half brilliant

“There’s a unique component of music that is different from, you know, the written pamphlet or a speech,” he explained. “There’s something, when you get the right combination of rhythm, melody and the right lyrical couplet, that feels like truth in the reptilian brain. There’s something hardwired in our D.N.A.. And when you get a large group of people singing together in solidarity, it’s something that, in my experience, and I’ve played countless demonstrations and protests through the years, it’s something that can really help a struggle.” - Tom Morello

From 14 Photographs That Shatter Your Image of Famous People on Cracked.com

This is something everybody should understand about depression, by the way. Tell me you haven’t at least once heard somebody say, “I refuse to believe it was suicide, I was just out with Mike two weeks ago. He was laughing and joking and eating an entire pizza like it was a video game power-up.”

Well, depression works that way. Movies have given us a skewed idea of how it works, because there, when a character enters his “dark period,” it’s with a montage full of sad music and drinking and moping in dim rooms. Real life isn’t like that. Not only do moods fluctuate, but even when you’re at your lowest you find yourself in social situations where you’re not allowed to show it. If you’re in a dark place but can’t get out of your nephew’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s, you’re going to put on a smile for the camera. You feel selfish bringing everybody else down. You put on a cheerful mask.

I regularly find myself astounded at the wisdom that is to be found on Cracked.com which is ostensibly a humour site. Just above David Wong makes a point - an almost incongruous one given the article’s subject matter - about the experience of depression that I have struggled to articulate effectively all my life.

This article: 5 Things You Think Will Make You Happy… (But Won’t) is another that blew my socks off a few years ago now. 

Viva la Cracked.com, sometimes I don’t know whether you enlighten, inform, delight or disgust me more. But always the laughs 

I’ve noticed a lot of cardboard cutout policemen facing out the front of various different shops now. Obviously some study has been done that shows that people are statistically more likely to behave in a civil manner when even reminded of the Police by the mere image of one. I mean, I admit the cutout creeps me out every time and I’m only going in there to buy chocolate. But “who the hell do they think they are”, I thought to myself earlier, “thinking a cardboard cutout is really going to intimidate us into abiding by the law! HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?”

Well we are that stupid, whatever study it was proves it. 

Remember how dumb you are, is what I’m saying. I’m lucky, I get reminded every day.

I was thrashing about in the hospital bed. 

“It hurts, it hurts!!!”
“Yes Christopher we know it hurts. Just please try to stay still, and we will do the best we can”
I overheard an exasperated A&E nurse mutter ”How many times has he been in for this now?” over the cacophonous sound of me writhing around the hospital bed in extreme agony. 
“Why don’t you stay out of this? Huh?!? WHO ASKED…”I paused to throw up a little, “…WHO ASKED YOU, JUNIOR?”
“Christopher,”
“Chris Law!”
“Sorry, ‘Chris’ then - I am a senior…”
“Chris LAW!”
The nurse sighed loudly. “Chris Law then”
“Just Chris will do actually”
”(!) Ok, Chris, I am a senior nurse at this hospital and will not be…”
I was getting tired of all the thrashing and didn’t need lecturing from some token medical dogsbody. I felt so sick. The pain was intense and they still hadn’t hooked the morphine up. “Although if you’re doing the admin it will be Christopher Richards”
“THAT IS IRRELEVANT!!! We have seen you do this to yourself at least 5 times! You’re a drain on NHS resources, not only that but you’re impossibly rude, covered in vomit and shitting like a brown fountain EVERY TIME! As the person who has to clean that up, you will show me some respect!!!”
“Ha, you have to clean this up?!”
“Why, you twatty little…”
The doctor was clearly growing weary of this exchange. “That’ll be enough, Nurse Frank, thankyou. Get him 500cc Lactase before you go.”
I was now starting to feel the pain relief, and a pleasant warmth spread over me. 
“Oop, he’s gone again, can you just take care of that as well before you go Frank. Now, Christopher, I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep you in this time and give you a referral to our psych unit.”
My ‘gloriously high’ expression fell. “Psych unit? What on earth are you talking about?”
“Well this is the 5th time you’ve been admitted for the same self-destructive behaviour. We are all rightly concerned about you and fear the next time you do this, we may be unable to save you.”
“What if I promise to never do it again”
“I’m afraid we’re past that stage now Chris.”
“What if I promise to eat probiotics before, during and after?”
“From the colour of our walls I’d guess that was what you tried this time.”
“So you’re saying, either I do as you tell me, or you’ll leave me to die the next time this happens.”
“Well, I hadn’t intended for it to sound like such an either-or ultimatum, but when you put it like that…”
I was thinking a million miles a minute and didn’t respond. 
“…We are all just very concerned about you, you know you’re gambling with your life every time you do this”
Another pause. The morphine was kicking in nicely by now. 
“Now you do understand just how cheesy these pizzas are.”
“Well, given my line of work I’ve never had the opportunity to be so reckless…”
I struggled for an effective adjective. “They’re … VERY cheesy. Alright? I’m talking Prince’s output post-2008 cheesy”
“…Nevertheless we feel… Damn, really, post-2008? That IS cheesy.”
“Molten cheese throughout the crust.”
“Anyhow, we feel you would benefit from some psychiatric help. It’s hard not to see you each time eating Pizza GoGo as a rather desperate suicide attempt”
“So it’s the fruitcake box, or never order Pizza GoGo again.”
“I’m afraid so Christopher. Something tells me you know that this is for the best.”
“What’s the minimum stay in the fruitbox? How cheesy are the pizzas. What if I relapse after treatment.”
______

Pizza GoGo wish to make it clear that the mortality rate for their Jalapeño and Cheese Stuffed Crust pizzas is “Probably lower than you think it is, buddy.”

Fuck you, and your beautiful soul, and your perfect smile. Fuck your perfect jeans and the way they hang off your perfect body. Fuck your attitude, fuck your kindness and your straightness. Fuck your perfect hair, the wonderful mind below it, and especially fuck your beautiful girlfriend. Fuck the way you speak to me and fuck the way you freeze me out. Fuck the fact that you still stand by me. Fuck you. I want to fuck you. I LOVE you.