Why I'm Scared to Watch Harvey

 It's all John Green's fault (as are most things, these days). 

In his masterpiece, The Anthropocene Reviewed, he writes movingly about an episode of severe depression in his twenties and how he eventually heeded his employer's advice to watch the 1950 classic staring James Stewart. It is, of course, one of my favourite chapters in the book, and episodes of the podcast - it is his honest and eloquent descriptions of his own experiences with mental health challenges than drew me to his writing. I never used to really believe it when people said "knowing you are not alone makes it easier" and that's possibly because it never did, or possibly because no-one else had ever convinced me so utterly that they really did know what it felt like. But somehow John does. 

I'm not going to try and summarise his review of the film, or why he feels it played it's small part in his recovery - just go read or listen for yourselves. (I mean it. Everyone should read that damned book - it is so good. Just go buy it, or get it from your local library.) After hearing the episode again during my current re-listen, I went and bought the film on DVD and it is sitting on the shelf, still shrink-wrapped. 

And it may sit there a while.

I am not doing well. On some level, I really am doing better than I was - since changing meds again a lot of the brain fog has lifted and I am being more active than last year. I try not to cancel my weekly D&D. I go dancing every week I am physically capable. I see friends when they suggest things, I've organised my own trips to watch football (Green's fault, again), and I'm even planning on going to a friend's wedding next month in Dublin. My counsellor comments on how much more aware I am that my negative thoughts and self-evaluations are not necessarily accurate. Several people have praised me for seeking out further therapy, for engaing with it, and for continuing to keep trying.

But in many other ways I am worse. I don't just mean that my efforts to eat healthier have fallen completely by the wayside, that I struggle to finish runs, that I'm sleeping in too late to fit morning exercises in and often don't manage a full day's work. I still can't see a future for myself. I spend too much of my time inside my own head - fantasising about a life, and relationships, that I just can't have. I can't find a sense of purpose. I feel, perhaps irrationally, useless. And, related to these thoughts and feelings if not caused by them, I'm being plagued by suicial ideation. 

After all, if there is no point to me being on this planet, why not leave?

But I don't want to die. I don't want to hurt my friends and family, I don't want to leave my son an orphan. No parent should outlive their child. And while I don't want to live, I want to want to live. I don't feel hope, but I want to feel it. 

So, now, more than ever, I should watch Harvey. 

But what if it doesn't work? I am, to state the obvious, not John Green. I am not the same person, in the same situation, at the same time, and there is no reason to believe I would have the same reaction to the film. Green says that he has "never felt as hopeless since watching Harvey as [he] did just before [he] watched it". And I want that to be true for me, too. I so desperately want there to be something, anything, that means I do not feel this hopeless again. Maybe that thing will be watching Harvey. As long as I do not watch it, that remains a possibility. 

But if I do watch it, and I do still feel hopeless, if I am unable to relate to or enjoy a celebrated piece of art, what does that leave me? I am scared that the answer is: nothing.

And so the DVD will continue to sit there, either as a last resort, or until I am no longer afraid.

The Void

 I've probably used this metaphor before, but bear with me.

There's this pit. This gaping, huge void that stretches almost as far as I can see. I spend a lot of time on the sloping sides, trying to climb out or, at the very least, not fall further in. Sometimes I make it out, into the sunshine, and get to walk along the edge. It's precarious: the smallest slip could see me plummeting back in, and I never get to move too far away from the pit. It's always there, close, and I can never forget about it. I can never let my guard down.

I don't know if I've ever reached the bottom. I'm scared of what might be down there. But there's definitely been time when I've been lying in a local minimum, having fallen hard. And after a while - whether minutes, hours or days - I somehow find the energy to stand again. And think about climbing out. 

People help, of course. Friends, family, colleagues, mental health professionals, even random strangers from the internet - they all reach out and help pull me up towards the light. They offer encouragement, and point out how far I've already come. If nothing else, they keep me company - from alongside me or from above. And it is mostly for them that I keep trying. 

But it is tiring, and frustrating, and all too often I just cannot find a path. Hand- and foot-holds I once used are missing. Routes others have taken crumble away beneath me. Every time I fall, I wonder if I will fall further than I have before. Sometimes the top seems impossibly far away. And the depths of the void keep calling to me, tempting me to let go, to see if there even is a bottom, or if I would just keep falling forever. 

Of course, nothing lasts forever. Not cold November rain, not stars, and not even falling into the void. 

Jess

This was the eulogy I wrote - read by my friend Frances because, well, there was no way I would have made it through. 

-- 

There is so much to say about Jessica I hardly know where to start. Everyone who has been in touch has said much the same: that she was warm, loving, kind, funny, and her smile lit up the whole room. But above all else, she was a teacher.

 

She often said that anything could be interesting when looked at the right way, and she loved nothing more than finding the interesting part of something and then explaining it to others. She loved mathematics – geometry, most of all – and thought about the world through that lens the most. Every so often, she would think of a new way of thinking about a thing from a geometric viewpoint and she would enthusiastically explain this to anyone willing to listen. She had a knack for taking complicated ideas and boiling them down to a few simple concepts, even if it was something she had only just learned herself. And she loved to share her knowledge and understanding with everyone.

 

This was reflected most obviously in her work as a lecturer. She poured hours into preparing materials for the courses she ran, and worked hard on adapting and improving the courses over time so that she rarely ran the same lecture series twice. She always had time for her students – in person and even replying to emails from her phone in the evening, so much so that her phone started changing “autocorrect” to “autocorrelation”. Naturally, she embraced this and started blaming “autocorrelation” for incorrect words in her texts.

 

But it wasn't only her students who benefited from Jess's teaching. She helped colleagues and acquaintances with setting up spreadsheets, analysing statistics and presenting data in an attractive and informative manner.  She inspired and mentored several trans people through coming out, even those she barely knew, just by providing a positive example and someone to talk to. She explained board and card games to her friends and family, absorbing the rules from one quick read-through and talking everyone through their first game. She helped several people choose and build D&D characters – stripping away the sometimes overwhelming wealth of options and getting to the core of what people want to play and picking out something they will enjoy.

 

She taught her son to cook, to play video games, to cut the grass, to double check his sums, to always be nice to the admin staff, to offer a cup of tea to anyone visiting the home and to never be afraid to ask a question. She taught me that it was ok to be feminine and that it was ok not to be, that true bravery is when you are scared but do the thing anyway, and that when there is nothing else you can do for someone, you can at least offer a hug.

 

However, the greatest lesson, she taught everyone she met, was to be kind, and to accept and love one another. She didn't teach this consciously, lecturing to anyone or laying down moral codes, but simply in the way she acted, the way she treated other people, and by unapologetically being herself - her geeky, silly, trans, lesbian self – and making us love her just the way she was.

10-10-2002

 I've told this story before, but the pronouns are all wrong, so let's try it again. 

I was not in a good place. Years of untreated depression and undertreated anxiety, a problematic reliance on alcohol to get me through the day, and the latest in a series of highly inappropriate crushes, had led to me lying - not for the first time - on the seating in the maths department, bawling my eyes out.

I was definitely hoping someone would stop and comfort me. It just turned out not to be the person I was hoping it would be.

I'm pretty sure I didn't know who stopped and sat down on the floor next to me, but I knew who it wasn't so I didn't react, and just carried on crying until my tears dried up. I was curled up, face down, hair fallen over my face so I couldn't see them. I hoped they'd go away. I didn't want to talk to anyone new, I didn't want to try and explain. And so even after I stopped crying, I lay there for a while, trying to work up the courage to get up and leave. 

From her point of view, she just a saw a young woman in distress, and knew what that felt like. So she stopped, and waited. She didn't say anything. She just sat there: to see if I needed anything, to just be there. 

We were there sufficiently long that her leg started to cramp, and so she shifted position. I heared the movement, and risked glancing up. And so it was that the first words that my partner of seventeen and a half years said to me - the woman who I raised a child with, bought a house with, got a dog with, the woman who taught me how to cook chili and taught me how to play D&D - the very first words I ever heard her say, were "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."