Films and Friends

I am in one of those can’t sleep cycles. It’s OK, it will correct itself soon.

As such I find myself with even more time for films. I am a film watcher. I can’t often get to the cinema, so I preorder the DVD on the day of cinematic release, because a) it feels like being engaged with the movie at the time of release, and b) because buying the movie on DVD is cheaper than the cinema, and I can watch it many times, and at any time I have.

This evening however, I watched a film that I saw by piggybacking on someone else’s subscription service. I can do this occasionally at night.

This film, like many do, but, also, uniquely in it’s way, not only told it’s story but shone a light on my own. In this way it changed my life, because I understood it more.

It was a film, that felt, almost instantly, like it was an old friend. Like it could wrap all of me in warmth, and let me feel being, and breathing and like stretching out in the sun.

Books are like this. Books can become friends. It can be painful, and induce crying, to have to close the back cover after learning and knowing the people and places in a book. I have had books that I keep close after reading because I am not ready to let go of the world and the friends. Films are not usually like that, but I have a growing number that are. They are not usually, if ever, the latest blockbuster. They may even be a classic, or they may be something that four people saw and hated. You never can tell when something is going to reach right on in there.

And, the thing about books and films is, they are probably safer than people friends. They are never going to judge the cleanliness of the pjs, or care about what time it is, or think I am a horrible, selfish, fat less-than-person. They are not going to disappear, or be replaced with a stranger. Their diaries are always clear.

When I was younger, I could be lost in books and have my book friends. Now, much more, it is films that I make friends with. Maybe that my mind grows slower, or maybe that my concentration is broken, or maybe, it is easier to multitask a film than a book. And maybe silence is too loud for me these days.

But, perhaps I have not valued film enough. I do not believe in real people. The only ones  I regularly interact with are ones I grew myself, or people I already know don’t like me. Which written down looks like it could be paranoia, I *am* good at paranoia. On the other hand, I have objective and referenced evidence, so I am fairly confident. And anyway, it’s not a complaint. No one is obliged to like anyone else. It is perfectly possible that I am simply not likeable. Likeable is not a thing you are taught to be, it is not learnt. Maybe you just are or are not. It just is what it is.

Maybe, then, mania is a gift for those of us who are unlikeable. The gift of truly believing in one’s superior skill, to truly believe in funny, and clever, and sociable. TO not see the reactions of others. Of course, it spirals out of control, and that spiky, splintered, sharp, broken glass, invincibility is brittle and painful. But, maybe the gift is to have some time where you believe you are enough. MORE than enough.

Maybe real life is harder for those of us who know the top reach possibilities. I mean, it is hard to crawl through the wasteland and fetid slime of the nadir of human possibility, but, to experience remission of that, is to feel alive, and to see possibility. To also hit the zenith, maybe that gives us disappointment and emptiness on returning to reality.

Of course, maybe that reality just is empty and disappointing.

Film, though, is like having a friend who is there, and warm and real and doesn’t actually have to hide the irritation and the effort of dealing with you, nor does it have to look for excuses to not be there, to save it’s own sanity. Nor does it have to sleep, or anything.

I really do think that, I just need to get more films. I mean, I will revisit the old friends many many times, but today I have been reminded that sometimes, you know, instantly, that you have fallen into a warm and comforting long term relationship. Some people can do that with people. I can do that with films.

Of course there s sadness, as I wish for reciprocal abilities. To be there. But my being anywhere is never good enough. I can try all I like. SO, while I don’t really know how to stop missing that, I learn the value of what children already know. It doesn’t matter what other people think, and it doesn’t matter how you frame it. Film is essentially, invisible friends made visible. Visible, audible people. That put feelings inside you. That stop life being a switch. Without them, life is childcare, and vast swathes of emptiness. Like being switches off when they don’t need something. Fill up the emptiness with visible audible people, who are not real, but, imagine the job of an actor, not as celebrity, but as a person who can build feelings. A person who can share feelings, and teach others to experience feelings and humanity. Maybe this is a very valuable ability.

In this scenario, then, tv, is not mindless at all, it is transformative.

Maybe this is why older people, who are more likely to be without other forms of connection SHOULD be allowed to waive the license cost for TV. Because, it is especially therapeutic for people like us, who are otherwise alone. Should also be the case for isolated, sick, lonely other people. Maybe TV should be medically necessary. To make sure everyone, however unable to go into the world, however capable of being in the world, but deeply unlikeable, can have access to humanity, to feelings and to the warm blanket of a film that fills you up, emotionally.

