Fruitcake.

Let's get something straight...

I am a fruitcake, a nutcase, a loon, a fruitloop, a nutjob, a mentalist, a whatever other slang name for someone who's a bit off their rocker you can come up with.

A few weeks ago I was in the nuthouse, the funny farm, the loony bin or whatever else you want to call a psychiatric hospital.

During my time in the hospital (7 weeks if you're interested) and over the many years where I have had to deal with mental health issues I have met hundreds of people who are also affected. Now listen very carefully.... not one of these people are offended by any of the words and phrases above. In fact the vast majority of them use them on a daily basis to describe themselves and during my hospital stay myself and other patients laughed the most when we were talking to each other about the ridiculous things that entered our minds and how big of a loon we were.

When someone in the hospital got a bit precious about something they would be treated with empathy and it explained to them to lighten up. In no uncertain terms one day my psychologist told me "no one is thinking these things except you Gareth", imagine your worst school mistress from the 1920s and that's the tone she used. There's a time and place for treating people with kid gloves and even then you are never dishonest for the sake of someone's feelings. That does more harm than good.

I've written before about the difference between sympathy and empathy and that is again what is needed here.

In short if someone claims that you cannot joke about mental health issues the chances are that person has never actually suffered from a mental health issue and is only out to try and make themselves look good. Of course they're actually using people who do suffer to do this, which is really lovely isn't it.

If someone is actually suffering from a mental health issue and has somehow fallen under the spell of one of these charlatans and is complaining about jokes and how it's making them suffer more please put them on to me because it isn't and they are in real danger from these control freaks.

So there you have it, joke away. Or don't, after all what do I know, I'm a raving loon.

Triggering a dose of the clap.

Today something called the National Union of Students Women's Conference happened in London. A normal type of event, nothing to write home about you would think. But something happened that I'm not sure a word has been invented yet to describe how unbelievable it was.

Well actually a lot of things happened but at the minute it is too difficult to decipher between what is real and what is being made up, but the thing that started it all was a request from someone attending the event that there be no clapping as the noise from people applauding caused some people to have an anxiety attack.

And it was agreed that no one would clap.

This raises so many questions that we would probably need to ask God for extra question marks but let's firstly ask ourselves a simple one... Can someone have an anxiety attack from other people clapping?

The simple and honest answer is... Yes.

But let's ask a second question... Should a crowd of people attending a conference not clap because one person (or indeed several people) might have an anxiety attack from it... ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT.

Now at this moment there might be someone reading this who has gone into such fits of rage that even the Hulk might think about heading off for a coffee until they calm down, claiming something like "what do you know about anxiety attacks, you have no feelings for the poor person who would be suffering".

Well here's the thing: this Friday I will hopefully be discharged from a psychiatric hospital after a 7 week stay. Why have I been in here? Yep, you guessed it.... I suffer from an anxiety disorder. (Also depression but that can take a back seat here).

So I am well qualified to talk about triggers, stress, anxiety attacks and whatever other keywords the nice little student snowflakes have learned. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that none of the people at the conference have actually studied psychiatry or psychology beyond a year of college if that and their only knowledge of anxiety attacks comes from some bullshit they've heard from God knows where.

Meanwhile I've spent over a decade in therapy, a stay in hospital and more hours than I could count reading and studying everything I can to try to find out more about my illness and hopefully beat it or at least enable me to have a quality of life worth living.

So here's what I would say if I had been the conference organiser today and someone had have came to me and asked that clapping be banned as it triggered their anxiety... "No."

I wouldn't be so blunt with them and if I honestly believed they had a real diagnosed (by an actual medical professional, not your auntie who's a Wiccan counsellor) disorder then I would sit and talk with them about it and explain that by granting their wishes I would actually be harming them. They would continue to see themselves as a victim where others must do their bidding because they are a victim and in the long run that will not happen so they will more than likely end up suffering from depression. (Again, actual depression, not the self-diagnosed I'm feeling a bit down stuff that so many come up with today. Actual depression has some actual symptoms which if they are not there then you aren't depressed in the medical sense.)

I would tell them what they need to do is either remove themselves from the place causing them anxiety until they feel they can handle it but what would probably be best for them would be to see if they could face their fear today and if they needed help doing that I'd be happy to try.

Here's the difference - I would be showing that person empathy. Those who would order everyone to stop clapping and say "ooh poor you" would be showing the person sympathy. One is helpful, the other is a horrid, sanctimonious way of harming the person suffering.

Anyone who is suffering from mental illness does not need your sympathy. You can fuck right off with it, we need empathy. If you don't want to be empathetic then just go away.

So if there actually was a person today at that conference (I'm still having trouble believing it all happened) who was suffering from anxiety due to clapping then please do not think that by the organiser banning applause that this has helped you. It has not, it has harmed you and you really need professional help to see why.

Now just in case there are the usual claims of "Oh you don't know what you're talking about, you don't have what they have" here's a very small example of what I have to go through. (A big example would be of how I think my son is dying every 5 mins but that's for another time).

