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The illogical logic of depression: ‘It’s been a wonderful year… But I felt awful’

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Once a week, I visit my local hospital in north London, take a long stroll through perfect corridors, climb a few stairs and sit in a room to talk to a woman I don’t know. It’s not something I look forward to. Being a native of this island gives me that peculiar sense of shyness when confronted with strangers, so it’s taken a while for me to get used to this arrangement. I should say at this point that she’s lovely. She’s wise, intelligent and polite, but she has an unerring knack of guiding me into conversations that I don’t want to have. She is, of course, my therapist.

In January I was diagnosed with high functioning endogenous depression following a pretty bleak December. Despite writing on the subject for male health publications and charities such as insideMAN and CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) I always felt that my role when discussing depression was one of conductor rather than participant. I was keen to demonstrate how commonplace the illness is and how it should not be a stigma. Depression doesn’t mean weakness and once the world gets used to that fact it might help reduce the appalling number of suicides which destroy families daily. Anyway, I was asked to write about it and did so without realising that I too suffer from ‘the black dog’ as Churchill called it. True, I’ve had a few suspicions about my character and ‘way of looking at the world’, but simply put it down to my naturally grumpy cynicism. In January I was put straight about that in no uncertain terms.

It began a month earlier. I was talking to a close friend and explained that this current dark mood was proving difficult to shift and that I just felt awful about nothing in particular. She grew concerned (which made me feel worse) and asked me to visit my GP and tell them what I’d been telling her. I couldn’t really be bothered. It was a simple black phase and one I’d emerge from soon enough as I’d done time to time again, but she’s too smart for this and did something very clever. She told me to go. So I went. I do tend to do what others want as I can’t bear the idea of disappointing people. My therapist calls it ‘people pleasing’ and I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to it.

‘I was a fraud, a coward, a cheat’

Anyway, I went along and spoke into my armpit for twenty minutes or so about ‘feeling quite down’ etc. but pointed out that this had been commonplace over the past decade and that I’d soon pull myself together. One thing, however, I was very keen to stress was that ‘this’ wasn’t depression. No chance. I knew the difference. I have friends who struggle with it and have an uncle who has suffered awfully from it since the year of my birth and I was nowhere near that category.

Of course, she said, there are many strains of depression and that just because I didn’t exhibit manic episodes it didn’t mean that I too wasn’t a victim to it. I agreed and waited to be released into the winter streets with a pep talk of some kind or other, but she pressed me further and asked me if there’d been one thing that triggered this current spell of melancholia. Well, yes, there was and I’m afraid it comes with a degree of ‘wow, look at me!’

I told her that in the last year I had left a job and career I actively despised, got a job I never thought I would get and makes me very happy indeed, began writing about football for national newspapers, released my first novel to some acclaim, taken on lots of other writing jobs such as those stated above, was working on a second novel which (I think) is better than the first and was working on a football book with another mate. That’s not a bad year. I’ll go further. It’s the year I’ve been waiting for since my name first appeared in a fanzine in 1993.

If you like this article, you’ll love the insideMAN book, available here

I may not have planted a flag in the minds of the nation but I was beginning to be taken a little more seriously.

A statement year.

But I felt awful.

I felt like nothing on earth. I was a fraud, a coward, a cheat and the worst type of human who lies and steals praise from his friends for his own twisted validation. I was kidding everyone but myself and I didn’t like it.

Karl, with his dad

When you’re in that state you can’t go out. You ignore emails and texts and wish the world would go away. Some people even take the final step and I can see why. I’m not suicidal –I’ve no interest in dying- but I’ve often wished that I could be taken out of time like I’ve never existed. I can live with being a disappointment to myself but no one else. Put me in a cave somewhere. Let my life fail to touch yours. No one will be hurt then.

I told my GP this and she smiled warmly and added ‘but you’re not depressed?’

I said that I objected to the term and maybe I had some of the undercard to that word –stress, anxiety, low self-esteem etc- but not the full blown kit and caboodle. Not the D-word.

She asked if I were able to write those words in a satellite around one enormous word, what would that word be? Then I was diagnosed. I have depression. Not bi-polar or anything similar, but a depression that isn’t focused on one life incident. I just have it. People do.

She gave me a list of medication options and asked me to go away and think about it. I’m very lucky here. My sister is a pharmacy lecturer so I called her (not an easy call to make) and went through a few options. A week later (and what a grim week that was) I signed up for a course of meds. I’m on a fairly low dosage which I’m happy with but I’ve been told that it’s hardly on the Junior Disprin level.

‘Enlightening, harrowing and fascinating in equal measure’

Therapy (CBT) took longer to organise. The NHS being stretched as it is meant that I would have to look at group therapy more than one-to-one work. I laughed that off. There’s more chance of me giving birth than sitting in a room and talking about my week with people I didn’t know.

I started one-to-one sessions about six weeks ago and so far it’s been enlightening, harrowing and fascinating in equal measure. I’m told it isn’t going to always be a song and dance but it will work out eventually. My sister tells me I have a lack of something in my brain and I’m being topped up like a car engine. That’s all. The cranial version of a sprained ankle. Plenty of serotonin and vitamin D please.

So, anyway, this is where I am at the moment. So, why am I here?

