Not Falling Down: Post 7: Things That Bring Me Joy
A series following a professional woman’s experience of reoccurring suicidal thoughts and what she does about them.
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TW: Suicide, Suicidal Ideation.
I’ve been planning to write this post since I started this mini blog, but I always end up prioritising the more sombre, serious stuff which in itself could be an indication that when things feel tough or difficult, we tend to forget all about the things which make us happy. But those things are really important. Clearly, it’s a good idea not to lead a life of misery but it’s also vital to regularly do things which make us happy or content. A life of with no sadness and no joy would be banal and a life with no happiness at all is a really tough gig.
The NHS Depression Self Assessment begins by asking if over the last two weeks you’ve had ‘little pleasure or interest in doing things’, and this is a common question in all the depression questionnaires I’ve been given. I never used to understand the question because my take on it was that whilst I may not have done much photography over the past fortnight that didn’t mean I didn’t love it anymore. If you’re a bit down you’re bound to prioritise chilling out on the sofa over thinking about a creative project, right?
Actually, what I’ve noticed from having years of suicidal ideation is that the more effort and energy I put into managing and dealing with the ideation, the more disconnected I’ve become from the things that really make me deeply happy; so that question is starting to make more sense. It could be that I’m getting steadily more and more depressed, but I think it’s perhaps more likely that my body is constantly running on anxiety and I’m so busy managing to do my job whilst hiding an ongoing health issue, that I just don’t have the energy or time for the fun stuff anymore so it’s constantly on the bottom of a To Do list I’ll never get through.
Which is why it’s important to not only make time for this kind of activity but to plan to do something enjoyable if you’re someone who finds being spontaneously kind to themselves difficult.
Scheduled fun is the worst kind of fun (and the pandemic gave us a lot of Zoom quizzes to hammer that point home) but if it means that you remember what it is that moves you, and you actually take time to do something you enjoy, then that’s a positive step towards remembering who you are.
Recently I took a mate to see Henry Rollins as he was doing a spoken word gig. I love Henry and have seen him perform many times over decades, but my friend was largely unaware of his work. In a fast food restaurant before the show I noticed a couple of blokes around my age sitting on the next table. One had a ‘Black Coffee Blues’ t shirt on which is the name of one of Henry’s books. Both my friend and Black Coffee Blues man got up and left the table around the same time, so I started to chat the remaining guy. I asked him if he was off to see Rollins later (knowing full well that he was) and he told me he’d never seen him before and that it was his mate in the shirt who was the fan and who had persuaded him to come along. We talked about Rollins and when Black Coffee Blues man came back, I told him that like him, I was a big Rollins fan who had brought along a newbie friend who knew nothing about Henry. The four of us ended up chatting together for a while, enjoying the dynamic of having two fans and two non fans around the table, before we all walked over to the venue together — and I thought about how much I enjoy talking to random people.
Days later I told my friend that I had felt like “the old Emma” that night and it reminded me of how carefree I used to be. My friend told me that he calls those moments “glimmers”. It reminded me that inside I am the same person and for all the crap that I deal with now I can still find the moments where I feel connected to myself and the things I love.
The glimmer made me think about the other things that make me happy and whether there’s scope to do those things again. Some of them are fairly day to day activities like going out for meals but I’ve deprioritised them so much that it feels like they are no longer on my radar. Other things feel like they would require real effort to start doing them again but maybe it’s like starting a car on a cold day and once you get going you’re away.
The first thing to do would be to make a list, so these are some of the things that fill me with joy and some of the reasons why I enjoy doing them. They are in no particular order. These are also the things that I am pretty sure would make me feel happy if I did them again.
Photographing Rock Stars
I started photographing bands in 1997 pretty much by accident but it’s something I’ve never grown tired of even though I haven’t done it for a while. It all tailed off a bit in 2005 when I got pregnant and started a family but since then I’ve been lucky enough to photograph some of my favourite bands recording radio sessions, which is an incredible privilege. The radio sessions feel very different in atmosphere from being at a concert as there isn’t that crowd roar or level of expectation, but being the only person in a room with a band is just ridiculously special. The hilarious thing is that the sound is often really weird — I don’t wear headphones so what I hear isn’t what goes out on the radio so sometimes I’m snapping away to loud drums and very little audible guitar, but being in a room with a band or musician for what is basically a 1–2–1 gig still makes me feel like a competition prize winner every time.
Gigs are something else entirely. I’ve photographed in a range of venues from tiny sweatboxes to arenas. Smaller venues are ace as the shows are intimate, but my favourite venues are the ones which are a bit bigger and include a barrier at the front which affords the photographer a pit to work in between the stage and audience. I’d go into the pit once the roadies had cleared the support band’s equipment and had got the headline band’s stuff into place, and whilst amps were being plugged in and mics were being tested, I’d talk to the front row and maybe take pictures of them.