I am actually "triggered" (that's a ridiculous word that's been rendered totally useless by idiot social justice warriors but I'll use it here as it's what they said today) by singing. Yes, you read that right - singing. Because of a long history of abuse, which we don't need to get into, people sitting around and having a "singsong" makes me feel extremely uncomfortable.

Now this being Ireland in the hospital here there's a common area and a few nights some people will start singing. I get very uncomfortable and agitated and the people who sing mostly know how this makes me feel. But do you know what happens? I simply get up and walk away and busy myself doing something else.

That's right, in a psychiatric hospital when a person is actually "triggered" there is no thought of banning whatever is the cause. Because it wouldn't help me. And it would obviously also be hugely selfish of me to expect others to do what I wanted.

At some stage I might be able to sit with others singing and not feel uncomfortable (that's the plan) but not at the minute. So I simply remove it from the equation, it's very simple.

Now if you actually have a mental health issue please don't hesitate to get in touch with me if you want to talk. If you think that people should stop clapping because someone is triggered please just fuck off.

Al Murray, The Pub Landlord - a review.

No one wants to be bald. You're made fun of regularly and there's even research that shows bald people are discriminated against when it comes to employment. So for those of us that are the thought of a man deliberately shaving his head to appear bald makes us fear that he must be some sort of super-villain as only a deranged megalomaniac could possibly want to appear bald when they are not.

Yet this is what Al Murray has been doing for over a decade now and rather than attempt world domination he simply wants to appear bald for his alter-ego character of the Pub Landlord. And thankfully rather than being deranged he is instead extremely funny, very likable and seemingly, despite his huge success, a very down-to-earth individual.

I last saw Murray in Vicar St over 10 years ago and unfortunately due to circumstances beyond my control I had to leave before the end of the show. Back then the Pub Landlord screamed across the stage for his entrance on a specially constructed drive-able bar, throwing lettuce and booze over the front few rows.

This time the entrance was much more sedate, with his helper "Igor" simply leaving a pint of lager on a single table with the Pub Landlord meandering his way on stage a few minutes later. Murray doesn't use a warm-up act, an act in itself which is seldom seen with top name comedians these days, but he does not suffer from not having one. The ease with which he immediately engrosses his audience is masterful, even with a character that most will have seen before and whose act has not changed to any great extent since its inception 20 years ago.

This iteration of the Pub Landlord seems to be toned down from previous outings, with the earlier theatrics that I mentioned missing and less of the bounding around stage we saw previously. Perhaps it's just because Murray is now approaching 50, and that can be excused but the act in no way suffers from the lower levels of energy that it previously had. In fact now that the Landlord seems to have mellowed slightly it enables Murray to use the character to delve deeper into the everyday things that frustrate him and provide a more detailed satirical look at them and his act is all the better for this.

Murray's greatest assets are his memory and intelligence. He effortlessly memorises at least 10 audience member names and will call on them at any time throughout his act. Of course he will pick someone young, someone old etc. to incorporate that into his comedy but the feat of remembering all these people's names while performing your act (and having a few pints at the same time) is unique in today's comedy world and Murray deserves special praise for it.

While he may play a character whose intelligence is somewhat suspect, which of course is the point, Murray's can only be described as encyclopedic, especially when it comes to World War 2. He makes great use of this intelligence in his act but never once comes across patronising or sanctimonious and he can go on a thunderous monologue about extremely detailed geopolitics and military issues, which if most of the audience read outside of the show would leave them asleep instead here has them in raptures as the energy and comic timing with which Murray delivers it is superb.

Murray hasn't fallen into the trap of angry old man as have, unfortunately, many of his peers and he doesn't only go down one road when mocking any issue, be it politics or anything else, everything is up for discussion. For this he should be commended as it is something seldom seen in comedy these days.

We are continually subjected to horrendously dire comedy on TV these days, be it Michael McIntyre telling us that he's very smart and has funny hair so we should laugh, or the awful Dara O'Briain wallowing in his own sanctimony and helpfully providing pauses which I am not sure whether he wants us to laugh during or instead tell him how magnificent he is. Al Murray isn't on TV as much as he used to be but thankfully this means he continues to tour and we are all the better for that. You should go and see his show if you get the chance, he truly is a masterful comedian and in my view one of the best working today.

Nail on head.

It must be difficult for those without mental health issues to understand just what it is like for those living with them, so I'm going to try to explain it...


Hold out your hand. Now imagine there is a 6 inch nail directly through the middle of your palm.

You can see both ends of it and it looks and feels extremely painful. It's been there for as long as you can remember, in fact you don't really know how it got there.

More than anything in the world you want to pull it out. But you don't know how to. You ask yourself how can you not know how to pull it out, it's right there for goodness sake, but you have no answer. You call yourself an idiot for being too stupid to not know how to take the nail out.

Other people tell you to pull out the nail. You tell them that you can't. They don't understand what you mean, just do it they say. You can't, you try to explain, you don't know why you can't explain, they get confused, you both get angry.

The nail is affecting everything else in your life. You muddle through and do things because you have to. The pain gets worse. You start not doing things because that means the pain doesn't hurt so bad, but it's still there.

