Dance the blues

So I have finally joined the ranks of millions, and finished reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Those of you who know me well will probably be wondering why I bothered to read it. Well, mainly because we were watching the trailer for the upcoming film at work, and someone suggested a group office outing to watch it. Unfortunately for me, I am such a die-hard book fan that whenever I want to see a film of a book, I feel the need to read it first. That, and I have read several hilarious reviews of Fifty Shades and, although I don’t expect this to match them, I thought I’d add my own to the list.

So how was it for me?

You know when you’re reading a book, and when you come out of reading it- particularly if you are interrupted suddenly- you feel almost as if you’re waking up, and you take a few seconds to remember where you are as you travel back from Germany in the 1930s, or Mordor, or Kvothe’s Waystone Inn. You feel momentarily displaced, and part of your head stays in that other world until you finish the book, and then you mourn the fact you cannot go back in the same way again.

Well, Fifty Shades is nothing like that. Coming out of reading it is like getting a breath of fresh air, and you are drowsy because your brain feels like it’s been coated in a fine film of shit. You will already have been interrupted either by parts that are so badly written they make you laugh, or bits that are so desperately fucking irritating you are seized by the urge to drop kick your kindle/book out of the nearest window. When you finish it, the only sensation is of blessed release and joy that you don’t have to read any more of this crap.

I already knew from numerous reviews and the general consensus that the writing was appalling, but it didn’t even try to meet my already extremely low expectations. It is, to borrow the words of Humphrey Lyttleton on an episode of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, ‘buttock-clenchingly piss poor.’ The repetition of various phrases and descriptions are so awful, you do have to wonder if anybody bothered reading it through, or whether they thought it was just so saucy you wouldn’t mind having the same phrases repeated over and over. You’re told about dear Christian’s grey eyes at least every few pages, going with his grey suit, grey ties and general greyness. Sounds desperately dull. Get some colour, you tedious man.

I’m sure you’ve already heard how remarkably stupid and one-dimensional Anastasia Steele is, but she really is one of the worst characters I’ve ever encountered. I’m not sure if E. L. James gave her the brain and thought processes of a potato because she isn’t skilled enough to make her interesting, or because it makes her quaking every time Christian blinks more believable. I’ll get onto this in more detail later on.

So, we all know the gist: girl meets handsome boy. Handsome boy turns out to be into some casual whipping, girl is shocked but gives it a whirl. Sounds like a laugh all round. But for some reason, E. L. James decided to make the book weird, creepy and more than slightly disturbing. Christian is a grade A stalker, who tracks down where Ana works, where she lives, and a bar where she’s gone out one evening. Apparently this is all fine with her, because she is the most naïve, stupid and innocent 21-year-old ever to have walked the earth. Not only is she still a virgin, but she has apparently never even wanted to kiss anybody or touched herself. She has also never been drunk before her ill-fated trip to the bar when Christian comes to find her, even though throughout the rest of the book she seems to drink often and not just a teacup of watered-down wine, either. Put the two together and you’ve got the recipe for a relationship with ‘Hell Fucking No’ written all over it. Christian isn’t just sexy and dominating, he’s downright frightening. You don’t track a girl over hundreds of miles, send her post without asking for her address, find her in a bar without her telling you where she is, and then carry her away from her friends when she’s unconscious and put her in your hotel room. You don’t get so angry she’s scared of you if she dares speak to another man, or follow her away when she wants to take a break from you and make her feel guilty for drinking cocktails with her bloody mother. And somehow this is all supposed to be romantic? It’s just very dangerous and giving entirely the wrong impression of what a relationship should be.

Although E. L. James talks a fair bit about how Christian has ended up fucked in the head (which he is, completely aside from his kinky sexual preferences- to be honest, they’re a sideline for me, but I’ll get on to them later) at no point does she address why Ana is the way she is. Apparently we should swallow the fact that she is so innocent and unsure around men because her mother has had several husbands, and she’s into her nineteenth-century English classics and looks up to characters such as Jane Eyre and Tess. I’m afraid this really doesn’t wash. If you’re going to make your character so completely outside the normal boundaries of experience and interests, you need to give the reader some proper reasons.

So, Ana’s weirdly one-dimensional character. The only way the author seems to be able to show her as a person with diverse thoughts and emotions is by bringing in two extra inner Anas, the fabled ‘inner goddess’ and her ‘subconscious.’ Inner goddess. Inner fucking goddess. ARGH. One of the most profoundly annoying parts of the book, not just because she gets mentioned every four to five pages, always in the same way, but because all that is meant by her ‘inner goddess’ is her entirely normal sex drive. Holy hell! She’s a woman and she enjoys having sex! How do I fit this into her character? Can she just say, “Wow, sex is awesome, I want to do this more”? No, better not, seems a bit straightforward. I know! I’ll have some strange inner being that does a funny dance whenever she gets hot under the collar. AND even though it’s as plain as a pikestaff what it’s about, I’ll make some reference to her inner goddess only being interested in sex. Just to drive the point home. Er, yes, thank you, James- kindly give up this ‘literary device’ before I take her out back and strangle her.

On a similar irritation level is Ana’s ‘subconscious’, mainly because I think E. L. James got a bit confused about the meaning of the word subconscious. Basically this is only referred to in terms of her subconscious looking disapproving, or peering over half-moon spectacles when Ana wants to get down and dirty (it’s always half-moon spectacles. Think of another way of making her sound old, James). This is not a subconscious. I think conscience would almost be nearer the mark but really it’s just the part of her which has, for some reason, kept her from wanting to kiss anyone or drink more than one glass of wine before. The constant mentions of Ana’s ‘subconscious’ serve no purpose other than to piss the reader off, making it sound as though Ana has some 70-year-old from the 1850s watching Ana’s decisions and pursing her lips at the idea of sex before marriage, or sex without love, or, really, just sex. The two together, inner goddess and subconscious, add up to complete bullshit.

