Depression is a Voice
Tw: self harm
I have this distinct memory of being in an assembly in primary school at about the age of seven. The headteacher read out that I received an award for something. I don’t know what it was for. I couldn’t remember having done something particularly remarkable. I was the only kid in school who received it. I walked up to the stage to receive the award, which was basically just a sheet of paper, I think it might have been in a frame, I can’t remember. I felt really confused because I didn’t know why I deserved it. I then turned to the sea of faces sitting cross-legged across the floor of the assembly hall, and everybody started clapping, which you’d think would be a good thing, but the sound was too much for me. It was probably quite a mild applause, but to this little kid, it was like this thunderous deafening noise just blasting right at me for something I’d apparently done well, but I didn’t know why.
The sound made me start crying. I ran back to my vacated space of carpet with my piece of paper, still not really sure why I’d been given it in the first place.
I don’t know for certain, but I’m fairly sure the root of my depression stems from here. It was the idea I’d done something well, but I felt like I didn’t deserve it because I couldn’t remember what I’d done.
Winston Churchill characterised his depression as the ‘black dog’ that followed him around. Mine manifests as a voice.
My train of thought is a voice in my head where I run through all my thoughts without having to say them out loud. Usually its a checklist of stuff I have to do. “Send that email, rewrite this, buy more eggs”. Sometimes people catch me muttering under my breath and find it strange that I’m talking to myself, but its when I don’t have my guard up so high and find myself accidentally speaking my train of thought out loud.
My train of thought sounds like my own voice, and so does the voice of depression that tells me I’m not good enough. My depression is a voice in my head telling me I’m worthless, and it SOUNDS like my own voice, and so I assume it to be a true part of my train of thought. I’ve had this voice for as long as I can remember, and it took until therapy for me to start learning how to differentiate the voice of my train of thought from the voice of depression.
When I’m working on a creative piece, I’ll suddenly get interrupted by the voice where it says “what’s the fucking point? What you’re doing isn’t good enough. It should be MORE. And you’re not capable of MORE.” And since it sounds like my own voice, I’m convinced that that must be the truth.
Usually what happens is I push through to the end of a project and release something, and people will be complimentary, but I often flashback to that moment where I received that award. I didn’t know why people applauded and I personally didn’t think I’d done anything worthwhile, and so the applause sounded like an attack. Its part of why even though I’ve always had the creative bug, I’ve only ever tried onstage performance a handful of times throughout my life. I’m much better when I can’t see an audience and its only measured by a like counter on a website.
I’ve always known how to push through and finish a project. My parents instilled such a strong work ethic in me that I never give up on anything, but the thing I’ve always struggled with is how when I’ve made something, got a good reaction, to then sit back and think “I’ve achieved something.” Its the sitting back and basking in my achievements. That’s the difficult bit. I usually just move on to the next project without patting myself on the back.
This is not to say the reaction I get isn’t a temporary reprieve from the voice telling me I haven’t done enough and that I’m not capable of something good, let alone great. Its just the reaction has to be CONSTANT. That buzz I get from a good reaction to something I’ve made really doesn’t last that long.
I first developed that need for that reaction that releases me from the voice when I was younger. I took to being funny because laughter makes you feel good and I liked the idea that I could make other people feel good when I didn’t. Robin Williams once said “the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” I know agreeing with that sounds a bit egotistical of me and of course, I’m nowhere near a tenth of the genius Robin Williams was, but as far as my intent goes, its a pretty accurate summation.
When I was about 12 or 13 I discovered Friends reruns on Channel 4 and I identified heavily with Chandler Bing. Even for someone whose critical faculties had barely begun to develop, the point of the character was pretty obvious. Chandler used humour to make up for his lack of confidence, and it appeared to work for him. He had a solid group of friends and pushed through his problems to develop a healthy life for himself. Of course it wasn’t real, but it was a nice fantasy that someone could get by on being funny, and that’s what I did. I could feel like I’d achieved something if I made people laugh, at least for a little while. The problem is that being funny isn’t enough, and if you read his autobiography, you’ll know that no one knew that more than Matthew Perry. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about a celebrity death before, because celebrities are ultimately people you don’t know, but his death in particular hit me hard.
If I’m not constantly getting that reaction out of people that affirms I am good enough, the voice will interrupt my train of thought and tell me I haven’t done enough. And its fucking exhausting trying to keep up that reaction to just get that voice to just shut the fuck up. That and while laughter works in the short term, it ultimately leaves you with a lack of a real emotional connection with people if you expect yourself to be ALWAYS on. Its probably part of why people started drifting out of my life in my late teens, early twenties. I was trying too hard to keep up a front of laughter and people could ultimately tell I was faking who I really was. I’d never say anything at all if I couldn’t get a laugh.
Its not just the reaction of others that drowns out the voice though. In about 2005, I got an iPod for my birthday and loaded it with music and whenever I was out in public I would have at least one headphone in. My parents complained about it because they were concerned I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and might up getting hit by a car or something. I said I’d stop, but I never did. I needed something to drown out my own thoughts because a lot of the time it would be that hideous voice telling me I didn’t deserve to exist, which was always louder whenever I was out in public. I felt more vulnerable, just like I was as that kid on the stage with a sea of people clapping at me even though I was sure I didn’t deserve it.
Sometimes the voice gets too loud. And that’s when its dangerous. I don’t want to go into full explicit details of my experiences with self harm. I’m only mentioning it because the thing people don’t understand about self harm is that the reason people do it is that its a distraction. Just like with my need to get a positive reaction out of people with humour, just like with my blasting music into my ears all the time whenever I was out in public as a teenager, when you’ve got that voice telling you you’re worthless, its hard to drown it out. For me, it was the result of the voice getting so intense that it was this piercing screaming and I felt like I needed something equally intense to distract from it. It was a long time ago now and I hope I never go back there. I don’t think I will.
One thing I take comfort in is my ability to use these experiences creatively. I recently shot my second short film which involves a therapy session. With the actors consent, when I gave direction, I talked to them about my experiences with self harm, and we managed to incorporate it in a non-explicit manner. Its only implied the character does it through the way his body moves while discussing things that make him feel uncomfortable. I’m proud of myself for using this experience for something. It did improve the performance. I have found that this is the capacity in which I find it easiest to sit back and bask in my achievements.
I still think the best thing I’ve done is probably the video on my channel called ‘How to Fix 13 Reasons Why’ in which I detail my grievances with the Netflix show and relate it to my own experiences with depression. I like getting comments from people, I’ve had a few emails as well, where they’ve genuinely appreciated my being honest and open about my mental health problems. I like the idea that I make people who’ve gone through similar things to me feel less alone.
I think I might be moving past this NEED to be funny. I’m finding that emotional sincerity in my creative and online works make it much easier for me to recognise what I’ve actually achieved. A laugh is all well and good, but the comfort I get from knowing I’ve made someone laugh doesn’t last long enough and the idea I’ve made someone feel less alone is more powerful to me.
Laughter is fun, but it stops, and in that silence, people vanish, and I’m alone, and that’s when the voice speaks to me.
If I’m sincere, and feel I’ve made a lasting impression on people, its almost like they’re a presence in that silence. I feel less alone. The voice is still there, but doesn’t have as much power over me.