Well, today isn’t a good day. I’ve been tense, anxious and have shrunk away from the world a bit. It’s been a busy day too and, with my walk completed (I’ve taken to walking 5-6 miles per day) I’ve had a long time to listen to my thoughts. They haven’t been pleasant. I’m restless too and that’s led me to the laptop, to Word Document 1, to vomiting words onto a page that will make little sense. Ordinarily I’d distract myself by writing about football but I’m on holiday as far as that goes so what else is there? I apologise for your part in all this.

One of the most interesting aspects about my particular dose of depression is the battle between logic and emotions. All day I’ve been worried about stupid things which I know cannot harm me in the long term. For example, I have to put my car through its MOT on Monday. It’s an old car and I’m sure it’ll pass with a bit of work on it but for some reason I’m convinced I won’t have a car at all by the end of the week. I need a car for my day job and without a job I will be destitute and the whole thing will spiral. Earlier this week I replaced two tyres as I thought they were on the turn (ho ho) so they can’t fail me on that. They’ll find something though, You watch.

‘An internal feud between thought and feelings’

The corrective argument is, of course, what is the worst thing that can happen? The garage will be into my ribs for a few hundred quid which I can pay off on my flexible friend. I can’t see me wandering home like George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life with just a set of car keys in my hand, but try telling my mind that. This is the emotional side of things. The doom process. The logic says ‘people go through MOTs, Karl. People fail them and then fix something and then pass them’ I have for one, but you might as well try to convince me that David Icke is really onto something…

Earlier today as I sat in the car in traffic I thought ‘all I do is let people down.’ The logical side took over and asked me, quite rightly, when was the last time I honestly let anyone down? Rarely, I’d say. I’m nice to people, too nice at times, and am alright really, but that argument holds no brook with what’s going on up here.

Logic always takes a back seat as it can’t stop your mind from racing. The sheer energy I waste in worry could fuel a small nuclear power plant. If I put that energy into writing, reading, learning, anything I might actually make something of my life. But in some ways, I have done something with my life, I suppose. Things are going pretty well, generally.

This whole illness is an internal feud between thought and feelings.

So, what do I do? Well, everyone is different and I’m quite fortunate with the manner in which I try to distract myself. Some resort to mania or self-abuse of one kind or another, but I’m lucky enough to be a bit dull in that respect. I have passions. Not manic as such, or at least not in the bipolar sense, but I latch onto things that no one is remotely arsed about. A couple of years ago I decided to read up on American presidents. Names, dates, Vice Presidents, running mates, age at time of death, heights (Abraham Lincoln was the tallest, James Madison easily the shortest) and anything and everything about the Commander-in-Chief.

This fast became an obsession. Biographies were consumed and irritating trivia was mined which served no one (Martin Van Buren, the 8th President, was the first to be born an American citizen yet English wasn’t his first language). I’d spend hours on Sporcle, answering quizzes, writing them out in under a minute, then doing it backwards. Test me, test me, test me. Then I got bored with them and tried something else. It’s the Whitechapel murders of 1888 at the moment but it’s been the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Taekwondo patterns, Korean, Philip Larkin, David Bowie, chess (with openings taking centre stage), the works of PG Wodehouse and, a lifelong love, Sherlock Holmes. I’ve no idea what’s next but it’ll be something.

Some may read that and decide that I’m just curious about odd things, or that I’m just curious (I forgot astronomy. Jesus, I could bore people for weeks on that subject) but it’s probably just a way to get out of ‘this’ feeling. The question is, would I want to change that? Would I swap that thirst, that craving for knowledge and live a perfectly happy bland life if I could get rid of ‘the thing’? Well, today has been a bad day so probably, but tomorrow may give a different response.

In some ways, I like being like this. Not always, but sometimes. By this I mean the inquisitive side of my nature, not the dark hours when no room is dark enough and no space small enough to hide.

Today is over. I’m physically and mentally exhausted. Some tea and then bed. Let’s see what tomorrow’s mind wants.

By Karl Coppack

Karl is a former writer for Through The Wind and Rain and a whole host of others who are desperate for copy. Troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball-playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

You can shove your office Newspeak right up your Memory Hole

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From The Office, to In The Thick of It, ‘Biz Speak’ is regularly lampooned for its idiocy and pretentiousness. But it’s also used as a form of control, a way of obscuring reality, rather than revealing it. Here Karl Coppack explains why the abuse of language is far worse than abusive language.

***

A friend of mine is going through a hard time at work. She’s had emails from her bosses, HR has been called in and there’s to be a meeting in the next week or so that may end in a written warning.

She hasn’t assaulted a waiter in the canteen or anything so crass. No. This has been ‘escalated’ due to ‘poor performance’. She’s worked there for years and done very well so that’s not the real reason. What they actually mean is ‘the market’s got harder and we’re struggling a bit so…’

However, it’s not that which has led me to a laptop. It’s the aforementioned email and, in particular, one term. Apparently, the poor girl has displayed the wrong ‘interpersonal dynamics.’

‘Language is a benign virus’

We have no idea what this means. We’ve sat down, worked our way through a significant amount of tea, and scratched our heads, scratched each other’s heads and come up with a possible meaning. We think it’s something to do with body language, of verbal and non-verbal interaction in an office environment. That’s as close as we can get to it.

