i used to like star wars day, when it was just a thing that fans wished each other, and a nice play on words. now that it is an excuse for star wars merchandisers to get us to look at the overpriced tat they want to continue to rip us off for, i am slightly less enamoured with it. so, in the old-skool-pablo-rodriguez-the-geek style, Happy Star Wars day. in the new and improved Peefour-Eightwunoh-let’s-make-things-better style:

RIP Adam Yauch. I was never evangelical about the Beasties, though I do like a lot of their work. Adam Yauch though, was an unsung hero of freedom, having kickstarted the Tibetan Freedom Concerts ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Freedom_Concert ). While I despise pricks like Bono, who abuse their celebrity in the name of righteousness, I have a deep respect for a practising Buddhist and vegan, who uses their contacts and influence to genuinely raise awareness of actual issues. In the end, as with so many of us, it was cancer that got him. I’m not really one for mourning famous people I don’t actually personally know, but I am all for highlighting the good work and legacy of an actual Good Person. If you feel grieved by the loss, remember that you can continue his work.

Happy Weekend. Being unemployed as the result of years of ill-treatment by an employer who has no concept of best practice, or fair treatment of staff, or even obeying the law in respect to the same, weekends currently have little meaning for me, but i remember their importance to those who work a standard week, and would urge you to use them for relaxation, and remember that you already work X number of hours in a week, the weekend is when you should recoup and regroup, ready for the next working week. Don’t feel bad if you don’t feel to have achieved much at the end of it – enjoy the fact that you have given your brain and body the respite they need to function properly. Which leads me on to the final point:

Remember (or if you didn’t know, be aware) that it is Mental Health awareness week: http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/mhaw/

irrespective of who you are, and where you live, someone you love has been affected by mental health issues. Because of the stigma around mental health, it is something which is often hidden away, for fear of what people might think. Often mental health issues are not even identified as such, and sufferers are left to suffer alone. If you are one of these people, know that you don’t have to talk to someone you know personally – frequently it’s enough just to talk about what is making you struggle, and to know that you’re not alone in feeling the things you feel. you can talk to the samaritans free of charge, even from mobiles, so don’t try and carry the burden alone (details here: http://waveringoptimist.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/uk-and-eire-calls-to-samaritans-now.html).

I have long had issues with mental health, and am quite open about it, in the hope that it might quell some of the stigma around it. If you are comfortable with it, I can recommend doing the same – you’ll be surprised by the number of people who admit that they have similar issues. Mental Health Awareness Week is about just that – Awareness. If it means anything to you at all, try and be aware of your own mental health -and that of others.

Been playing about with various stop-motion and video editing apps and have got a rough grasp of what’s going on now. Of course having found a useful and interesting new medium in which to make high-brow thinkpieces, I immediately set about filming my GI Joes. Here’s the updated version with today’s footage.

slowly you realise that it’s not the claustrophobia that drove you to this. that was all you could think of at first. the cold body rush of panic. the walls moving in. people getting closer, breathing in your air. but that’s not what it was. awareness was the key. in your vacuum-packed transport you were only ever aware of being a suffocated part of the commuter cattle-wagon.

now, here in the air, in the cold, beautiful rain, you still see the cattle-wagons, but you are amazed by the numbers. you can’t comprehend that there are so many people. thousands everyday. and you never see anyone you know. a city this size and you don’t talk to anyone. everyone is the enemy. every single person holds the potential to steal your seat. to ask you for a light. or worse, for money. a thousand other lives, each ticking away without you. lives you’ll never touch.

but you needed to see it. infinity is a concept scientists say the layman can’t comprehend. but you see it every day. every day for six years you walked the same road. different people everyday. each one has their own story. out of the crush you get to see them pass you by. a glimpse, a sideways glance. as they pass, you try and imagine each one’s story. what makes them laugh? who is important to them?

So in a way you do touch them. you acknowledge each one out of the thousands. we could be good friends, we just haven’t crossed paths yet. then you realise it’s not so lonely out here after all. you are among friends. and in the end it’s worth having damp feet for.

Rufus is in love with Penelope in the sandwich shop. he loves the way her face isn’t quite symmetrical and that far from try and hide the fact, she purposely accentuates it with a diagonal fringe – to her, a stubborn refusal to conform, to cut her own, asymmetrical path – to him, a bold and ornate frame around a work of fine art. Some of Penelope’s customers would agree, though the harsher ones might say she is, if anything, a Picasso. Penelope is not her real name. The Lovely Baps sandwich shop, whose clientele come as much for the postcard sauciness as they do for the food, does not have a policy on name badges so most of the staff don’t wear them. Most of them are called Janet anyway, so there would be confusion in either case, compounded no doubt by the fact that Deidre, the one member of staff who does wear a badge, chooses to wear one that proudly declares her name to be Janet. Perhaps we all just need to belong.

