but often these negatives can help to just keep us awake and open to the present moment.

So much of life is spent worrying about tomorrow or thinking about yesterday and I simply haven’t had time to do either, unless you count the once daily panic about money, a worry that exists in the future because in fact financially I’m okay. I have saved enough to buy myself time but I still panic about that fictional point in the future when the money has all gone. Which is ridiculous because if I stay in the present moment then I have money and literally anything could happen between now and the day it runs out. So it’s a wasted worry and wasted energy, as all future projections are.

The last few weeks spent exploring who I am and trying to package my skills for ‘sale’ has bought me back into focus. I can see myself again and the reflection isn’t all that bad after all, in fact I am in technicolour. Which got me thinking, it is so important that we nourish whom we are in order to keep ourselves in the centre of our own lives. It is so easy to get lost in the bigger puzzle, to cling to all the pieces that surround us as a way of holding onto our identity. Be that your job, your finances, your family, your partner, your friends or all of the above at once. We begin to believe we need the other components to be whole. But in fact we are complete.

The other bits, our job and the people around us, they make up the tableau of our whole life and when you take one away yes that changes the image, possibly even a void is left that cannot be patched up, like when death visits and takes a loved one away, but our part, our shape, our form remains intact.

And if you try and fit a piece of the puzzle in the wrong place, sometimes it can look right for a bit, it can seem to fit but eventually another fragment comes along or the fact that the puzzle doesn’t quite sit right will become clear and you accept it is time to move it to it’s rightful place. It’s still a part of the sketch of your life but it’s not always the picture you thought it was going to be when you started drawing. And that’s okay.

All we can do is stay in the frame, remember we are whole and that life is a puzzle which we don’t have to figure out all at once, it will become clear in time, it will be complete only when death takes us and figures of it will go missing along the way, leaving gaping holes, areas of it will shift and change as life becomes clearer, some bits will fit somewhere unexpected but you as a piece in it, you are complete, you are all you ever need to be, here, today, right now – you are enough.

Smug Bastard Salad (I'm still hungry)

Look, we all know the blog has been hideously neglected but let's not make things awkward. A promise between friends (or strangers on the internet) means never having to give a reason or excuse for why you broke it, unless of course you are a prospective future Editor, in which case - my pet fish died, Nemo, it was so sad, he had a gammy fin and escaped the clutches of an evil girl to get back to the Ocean in an earlier life, plucky little fella. 


Yes, I am flaky, yes, but, well, life. Oh shut up.


In other news, I am eating sugar and drinking alcohol and I am happy, so bollocks to it. However, I am still trying to eat generally healthy food and after a friend asked me to send him the recipe for the quite frankly brilliant soup I made last night, I decided that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to pipe up here every now and then. And so, well, lunch happened and I learned a lot as I made and then ate it and now it's all yours to learn, try and then regret. You're welcome:



Smug Bastard Salad (I'm still hungry) 

Ingredients:
Quinoa
Tuna
Yellow pepper
Celery
Red onion
Baby leaf spinach

Dressing:
Olive oil
Cider vinegar
English mustard
Salt and pepper


Cook the Quinoa according to the instructions because, let's be honest, if you can read this, you can read those. And also, they vary wildly and I don't want to be responsible for you messing this up. 


As it is cooking, take a large mixing bowl and a table spoon. Pour olive oil over the spoon twice, sloshing it over the edges as you go, in a vain attempt to measure it. Look in the bowl, decide to add more, do it freehand because you're a rebel. 


Carefully measure one tablespoon of cider vinegar and throw it in, doubt whether it's enough but don't add more, just regret it later. Add half a tablespoon of mustard, a pinch of salt and pepper and feel like a French connoisseur as you stir them together. 


Chop one celery stick, half a yellow pepper and a quarter a red onion, which you will both regret and be grateful for later. Stir it all in. Add half a tin of tuna whilst having your legs wrapped into a knot by two cats circling you like lions (optional), stir. Then add the quinoa, I mean as much as you think is necessary. I can't help you here, no one knows the answer. Stir again. Then add some baby spinach leaves and stir again. 


Heap onto a plate, think you couldn't possibly eat all that, put some back into the mixing bowl and feel smug. 


Take one mouthful, allow your eyes and nose to run from the overpowering taste of onion. Realise you can't taste the dressing at all so be grateful for the overpowering taste of onion. 


Eat it. Realise that it is salad and yes you can eat all of it, you smug bastard. Scrape the bowl clean whilst ruminating how for a second effort at a salad dressing, you really should have done better. Let it go, because life is hard enough and there are probably better things to admonish yourself for than the fact you're still not French. 


Sit for one minute before realising that you're still hungry, because, salad. 


Eat an Easter Egg. Regret nothing.