I’m fascinated by language. I love how it ebbs and flows and is a largely organic process. It grows and dies with nobody having a certain hold on it. Language, as Laurie Anderson once observed, is a virus – a benign one.  But this is not always the case. One of the reasons I love George Orwell’s 1984 is his theory that language can be used a means of social control. If you haven’t read the book, or don’t have the York Notes to hand, here’s a brief overview.

Winston Smith, the doomed hero, lives within a totalitarian state and is oppressed by ‘The Party’. He works in the Ministry of Truth, a propaganda unit, and is an unusual form of editor. Instead of writing the news he is charged with destroying it.

For example, if a war hero has received column inches in the party paper a year ago and has since been shot as a spy, Smith is charged with removing them from the archives completely. It is not news that they have been shot. There is no record of people disappearing as that would not serve the party good. It is that they have never existed. They will never be discussed or their names even mentioned. They have been removed from time. Hence the catechism ‘We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia’ – even if Smith remembers otherwise. If the lie is told long enough and forcefully enough it becomes the truth.

Germans have no word for ‘fluffy’

I’ll leave it there as regards plot development as Orwell does a far better job than I ever could, but within the book there’s a fascinating discourse about language.  While we have a myriad of idioms that belong to different cultures and subcultures, in Winston Smith’s world the party try to destroy language.

That sounds impossible, doesn’t it? How can you destroy words and phrases? Even arcane terms have a habit of coming back for a short while so how can you rid society of them? Well, through the new language that is Newspeak.

Newspeak is a controlled language that does away with terms such as protest, liberty, individuality and even peace. The idea being that if the word for an action or thought does not exist, it cannot be a real thing. Within generations whole concepts will disappear and the opposite will become the norm – subservience, control, collectivism and constant war.

There’s a joke about this in Blackadder Goes Forth when Edmund tells Baldrick that the Germans ‘have no word for ‘fluffy’’. They do, in fact. It is ‘flauschig,’ but this if there was no word for it over time people will forget the whole idea of fluffiness.

Jargon and ego

But back to those interpersonal dynamics. It’s a perfect example of how language is used to denote superiority. As I’ve said, I love language. Absolutely adore it. Language should have you rolling on the floor, begging to have your stomach tickled. Anyone who has read P.G Wodehouse will tell you that the plots, such as they are, are secondary. It is the language that makes them timeless. The same is true with Oscar Wilde. In his latest book, Stephen Fry speaks of how, when aged thirteen, he came across the following passage in The Importance of Earnest that opened up a new world.

“Would you be in any way offended if I said that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection?”

In other words, ‘I like you’ but dressed in such a way to make it hilarious. It’s over-dressed and hilariously unnecessary. This is where language is a blessing. It is open and begs you, implores you to investigate further. ‘Interpersonal dynamics’ does the very opposite. It means to place a barrier between employer and employee. We, the managerial team, speak like this. You do not. It’s an intellectual superiority. If they speak like this, they must be right.

It can often go wrong. I once had a manager who was overly fond of his Gus Hedges talk (if you haven’t already watch the excellent Drop the Dead Donkey and the incredible Gus who would often invite his charges to ‘come for a scuba in my think tank’). He had the power suits, the jargon and the ego. Sadly, he also had appalling English. He liked to misuse ‘may’ and ‘can’. ‘May you bring your presentation to the meeting’ he would ask. Yes, I may. Doesn’t mean I will. ‘Can you?’ offers a different instruction. A rhetorical one for a start.

The cyber palace of bizspeak…

It’s all too easy to criticise office jargon with its ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘helicopter views’ but it’s mostly harmless. (As I write this I’ve just had an email from that cyber palace of bizspeak – Linkedin – advising me to read an article informing us ‘how programmatic is moving towards prime time’).

I worked in sales for twenty years and can cite dozens of terms that have failed to survive the ages but what I’m referring to is something different. Before my own little tete-a-tete with HR and verbal warnings in my last job I noticed that the term ‘the business’ had somehow replaced ‘the company’ by those who in charge. ‘It’s a valuable resource for the business’ instead of ‘it’s good for us’ became the mantra. In some ways it was handy because you could tell one class from the other. Manager from worker drone. I was very much from the latter caste.

Last year I self-published a novel called ‘And What Do You Do?’ and although it would be unseemly for me to advise you to read it and buy copies for all your friends (average review 4.5 stars), I would like to mention one character – Tony – who becomes a colleague of the main character, Mike. He is young, hopeful, ambitious and keen to rocket up the ladder and leave the rest to it. Mike is the opposite and sees him for what he is. It is the Tonys of the world that adopt the business lingo to show the world their superiority. It is the Tonys who talk of ‘moving forward’ instead of ‘next time’ and it is the Tonys who will fix his charges with a haughty stare should their interpersonal dynamics not be up to scratch.

Of course there is a language for other professions and subcultures. A man kindly reminded me of this on Twitter this morning when he stated that law, football and journalism each had their own terms and idioms but they do not speak of an elevated position. They don’t have a secret language. They are a force for good, not of inclusionism.

There’s also none of the cynical abuse of language in my current job, within the charity sector. (Sure, we’re acronym heavy and I’ve found myself wincing at the term ‘tipping out’ — it means having branches pay their money into the bank — but I’ve since discovered that Omar from The Wire uses that term for ‘getting out of the car’ so that’s fine with me.)

Language is the only thing that binds us. It’s the only thing we all have access to and it should not be used as a method of control or supremacy.  That’s all.

