Head Clutching Headlines: Let's Change the Picture

One of the many other people (I think of them as friends, though they don't know me, nor I them, and we've never met except on Twitter) who tweet about mental health (their own and in general), @sectioned_, recently posted about the phenomenon of the #'headclutcher' photograph that so often accompanies mental health news. You've seen them before: a picture of a woman or man looking down and holding their head in their hands. This is often the image that is printed alongside such articles if the subject is mental health in general, rather than a specific issue such as having an eating disorder (cue photos of scales or magazines with size zero models on their pages) or self-harming (cue photos of scarred arms).

This man must be depressed. He can't do anything, in fact, because his hands are glued to his face.

I was recently profiled in an article about the January Blues and luckily they used a picture of someone staring out of a window rather than clutching their head. But still, I don't gaze out of windows all day, every day. And if you're my employer reading this, then, seriously, I don't do that all day, every day. Because I am working and getting on with things! The only time I look out of the window is to confirm that, yes, it is still January, still cold, still dark, still damp, and that it would be much better to stay inside where it's nice and cosy.

Window gazing. You can read the article on the January blues here.

I have been feeling very up and down recently, but I have not once held my head in my hands over the last couple of weeks. I may have stayed in bed watching The Good Wife (which is very good, by the way. They should consider renaming it The Good Good Wife), I may have gone to the shops without makeup because I couldn't be bothered to make any effort to look good, or I may have travelled to a lunch with friends made up and looking smart and just about as un-depressed as any image of me could seem.

The Good wife. It's really good. And what a poker face.

Appearances are deceptive though. I felt dreadfully ill recently when I went and met friends, and barely made it through the afternoon with the constant taste of metal and nausea that anxiety brings, coupled with the terrible lurch in my stomach of dread of being discovered or not discovered in my wretched state of un-wellness. I think all I want when I feel depressed is to not want to feel depressed. It's boring for one thing, but on the other hand, as @_sectioned and others have put it, once people know I'm depressed I don't know what to do with myself in their company.

Another headclutcher. And he doesn't have any furniture either. How awful.

People try to make helpful suggestions about getting exercise and looking after myself - and these are all the right things to be doing. However, at my lowest ebb I just cannot take any advice because I'm already having enough problems breathing in and out and not favouring the thought that if I didn't wake up tomorrow that would be a lot better than if I did and had to endure another day of this interminable sadness and despondency.

"Why the mustard, why?"

The problem worsens in company where there is a need to make some sort of decision about how to be seen. I remember Alastair Campbell, again, recalling a colleague who told him something like "You're always laughing, you can't be depressed" or near enough. Gladly, Baroness Jolly (you've got to laugh at this, really, haven't you?) recently debated on behalf of the government on the issue mental health. But Parliament couldn't quite resist the opportunity to post its news alongside the above picture of a man who, in my opinion, is merely clutching his head to get away from the dreadful taste of whomever decided mustard was a good colour scheme for a room. And then Baroness went on her way back to being a character from the Mister Men.

Little Miss Baroness Jolly

If we apply this to other life experiences rather than illnesses, and, again I turn to the Good Wife, but you can choose your own example, what are people supposed to look like in a certain state? A woman whose husband has been unfaithful to her but has to stand in the public eye supporting him. What is that supposed to look like? Is she supposed to look stern / serious but well turned out? I suppose so. And I suppose that when she does the trash magazines will have headlines that call her 'Brave' and 'Putting on a Brave Face' whereas when she's taking the bins out and can't be bothered to change out of her pyjamas and slippers, or put makeup on she's 'Struggling' or 'In Crisis'.

"Pammy Loses It" versus "Pammy Gets New Tits"

So, what, does that mean that when I feel like laughing I should suppress it, and when I feel like crying I should be sure to go out into the world so everyone can see the tears running down my face? I don't think that's going to get me any promotions at work, but it's also not realistic. I am not crying all the time. (And when I am, no one sees me apart from my husband, because there's a part of my subconscious which radically co-opts every ounce of adrenaline within me to not cry in front of other people when I'm really feeling at my very worst.) I'm probably not smiling all the time, but who is, apart from clowns with painted faces (whom we all know are scary to most people!). What I am doing, as I've said before, is just going through the motions.

I participated in a Time to Change survey on whether people think #headclutcher images are helpful in presenting mental health sufferers accurately. You can probably guess what I thought. Read more about what they're doing here.

"Not only am I depressed, I'm stuck in a yoga pose I can't get out of. Sob."

But I'm not clutching my head. How would I be typing this blog or going to work, washing my face, eating, dressing, if I had to do that all day? Really. I'm not clutching my head. I'm just feeling rubbish. Or not. You can't tell. No one can. And maybe I don't want you to know anyway.