So: the sex. Considering how many copies have been sold and that none of those sales can be put down to the good writing, the sex must be white hot, yes? Well- not really, no. Again, the problem is the repetitive writing. There are only so many times you can hear the same descriptions of desire pooling, muscles clenching, everything building and rising until she ‘explodes around him’ every single bloody time before you become immune and start wondering what’s on the telly. Also, I swear on almost every occasion it’s Christian ordering her to come which ‘sends her over the edge’ which gets pretty dull. Come in your own good time, woman. Make the bastard wait. It would all be a lot more interesting if Ana didn’t start shaking like a leaf in the wind every time Christian looks up/looks down/runs his hand through his hair/looks at her/smiles/etc etc. Oh my. Nobody ever say ‘oh my’ again, please. It is dead. E. L. James killed it.

So no, the sex does not come close to making up for the dreadfulness of the rest of the book. I don’t really know anything about BDSM but the only thing about the book I found surprising/shocking was the contract Christian tries to get her to sign, which, until he spelled out the fact she could say no at any time and he wouldn’t then be able to touch her, sounded worryingly like it was putting down in writing that he could rape her whenever he liked and she couldn’t do a thing about it. There is lots of talk about her giving herself to him whenever he wanted, willingly and without hesitation. What if she’d just eaten and felt too full? Or his constantly changing, psychopathic moods left her spinning like a top and not really in the mood to be tied down and slapped with a riding crop? I was bloody glad when he made it clear she could tell him to sod off if she felt like it, what a relief. From a review I read on a kinkster’s website, this contract isn’t exactly normal in BDSM relationships and is just E. L. James trying to make the whole thing even more creepy than it is already, making Christian even more exploitative and screwed up, and Ana even more stupid. I wish she hadn’t bothered, it’s really boring to read especially when the whole contract gets duplicated two or three times- much of it is not that interesting. Otherwise, I’m not sure why people found the sex so scandalous.

Here are a few choice quotes that made me grimace, or laugh with a slightly desperate edge to the laughter because how in God’s name is this book so popular when it’s SO BAD?!!

‘My very own Christian Grey-flavoured popsicle’ – Pretty obvious what she’s doing at this point. Use your imagination, but not too much. One of the many disturbing moments when it feels a bit like it’s being written by a pre-pubescent girl- see also the constant references to ‘down there’. I agree that many words for female genitalia are unappealing, but please, if you’re going to write a sex scene, pick one and run with it. Please do not refer to ‘down there’ in a hush hush, giggle giggle kind of way. Popsicle: *shudder.*

“Are you ready for some contraception?” – Haha this was funny. I read it in my head in the voice of that referee off Gladiators- “Blue team: ARE YOU READY?” “Red team: ARE YOU READY?” It’s contraception, mate- hardly a fucking rollercoaster.

‘Grey flannel trousers that hang from his hips’ – Ana goes into a dead faint over Christian’s trousers ‘hanging off his hips’ at least ten times. The worst of it was: I just don’t understand this description and what’s meant to be so erotic about it. Hanging off his hips? What? He sounds malnourished. Your trousers shouldn’t be able to hang off your hips, stuff should get in the way. Does the man have no arse? In fact I don’t remember her mentioning Christian’s arse at all, which is a gross oversight. Surely he should have an excellent, round, squeezable arse? Men with flat arses lose a lot of points in my book. Feed him some cakes, Ana love. 

‘I bit my lip’ – The number of times Ana bites her lip, or Christian has to stop her from biting her lip because it makes him get all hot and bothered, the woman would have no lip left. She honestly must have bitten it about two hundred times. She would have chewed it away years ago, leaving her with a weird, bottom-lip-less mouth.

‘Looked up at him from beneath my lashes’ – This seems to be a staple in the erotic novel genre, because women’s long lashes are supposed to be sexy. But it’s a ridiculous description, and again, she does it every few pages. To prove how ridiculous it is, let’s all take a moment to see what she means. Everyone, look up from beneath your lashes. Very good. Now please look up from above your lashes, or from round the side. IT DOESN’T FUCKING WORK. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE LOOKING FROM BENEATH YOUR BLOODY LASHES. DON’T BE SO LAZY IN YOUR STUPID DESCRIPTIONS.

‘Who’s he kidding? He’s no gentleman. He has my panties.’ – Just plain hilarious

‘”You want it, you got it, baby,” he mutters, producing a foil packet from his pants pocket while he unzips his pants. Oh, Mr. Boy Scout’ – Presumably referring to the fact he is ‘always prepared’ and has condoms constantly about his person. Mr. Boy Scout! Love it.

‘Miss Steele’ – he calls her Miss Steele at various points all the way through. I suppose it’s supposed to be sexy, but I just found it unnerving. The only people who call me Miss Day are the cashiers in RBS. From a lover, it’s bizarre.

‘I eye Christian’s toothbrush. It would be like having him in my mouth.’ – Only, it absolutely wouldn’t be anything like having him in your mouth, because it is, in fact, a toothbrush. And also, the reason most of us don’t borrow a lover’s toothbrush is because it’s unhygienic and a touch weird, not because it’s  so damn naughty we all keel over at the thought of it.

‘Holy crap/crapola’ – These are Ana’s swear words of choice. Again, being treated to the vocabulary of a 12-year-old (see ‘popsicle’).

‘His voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel… Or something.’ – One of the many moments when you feel like E. L. James forgot to go back and edit. I think we could do without a few of these adjectives- this is just subtle like a brick. And the ‘or something’- ? Why?

Well, I think that’s enough on this travesty of a book. I finish it no more enlightened as to why it has been so popular than I was before. The only explanation would be if it was the first erotic book ever to be published, but it most certainly isn’t. It seems to just be an erotic novel with particularly poorly drawn characters, repetitive and quickly tiresome sex scenes, and a frankly worrying and disturbing central relationship. Complete mystery.