As for my mate, her company are calling meetings with one hour notices, changing her KPIs and withholding bonuses. Proof if needed that no matter how much people dress up their language and invent new terms to make themselves appear better, a hellhound is a hellhound.

By Karl Coppack

Photo: Flickr/Vu Hung

Karl writes for The Anfield Wrap. He is troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

Also by Karl on insideMAN:

New Year’s Revolutions

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As a young boy, Karl Coppack was a protégé chess player, but instead of making the most of his talent, somehow he ended up in a stressful sales job he hated. But now he’s determined to rediscover his dreams and here he explains why we should too.

‘Here lies Reginald Iolanthe Perrin. He didn’t know the names of the trees and the flowers, but he knew the rhubarb crumble sales figures for Schleswig-Holstein’

That line is from the BBC TV series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin – a 1970’s sitcom starring Leonard Rossiter and one of the greatest ever comedies produced on these shores.

If you’re new to Reggie here’s a brief synopsis. Perrin lives in Surbiton with his devoted wife, Elizabeth. He works at Sunshine Desserts for his eccentric boss C.J., who didn’t get where he is today without being Reggie’s boss. Perrin, or R.I.P as he was once known, is slowly going insane thanks to his mundane life and begins to have strange fantasies, such as his mother in law being a hippopotamus, about humiliating his family and friends and sharing extra curricula activities with his secretary, Joan. Quite the life but nothing like his actual one.

Every morning he wakes, eats his breakfast, walks to the station, takes the train, arrives at the office (late), dictates letters to Joan, has increasingly bizarre and petrifying meetings with C.J., usually about such things as the rhubarb crumble figures for Schleswig-Holstein, before taking the train late, walking from the station, eating his dinner and then going to the same bed he left earlier. He repeats this again and again and again. Reggie has had enough and craves change.

How many of us are caught in Reggie’s world?

I won’t go into the intricacies of the plot as you either know it or I’d be spoiling it for you and, in any case, this isn’t why we’re here. No. The reason I’m tugging your sleeve is because of that quote. I’ve always been fascinated by it.

How many of us are caught in Reggie’s world but never think about it? I know I have been. Day after day of the same job, the same faces and the same conversations. Maybe, like me, you’ve worked on a project that ends on one day and then begins afresh the next without a break in between. I worked in exhibition sales and found that intense pressure of selling the show and then running it was always replaced by even more pressure to better it the year after and then the year after that.

People live that life for decades and I did for two, but was this something we always wanted to do without our three score and ten? I can’t recall waking up as a small child and telling my excited parents that I wanted to work in media sales when I was older. I wanted to do something worthwhile – something noble, exciting and worthwhile. And I wanted to play an awful lot of football. Where has that ambition gone? That charm?

Forgive a bit of autobiography here but let’s see if any of this strikes a chord.

‘We were young protégés’

When I was small, very small, I played chess. I played chess very well. It was a perfect storm, really. My Granddad played to a decent standard and bought me a set when I was six years old. My Mum couldn’t play so she borrowed a book from the library and learned to the extent that she could teach me. It wasn’t long before I was borrowing other books and playing both my parents as well as my five-year-old sister – all easily vanquished, so much so that I would berate them for not trying. I then moved on to my Granddad, whose fault this all was, and beat him too. I was hooked.

Luckiest of all, my best friend, a boy called Gary, also played and was streets ahead of me in terms of age (one day older), tactics and concentration. I could still batter everyone in sight but he was by far the superior player. We were young protégés and beat pupils of all ages as well as the teachers who set up the school chess club.

One thing we didn’t do, Gary and I, was play each other. At the age of seven, we were asked us to and we flatly refused. No way. No chance. This always gets a sigh and an ‘Oh, isn’t that sweet?’ but the reason we didn’t play was because we were mates first and foremost. Had Gary beaten me and beaten me comfortably (which he would have) it would have changed things and our intense discussions on TV programmes such as Barbapapa and Noah and Nelllie’s Skylark would be forever changed. I would resent losing and losing to my mate and he would have been sympathetic. No. Not going to happen. Nevertheless, we were told that we had enough talent to train to become ‘Masters’ in our teens if we worked hard enough.

‘Who are we alive for?’

Well, not for me. I changed schools and played for that team too but come puberty my interest had waned. I was warned that if I didn’t keep it up and study openings and endgames it would all go, but I was more into football and guitars by then. Oh, I played the odd game but once I started losing more games than I’d won I pretty much gave it up. A shame really.

I often thought about taking it up again. Nothing serious, you understand, but just to enjoy the feeling of an opponent sitting opposite you in a quiet room and doing battle. Nothing ever came of it.

The worst thing is I never really knew why. Why did I put something on hold just because life stepped in and dragged me to money worries and other distractions? You can’t outgrow pleasure.

Who are we alive for? The nine to five? Did we always want this? Did we ever want to know the name of the trees and the flowers but got caught up in sales targets or reading Danish export reports? Has that fascination for pleasure for the very sake of it evaporated? Is this, as Jack Nicholson once roared to cinematic audiences, as good as it gets? Do we just wait until retirement before scraping the bottom of tired minds for any traces of things that once interested us? Or do we do something about it?

Time to make a change

I write these words during the strangest week of the year – that between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. It’s essentially a week in limbo, neither one thing nor the other. Neither fish nor fowl.  If it were possible to grab hold of the calendar and push things through we might put New Year’s Eve on straight after Boxing Day and have five days of gluttonous debauchery without a break, but no. It is not to be. Now we just twiddle our thumbs and wait for permission to be allowed out again.

There must be a point in this week though. Maybe it’s a period of reflection. Maybe it’s a period of indigestion. Maybe, just maybe, it’s a period of change. Yes! That’s what the New Year is for, after all. We begin anew with a list of planned changes, be them enormous or tiny, and seek either change or improvement.

Resolutions.

It’s usually the first topic of conversation on that miserable return to work. What are you giving up? What are you going to begin? What are your plans? This conversation seldom makes it to a second week but there’s seldom a need to increase your knowledge of, say, sales figures or anything along the lines of ‘I must work harder for the same money.’ All resolutions are selfish.

‘What’s wrong with now?’

But why wait till now? What makes 1st January so special? What’s wrong with 23rd October, for example? What’s wrong with 5.30pm on a rainy day in March when you realise that this isn’t what you signed up for? Not that this has to be all work-related. Maybe it’s an epiphany of a different kind. Waking up from four hours of sleep with stale lager sweats that no shower or brand of mint can disguise? Yes, I can do something about that. Possibly a glimpse of a belly in a mirror. Well, I could look at that. Maybe it’s the smile of the woman from accounts that seems to suggest that further conversation may be rewarded. Maybe it’s everything.

Societal conventions are strange things. How many times have you heard a friend tell of losing weight, taking up a gym membership, being healthier in January etc. but only in January as they have parties to attend or cupboards worth of crisps, biscuits and sweets to get through before the metamorphosis can begin? What an odd thing to do? ‘I must put more weight on before I take it off?’ The career equivalent is ‘I must become a little more miserable in this job/station before changing it?’ What’s wrong with now? What’s wrong with this hour? Hell, what’s wrong with this very minute?

We’re only on this Earth for a small amount of time and God knows we deserve some pleasure at least. So why not start something new? Take up an instrument or learn a language? Get out of that job or do better in your current role? Speak to the man/woman who you’ve always thought was out of your league. After all, no one wants to go to their graves only to be remembered for their knowledge of rhubarb crumble sales.

I’ve joined a local chess club and my first game is on Thursday night. I’ll be destroyed. I can’t wait.

Have a happy New Year. Have an enjoyable, educational and downright pleasurable one while you’re about it.

Photo courtesy: Flickr/**RCB**

Karl writes for The Anfield Wrap. He is troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

Also by Karl on insideMAN:

 

Men, it’s time to stop suffering in silence

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If talking about your problems was good enough for Plato and Hamlet, why do so many men today find the only time they discuss the things that are troubling them is when they’re down the pub after a few beers? Here Karl Coppack, writer for Liverpool Football Club’s The Anfield Wrap, explains why it’s time for men to open up.

–This is article #7 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys

Think of every bad soap opera you’ve ever seen. That should be all of them if you ask me but if you’re an aficionado of the form you’ve probably come across a scene where a doomed couple are in the death throes of their (shudder) ‘relationship’. The clichés fall fast and furious until they arrive at this one exchange.

‘Can’t we just talk about it?’

‘Talk? All we’ve done is talk!’

This usually concludes the scene thanks to one of the dramatis personae slamming a door or collapsing in tears. End of Part One.

It’s rare that a man seeks help from a man

Talking is the way we resolve situations or get things off our chests. I can’t believe I’m going to suggest such a thing, but let’s bring in Plato here. He wrote much of his theories in a character format where someone or other would question Socrates about what was on their mind that day – the rights of kings, whether might is right and the thorny issue of poets being banished from the city gates. These were known as ‘the Socratic dialogues’ and they make his point very well. Rather than standing around throwing out theory after theory, he chose to show all sides of the argument. This, as he and others saw it, was the way ideas progressed. Hence, Parliament – from the French ‘parlement’ – to speak. This is getting dangerously close to an ancient political lecture so let’s just say that talking about things tends to get things done. Sometimes.

Moving on a bit from Ancient Greece we only have to look at modern (ish) music. ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’ sang Rod Stewart, while subsequently proving that he was actually quite keen on it. ‘A problem halved is a problem shared’ and all that. It’s true too. We’ve all got people we run to when we’re up against it. Thing is, it’s rare that male runs to male unless it’s son to father.

Men are strange like that. We find it very hard to admit to worries and problems and our mates are usually the last to know what’s on our minds. We either muddle through alone or run in the opposite direction.

Men don’t just sail through life with a hardened chin and the heart of a lion, ready to take on any challenges that come our way. We’re not all like Tony Soprano’s hero, Gary Cooper – the strong and silent type. If anything the only skill we truly master is the pretence of complete control. We can fake that easily enough and for the lucky amongst us who can steer their ship with a skilled hand so much the better, but there are many who have monsters below the surface.

‘I get that too’

A few weeks ago I was out with some mates and somehow talk turned to what can be loosely described as ‘male issues’. That we did this at all was unusual. We’re a group of lads between the ages of 30 and 50 with differing backgrounds, careers and interests. We’re united primarily by a love of our football club and together we experience the peaks of troughs of emotion through that entity, but apart from that we’re a fairly mixed group. Some of us are obsessed with music, others aren’t. Some are married, some single. Some have kids, others not. We’ve all known each other for years and have travelled up and down the land together, attended each other’s weddings etc., but this is the first time I can ever remember us talking about aspects of our personality or health that concern us. This would never have happened five years ago when we were younger and more defensive about such things.