In the absence of a name badge, Rufus chose Penelope – a nice old Greek name, which he feels lends their unspoken love a sense of gravity and myth. it is also perversely appropriate, given the epic nature of the forty-nine shambling steps Rufus daily makes from his desk to Penelope’s counter. every day the same sandwich: Italian ham and Dutch cheese with a pickle, of unknown origin, on rye bread, lightly buttered and cut into two rectangles just how he likes it, rather than the standard triangle given to other customers. it has been 11 months since Rufus ate one of the sandwiches, as his doctor has him on a strict calorie-controlled diet and bar the pickle with the mysterious past, none of the contents are permitted to Rufus, but nevertheless he continues to make his daily pilgrimage for this well-earned but never devoured treasure, which he then carries the full forty-nine steps back to his desk. there it sits for the rest of the afternoon as Rufus eyes it wistfully through the bottom of a glass, newly drained of nutritious and tasteless low-calorie shake, it slumps, gradually, reluctantly, in a sorry heap as the life of the once-fresh ingredients ebbs away and Rufus slides it off the edge of the desk, in to the bin. he pauses as though half-remembering something, then turns out the light above his desk and heads home. Sixty-six steps bring Rufus to his front door, and a further nine to the sofa where he will spend the majority of the evening, pondering whether tomorrow will be the day that he musters the courage to say something to Penelope, beyond the pathetic "thanks… er, bye" that he manages to splutter each lunchtime. Rufus picks up the newspaper and as he catches up on the events of the day his head spins at news of the millions of lives going on all around him.

Janet has never been entirely comfortable in her awkward frame. sometimes she has disquieting dreams where her limbs are made of wire coat hangers, roughly twisted together, so when she tries to put on pretty dresses she just sticks out all angular and pointy, and the clothes don’t hang right, and her shoulder is too small and angled down, so her bag strap keeps falling off and making her look ill-at-ease and clumsy. Janet has always dealt with the oddities in her appearance by complementing them, drawing attention to them, in a yeah-I-know-I-look-funny-and-I’m-totally-cool-with-it way. But each time she does it, each time she puts on the costume of the confident non-conformist, she feels a pang of longing. Longing to just be normal, to just blend in. To be Conventionally Beautiful. To belong.

Janet slides the rye from the brown paper and just as on other such days, the sound brings to mind the rustle of a present emerging from its wrappings on a birthday morning. Janet sets down the loaf on the ancient battle-scarred breadboard and meticulously cuts two slices. in the shop they have a slicer and Janet tries her best to emulate the smooth even slices of the German, precision-engineered behemoth she is Not Allowed to Use at work. Any food that isn’t sold during the day is fair game for the staff, though they run a tight ship so leftovers are not to be relied upon. sometimes, when the weather turns, customers go for chips, shunning the lovely baps in favour of something hot to wrap themselves round and so on days like today Janet gets to take home enough to make Arthur’s Sandwich, Just How He Likes It. Italian ham, Dutch cheese, and a pickle from Weston-super-Mare, though Arthur probably doesn’t know that as Deidre opted not to list the humble origins of the pickle on the menu. She spreads so that the butter fully covers one side and then folds the slices of ham over themselves. The cheese lays on top and keeps the ham flat, then finally the nomad pickle and the top slice. She neatly cuts the sandwich into two rectangles and puts it on a plate. Usually in the shop they do two triangles, but Janet suspects that Arthur is more of a down-to-earth, rectangles man and so always does his that way. Deidre says it’s not polite to ask customers their names because then you forget them and get them wrong and insult people, but Janet thinks he looks like an Arthur.

Placing the plate on the table in the kitchen, Janet fetches today’s newspaper from the bag that keeps falling off her shoulder, and lays the paper alongside the plate. She walks towards the lounge calling after her "I made your favourite, love, it’s on the table with your newspaper" then she sits in front of a stream of dumbed-down programming, acutely aware that she does not fit any of the demographics. The sandwich will stay there, uneaten, its gradual sagging decline mirroring Janet’s resigned slump as she realises another day has passed with her managing no more than "two pounds thirty-five please, sir". Janet’s eyes glaze over as talent show blends into soap and documentary blends into chat show, and her spins at the fervour and pace of the millions of lives going on all around her.

