Seahorses Are Real

'"But that's not you. It's not really you when you are ill"

"Yes it is, it's a part of me."'

I'm exhausted. I've just finished reading Seahorses Are Real as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme. Whether it was the writing, the unrelenting misery, or my own problems getting in the way it took me all bloody week. For perspective I could usually finish something of that length in two days so yeah, I'm exhausted. As you can imagine I had a bit of a mixed reaction.

Seahorses are Real details the abusive relationship between Marley, who suffers from depression, and David. David plunged himself into the relationship with hopes of saving her and, as the novel opens, he realises he can’t. How surprising. And the misery they bring each other is the subject.

The idea that depression makes you miserable isn't new nor is the idea that it can make the lives of people around you miserable. You, in a sense, loose all perspective. Things get blown out of proportion, you become irrational. You can say, and do, shitty things as a result of that. I have. And I have the ends of relationships and bruises from punching walls to prove it.

But I think David gets off lightly here. He too has a skewed view of things. He is the stereotypical nice guy (with as many TM's as you would like) who wants to save Marley. In his dreams he is rescuing her. He thinks he can protect her and rescue her. Fix her. The fact that he can't, that he has failed adds bitterness to an already sour situation. I really don't think that is explored enough.

The story is told in through cycle of fighting and making up. Abuse and making nice. And the unrelenting cycle that is Marley’s life: Jobcenter, ineffectual councillor (who makes remarks and hand her pills in sealed envelopes, this book could be read as an advocacy for proper treatment if nothing else!), home. The cycle that she longs to ditch as much as the depressive thoughts.

Like that, as a study, the novel doesn’t do too badly. It shows the horrible reality of a couple who only show affection with a side of sarcasm and who are overly dependant on each other for their happiness quite well, even if Marley is up – I think unfairly – for more criticism.

However the writing falls short. And I hesitate to say thing because I can see what’s trying to be achieved but it does just tend to fall back. The overload of adjectives, clichéd similes, repetitive sentences are a tool to let us see through Marley’s mentally ill gaze. However with the third person it just makes the novel seem clumsy and unpolished.

When the viewpoint characters switch and we see things from David’s eyes it does so clumsily. Several places I was dragged out of the story wondering where I was and who I was with now.

I will treasure the description of the calm after the storm, the hopefulness following a breakdown but ultimately the writing keeps me from giving the thumbs up, excited grin recommendation.

One a Day...

I've got to say that I'm rather sick of people freaking out when they here I'm on anti-depressants. And for the most part they aren't freaking out because I'm depressed (which is definitely freak-out-able. It sucks.) but because I'm on the pills for it.

I mean don't they ruin your life? They can't really make you happy? Don't they have horrible side effects? And if you do get happy on them how do you know if you are really happy or if it's just the drug?

Where to start? No, they don't ruin my life. Being depressed ruined my life. I let people down, treated them like crap, I didn't get my degree. Also, I felt like complete and utter shit. I was still functioning, yes, but getting up and feeding myself was exhausting. I wanted to die. Anti-depressants didn't do any of those things to me. They gave me my life back.

Second, I studied English literature so I really can't tell you, in anything but the floweriest terms, how 'happiness' works. All I know about brain chemistry is a doodle by the wonderful GP who diagnosed me. But my little pills got me to a state where I could function. Where things that used to make me happy could make me happy once again. That was good.

And yes, horrible side effects. Every little pill you take has that potential and many people have to try out almost every pill in existence before finding the right one. Which is why - ideally - you need a bloody good Doctor to help you deal. And yes, I do have a relativity minor side effect but the benefits I get from my anti-depressant outweighs it. For some people it doesn't and they decide against making anti-depressants part of their treatment. Cool. You have to do what's best for you. That is what treating depression is all about.

Lastly, I don't give a damn. Many people have asked me in their deep philosophical voice 'well how do you know if you are really happy'. Hell, as a kiddo, I asked that question myself. As a grown up I can say, without a doubt, that I just don't care.

Am I really happy? There is probably no way to tell. I feel happy and after feeling miserable for so long that is all that matters to me.

All those questions, those fearful questions, have been asked by people. Ordinary people. And you don't wonder why any more when half-baked advice columnists freak out over the same thing.

How realising thin privilege meant realising thin...

For some reason that will go unmentioned, but from recent posts you can probably guess, I’ve been thinking of my own thin privilege lately.

When I found fat acceptance I was coming at it from the perspective of someone who thought them self fat. I’m not. I’m thin. But I’ve only come to realise I was thin recently.

Why? Well yes, I lost inches around the waist as a result of pasty deprivation but - I admit now – I was thin before that.

Probably my mental issues come into play here, making me cringe with disgust as my big flabby stomach brushed against the sheets in bed. Or how I screamed thinking of my fat cheeks turning inward to suffocate me.

Reading that back it scares me. How the hell did my body image get so far off of what I am: an average sized, average height woman who always manages to find something off the rack even if my boobs make me an inbetweenie.

And yes, some off that is anxiety and depression. I imagine I have some undiagnosed body issues thrown in. Some of it is, of course, growing up with a family that commented on my chicken legs. And I think that is why thin privilege can be so hard to grasp. Because it’s easy enough to think thin people have it easy but not so easy to say ‘like me’

I have had it easier being thin. To choose just one example when I joined the University Health Centre in my first year I had to have a physical. The guy doing it did my BMI and found me solidly (as usual) in the middle.

He asked me if I did any exercise. “No, not really. But I do walk everywhere.” He told me that it wasn’t a problem but I may want to think about joining the gym if I put on weight like a lot of people do in first year.

Yeah, spot the logic there.

So from realising I was thin I could realise my thin privilege, but how did I come to realise I was thin? It ties in with something I’ve wanted to talk about for a while. How my barely updated craft blog got political.

You see it’s hard for me to separate one from the other. Just like how we occasionally bring up the politics of food on Always Autumn politics is entwined with the way I craft.

If I where to post about how I wasn’t doing any projects or – more accurately – how I didn’t feel I had done anything good enough to post I couldn’t do that without talking about depression.

Cutting the cloth for a dress makes me think about my body. I measure it constantly, evaluating a clothing project means talking about my boobs or my hip size. And so often when I post ‘my big boobs’ so on or ‘I’ve lost weight so I’ve taken this in’ I feel like apologising for having at least some ideal (so called, although not in the sense that it causes me problems with altering in the first place!) parts of my body.

Crafting lends itself to discussion of body image, to my mental state. It makes me think about feminism and the treatment of the mentally ill. When I want to write about crafting with Guides it’s often linked up with thoughts about how young people don’t have a realistic voice.

Quite frankly if I tried to separate the political from the personal I’d never bloody post. And -of course - I didn't.

I'm hard to please

There is so much I want to rant about today that I'm just going to list them. Three things that I'm not impressed by:

1. This picture in Glamour (US)

It doesn't impress me, it doesn't placate me. One 'normal' woman in one issue of one magazine.

Not even getting into the idea of what is normal I think the ideal we are striving for here is a diverse representation of body shapes, sizes and colours. I want to see people on all parts of the spectrum not just one slightly chubby, naked, white, blond woman as a political statement.

A lot of people are saying she looks happy and healthy but come on! You can not tell how healthy someone is by a picture. You can't see inside some one's body, you can't even see the other side of her body. And happy? Chances are she was told to smile at the camera. She is a model, posing for a photograph.

2. This arsewipe Doctor who thinks loosing weight can cure depression.

I mean come on! I've heard every magic cure for depression there is. What I haven't heard is that you can cure depression by shaming your patients and treating what you perceive are their problems rather than what they are asking for.

And yet I know that there is a problem with people accessing medicine because their doctors are turning them away, or accepting them if only they did the impossible ie. maintain a low weight. And I know people don't take depression seriously even when you fit into that right weight. And I know that people have no idea how people eat but assume they do based on appearances.

Yet I'm shocked and bloody angry when one arse in a white coat can use all these things - all of their unfounded prejudices - to ruin some one's life.

3. It's the time of year again to tear young people apart.

A-level results are in and turns out people did well. This -as it turns out- is not to do with better teaching methods that engage a variety of learning styles, better understanding of learning difficulties or anything else that gives all people a chance at a decent education.

No, it is a result of the exams getting easier. And so the hand wringing starts from people who haven't looked at these exams in years know - like every older generation since time immemorial, or at least the Romans - that kids today are thickos.

And they say this with no regard to the young people. Who, lets face it, only ever get in the news over this and ASBOs. They don't care about someone who is pleased to bits about achieving their A or someone who already thinks they are crap for getting a D.

I'm angry, I'm full of hay fever and god knows the world isn't putting me in a happy place today.

A depressing read

So I mentioned in passing in my last post that I have a library card now. For anyone who knows me they could be forgiven for wondering why now. Why only now?

I’m a confirmed passionate and speedy reader, I love books and I love words. Even my usual defence – that I like to own them because then I can read them again whenever I want – doesn’t really work.

It may be the usually defence, but it isn’t a truthful one. The fact is that I am, and always have been terrified of libraries. Now I have no idea why and no reason to search my childhood memories for a clue so I’ll spare you that bit. I actually want to talk about reading and self esteem.

One particularly large part of my terror comes from the way I find Libraries like private members clubs. Have you ever been into a café where you got looked at funny for needing to look at the menu? For me this is a source of real anxiety. Not necessarily – in the case of the café – where I’m actually being looked down upon but where I feel I could be.

Libraries, especially my current one, are generally pleasant, helpful places and yet I couldn’t just walk in alone and ask for a card. When we got up to the counter I couldn’t talk at all. Shamed into silence Stephen had to do the talking.

I’m terrified over being judged about the books I read too. I love a good conversation about books so I don’t mind the person behind the desk offering an opinion. And to be honest I’m fine with being thought snotty because of what I read. I know I’m not, that’s fine.

What I’m terrified of is people seeing what I’m reading and thinking me inexperienced or just plain dumb. I’m terrified of them saying ‘haven’t you read that yet.’ Honestly, that is why I never bought my own copy of Hitchhikers, I waited to be given one. I’m only giving that example because I already have a copy, there are others that I’ve been to afraid to pick off the shelf.

Which brings me back to where I am now. I took two books out of the library Saturday, read them and then replaced them with two more works of fiction yesterday. I’m now half way through one. The gluttony is a result of not being able to afford books for a while and limiting myself to a snails pace. But I’m wondering: am I doing it right?

I ran into a book on Librarything. Accidentally. It’s a list of books that you should read to improve your mind with essays about them. More than just bringing up the old question of cannon again (once I was a literature student…) it gave me a guilty sickly feeling in my stomach.

This feeling reminded me at once that I wasn’t reading well enough. Perhaps I’m not even good enough to read. My library doesn’t mach the 1001 books list close enough to have an intelligent conversation. Anyone who talks to me about books will quickly learn I know nothing about them.

I stop myself, pull myself up and I realise: this is yet another way my depression and low self esteem is taking away something I enjoy. Now I’ve recognised it, can I ignore it?