Everything

S0me times, there are weeks when you have to hold your tongue. And sometimes there are times when saying something, even when it seems like it might be self damaging, is just the right thing to do.

Like, someone needs to say something about the Mental Health Trusts who are using the reporting statistics of patients who harm other people as an index of care quality. Do they report on statistics of the number of people who significantly self harm, or actually commit suicide as an index of quality of care? Actually, they don’t. Because, who cares? it MATTERS if “normal” people are hurt. But if patients kill themselves, that just saves the NHS and other agencies a pile of money. And, that’s what it’s all about, save the good people, save money on the needy. I HATE that this is what is. How can we change this?

it’s harder in the country as it is now. I don’t know what it is that we have to do. I also worry about imagining that there is something I can do. I am not manic. I want to be part of the solution, but I don’t have any fast track, special insight. I don’t know what to do.

And then there are the small things.

Stupid PTA. I worry that I am telling them how they cannot function. I mean, if I am going to be expected to pay out for things that they have no budget for, for a function that won’t actually raise any money, I DO feel like I should be able to state an objection. If we raise money from people, if we ask people to contribute, then we have to have clear and accountable process. Currently we don’t, and we are asking people to pour money in for no return. Which, really does need adjustment.

But, I am worrying about my wellness. And worrying about my wellness includes checking that I am not over reaching my ability.

I have people painting my house, so, there REALLY ARE people watching all the time (not actually watching, but, able to look through the windows, literally right outside my house) which I find deeply stressful. Added to that the general lack of sleep concerning living with a Merryn. I worry.

So, I try not to take on anything big right now. And just tick over for a while.

But, I still know these things are there.

A Teenaged War Hero

 

Yes, there are are child soldiers in the world. They are suffering and dying. People are. All over the world. But this does not make anything you endure less. There is no correlation between their suffering and yours. You can suffer. They can suffer. It is different, but one is not validating, or reducing the other.

To insist one is more or worse or has more value dismisses the struggles. To fight, alone, though a world where reality is not to be trusted, where people can lie about you, and no one will believe you because, you are the person with mental health problems. Where people who were friends leave you as if you were dead, where nothing you used to be able to aim for is there anymore. Through an internal landscape either so deeply destroyed and pitted and dangerous and dark, OR so sharp and sparkling and fractured and invincible. To survive every day with that as your internal world, and a lot of your external world, is to fight in a war.

The “help” you can receive does not understand this. And they talk about adjusting expectations, and stopping wanting the things you wanted. They ask you to not be you, so that they can pretend that this new version of something resembling a person like you is well and can at least be in the world, even though you are not well, you are irreparably stolen from and damaged. And they let you go, like that, because, their parameters are not set such to rescue YOU, but simply to prevent you hurting anyone. Physically, that INcludes you, psychologically, no one but you knows or cares.

They want to make sure you are not hurting your body. Even if you hurt your body to remind yourself that you ARE actually a person, who is capable of hurting – because the system expects you not to be, to not care the things you have given up. They expect you to NOT be a teenager, to suddenly NOT need family, or friends or fun or ambitions, and just to sink to a level where being alive is enough. If you can’t believe that, then you are failing, and they won’t help because, that is all they can offer.

It is war. To come out of the other side is HARD. To find a person who can see this, and who can hold on and see you through this and see that you have value and CAN do at least SOME of the things that drove you initially, those dreams that are part of you. You need someone to tell you you are allowed MOST of those, and someone to help you rebuild those you can’t have.

To come so far out the other side to have built a career and a family is wondrous, but, every step is precarious. To place your trust in that relationship you have CHOSEN, than family you have built, is to risk someone ridiculing that, and making that even less possible.

To those people, those teenagers who have fought and fought and succeeded against the professionals, and the medications, and the stigma, and prejudice and are now successful adults, this is to be a war hero. TO have made it through, and achieved and not to have been wasted by the mental health machine, either the monster of the illness, or the insidious cruelty of the system and society.

Those in the midst of such a journey. It CAN be won. it IS possible. Do NOT give up.

You cannot know whether you will be the one to succeed. So you have to fight as if you will be.

And you have to celebrate every step. And know that no matter what anyone else thinks, it is hard won, and worth celebrating.