I recently read this piece on the negative effects poor relationships have on young women, which are apparently much worse than the effects on young men. Researchers believe this is because women are more disposed to define themselves by their romantic relationships, and the article gives several examples of times when this is the case.

This article got me thinking about the number of times I’ve exchanged stories with other women about that early boyfriend who you now look back on not just with regret, but with genuine disbelief that you put up with so much. In many cases family and friends were openly negative about this boyfriend, and yet we still stayed with them for long periods of time, ignoring the voice inside telling us something wasn’t right. Why? Why do so many women have this ‘mistake’ boyfriend who is so inexplicable to them in later years?

The article talks a lot about sex education, but for me it was more a case of terribly bad self-esteem. I had a boyfriend who was sweet and lovely but very honest about the fact that he knew it wouldn’t last forever. At sixteen, this was heartbreaking to me, and when I found out that another boy, a stranger, liked me very much even though he’d never spoken to me, I was flattered. The relationship with the sweet boyfriend fell apart and I immediately started going out with this other boy. Very soon he was controlling, jealous and manipulative, and I’m sorry to say he taught me to be the same- something which I hope I am now a lot better about.

This poor self-image made me put up with things I certainly wouldn’t stand for now. He once didn’t speak to me for over an hour because I told him I’d cried in the cinema when I saw The Goblet of Fire, at the moment when Cedric Diggory has died and his father crashes through the crowd, screaming ‘That’s my son! That’s my boy!’ Brings a lump to my throat even now, BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING SAD. But according to my boyfriend, it was because I’d fallen in love with Robert Pattinson during his brief spells (pun absolutely intended) on screen, and was devastated at his loss. Honestly, he wouldn’t speak to me for well over an hour. I eventually got bored of shouting, cajoling, and jollying, went downstairs and read some of his mother’s magazines. That’s how his mum found me when she got home, and she was rightfully bemused.

I did some crazy jealous shit in response, which I am not proud of at all. But many relationships, especially early ones at a young age, have these kind of stupid fights. I also put up with more sinister issues. My ex-boyfriend and his friends had a very strange sense of humour, often dark and incomprehensible to others. For example: one of his friends had an ongoing ‘joke’ that he wanted to rape me. He apparently watched a lot of violent pornography, and allegedly enjoyed women being run over and beaten. He once made a video of himself threatening me, which was supposed to be shown to me but my ex discovered an ounce of feeling and deleted it. He would tell me all about these ‘jokes,’ and if I got upset I was told I ‘didn’t get it.’ I felt small, scorned, ashamed, and completely worthless, as this boyfriend who professed to love me couldn’t even tell his friend I was off limits for his vile humour. I remember it once came up in front of my ex’s family, and they were all speechless with horror that he hadn’t punched his friend in the face. They, too, were told that they ‘didn’t get the joke.’

I was with this person for three years. Thank God I had the brains and the guts to take myself to university in London, not with him where he wanted me to go. Once at university, I slowly learned how to respect myself, and that I couldn’t put up with any of it anymore.

This weekend I went to visit my little nephew, who is absolutely gorgeous and completely adorable. I very much enjoyed seeing him, and seeing my brother and sister-in-law, but I dreaded the inevitable, unanswerable question:

“Don’t you want to have a baby?”

My brother and sister-in-law have been together for nearly nine years, are happily married, have good careers and a lovely home. I am 26, single, renting in a shared flat and paying more for it than my other brother is paying for a full flat to himself, working part-time during a part-time Masters degree, and have very vague ideas about what I want to do with the rest of my life. It’s a pointless thing to ask somebody in my position if they want to have a baby, because of course I don’t at the moment- who would?

There have been several pieces in the media recently around this topic, and the wider topic of a ‘lost generation’- the young people graduating in a recession, with more limited options and surrounded by uncertainties. The Times ran a piece called ‘Generation Medication,’ about the many young people who feel lost and are taking higher numbers of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs. There have also been several pieces on the new ‘quarter-life crisis,’ young people in their mid-twenties gripped by a panic at the passing of time more commonly associated with those in their forties and fifties.

I have plenty of days when I am asked these kinds of questions and become panicked and anxious about what I’m going to do. There is an expectation when you are younger that by this age you will be settled into a dream career, with a steady partner and with things pretty much sorted out. I do have friends who appear to have things worked out far better than I do: most of my friends are in long-term relationships and several are openly disappointed when I see them and tell them that no, I’m just me. The inquisitions from my mother whenever I mention any men means I don’t talk about anyone anymore. Even telling her they’re gay or already in a relationship doesn’t necessarily put her off.

I also panic periodically about career decisions. I graduated in 2009, the first year out into the full swing of a recession. I was woefully under-prepared, as all the way through my education my path was set out for me: GCSES, A Levels, degree, and then someone would just sort of, give me a job. I didn’t think about it nearly enough. I worked in publishing for four years and hated it, so I went back to the only thing I had enjoyed: more education, which stopped the questions about what I was going to do for a bit and gave me time to think. But now that I’m halfway through the Masters, people are asking me what I want to do again, and I’m still not sure. I was thinking about a PhD but that hardly looks inviting with the amount of work I’d need to do before I could even apply, and the strikes that have interrupted my degree all year as PhD students and lecturers battle for better pay. People expect me to have answers that I simply haven’t got.

Some time ago I signed the ‘No More Page 3’ petition online, which has now reached over 200,000 signatures. I am amazed that this is even a debate- surely it is completely obvious that having a half-naked woman at the front of a daily, family newspaper is utterly bizarre and never made any sense. Like many other women, I am embarrassed and confused when I sit next to someone on the tube or bus staring at a naked young woman. I do think, no matter what people say, it is simple objectification and contributes to the unequal status of women in society.