Lies

More confusing Tesco offers

A very well sealed parcel

My awesome Italian sandwich

I can’t resist a good discoiunt, me

End of the road

Guilty looking geese, and a discarded ale can. Joyriding mystery solved?

Algebraic bargains at the co-op

My view at the Radiohead gig, thanks to this arrogant dickwad

Ninjas have to eat too you know

Dixie. 10 oz. Perfect Touch. Nuff said.

The Rebel Alliance was hit hard by the recession

wow?

O RLY?

One week later. I didn’t change this by the way, just enjoyed it.

One leads, inexorably, to the other.

Who says the Alliance is dumbing down the entrance exam?

Mikey, your cowabunga’s showing dude.

“Self-respect is not a prerequisite for this role”.

Pony Pride

Shit Identikit Jesus Loves You

Pablo: 1 – Wasps: 0

Yummy Cramel

What could be better than free knorks?

not sure why, but my colleague here one day decided just to put a box on his head, while on the phone to a customer. then he took it off again.

I love a bargain

the unintentionally prejudiced sign in the window of the local chippy. it’s called the new oriental, so i’m guessing *that’s* what they men by oriental customers.

after we realise only one side of the PA is working, Daddy Beats quickly haxxorz togther an extra long lead to connect the two speakers

These next three demonstrate quite well why i don’t trust PC World

nice

nicely worded, sainsbury’s. i imagine this aisle leads to quite a few disappointed nonces

cornish icicles

Boscastle

a just question i feel

eden project

baby bananas

a hermit crab at blue reef aquarium

so that’s what he’s doing now

an unholy mess

blinds. fitted by The Blind Man, presumably

Smurf Time Error. Nuff said

Mr Tickle, who high-fived me on my birthday

and one of his tentacles up close

What an ace place to build a house

hope springs eternal in newquay. in december no less.

Some dogs made of wellies.

my new colleague (he moved while i was trying to catch him, he’s not deformed)

ducks and canada geese congregate around the bit of the canal that isn’t frozen

for chavs who can’t spell. oh, wait.

L-33 (he’s just a head) balancing on a wall

karting for L-33’s stag do.

And the trophy

canada geese

a herd of chairs, in the wild

I have had an odd couple of weeks. Because of various things going on at the moment I have for some time been feeling a bit stressed and increasingly lethargic. I have a history of depression but am generally able to recognise the symptoms early enough to take the necessary action to prevent slipping from detached and lethargic to actual depression. There have only been a few instances, usually for a period of a couple of months, where I’ve found it too much to cope with on my own and have had to get additional help. About a week and a half ago I started getting various symptoms of a bug or virus – headache, nausea, aches and pains – and initially thought it might be swine flu, as a few people at work have had it, or have relatives who have. The one thing that made me doubt it though was that I had no fever.

Having had a couple of days off at the beginning of the week because of having worked the weekend, I went back to work last Wednesday (12th) and felt completely wretched all day. That night I barely slept and woke up the next morning with a headache, and feeling dizzy and disorientated. I called in sick and got some bed rest. The next day I felt just as bad, so called in again. By the weekend I still had the same symptoms which showed no sign of abating, but still no fever, so I began to wonder if it was in fact a bug, or if it was something else. I follow NHS Direct on twitter and over the weekend they posted a link to a new part of the NHS Direct site which is a mental health symptom checker, so I figured as I had been getting on towards depression for a while I’d run through it and see if anything tied in. All the symptoms I was experiencing, it turns out, are symptoms of depression. Most of them I knew, but wasn’t aware that it can cause headache and nausea, so hadn’t initially made the connection. The advice at the end of the questionnaire was to go see my GP, which I figured was probably for the best.

The problem was that at that point I didn’t actually have a GP. I have a phobia of medical practitioners and establishments, partly due to a completely irrational fear, and partly due to bad experience with incompetent or indifferent practitioners. It is fair to point out that the vast majority of medical staff I have encountered have been superb and I have every faith in the health service and its staff, but the ones who were bad, were quite horrible. Anyway this phobia works in such a way that upon entering a medical establishment, I immediately get a sense of dread about all the things that can go wrong. My brain imagines horrific things no matter how hard I try to quash the images, and I start to feel faint, then invariably have a panic attack and pass out.

Part of the reason that the fear has become worse over the years, is that passing out is a truly horrific experience, and it is partly the apprehension about that which makes me feel worse, in essence making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lots of people talk about passing out after a heavy night out, which the majority of cases is just falling asleep, or losing consciousness. Actual passing out is very different. You start by losing coherence and focus, then start to get tunnel vision. When you are about to pass out, if you’ve done it before you know it’s happening, and that only makes it worse because you try to fight it and end up panicking. There comes a point where your brain is simply overloaded and you lose consciousness. Your entire body goes limp and you just fall where you are. If you are stood up, you just fall over and hit the ground hard.