Most often you’re allowed to shoot for the first three songs with no flash which can be a curse if the band decides to play in almost darkness (Hello! Sepultura!). The three song limit is great if the band have long songs but tricker if they’re thundering through 2 minute long punk tracks. Some artists will stand stock still with a guitar in hand, others will run about and keep you on your toes and it’s this unpredictability that makes it a fun challenge. I love music and I love photography so the buzz I get photographing bands is just unreal. It’s like nothing else I’ve felt before. And then when you’re done and the band are starting their fourth song of the night you can go and find a quiet corner to sit in and look through what you’ve got — and if you find a photo that makes you inwardly go “Oooh!” well that’s the best feeling of all.
VR
I joined a Virtual Reality meetup group around the time my marriage broke down (the two events weren’t connected, honest). I started off buying a VR headset for my PlayStation but soon upgraded to a room scale VR system that mapped where you were in the room and came with a virtual guardian that you could see in your headset so you were less likely punch the chimney-breast.
I’ve tried quite a bit of VR stuff out over the years. I own three different systems and I now help run the meetup group I went to all those years ago. As part of my day job I’ve even been able to do a little bit of work on a proper VR immersive experience which I was so pleased about.
It’s still quite niche but VR isn’t just about getting motion sickness or punching chimney-breasts (although I’ve experience of both of those). Sure, there’s plenty of brilliant action and adventure games but it can also be an incredible storytelling tool. I’ve sat at a cafe table and listened to the people opposite me talk about segregation in America, I’ve climbed into a boat and watched the Titanic go down (and cried into my headset) and I’ve stood on the moon and had a tiny insight into how small and fragile our world looks. All these are things I wouldn’t be able to do in real life but putting the VR headset on cut the distractions so instead of watching a TV documentary and picking up my phone, my attention was fully on what I could see in front of me.
Games are good too though and there’s one in particular that I’ve played for years. It’s called Beat Saber and you have a couple of light sabers which you use to hit coloured blocks in time to music. It comes with its own specially composed tracks, or you can install a mod and add custom tracks that people have put together. I’ve not picked up my VR headset for months and wondered if I was coming to the end of my immersive journey but the other night I loaded up Beat Saber and put my muscle memory to the test. In real life I can’t dance but if I’ve got a VR headset on I’ll dance like no one’s watching (which to be fair they aren’t as I mostly live alone). I forgot how much fun swinging a couple of light sabers around to Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’ is but it was good enough that I did 40 minutes along to some of my other favourite music which was pretty impressive seeing as how I’d also just done half an hour on a WaterRower. Long live VR!
Going on Holiday
I’ve mentioned holidays before on this mini-blog. The last one I booked was in 2017 and I’ve not been abroad since then and the two UK holidays I’ve been on have been me piggy backing on other people’s holidays when they were kind enough to let me tag along. I don’t like going on holiday on my own and I feel all kinds of anxiety being the sole adult in charge, but I’ve struggled to find any other adults willing or able to come on holiday with me. That said, my child is fast approaching 18 so I’ve noticed that there seems to be two adults in the house now and that means we can make a decision together. Which is what we did.
Solo adult holidays (with an adult child) are financially very challenging but this year I had a bit of a windfall so rather than put it into savings as planned, I have allocated the lot towards taking a proper break with my daughter. I’ve found a holiday which should ease the anxiety I get over not knowing where I am going whilst still having enough excitement for us to feel like we’ve done something cool and very different from work or college. It’s taken a mammoth amount of time and willpower to actually get as far as finding and booking a holiday (and I did cry when I was trying to book it because of all the mental processing I was doing) but I’ve finally done it and that feels like I’ve perhaps made it easier for next time. Maybe.
Talking To People About Stuff I Know About
I’ve had a few moments where I’ve done this recently. Not just at the Rollins gig but recently at an Away Day I attended with a load of immersive tech folks where we all met up and ‘worked from home’ in one of those shared meeting spaces. When you’re suicidal you can feel valueless and like you’re not interesting to anyone but then when someone asks me about something I am passionate, knowledgeable, and interested in I can talk for England (which is partly an autistic thing and I’m sorry if you’ve missed your bus because I wouldn’t shut up). My point is, I’d forgotten how great it is being able to share ideas and knowledge and have people tell you that what’s you’ve got to say is interesting and engaging. It’s a good way of reminding you why you should stick around too.