Apparently, The Sun have recently run a campaign to promote breast cancer awareness, with the strange slogan ‘Page 3 vs. Breast Cancer.’ (I don’t really grasp this- how is Page 3 on its own combating breast cancer?) The point of it is to get women and men to check themselves for early signs, which is all to the good. Unfortunately, apparently this can’t be done without the inclusion of a Page 3 girl, minus clothes. Is this just in case we don’t know where our breasts are, we need a handy picture to enlighten us? Unsurprisingly, not everyone has been keen on the way The Sun has chosen to promote the campaign. You can read here a letter a young woman, recently diagnosed with breast cancer, wrote to The Sun, explaining why she found it offensive and why she didn’t think that they really cared; it was just an excuse to print pictures of naked women.

I agreed with her point, but the debate gets even more interesting with the letter underneath, from a still younger woman (just 29) who has stage 4 breast cancer, and whose charity teamed up with The Sun to raise awareness and encourage people to check themselves. Apparently the campaign has been a huge success, and may have saved many lives.

I read this second letter and felt momentarily chastened for agreeing with the first woman in her condemnation of The Sun. But then I thought: okay, so it’s been massively successful. That’s wonderful. I love it. But that doesn’t mean that we have to have the blankly smiling, shiny, big-boobed women standing alongside the message. We KNOW what breasts look like, we know where they are, we don’t need this vision of apparent perfection making us worry about our own appearance while we check ourselves for cancer, there only for an appreciative glance and smirk. I expect there are some women who aren’t too fussed by half-dressed women in the newspaper, or in magazines, but I know I’ve always hated it and it certainly knocked my self-confidence growing up. When you are faced with what you’re supposed to look like everywhere you go, how do you reconcile that with what you see in the mirror?

Page 3 is simple sexism. It dehumanises the women you see and makes them into something to be ogled and acquired. The men have all the power here, for all people say that the women choose to be models and to have their pictures taken. It’s a tricky subject, but I believe that we would be better off without these images being so easily available, especially as they show such a very narrow range of what women can and should look like. For the sake of all those teenage girls growing up wondering why there are pictures of these big breasts everywhere they go, in the supermarket, on the bus, in the doctor’s, and then worrying that they don’t look like that, it has to be stopped. I read somewhere that large numbers of teenage girls are having boob jobs- your breasts haven’t even stopped growing then; it’s extraordinary and sad that they are trying to change what hasn’t yet been fully formed.

I know that some women find glamour models more encouraging to see than catwalk models, who are also a narrow and not necessarily natural version of female beauty. I completely see this point, and don’t think constantly using ultra-thin women to advertise anything is helpful either. The thing with Page 3 girls is they aren’t even advertising anything: they are there for no purpose, other than to provide some mild titillation. I can’t imagine the incongruity of reading on the front page about war, or some dreadful accident, and then turning the page and seeing a half-naked woman for no reason. I saw an excellent cartoon recently, showing a man reading a headline about abuse of young girls, then turning the page to see the naked ‘Kelly, 18.’

After watching Dead Poets Society again recently, I tried to write a piece on inspirational teachers in general, both inside and outside education. But it wouldn’t really work- came out like a soppy teenager’s journal entry. I was going to give it up completely but I’ve seen a few things since about how important teachers are for young people, having someone to fight your corner, and I decided to narrow it down and write about one of the best teachers I had at school- my personal Mr. Keating- share a few of the funny stories from those classes, and talk about the writers that are so important to me thanks to his teaching. Hopefully it will remind you of your teachers who went above and beyond in some way.

Richard Boden taught English Literature at my Sixth Form, and he is responsible for my love of Mozart, T.S. Eliot, John Donne, and the game Articulate!. His classes didn’t even feel like work- I enjoyed every minute, because his enjoyment of the topic came across so beautifully. I gained more confidence in those lessons than in any other before or since. Here are a few things he introduced me to and some funny stories from those lessons (I know this is still a very self-indulgent post, but I think he deserves it!).

We studied the play Amadeus by Peter Schaffer, and watched bits of the film, listened to pieces of Mozart as they were mentioned in the play, and even ate chocolates described in one scene (nipples of Venus!). That’s how I came to appreciate and adore Mozart’s music, and one piece in particular from near the beginning still gives me goosebumps whenever I think of it (Serenade for Winds, K.361, 3rd Movement- to this day I remember it’s K361!).

Richard chose John Donne’s poems from the choices on the syllabus, and we had a lot of laughs deciphering the fantastic innuendoes. One of the best was from The Good Morrow- I’ve put the whole poem here, just because it’s lovely:

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

                Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

                But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

                Or snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den?

                ‘Twas so, but this, all pleasures fancies be.

                If ever any beauty I did see,

                Which I desired, and got, ‘twas but a dream of thee.

                  And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

                Which watch not one another out of fear;

                For love, all love of other sights controls,

                And makes one little room an everywhere.

                Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

                Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

  My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

  Source: The Norton Anthology of Poetry Third Edition (1983)

  Richard was trying to explain to us what Donne meant by ‘sucked on country pleasures, childishly’ without being too rude. So he read it out, with the following emphasis: ‘sucked on CUNT(pause)-ry pleasures, childishly.’ Mission accomplished, Richard- not rude at all. Subtle like a sledgehammer.

In another of Donne’s poems, he mentions being in physical pain because his lover won’t give in and sleep with him. Richard told us in no uncertain terms that if ever any man (it was a class of almost entirely women) told us that we had to sleep together else he would be in agony, it was a load of nonsense and not to fall for it. He got quite animated about it and we must have looked a little shocked, because he suddenly backed down with a ‘Yes… well, anyway…’  Valuable life lessons.

At Christmas Richard brought in the game Articulate! for us to play as a treat. It got quite heated and one of the words I had to describe was ‘bald.’ I completely blanked and in a panic pointed at him and just shouted: ‘RICHARD!’ Thankfully a girl on my team was on the same wavelength and after a split second hesitation called out: ‘BALD!’ Richard said grumpily: ‘I knew you were going to do that.’ Poor Richard- I am sorry!

Last but not at all least, T.S. Eliot. His poetry wasn’t on the syllabus- which was otherwise made up of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love, and The Winter’s Tale. Both excellent and thoroughly enjoyable, but it was the few Eliot poems we went through which stay with me more than either. There were a few pointless weeks at the end of term when we couldn’t start the A Level syllabus yet, but they still had to teach. Richard introduced us to T.S. Eliot, and one poem we read which is still one of my absolute favourites is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I won’t put it all here, as it is extremely long (as I realised to my cost when I was urged to read it aloud at a horrific work Christmas party, when we all had to read out a poem- I think my boss only encouraged me to read it as it was even longer than the one he read, and he wanted the crowd warmed up before he began. He didn’t like me particularly). It is a poem about an introvert, a man frightened of social engagements and the derision he feels will be aimed at him in pointed glances and whispered asides. Here are a few choice quotes:

                “Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent”

                “Do I dare to eat a peach?”

                “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”

“Time for you and time for me/ And time yet for a hundred indecisions,/ And for a hundred visions and revisions,/ Before the taking of a toast and tea.”

“In a minute there is time / For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. / I do not think that they will sing to me.”

“I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, / And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, / And in short, I was afraid.”

Source: T. S. Eliot, Selected Poems, Faber & Faber, 1954

So many lines from it have stayed with me for years- particularly about ‘a hundred indecisions,’ as I am notoriously indecisive. Thank you, Richard, for your year of excellent teaching.

Watching Dead Poets Society brought back to me the power of poetry when you are young, if you find something that speaks to you. Of course, often people are turned against poetry for life at school, due to wearisome methods of teaching and eternal repetition. I tried reading ‘To Autumn’ again today, but I’m afraid its magic is forever lost to me after over an hour of our teacher asking everyone to recite as much as they could remember. Inevitably, most people could remember only the first line or two, and by the end of it I could have throttled Keats. So Richard was even more special for having the ability to show us the magic of the poems, the fun and the silliness as well as the serious side of them, and inspire a love of poetry, just as Mr. Keating does for his pupils in Dead Poets Society.

Quite by chance, I came across a volume of Walt Whitman poems only a week or so ago, and so read O Captain! My Captain! all the way through for the first time. Written about the death of Abraham Lincoln, and thereby mourning the loss of a pseudo-father, it is particularly poignant when read now with Robin Williams and his fatherly characters in mind. Here it is- tissues at the ready:

                O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done,

                The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

                The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

                While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

                                But O heart! heart! heart!

                                                O the bleeding drops of red,

                                                                Where on the deck my Captain lies,

                                                                                Fallen cold and dead.

                  O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

                Rise up – for you the flag is flung – for you the bugle trills,

                For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths – for you the shores a-crowding,

                For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

                                Here Captain! dear father!

                                                The arm beneath your head!

                                                                It is some dream that on the deck

                                                                                You’ve fallen cold and dead.

                  My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

                My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

                The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

                From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won,

                                Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

                                                But I with mournful tread,

                                                                Walk the deck my Captain lies,

                                                                                Fallen cold and dead.

Right, okay. I wasn’t sure whether to write any more on depression, because it isn’t easy and I don’t want to bang on and on and make people bored. But over the last week since I put up my post on depression and suicide, I’ve had several people get in touch to let me know how much they’ve enjoyed reading them personally, and how accurate they’ve been to their own experiences, or just to offer me some support. I am so incredibly touched that people have taken the time to get in touch, and it’s made me want to write a little more.

The other prompt for me to write this post is, again, the general media’s sway into pieces on depression and the state of mental health services, particularly in England, in the wake of Robin Williams’ death. Many stories are very negative (see here and here), emphasising cases where people have not been offered enough help, or not enough help in time. Although my own experiences aren’t perfect, they do show that help is there and that if you are lucky, or just very persistent, you can get help even among England’s overstretched and underfunded services. I’m also aware that many people might not be sure if they need to speak to a doctor, or be frightened of what would happen if they did. This blog is for you, to show you what can happen and what you can expect.

Several people in the medical profession were involved in my eventually going to a doctor and getting some help when I was at a very low point. The first was a pharmacist. I was at my parents’, had been taken ill with a stomach bug and wasn’t getting any better because every evening the thought of having to go back to London and to work made me nauseous again, so I couldn’t eat, and my stomach is ridiculous and makes me throw up when I get overhungry, meaning I stayed weak and queasy. I was waking up at 5 or 6 and lying there feeling too sick to do anything other than lie on my back- the kind of nerves you get before a major event, only I wasn’t due to do anything. My Dad went to a local pharmacist to see if they could suggest any anti-nausea pills. All they could give him were Kalms, but they did say the waking early could be a sign of depression and I should see a doctor. My parents were very concerned but trying not to show it. They didn’t realise how unhappy I was until they saw how destroyed I was at the idea of having to go back and carry on. I made a doctor’s appointment, and went back to London.

Thankfully for me, the doctor I saw was the absolute best of her profession. I told her about the stress and the early mornings, and she disappeared to get me a questionnaire they give patients to ascertain if they are just a bit down, or if it’s something worse that needs to be looked into further. This is the questionnaire:

Over the last two weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems, on a scale of: Not at all (score 0), several days (score 1), more than half the days (score 2), nearly every day (score 3):

Little interest or pleasure in doing things?

Feeling down, depressed or hopeless?

Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much?

Feeling tired or having little energy?