Next comes the dream. This is usually, but not always, vaguely related to the situation which has made you pass out, and is generally like watching a short reel of film of about 3 or 4 seconds, over and over again. In one dream I was being hit by a bus, over and over for what I’m told was about 2 minutes – I think this stemmed from the fact that I had fallen heavily on one side, so had pain all the way down that side of my body, which my brain was trying to rationalise. While this is going on, it is not uncommon to seize, similar to an epileptic seizure, which although unpleasant is actually beneficial because it doesn’t have any detrimental effects (bar, occasionally, friction burn on one side for your face) but it does make people take notice. 

The next stage is regaining consciousness. This can be very unpleasant indeed as on awaking you initially have no idea where you are, how you got there or what has just happened. You invariably wake to find lots of people crouching down next to you looking concerned, but you have no idea why, or in most cases, who they are (this is also the case even if you know them). Sound and vision are both very hazy at this point and you have a ringing in your ears similar to tinnitus, usually accompanied by pins & needles and often sharp pain in whichever part of your body has taken the brunt of the fall. For this reason it is advisable to lie down when you realise you are going to pass out. Over a period of maybe 30 seconds, you gradually take stock of your surroundings, and on realising you have passed out, what usually follows is a brief period of calm, where you realise you are over the worst and that the feelings of nausea will pass. within about 5 to 10 minutes you are ready to sit up, and start talking coherently. Within about half an hour, the nausea usually passes, and you are left simply feeling drained and very fragile.

Needless to say, knowing all this, and knowing that any trip to a doctor is liable to cause this to happen, I eventually tired of it and simply stopped going to the doctor. It can be quite restricting and leads to taking as few risks as possible with anything which may entail a trip to the doctor’s. Something which is a simple and mundane part of life for everyone else, becomes something which is virtually impossible, and it takes a hell of a lot to get me to go to see one. For this reason, after I stopped going to my old doctor, I simply never bothered registering with a new one when I moved house. By Monday of this week it became apparent that my options were either to try and get through this with no medication, and having to go back to work on Thursday, so I decided to bite the bullet and get registered.

So on Thursday morning, for the first time in about 8 years, I saw a doctor. I had been eating very little for the past few days and so was already quite weakened by the time I got there, and in the waiting room was on the verge of passing out. Fortunately I wasn’t waiting long, and the doctor immediately put me at ease. He was compassionate and helpful, and did not dismiss any of my worries or symptoms, simply took it all on board, asked for my opinion on things, and then discussed with me his prognosis and suggested course of action.

I have only once been on medication for depression, which was Seroxat. I did not have a particularly good time on it – it switched off all the negative emotions, which helped me get a hold on things and look at things objectively, but in so doing it also muted all the positive emotions so I really didn’t care enough to do anything. I essentially became an emotionless drone, incapable of much more than lying in bed waiting for each day to pass. This was obviously an experience I was keen not to repeat, but I knew that anti-depressant medication is quite varied, and was open to the possibility that the right medication may be what I needed. The doctor signed me off work for two weeks and prescribed Venlafaxine, with a view to reviewing both after the two weeks to see if the time off is sufficient, and if the medication is right for me.

He advised that there may be some nausea as a side effect and suggested taking the medication immediately before bedtime so that the majority of the nausea would be while I am asleep so I wouldn’t suffer too much from it. I have been taking the medication for two days now, tonight will be my third dose, and I had held off on reading about other side effects, in case reading about them made me project and psychologically cause effects which I would otherwise not have had. Since the first morning I woke up after starting on the medication I have felt groggy and nauseous more or less constantly, and have had a headache on and off. I have had a decreased appetite for days anyway, so this is likely a contributory factor, though it has definitely got worse over the last couple of days, and feeling constantly nauseated does not make you feel very enthusiastic about food, so I have now been living off one meal a day, with the odd cereal bar thrown in, for about 5 days. It is something of a vicious circle, but one which I hope to be able to beat by basically forcing myself to have food first thing for the next couple of days.

