Month: Jul 2023

So many people in the UK and globally have a clinical diagnosis of depression. I am myself included in those folk.

Depression is often a catch all term, not only for us lay people but professionals in the field of mental health, using it to explain why people seem unhappy, miserable, isolated and alone, along with those who cannot function in any way, or worse lose their lives to this very destructive and all too often deadly condition.

I am diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and a level of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, and these all affect my life significantly at times, but today, I had one of those light bulb moments. A ding above my head. What if the accepted diagnosis also covers up a key issue. One we all experience in our lives to some degree.

Now, we live in a world that has all kinds of information at our fingertips, quite literally, to be honest. We can pick our phones up and using whatever search engine we like (or more likely was preinstalled on our phones or computers), and using the right phrase, question or keyword can look anything up. More often than not the results we then get will be heavily censored according to what state or country we live in, or more often which source has paid the most to the billionaires running the search engines, but will generally offer us some possibly believable answer.

I know, I seem mistrusting of how the Internet, or to point of fact our society runs. That sadly is because after 56yrs of life experience, I am, and that is a big part of the problem.

If I kept the working title of this piece, you will already know that I am talking about that innocuous almost innocent word, “frustration”.

So what does frustration actually mean?
Well according to the Cambridge Dictionary (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/frustration) it can be a feeling; the feeling of being annoyed or less confident because you cannot achieve what you want, or something that makes you feel like this.
It can be preventing; the fact that something prevents plans or efforts from being successful

It also is described as being an annoying situation; disappointment or discouragement, or a discouraging situation

The dictionary goes on to describe it as preventing success; the act of preventing something from being achieved.

Yes it is all of the above, but in my view a much stronger word or term than it is ever given credit for. To me frustration is all too often the cause of disagreement,

disappointment, ire, anger or even rage. But it is also not only negative, it can be the catalyst for motivation, change of approach or path, it can become the key starting point in a new quest for knowledge or answers.
Let’s first focus though on the assumed negative connotations, the word being used to describe prevention. What does frustration prevent for me? I am the only person I can truthfully use as an example, and yes there maybe subjectivity in my opinions, views or findings, but I truly believe that is a given for anyone seeking to re-understand themselves.
To explore this, I need to consider what frustrates me and what my emotional and physical responses may be to that.

We have all watched, listened to or read a news article that we would say frustrated us. Often because a better resolution could have been brought about by what we see as common sense. Then we may say common sense is not that common. I may at this juncture kinda disagree with that conjecture, for “common sense” is based upon our understanding of a situation or issue. Our understanding, however, is based upon our knowledge, experience and values. It also is effected by how good the communication is regarding the description of the situation. For instance if someone was to tell you they saw a man in a black suit bundle a woman into a van and drive off, your first reaction may be to ring the police. But if that same description was that he saw a man in a black uniform bundle a drunken woman who had been arrested for a breach of the peace into a police van, you have a completely different account. Both are descriptions of the same incident, but the former lacked key information for you to reach a better understanding. Now there maybe no need to contact the police.

When we are given a news story, its description gives rise to what the story teller wants us to define, and then how we are expected to react. If we are unquestioning of the reporter, editors and those who control which allegiances the media hold, then we like proverbial cattle will follow the path given and continue our journey to pasture, shearing or the abattoir, depending on which way the dogs lead us.

It’s when we challenge the story, look deeper into the language and leaning that we may become frustrated. We may see so many of our flock wandering blindly toward the bolt gun, despite our begging them to make a turn at the gate away from the shepherd. That feeling at that point that overwhelms us is “frustration”.

To me, Jonesy, frustration wears many hats. My daily frustrations mainly arise from my health. My inability to plan, my difficulty sustaining friendships, my social awkwardness, my lack of being able to sustain any routine or commitment that ensures my working life, for all intent and purpose is over.

This maybe the point I should explain me, give a little insight into my background. Those who follow me on social media may want to skip this next bit, as I am kinda already open to many of them.

As I write this I am a 56yr old bloke, who has for around 6yrs been medically retired from work.

I had a long career in social work, working in the field of child protection for many years, before that children’s residential care, and started my working life at sweet 17 as a care assistant in a very badly run and abusive nursing home. Sadly that was the 1980’s and even if I had of had the knowledge and experience to change that, I did not have the opportunity, there were in reality no systems in place for me to turn to. I am writing this in 2023 and it upsets me that although now there are supposed safeguards such as ofsted and the care quality commission, they rarely act upon any information until its too late, and someone is either injured or worse.
The years between being that green care assistant and supervising social workers, investigating abuse, and doing all possible to protect the most vulnerable children in our society I had many other roles and jobs.
I worked in a sweat shop in Manchester for evangelical Christians who were making fashion goods for Harrods and the like, where health and safety wasn’t even a term. I drove buses in some of the most poverty stricken and deprived areas of the UK. I dressed as a dustbin on BBC Radio Manchester, being interviewed by Janice Long, that was surreal, I was a registered doorman for a number of years, I ran my own business selling crockery, worked in shops, drove delivery vans, drove for the WRVS and lots of other less descriptive roles.

I have seen pure opulence to poverty you dare not reminisce over because its imagery hurts so much.

I have laughed at sheer horror and cried with complete joy.

I have loved as a father, a husband, a partner, a friend, a brother, an uncle and a son.
I have mourned with the pain I never comprehended or even realised existed.
I have followed the materialistic iconic fashion labels, but also lived out of a binbag.
I have drank tea with families that could scarce afford the teabag, but also eaten cucumber sandwiches at the Palace with the Royalty of the day.

In my life I have met the absolute best souls of our society such as Bruce Kent, to the worst our prisons could ever be home to.
So in an abridged kinda way that’s me.
Ok, as I have already stated, for years now, I have felt and displayed many indicators of depression, anxiety and to an extent PTSD, it is easy to adopt labels that fit with the feelings and effects of adversity, loss, and hopelessness experienced due to chronic health conditions and bereavement. