I've spent some time this week rearranging my bedroom and it feels more like a little pad, I pretend it's my flat. Now I just have my mattress on the floor and I saved up and bought a stereo (turntable, tuner and cassette deck). New albums I've been playing to death lately are the Au Pairs 'Playing With A Different Sex', Psychedelic Furs 'Talk Talk Talk', Kraftwerk 'Computer World' and Positive Noise 'Heart Of Darkness'. I've put this great Nosferatu film poster above the bed. Scared the life out of me when it fell down in the middle of the night and I awoke suddenly to find a vampire on my head (although Klaus Kinski does look rather cute in a bald, pointy-eared, fang-toothed kind of way). So now it's stuck back with an entire packet of Blutac.
He looks a bit rough in the mornings
Been a strange year without Dad in the house but Mum is a lot better after her breakdown. It was the worst she's had, we're used to her depression when she stays in bed all day but we knew that things had got bad when she started saying/doing really odd things again as well. She obsessed about painting her bedroom orange and wanted us to do it for her. Orange! Then she suddenly started reading the bible - we have a really old one in the house inherited from Dad's side of the family but nobody ever looks at it. We're all so non-religious and this just wasn't like Mum at all, the way she was talking about stuff too. It was a few months ago now but anyway A called Dr Lewis, he came over and arranged an ambulance - they took her to hospital that same afternoon. It was horrible seeing her wrapped in a blanket and wheeled out to it, like she was physically ill even though she wasn't. I actually think she was relieved, though. It was as if she was feeling, “I don't have to try any more. I can just give in to it” - like she'd reached rock bottom but at the same time a turning point, a time to let the doctors step in I s'pose. A and I both cried after she'd gone but we were relieved too, and then we were fine on our own, in fact it was really nice having the house to ourselves for several weeks. We worked out our menus (macaroni cheese every Saturday) and we kept the place clean, it was like being a true grown-up with a house of my own (but sharing with my big sister). Hospital visits were hard, I hated going. But anyway she got better, came back home and things have returned to some kind of normality. I haven't seen Dad in ages, don't know what he's going to do about my 18th (maybe he'll visit, that might be a bit strange).
Great news today! P has bought tickets to see Kraftwerk at Hammersmith Odeon so K and I are going with him and L. It's on the day after my birthday and I can't wait! Now I'm just wondering what to wear.
Wonderful, moving, post C. Thank you for sharing. Fabulous list of albums you had up there. I was particularly fond of The Au Pairs. Having had to live with 'mental health' problems myself for much of my life, I do actually think it's even harder for those around you to live with and they get so little (if any) support. It must have been so tough for you.
ReplyDeleteThanks, SB. (Sorry - it all looks a bit downbeat in the cold light of day!)
DeleteI was pretty pleased with my album collection of the time, mostly thanks to hearing things on Peel, of course. I haven't kept a single one, though! The Au Pairs were quite ground-breaking I think.
'Mental health' is a difficult, painful subject I know, yet it's very much a part of life for so many, and I'm sorry to know that you've had to live with it too. Looking back at those times makes me realise how resilient we are - with all that going on my life still revolved around music, college, boyfriend, clothes etc - probably not such a bad thing to be a self-obsessed teenager after all!
You're right about support, though. I don't know if it's different these days, but I don't remember getting any outside support at all at the time. Mind you, I probably wouldn't have wanted it!
Plus, you got to see Kraftwerk, so I'm eternally envious! And no, 'support' is no better these days.
DeleteThey were great, | didn't know what to expect but they were even better than I could have hoped - it was all very charismatic, atmospheric, powerful and hi-tech (well, hi-tech for for 1981!)
DeleteI guess I'm not surprised about the support thing really...
The au pairs...damn right!
ReplyDeleteMy Grandma, my maternal grandmother, was institutionalized for a period when I was kid. She was very religious in a charismatic way that seemed half mad sometimes. That breakdown manifested itself in her walking around the house repeating the same few bible verses over and over again (she also drank so much water in a couple of days that it almost killed her).
She was a strange but enduring character. When she wasn't reading the bible she was reading national geographic. She didn't have no schooling ...she was maybe 15 when she married my grandaddy but she had a sharp natural intelligence that came with the crazy. To this day, the best explanation for how gravity works I ever got came from her. Just before she jumped up to cast out a demon trying to posess her. :).
Her taste in art was so bizarre and baroque...they never made a farm that was ornamental enough for her. She would take thrift store vases and roll them in broken glass and beads...then spray paint it gold.
I've gone on too much again but you have a way of evoking these things...
What a vivid character, I loved reading that. I'm picturing it all (you have of way of evoking these things too..) Those vases sound imaginative and intriguing, did you keep any?! I'm also intrigued about the gravity explanation...
DeleteI guess it was more a matter of perspective than explanation of how it works. She got me to understand that the force pulling on a ball, when I threw it, was coming from the Earth and not the air that it was pushing in to...if that makes sense.
DeleteI do not have any of those vases...though I would kill for one now. I don't have any idea what happened to their things after my granddaddy died.
I really want to post about those two...and I may do it anyway but, it was not always a pretty picture. My name is all over that blog now.
I like that gravity thing, it does make sense. Perhaps you could do up some thrift shop vases in her honour some time? An artist friend of mine likes getting things like that and then sticking all weird things on them (toy soldiers, cuttings from newspapers, beads, doll parts, buttons, etc. plus that bit of gold paint) and they then just become a piece of 3D art. I think he's even sold a few.
DeleteI'd love to read some posts on these relatives of yours that you have mentioned in passing and in comments before... but obviously don't want you to risk any family feuds over it!
Great post C. Depression is a pretty weird thing you are really quite helpless to know what to do! What goes on in others peoples head is scary. A course of pills and they can be ok again or are they?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Old Pa. I agree - what goes on inside heads can be scary! I think pills can help in many cases, but they may also come at a price... We are such complex beings!
DeleteWonderful writing as always C. I can't imagine how you coped in that situation. My only brush with a mental health issue was when a friend had a sudden and quite dramatic breakdown while I was with him, one day in the mid-1990's. Unfortunately we were playing snooker at the time and the place was dead quiet. Not for long though. My pal worked crazy hours under a lot of stress and everything came to a head that afternoon. It was awful.
ReplyDeleteAh, thank you... Your situation with your friend sounds just horrendous and I do hope he recovered quickly and well (you too!) I worked in an office once when someone in a nearby room had a complete meltdown, which may perhaps have been similar to your friend's - it was shocking. Over-work and stress can be a terrible thing, we must all look after ourselves!
DeleteAs for coping with my mum's depression - I think, like so many things in life, you don't realise what you can deal with until it happens, you don't get to choose so you just get on with it as best you can. So many people have far worse things to cope with, don't they? - I don't think it did us any harm really, we got through!