Poor appetite or overeating?

Feeling bad about yourself- or that you a failure or have let yourself or your family down?

Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television?

Moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed? Or the opposite- being so fidgety or restless that you have been moving around a lot more than usual?

Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself in some way?

Add up the total. Depression Severity: 0-4= none, 5-9= mild, 10-14= moderate, 15-19= moderately severe, 20-27= severe. (Source: http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/patient-health-questionnaire-phq-9)

Probably this isn’t a perfect questionnaire, but if you are reading it and scoffing, take your scoffing elsewhere. It helped me enormously, forcing me to evaluate my own feelings and how often I had them, and I don’t want to hear that this may not be positive proof of depression. If you are suffering from several of these things, the majority of the time, chances are you’re depressed.

I came out of the questionnaire as moderately depressed. We talked about my situation, and it was the most in depth conversation with a doctor I’ve ever had. She typed everything I was saying into my notes, and it was during this conversation that I told her things that had been troubling me for a long time and which persuaded her that, depression or not, I needed to talk to somebody.

But before that, she wanted to make sure there was nothing else wrong with me that might be contributing to the low feelings and the stress. She sent me for some comprehensive blood tests, and booked me an appointment for the following week- even walking out with me to the front desk so she could make sure I was booked in, and booked for a double appointment so I wouldn’t completely screw up her appointment timetable for the rest of the day (I’d been with her for 20-30 minutes). She is an extraordinary doctor.

The blood tests showed that I had an underactive thyroid which can cause low moods, lethargy, and weight gain. She put me on some thyroxine and told me to come back in two weeks to see if it had made a difference to my mood. I think at this point she had also already referred me to see a counsellor. The way the system works, the counselling services are meant to call you soon to book an initial assessment, within the next week or two, and then after that you should see a counsellor within about 6-8 weeks.

The thyroxine made no discernible difference so I was put on Citalopram, a very common antidepressant. I hadn’t had a phone call from the counselling services so my doctor called them, and when they didn’t respond to her call, she wrote. Thanks to her persistence I got an appointment for my phone assessment easier than perhaps I would have done. It was the run-up to Christmas so very likely they were even more busy than usual.

If you have one of these phone assessments, brace yourself. They are not fun. You’re talking to a stranger, albeit a lovely and sympathetic stranger, but still a stranger and, in my case, you’re sitting in the office while you’re doing it hoping the door is soundproof. They ask you a lot of personal things, perhaps things that you never normally speak about but which you would want to work through with a counsellor. It’s a bleak experience and I felt drained, exposed and tearful afterwards. Happily my office was very close to an excellent bookshop, so I went out at lunchtime and bought a beautiful hardback of Sense and Sensibility to cheer myself up.

That phone call is the first major flaw I came across in this system. Difficult as it is, it would be fine as long as it served an obvious purpose. But when I got to see a counsellor, the contents of that phone call had not got through to her. I had to tell her all over again why I was there. So why do they do it? I’m not really sure. Presumably it is necessary for some reason, but I would love to know what is if any of you know. Perhaps it’s necessary if you’re referring yourself for counselling, rather than through a doctor? I don’t know.

The six to eight weeks waiting time to see a counsellor turned into about three months. By the time I got to see someone I’d already fallen (metaphorically) flat at work and gone on sick leave. I was living at home with my parents. Thankfully, as I still had my London flat at that point, I could stay registered with my doctor and travelled to my counselling sessions. Otherwise I would have had to take myself out of the London system, register with a doctor in Suffolk and get put on their counselling waiting list instead.

I’ve already said that the antidepressants didn’t work for me. They made me nauseous and stopped me getting hungry, so I started taking them in the evening but they disturbed my sleep and gave me vivid, strange dreams which were difficult to throw off the next day. I was eventually told you shouldn’t take them right before bed because they contain something or other that is bound to disturb your sleep. But by then I’d made my mind up to come off them anyway. I was feeling better but I knew it was because I was taking a break, and talking to somebody every week. The counselling was excellent and I was lucky that the place they sent me to also did a concession for students and the unemployed, so you could get a session for £15, meaning I could carry on after the ten weeks the NHS gave me for free. For many the ten weeks would have been enough, but I needed more. Unfortunately without the concessions it would have been prohibitively expensive.

So that’s how it all worked for me. There is a system but it took me going to the doctor just to talk about the stress and the sleeplessness for the doctor to act. I had been once or twice before and tacked on at the end that I wasn’t quite right. One doctor did ask me if I thought I was depressed, to which I could only say I really didn’t know. Another flaw, I think, in the GP services is that since then, I’ve registered with a new doctor in London and although they have access to my (comprehensive) mental health history, they haven’t asked why I stopped the antidepressants or how I’m feeling. I think the patient has to go willing to talk, but many doctors seem to think if you’re not bringing it up, you’re okay, and clearly that isn’t always the case. The waiting times for counselling are clearly too long, and more money needs to be put in to that. The pills work for some people but if there’s an underlying reason why you’ve ground to a halt, then pills aren’t going to solve that for you.

Although there are flaws in the system, I did want to tell a story which isn’t just about despair and nothing working, frustrated patients and overtired doctors. There are many people who helped me to get better, and I want to thank them all. I hope this will help some people to know what to expect, and what they need to put in themselves to get the help they need.

A year ago, I wrote a piece called ‘The frustrations of depression.’ Now that I’m writing again, I wanted to write a follow-up about how things are now. I wasn’t going to do it today, but after the tragic loss of Robin Williams the internet seems to be full of pieces on depression and suicide, so it seems apt to add my own piece to the mix.