A Fat Lot of Good: January Drear and Diets

I made the catastrophic mistake of weighing myself on Monday. First day back at work and I added to that joy with a painful arm and a horrific number on the scale. And as the writer of this blog, dear reader, I choose to abstain from printing it here. Just know that I'm currently limited to a wardrobe selection of pyjama bottoms that have no elastic left in them, and a reindeer onesie I am supposed to put away after today according to Twelfth night traditions. Oh and some leggings. I am a wearer of leggings now. And giant sweaters.

Yes it's been a stellar week so far. I'm officially on a diet and I know that ahead of me I have weeks of it to come if I have a hope of shifting all the stuffing I have oh so casually stuffed myself with. And I'm delighted that the gabapentin I'm taking as well as the other pain medication and the antidepressants are such a tonic to this diet, for their potential to make people like me, who are, quite frankly, depressed enough without their help, thanks, able to help us to gain weight. It's an overused word, I know, but, frankly, and not without my classic British sarcasm: awesome. And now we add to it the fact I mentioned in my last blog: that another operation on my elbow is needed, meaning more time without being able to swim (it's not the right kind of physio) and only walking as the exercise option. Or cleaning. And let's face it, I'm not writing a blog about being a domestic goddess here. The house is tidy because I'm living mostly in bed.

So, "We get it," I hear you cry. "You're unhappy. It's January. Get over it. (Whatever the 'it' is you wanna focus on. Just get over it. Already." And okay, I should.) But really, this is the best time of year to embrace being miserable. We're all at it. I can scarcely rouse myself from my bed to turn on my laptop in the morning without my eyes moistening at the thought of work. They stayed like that all day today. Moist. Moist when I ate my Rice Krispies (being carefully calculated as part of my get-thinner-even-though-you're-on-weight-gain-meds diet by myFitnessPal). Moist as I went for my lunchtime walk listening to Hard Times (depressing month cause for depressing literature) and moist throughout the rest of the day. Moist now.

Ugh Pills. This is what mealtimes feel like.

Why is January so hard when I can hardly tolerate Christmas and find New Year's Eve stressful too? I would have thought I'd be happy to have it over with. Perhaps it's all those additives and the hangover (both booze and booze-free) from the partaking that has left me in this sorry state. But it is a pretty sorry state. Thankfully, everyone else is miserable too, or so it seems. If August is the silly season for news, January is the dreary destination for deadly dieting and depressingly downcast outlooks. People are giving up or cutting back on the booze (me too), cutting the calories (me too) and getting on the treadmill again (not me too, worse luck). I spent most of yesterday wondering how much of my medication I could forgo for the sake of my figure (I'm an idiot. My arm hurt a lot today.)

Now I'm just saying roll on April. Which is the cruellest month, but by which time I'm hoping I won't need some kind of fat sucking device for my normal jeans to fit, and my darned elbow should be screwed firmly together and actually behaving itself. (I'm giving my body my sternest teacher-like stare.)

The only odd thing I can say amidst this depression is that I can read the most sad and haunting things at my bleakest moments, because it's not the sadness or the despair which is the worst time, it's the feeling that this will never end, and since it may never end, and there's a numbness, why not try poking myself with something really tragic. At twenty one I watched The Ice Storm in such a state. It was the perfect film to get over with while so morose. Today I am going to read a new book on depression, and think about last year when I was travelling back to New York to erase my life there. Unfortunately I think the real life element of the latter is too close to actual trauma, so I will look for fictionalised versions instead. Safer. Distant.

Not an answer to the question: "What's a happy film we can watch?"

I did talk about New York though, and being lonely there while I lived there, recently, so if you want to join me in embarking on exploration of a topic that's important, though not perhaps one to get out with the Christmas crackers or happy birthday music, you can listen to me talking at about 22 minutes in about loneliness on Five Live. They put it on at 00:00 on Boxing Day. I.e. in the small hours when we were all stuffed with turkey, it was already time to stop being cheery (or fake cheery) and start being dreary.

A Life Less Lonely, Radio Five Live

What I think we need is a #joinin for January. In fact that's it: #joininjanuary. Who can come up with the most sardonic tweet for jaundiced January? I challenge you, reader, to join me and cheer me up by telling me that your tape measure doesn't go round your waist either, and that you've got your old step out from behind the wardrobe / from the greenhouse where you were using it as a shelf for pot plants. If you've managed to slice open your finger as my friend Lucy has whilst being middle class using a mandolin (it's a dangerous way to live, the middle class life) or similar, then #joininjanuary. And by the way, I'm still eating a few nice things on my diet hoping not to fall off the wagon before the pounds fall off first. So thanks, Marks and Spencer, for keeping your Extremely Chocolately Roll in stock. I may only have a sliver, but it's enough to make my eyes water. In a good way.