Soon you are doing nothing.

But the nail is still there. So is the pain. You focus on the nail, you hate it. Nothing else gets a look in but the nail. People close to you start to back off because you are fixated on this nail. They still wonder why you just can't pull it out.

The nail starts to infect the rest of your body. Other things are sore because of it. You forget about them because the nail is the cause and you think that if you can remove it then everything else will be fixed. You still can't remove it. Everything else gets worse.

There's just you and the nail now. Nothing or no one else matters. They're still there, you can see and hear them but they don't understand that you must concentrate on this nail otherwise you'll never be able to get it out.

Something distracts you from the nail for a few minutes. You hide the hand with the nail in it behind your back. No one else sees it, you look like a normal person. But the nail is still hurting. You want to stay with the normal people, you are having fun talking to them, people like you.

But the pain from this damn nail is getting worse. You excuse yourself. Maybe if you just have some time alone you'll be able to pull the nail out. It's just there after all, it's simple, just pull it out.

You can't.

Up the Republic!

Latest news from the basket case that is Ireland...

It has been proven that our police cannot be trusted and need to be investigated. We cannot get our politicians to investigate them because it has been proven they cannot be trusted either.

So we have decided to get someone to investigate both from that most trustworthy of all groups... lawyers.

The darkness descends...

My son is running around. He is enjoying himself. There's laughter and mirth. With every passing second of me seeing this I hate myself just a little bit more. He doesn't deserve such a useless lump as a father. Sitting. Festering. Not even dying, not even existing, just... there.

Tears stream. Thoughts stream faster. All negative. All bad. Trying to think positive, it doesn't work. It is one of those days. Remind myself that future days will be better, then use that as a reason to feel worse about myself now. You are failing I say. Today I agree.

There's nothing more to say. One of those days. It'll go away soon. I hope.

Life begins at 40.

By the time they hit 40 most people will have their lives figured out and be well on the way to, if not at the top, of their chosen career. Or they will at least have a job that they enjoy and which allows them to live a happy family life. There may even be the fleeting thought of retirement, no doubt provisions having already been made in that regard.

I'm a bit different; I have no job, no career and absolutely no real clue what I want to do with the rest of my life. The difficult thing I have to fight at the moment is the thoughts that there is no point in even trying because it is too late, my life is already over. My depression and anxiety will throw a million different reasons at me to do nothing but sit and wallow, but for now I don't want to think about those. I want to talk about how I got here and how sympathy is probably the worst thing you can give someone like me.

My childhood was an absolute mess. There was bullying, there was fear, there was loneliness both at home and in school. If I had to describe my life until my teens in one word it would be; alone. By far the biggest cause of all of this was the continual emotional abuse I received at the hands of my parents. It was unrelenting, a never-ending life of nonsense that is actually difficult to put into words. Not because of any emotional reason or that I have forgotten about it, I have cried enough in therapy to cause floods like we have seen in the last few days, but because it was such a jumbled mess of anger, abuse, emotional blackmail and whatever else you can think of thrown into the mix. From the outside it looked like an ideal world, as most abusive households do, but living through it was hell. And now trying to process it all and restart my life in a normal manner is hell again.

But the purpose of this post is not to regale you with tales of horror, it is to try to explain to you how dealing with someone like me by offering sympathy instead of empathy will do nothing but lead me further down the hole of self-pitying victimhood.

As simply as I can put it, if I were to sit down with you and discuss all the bullshit my parents inflicted on me there are two simple roads you can take (assuming you don't just run away, which would be understandable), one of sympathy and one of empathy. Sympathy will probably lead to a long conversation of how horrible my parents were and that they should be made to pay and how none of it was my fault. This is all pointless. It will get me nowhere, the conversation focuses on my parents.

Empathy is different. Empathy means you will listen, you might not even say anything. You will just understand as best as you are able. And if you understand that will lead to you doing the right thing, as empathy at its most basic is putting yourself in someone else's shoes. If you do that you would realise that someone like me lacks self-worth and no amount of talking about how bad my abusers were will give me that.

These were hugely difficult concepts for me to get my head around, primarily of course because I was brought up in a house where empathy did not exist, but I hope I have managed to get them across. The reason I have tried to do so is because I see so many today walking around with mental health problems as a badge of honour. They are wallowing in victimhood and are fed by a media who doesn't understand and who probably thinks that talk of the abusers will get more viewers, listeners or readers. It might well do but it is doing harm to a lot of people.

For all intents and purposes everyone with mental health issues should be focusing on themselves and in a positive way. That is difficult, hugely difficult for someone like me, but if you see me wallowing in self-pity you shouldn't be afraid to tell me so just because some others might accuse you of not dealing with mental health in the "correct" way. Trust me, I HAVE to do stuff to get out of this, I HAVE to figure out where my life is going and I HAVE to walk down that path. If you tell me that I need to move my fat ass instead of telling me that I am entitled to sit and wallow because of the way I was treated then you will be doing me a favour. And I am in no way unique.