For those of you who know me, some of you will know about the depression, and some won’t. For those who didn’t, don’t worry J I’m okay! I am still not always sure if depression is the right word for me. The reason I left work can’t be summed up in the word ‘depression’ so well as it can in several words: a combination of utterly bollocks circumstances which left me desperately tired and weak as a kitten. I was on medication for a while but I didn’t like it, and I don’t think it helped, so I stopped. For me, I was low for good reasons, and talking about and tackling those reasons was far more helpful than pills which gave me weird and very vivid dreams, and also kept me shackled to a generally low ebb.

I still feel overwhelmed sometimes, but I have my ways of coping with it now and much of it seems to be to do with accepting who I am and what I need as an individual, and acting on those instincts. I am someone who often needs time alone. As an old driving instructor once said, I keep my emotions close to the surface. I am quick to laugh, quick to anger, and quick to cry. When I join a group of people, I’ll often be quiet and observe for a while rather than jumping in with a lot of talking. None of that adds up to me being depressed, but it can lead to me feeling depressed if I don’t trust what I want and end up pushing myself too far. If that happens, I tend to need to go and visit my dog in the peace of the country. But I have a lot of things and people in my life who make me very happy, not least dancing, which I will talk more about at another time.

Depression is such a difficult thing to talk about. It is an illness, and I don’t shy away now from thinking: “I feel ill” when I’m feeling low. It helps me to take care of myself better, like you do when you’re feeling unwell- you’re nice to yourself, and that’s what you need. I still have bad days, but it’s all about learning to cope with it. I am so dreadfully sad that Robin Williams couldn’t find a way to cope with his depression. It is, as so many have said, a great shame and a heartrending loss.

If depression is tough to talk about, suicide is ten times worse. It is extraordinary to think it used to be a crime: if people tried to kill themselves, and failed, they could end up in prison. Unbelievable, isn’t it? Even among depression sufferers, there aren’t many who will be able to take calmly a comment like: ‘I thought about killing myself today.’ It is something which goes against every healthy instinct a person has. Someone very close to me tried to kill themselves when I was a teenager, and I didn’t talk about it for years. It’s something so private and so alien, you cannot conceive why anybody would want to do it unless you’ve thought about it yourself. (Just to be clear- I have never considered killing myself. I am okay!) I have heard some people talk about the selfishness of Robin Williams’ suicide, and then get rebuked roundly for it. It sounds like a selfish thing, and I think for people who don’t know what depression is like, it must appear to be the most selfish thing you can do to people you love.

There have been a couple of articles recently on the growing trend for eating alone in restaurants. It seems that more and more of us are taking the opportunity to eat out alone, and restaurateurs are picking up on the potentials of this new market. One restaurant owner has opened a venue in the US filled only with tables for one, which has been so popular more branches are being opened all over the world. This is interesting to me as I’m increasingly getting into the habit of doing things alone, and not worrying about it at all. I have never felt spied on or snickered at when I’ve gone out alone, unlike, apparently, the author of this rather silly article in The Guardian, who bemoans the fact she has been placed almost in the kitchen or in the centre of a restaurant when eating alone, as though she were a piece of rubbish or an exhibit to be stared at (if she’s so self-conscious, why not request a table somewhere else?). It’s true that it can be unnerving going to places alone where people expect everyone to be in twos or more, but I find it perfectly easy to ignore them- and I am generally quite shy, so if I can do it, anyone can. I do think it’s important to pick somewhere I feel comfortable, and where I know I will enjoy the food- something another restaurateur picked up on, remarking that attracting solitary diners is the biggest compliment a restaurant can receive.

It isn’t just eating alone that I’m enjoying more and more. I first went to the cinema alone at university, to see The Lives of Others. It’s an extraordinary and incredibly moving film, and I was so glad that I was enjoying it only in my own company. Some films are much better enjoyed alone. I am particularly perceptive to other people’s moods, and can often tell if my companion isn’t enjoying something as much as I am, and it distracts me and makes me worry. If I’m alone, it doesn’t matter. If I don’t enjoy it, that doesn’t matter either- I can leave, and not have to worry about spoiling anybody else’s enjoyment. Sometimes, I take a while to make my mind up about a film after I’ve seen it, and need some time to reflect. But if I go with someone, they might start talking immediately and confuse me completely. It depends on the film, of course, with some it doesn’t matter a bit- but with others which are more subtle, I tend to need a while to think it over and process it. Some people I’ve gone to the cinema with have felt the same as me, and we’ve talked aimlessly about other things for half an hour after leaving the screen before one of us will pick the subject up, turn the film over, and we’ll start to examine our reactions to it. Other times, however, people will turn to me the moment the film ends and say: ‘Well, I thought that was brilliant. What did you think?’ And I don’t know yet. If I go alone, I can make my mind up in my own time.

Much as I enjoy seeing films alone, particularly obscure ones, my favourite solitary date night these days is to the theatre. I have seen several plays alone, and I absolutely love it. I have been fortunate that most of them were excellent, the kind of plays that require a great deal of mulling over afterwards: A Doll’s House, A View from the Bridge, The Crucible. The latter two in particular are so powerful, I came out feeling almost bruised. When I left A View from the Bridge, I was trembling and cold- there’s a lot of confrontation and pain in it, which made me cower in my seat feeling slightly queasy during the performance, and those effects lasted for a long time afterwards. I would not have been good company for anyone who came with me, and I might not have been as deeply affected by it had I seen it with other people. I am aware that most people aren’t so easily moved by things as I am, and that it can be bewildering and even slightly irritating. So I try and rein it in when I’m with others. But I don’t give a hang what the strangers sitting next to me think if I go on my own.