I don’t want to give the impression that we sat in the corner like some sort of moody Goth council –we’re not like that at all- but there was the odd raised eyebrow when people spoke up. Alcohol helped, of course. In vino veritas and all that, although Birra Moretti was the main lip loosener at the time, but what came over far more than the lack of embarrassment of admitting to perceived weaknesses was that we all saw something in ourselves through the words of others. The sentence ‘I get that too’ was muttered more than once.

Obviously, I won’t go into details about the general topics expressed that night, I’d like them to continue being my friends after all, but in the interests of disclosure I’ll admit to something I’ve kept quiet.

‘I spent a weekend in silence’

For the last few years, I’ve undergone periods of intense gloom. This is nothing like a teenage strop or anything similar but an absolute collapse in self-worth for no obvious reason.  There are times when I cannot face a living soul, times when I’d rather lock the door and not come out unless it’s absolutely necessary. Instead, I prefer to save the world from my interaction, my face and my sense of utter worthlessness. Only last month I spent a weekend in silence. I turned off my phone and just listened to my own mind tell me that I’m useless, hopeless and about to be revealed for the fraud that I undoubtedly am.

There’s no trigger for this. Oddly enough it comes when things are going well or I feel particularly loved – birthday parties, commendations etc. I don’t know what this is but I know what it isn’t. It isn’t depression. I say that not out of some ill-thought mantra about designer illnesses or anything so crass but because I know it will pass and I can manage it accordingly. This isn’t a daily struggle. I don’t have violent mood swings and I don’t seek medication. Furthermore, I am not a danger to myself so I live with it and wait for whatever it is to let me go.  It always does.

The majority of my male mates don’t know this but I have several close female friends who have sat with me and tried to talk me round during these miserable hours. Why is that? Why is one ear better than another? Why can they know but not them?

Well, the truth is that I’m a bit embarrassed by it. I know I shouldn’t be but there we are. Those paragraphs were difficult to write as I know what it is to come – he just wants attention, look at him with his fancy ‘sensitive’ condition, look at him begging for sympathy. Actually, that’s the last thing I want. If anything that would make it worse. During those times I’d rather not have proof that there are others who agree with the overwhelming consensus within my id. No thanks.

‘For every sympathetic ear, there’s a boorish lout…’

There are always people ready to cast stones of disgust. Look at the recent suicide of Robin Williams. Despite the outpouring of emotion at such a loss some just couldn’t help themselves. Here’s Alan Brazil, a former footballer and DJ of the radio station Talksport. Like many he thought that it was Robbie and not Robin Williams who had died in the night. He expressed relief at that live on air.

“And then when she said ‘Robin’, I thought, ‘oh, okay’. It didn’t hit me hard like it would if it had been Robbie, thank God it wasn’t.

“He’s got a daughter, what’s she feeling this morning? I don’t have a lot of sympathy I’m sorry.”

“But that’s the way I feel, I’m sorry. What you leave behind is diabolical…. I’m really annoyed about that.”

Well, we’ll all have to live with your anger, Alan.

What he fails to realise is that Robin Williams knew full well the impact his suicide would have on his family. Of course he did. He’d probably considered suicide many times before but his family pulled him back from the brink. Then one day it wasn’t enough to save him. I don’t want to think about what it must be like to be in that situation and see death as preferable and it’s the likes of Alan Brazil’s with their derision that keeps these issues hidden. For every sympathetic ear there’s a boorish lout who bays ‘why don’t they just walk it off’ to anyone within earshot.  Little wonder then that men find it difficult to feel tell others that they are experiencing depression, drinking problems or whatever going on in their lives when they’re met with a cacophony of scorn from ‘those who must express a view’.

Gender divide

Of course women get depression and its various strains too but that’s treated differently. They aren’t subject to the stereotypical machismo that governs our lives. Men have to be strong. Men have to answer to peer pressure. Men can never admit to frailty etc. Quite ridiculous, of course, but there we are. The term ‘show your feminine side’ is generally pejorative in tone. Great. We’ll just eat ourselves up then, shall we? Harsh maybe, but that’s what many choose to do.

There are considerable pressures on us all these days. Life is an attainment race as it is and with these accompanying hurdles there’s no wonder that we struggle from time to time. Most of us would rather change an aspect of their lives be it career, health, looks or all of the above and that judgment is constant, whether it’s from ourselves or others.

There is a gender divide at play. None of my female friends have this need for validation. Whether this is because we’re just wired differently or because society expects different things from men and women is hard to say. But there is a difference in how we deal with life’s time bombs. Men seem less willing to ask other men for help.

So, did anything come of this chat? Not really. We simply went back to usual agenda of the evening but it was a start. We each admitted that we’re not all ‘well’ in a general sense. We all have things in our minds that dig into our ribs and sharing them doesn’t make us weaker. If anything it makes you the opposite. If you find that your friends have similar worries it makes your own a little more manageable.

Keep talking. It can’t hurt.