Entertaining
In the past month or so I’ve made the effort to meet with five friends that I don’t see much and of those five friends, one I’ve never been out for a pint with before, and one I haven’t seen for six years. Big life changes like divorces, kids growing up and global pandemics can result in your friendship circle melting away and this is what’s happened to me. Being autistic also means it’s hard to get that existing circle back or find a new one.
The person I hadn’t seen for six years came round to my house and whilst he wouldn’t have cared much about how it looked (I don’t think) I still found myself getting the furniture polish out and cleaning the entire house. When I was married and regularly entertained both my own parents and my outlaws, I would treat every visit as if the Queen was coming. The house would be blitzed, and the fridge filled with food from M&S. No one cared except me and it wasn’t anxiety induced cleaning but a real excitement that I was going to entertain guests.
I’ve talked to my counsellor about how much of a wrench losing this role in my life is. I spend a lot of time living alone so I don’t have a partner to take care of and whilst Christmas was once a time of marathon baking and socialising with friends and family, it’s now often a gruelling period I have to get through on my own. Last year I helped run a Christmas themed volunteering weekend at the start of December which I found incredibly therapeutic (despite the amount of work to do before and during the event) and having my long lost friend over recently made me realise how much good having guests around does for my wellbeing. It’s made me think I should do it more if I can.
Tailoring
This is my wildcard of happiness. I’d actually forgotten about it until I watched a brilliant documentary on the tailors who were making all the ceremonial military outfits for King Charles III’s Coronation. I like clothes but I absolutely adore tailoring. This is a long standing love which goes back to my teens. When I was in the sixth form I remember seeing a young Jack Dee performing and his suits always looked magnificent and he had a double pocket on one side which I thought was incredibly cool. I found out that his suits were made by a tailor called Eddie Kerr (something I’ve never forgotten). I thought that if ever I got rich or famous (or both) I’d have an Eddie Kerr suit. In the meantime, teenage me found a flared ladies jacket in Debenhams with a double pocket and I wore it everywhere.
In later years I’ve spent many an early morning or post work evening rummaging around T K Maxx for similar gems. A lot of my friends can’t stand the slightly jumble sale nature of the Maxx but I’m ok with it if I get there when it’s quiet. I’ve been known to try on absolutely ridiculous expensive designer outfits just to see how they look (my ex husband once said my taste in clothes was a bit Jonathan Ross at times) but my real passion is outdoor wear and I have a deep love of well cut jackets and coats. I probably have too many coats but I do wear them all (not at the same time) and they make me feel both strong and comforted. I’ve got an beautiful Italian wool charcoal Vivienne Westwood coat which has seen me through the funerals of two friends and a Stella McCartney coat that weighs a tonne and makes me look a Star Wars villain.
A few years ago Superdry produced some incredible military coats and I have three; a cropped sort of grey wool riding jacket and two beautifully tailored coats with immaculate linings and piping inside. One is an olive green smart army style coat albeit with a bright pink lining and yellow piping inside, whilst the other is blue and rather air force looking but again with slashes of pink hidden along the top of the pockets.
These coats fill me with joy not least because some of the best embellishments are made purely for the wearer to enjoy. I had looked at the blue coat several times before buying it; it was heavily reduced in price but I had enough coats already. I finally succumbed one evening whilst in town feeling nervous before meeting the person I was dating for dinner. I bought the coat, stuffed my light Zara canvas jacket into my bag and donned the RAF-esque coat instead. Hours later after a rather delicious meal I was dumped. Not only was this very upsetting but it also made the relationship with my coat very difficult. I still loved it so I wore it a bit before abandoning it in my wardrobe and then putting it on eBay along with a load of other items of clothing a couple of years later. Much to my surprise and frustration it was the only thing that didn’t sell, so it went back into the wardrobe where I re-discovered it recently, tried it on and realised that even if it was a coat I had been dumped in on first wearing, it was still really nice and the cut was beautiful. I recently wore it to the reopening party of a museum and invited that chap who had dumped me, (we’re still friends) and he told me how nice my coat looked — so I was right to keep both of them in my life.
None of the above has anything directly to do with mental health or suicide and it may have been a bit off topic or boring to read (sorry) but these are some of the things that make me feel happy, joyous or comfortable. People often tell me to think about what I want from life, but actually taking time to think and write about the things that made me happy once before and could potentially do the same again, feels like a better starting point than trying to do new things for the sake of change. Not everything in the past is bad and if you can feel ace in a coat you were dumped in then going back to other old loves might not be such a bad idea if it reconnects you with who you are.
Helpful resources:
Samaritans (UK) https://www.samaritans.org/ 116 123
988 Lifeline (USA) https://988lifeline.org/ 988
International Suicide Hotlines https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/