After seeing The Crucible, I rather wish someone would put on a theatre performance only for people going alone. At the beginning, as soon as you took your seat, you felt the creepy mood from the music, the lighting and smoke billowing across the stage. I found it profoundly annoying to be interrupted from all this goosebump-inducing theatrics by the people behind me discussing which was their favourite type of gin. (Tanqueray seemed to be winning, but they all admitted there were several new types none of them had tasted. One kept exclaiming that she preferred ‘juniper-y tones’ and asked the others loudly if they agreed, but they ignored her completely). I was sat next to a surly teenager who asked her father why ‘they were so far back’ (we were seven rows back in the stalls. Seven rows out of eight, granted, but barely five metres from the actors on stage). During the interval, she started musing to her father whether they would do such-and-such a scene, which had been in the film. I didn’t know the plot and was mightily pissed off at her inconsideration. I ended up having to put in earphones to drown the silly woman out. It would have been so much better if everyone had just been quiet and soaking up the atmosphere. Be warned, if you do go alone, you may became an unofficial usher: I was asked about the running time and whether this was row L or M and did I know if they were in the right seat? By the time the play started I felt like the Old Vic should offer me a job. I didn’t mind answering people’s questions though, and in fact this might just be me, not the fact I was on my own- I get asked for directions with astonishing frequency, especially considering I have what people now term a ‘resting bitch face.’

In November 2012, I was diagnosed with depression. Depression is an illness which provokes a wide range of reactions in people, depending on their own experiences. It is, to me, something intangible- just when I think I’ve understood its impact on my life and those around me, it slips away and mutates into something else. Some days I am able to brush it aside, other days it lies on me like a hot, heavy, suffocating blanket, preventing me from doing anything and leaving me tearful with frustration. I think for sufferers and for those who deal with them, be it friends, family or colleagues, depression is the most frustrating illness of them all.

  When I was diagnosed, my doctor suggested anti-depressants and that I be signed off work for a few months. I was, after some initial hesitation, happy to try the anti-depressants, but signing off work was an impossibility due to the meagreness of statutory sick pay. However, after a few months of continuing with work, everything had changed. I was so tired and my attention span was so woefully short that I was making more and more mistakes by the day. After a particular crisis at work, I went to my doctor and was finally signed off. I struggled hugely with taking time off. Those who are sympathetic say ‘you must think of it as having a broken leg. Nobody would expect you to go to work with a broken leg, so don’t feel bad about it.’ But obviously one of the hardest and most frustrating things about depression is that you cannot see it. You cannot put a pin in it, do a test, take an x-ray and say ‘Yes! You have depression!’ Even to myself, I often wondered if I was truly ill or not. The general impression of depression is that you must be utterly incapable of doing anything, ever, constantly weeping, preferably with scars lacing your arms and a couple of suicide notes in your back pocket. One of my colleagues said after I’d left, ‘But she always seemed so happy.’ There are no set markers, only what you feel, and getting the full grasp of the shape of your own emotions can be astonishingly difficult.

  This doubt surrounding depression diagnoses isn’t helped by the attitudes you encounter from some people. Most of the people I told (and I made a point of telling many people, after seeing from the experience of others that not talking about it only serves to isolate you further) were absolutely wonderful, hugely supportive, and told me to do whatever I needed to do to get better- including leaving work and taking some time off. However, from some people I received no support at all. One told me that I needed to be sure I ‘really was ill, and you don’t just need someone to tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.’ I was told that people my age had no reason to be depressed, that people left university and suddenly had to deal with grown-up things like bills and so on, and found it difficult to cope with (interesting, seeing as I’d left university for nearly four years and had been paying bills when I was there in any case), but that this wasn’t proper depression. I was told that depression was massively overdiagnosed, and that this particular person doubted its existence. It’s difficult if not impossible to imagine someone denying the existence of a broken leg, to the face of someone who has just been diagnosed with it (although one doctor did try it with my brother, despite his bone being at a very odd angle). Unfortunately the situations I was in when all this was said to me meant I couldn’t slap these people and tell them to bugger off, which was unfortunate. It is these kinds of attitudes which get people into a lot of trouble these days if they are voiced publicly, but you can hear the undercurrent of grumbling and scoffing even now.

  For one of the main reasons depression is so intensely frustrating is that unless you have experienced it for yourself, it is incredibly difficult to understand it in somebody else. When a close friend of mine was diagnosed with depression at university, it was at a time when we were all struggling with dissertations and final exams and we struggled to understand. We were all worried, all stressed, all fed up- what was so different about them? Why can’t they get on with it? And it’s only when you have suffered from it yourself that you understand- with depression, you just can’t. You can’t ‘just get on with it.’ There are days when you are against an invisible wall, and all you can do is stare blankly into space. Or cry. Or cocoon yourself in a duvet. Many days at work it was all I could do not to curl up under the desk in a ball. You are filled with a total, immovable weight, sunk deep into your chest and stomach, dragging your head down to your chest. Small wonder I wasn’t terribly productive in my last months at my job. But without having the experience in your own mind, recognising it as something other in somebody else is incredibly hard.

  For partners of people with depression, I have the greatest sympathy and empathy. For them, I’d say depression is 99% as frustrating as it is for the sufferer themselves. So much of the time, there is nothing you can do. Someone you love is sat there, tears streaming down their face, telling you they’re desperate and scared and sad and can’t see a way out. They don’t know why they feel like this, and it is the absence of why that is the worst part of all. Some partners sit and stare helplessly, others cry too, others get frustrated and angry and tell you to ‘just cheer up.’ I understand the anger inside out and back to front, but in nearly all cases, getting angry is the most destructive thing you can do. Someone once told me that depression is anger turned inwards on itself. The person suffering is angry too, as angry as their partner is that they cannot defeat this cloying, dragging, desperate illness which is making them both miserable. In my experience, the best thing to do is to hug, and reassure.  For me, putting something easy and cheerful on the television and offering to cook dinner are the next good steps. Then, because partners are frustrated and angry too, they should tell someone else what they are going through. Maybe not right away, although if they have a supportive friend at the end of a text that would be helpful, but arrange an outlet for themselves so their anger doesn’t clog them up too.