Karl is a former writer for Through The Wind and Rain and a whole host of others who are desperate for copy. Troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball-playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

Photo courtesy: Cristian Stefanescu

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

The terror and joy of being forced to leave a job you hate

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In June of this year I was called into a meeting with one of our Directors. Ordinarily, this would never have happened as she was way up the ladder to deal with the likes of me but, as  our buffer was on holiday, she stepped in. She wanted ‘to see how I was getting on’, which is probably the last thing she wanted to know, really. I’d be surprised if my wellbeing ranked highly on her list of concerns. Instead, we played the game of rictus smiles and half-hearted laughs as we filled in our time before the real business was addressed. Then it came. I was asked if I was ‘happy’. That was a pretty deep question to be asked at any time and for a second I considered a pathos dipped speech about my lack of football career, how it seemed that I was constantly overlooked by Thandie Newton and how Piers Morgan drove me to murderous thoughts but I knew what she meant. Was I happy here?

Well, no.

Really, no.

If anything it was a rhetorical question. What she really meant was that she was unhappy. Unhappy with me.

I knew that this chat, this ‘catch up’ was coming.  A day earlier she’d commented that the page of data I had on my screen had been there untouched for hours and thereby insinuated that I had done little work to push it along. She didn’t realise that the monitor was a split screen and my laptop was working away below, unseen to the untrained eye. I had been working, albeit with a sigh as another day became another week became another year became a lost life.

 ‘A SENTENCE LATER I WAS WAVING GOODBYE TO A TWENTY-YEAR MEDIA SALES CAREER’

She knew we were about to go our separate ways. It had been hinted at for weeks and, although they wouldn’t say it, my departure would be welcomed and an ambitious young buck, who had never heard of The Smiths, would soon settle in to my chair. I was ready for this and had plans but I wasn’t ready to announce them just yet. I wanted to do it when it suited me. I could have stonewalled her and added to the false bonhomie with grins and shrugs of my own but I was tired. Tired of the whole futile exercise. I didn’t want to play this game anymore. It had long since bored me to perdition and beyond. I leapt in and made my announcement. A sentence later I was waving goodbye to a twenty-year media sales career.

This was no snap decision. The writing on the wall was there for all to see and it was a shame in some ways. I’d enjoyed some of my time there – strapped to a phone or slogging up and down motorways but over the years the prospect of more empty time manacled to that desk had dampened any remaining enthusiasm. I worked in trade exhibitions and only six months earlier had worked on an event with which I had a passion, but thanks to a few internal changes I was placed on a show which held absolutely no interest – literally none at all.  I should have left then but the commission was good. After a while that wasn’t enough, as even the added incentive of money evaporates after a while. I was aware that time was nudging me in the ribs. Time for a change.

But what change? The trouble was that I was well aware of what I didn’t want but when it came to the next step I was at a total loss. What I didn’t want was clear.  I didn’t want another sales target. I didn’t want to look elated when the company did well. I didn’t want to attend another sales conference and sit through high-octane lectures about ‘hitting our numbers’. I didn’t want that. My applause at those events was soulless.  I felt like the most downtrodden North Korean citizen emptily saluting a leader. I was a corporate fraud and they knew it.

I CAN’T ‘DO DRINKS’ — I GO TO THE PUB

I’m 46 in November. Most of the people my age are managers as I was years earlier. However, I had long decided that the managerial cloak wasn’t for me. I wasn’t bothered if people were late. I didn’t care if they left a bit early. I had no interest in control and discipline. This, apparently, was not the right attitude.

There were other factors too. I didn’t fit in to a team mentality. See, I can’t whoop. No. I can’t high five. I can’t ‘smash it’ when ‘achieve’ will do. I can’t ‘do drinks’ – I go to the pub. I can’t fake love for an overlord who doesn’t know my name. I can’t sound a horn when I’ve sold something. I like to go to work, do my bit, and then go home.  I’m not much of a mixer. Oh, I had mates there but things seldom went out of office hours. The company ran social events so we could all ‘bond’. I went to one – a quiz night. I went because I thought I could win. I did. Go me. I never went again.

You’d think my age might be a reason for this mealy-mouthed approach. I was older than most people in this thriving young enterprise but that wasn’t the case. Truth is, I’ve always been like this. I wasn’t critical of such people or ideals – there were some lovely and glorious people there whom I openly adore. It’s just that I didn’t care. I couldn’t fake an interest in the company’s common good. To their credit, my lack of engagement wasn’t really deemed a problem. I made a great deal of money for a great many people and was well paid for it with a car thrown in. We both knew what we were doing. As Senator Pat Geary tells Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part Two, we were both part of the same conspiracy.

Photo: Dan4th

You spend so much of your life at work. You see your loved ones for a few hours a day and a bunch of strangers for twice as long. Not right, is it? There’s nothing you can do about it – we all have to work after all but we do get a say in what we want to do. We forget that from time to time – the concept of choice and change. It took me two decades to move from one life to a happier one. But which happier one? Liverpool, Thandie Newton and Piers were not playing ball.

There was one thing I wanted to do but it seemed a bit far-fetched.

Six years ago, a few mates and I raised some cash for a former footballer. We worked hard, had a laugh and managed to help one of our heroes.  It took us a year before we reached our target and we soon returned to our normal, everyday lives. Something changed though. It lit a fire, or rather a small smouldering ember, under me as I can honestly say that I achieved more job satisfaction from those few months than in my entire working life. I loved fundraising. I loved the feeling that I’d done something to improve someone else’s life. I never really got that with exhibition sales. I still went to my normal job though and wasted more years. It really was a nice car.