Tonight, having experienced a few things which I thought might be side effects, I decided to look up Venlafaxine to see if anything else could be attributed to the medication. This is what I found:

Common side effects

NOTE: The percentage of occurrences for each side effect listed comes from clinical trial data provided by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc. The percentages indicate the percentage of people that experienced the side effect in clinical trials.^[4]

• Headache (34%)
• Nausea (21-35%)
• Insomnia (15-23%)
• Sexual dysfunction (14-34%)
• Dry mouth (12-16%)
• Dizziness (11-20%)
• Sweating (10-14%)
• Decreased Appetite (8-20%)
• Abnormal ejaculation (8-16%)
• Hypertension (4-5%)
• Vivid/Abnormal dreams (3-7%)
• Akathisia (Agitation) (3-4%)
• Decreased libido (3-9%)
• Increased yawning (3-5%)
• Apathy
• Constipation
• Ongoing Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Fatigue
• Vertigo
• Orthostatic hypotension (postural drop in blood pressure)
• Impulsive Actions
• Electric shock-like sensations also called "Brain zaps"
• Increased anxiety at the start of treatment
• Memory Loss
• Restless Legs Syndrome

Less common to rare side-effects

Note ‘Rare’ adverse effects occur in fewer than 1 in 1000 patients.

• Cardiac arrhythmia
• Increased serum cholesterol
• Gas or stomach pain
• Abnormal vision
• Nervousness, agitation or increased anxiety
• Panic Attacks
• Depressed feelings
• Suicidal thoughts
• Confusion
• Neuroleptic malignant syndrome
• Loss of appetite
• Tremor
• Drowsiness
• Allergic skin reactions
• External bleeding
• Serious bone marrow damage (thrombocytopenia, agranulocytosis)
• Hepatitis
• Pancreatitis
• Seizure
• Tardive dyskinesia
• Difficulty swallowing
• Psychosis
• Hair Loss
• Hostility
• Activation of mania/hypomania.
• Weight Loss (of concern when treating patients suffering from anorexia nervosa)
• Weight gain (effect not clear, but of concern when treating people who may have Body Dysmorphic Disorder).
• Homicidal Thoughts
• Aggression
• Depersonalization
• Visual Hallucinations
• Swollen and/or bleeding gums
• Frequent urination

Quite a list isn’t it? I’m happy to say that I have never in my life been suicidal, and have never really had suicidal thoughts, so am not too worried about that, however an awful lot of the side effects seem to match up exactly to symptoms of depression, and I have already had an alarming number of the side effects. Most I had put down to ongoing increasing symptoms of depression, but as the majority have only started in the last two days, I am now not so convinced. My hope is that most or all will be temporary and that as the drugs start to take effect it will all be worthwhile. I remain open-minded and positive am not going to draw conclusions until my body has had time to adjust, but all the same, it is an alarmingly large list. I just hope the positive effects make up for the negative ones.

One of the biggest problems I face as a sufferer of depression, is that it is so widely misunderstood and dismissed as a cop out. Depression is an actual chemical imbalance in the brain, it is not just feeling down or sad. On the contrary, I don’t feel particularly down or sad at all, it is more a lack of emotions, than it is an onslaught of negative ones. It affects different people in different ways and I know some people do feel absolutely miserable as a result, but from speaking to other sufferers, it seems that the one unifying symptom seems to be lethargy. It is like actually physically being depressed, in the way that you depress a button on a keyboard – being pushed down, like your whole body feels to weigh far more than it should, and *everything* takes far more effort than normal, while bringing far fewer returns in terms of feeling satisfaction and accomplishment. One of the most important things to do to remedy depression is to keep busy, doing things you enjoy, and getting exercise, but getting exercise is a hundred times harder than normal – you have absolutely no motivation whatsoever, and are physically drained, making it that much more effort, both psychologically and physically. Doing things you enjoy is also relatively moot, as it is very hard to get joy out of anything – even things which would normally make you laugh or smile, or which would satisfy you now seem mundane and futile.

A lot of people, who have been lucky enough to never have suffered from depression, have the idea that it is simply that the person feels a bit down, and often dismiss it simply as laziness. Until you have been through the sheer mind-numbing futility of it all, it is impossible to fully grasp just how all-encompassing it is, and how hard it makes even the simplest of tasks. Trying to explain it someone who has never been depressed is like describing purple to someone who has only ever seen red and blue. It’s a mixture of both, but is also it’s own distinct colour, and without being familiar with the concept of purple, it is virtually impossible to envisage it.

Whether you are aware of it or not, several people you know have, or have had depression, and have been through exactly what I’ve described here, and it’s likely that among the primary feelings they have had have been guilt, brought about by the general opinion of society that they are just wasting everyone’s time and being lazy, and frustration at feeling so unbearably disconnected from everything and yet still expected to function as normal.

If you have, or have had depression, I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments, or by email, to discuss your experiences, and how you have coped with it.