During the odd sulk at work I’d edit my CV and apply for a few charity jobs. I even managed the odd interview but my lack of experience in that world went against me. Time and again I would reach the latter stages only to fall at the last hurdle. Finally, a week before this meeting, someone took a chance and opened up a fresh challenge. The change had finally been made. It just took a firm decision, some not-entirely subtle persuasion from my former charges and a kind-hearted fundraising director.

SO, WHERE IS THANDIE NEWTON ANYWAY?

Of course, this is just me. It could go the other way. There may be hundreds of you who can no longer bear the public sector and crave breakfast meetings and the new argot that goes with media sales – from high value donors to high fives, as it were – but this is my tale and you’ll have to get your own if you don’t like it. The point is, change is usually an option.

We can’t all walk into our ideal jobs, There are restrictions are on us all, after all – wages, opportunity etc but it’s always worth remembering that you never HAVE to work anywhere where you’re not happy. You can leave.  You can change course.  You don’t have to take it. You can at least look and ask. That costs nothing.

I’ve been in my current role for two months and I love it. I’ve no idea what the next day will bring but I no longer pray for Friday.  I’d have never thought possible.  Sure, there’ll be frustrating times to come but I’ll never forget the despondency that led me there in the first place and I can’t allow myself to go back to that. I left in July with four years on the clock. There was to be no speech, no card, no leaving do and no gift. They didn’t give a toss. It appals me that I once did.

But, no regrets. We’re only here for a short time so why waste it on nothing? I walked out a little angry and upset at the indifference but those days are gone now. We must make up for  the past by securing the future. Goals are important even if it’s for a slight change. If you’re not cut out for something then at least try to move on. There’s little sense in living a brief life with no joy. I’m no example of that – I took too long – but as Morrissey once said ‘There is another world. There is a better world. There must be.’

He’s right too.

I’m just waiting for Thandie Newton now.

Karl is a former writer for Through The Wind and Rain and a whole host of others who are desperate for copy. Troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball-playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

Feature image: drothamel

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Karl Coppack, AKA The Cenci from The Anfield Wrap, remembers the game no fan forgets — his first

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Karl with his dad in the pub. Circa 1987, Karl still with a jaw line.

Karl Coppack, AKA The Cenci from The Anfield Wrap, remembers the game that all fans never forget. The game you can still hear and smell. The game that’s a rite of passage and a point of no return. His first game with his dad.

11th November 1978.

In eighteen long, tortuous days I’m going to be ten years old. The big one. Double digits. I am now grown up.

My Dad has promised to take me to a match. I am beyond excited. I have waited for this moment ever since my uncle explained the 1974 World Cup final to me. I’ve checked the Echo and it looks like 11th November is the day.

And it’s Everton. Everton v Chelsea.

I don’t support Everton. I support Liverpool. The European Champions. My Dad does not. There is an agenda in play.

But it’s a game. I get to see Bob Latchford, for whom I already had a sneaky regard for but would never voice that in public. I’d certainly see Duncan McKenzie who could jump over a Mini, which is as magical as it gets for a nine year old. I had no interest in his football prowess at all. I’m half hoping there’ll be a Mini on the pitch before kick off. I am to be disappointed.

Karl, with his dad and his sister. Circa 1974.

But the day was still great. I got to sit with my Dad and drink weak soup. The pitch looked magnificent and the kits, kits you couldn’t buy, looked marvellous. Ray Wilkins played for Chelsea. Back then he was known as ‘Butch’. This amused me tremendously. It still does. There was talk of a player called John Bumstead! I was nine years old! That was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.

Everton won 3-2 despite being 1-0 and 2-1 down. Martin Dobson got two and Duncan McKenzie, sans Mini, got one for Chelsea. Everyone seemed happy. I just wanted more and more of it.

As a birthday treat I was allowed a fish with my chips on the way back, rather than the usual fishcake which my sister and I were always given on Saturday nights. I felt grown up. At 10, fishcakes turn to fish. A rite of passage.

It was a big day for my Dad too. He was taking his only son, his eldest child to his first Everton game. He was 33 at the time and it meant something to him.

‘SWEARING AND LAUGHTER’

‘Did you enjoy that, son?’

‘Yeah. Can we go again?’

‘Yes, of course. I think United at home is the next game so maybe not that one but…’

‘No, I mean can we see Liverpool next?’

His face fell and the bus ride home was quieter. He’d tried but failed. My heart belonged elsewhere but a bond had been formed. I liked the noise, the smell, the anger, the joy and the heady soup of swearing and laughter. I wanted more. I got more.

This week I was at Fulham v Liverpool. It felt exactly the same. Exactly the same.

****

Karl is a former writer for Through The Wind and Rain and a whole host of others who are desperate for copy. Troubled with the modern world, grimaces at ball playing centre halves and frowns at fancy-dan back heels. Apt to talk about the magnificence of Ray Kennedy wherever possible.

Karl’s debut novel, And What Do You Do? is available on Kindle download (not about footy). To check out more of his writing visit The Anfield Wrap and follow him on Twitter @thecenci

 

Can you remember the first football match with your dad? Or is there another time when you bonded with him that you’ve never forgotten? Or maybe you wish there had been a moment like Karl’s with his dad, but it never happened? We’d love to hear about those mile-stone moments with dads. Tell us in a tweet or a comment.

 

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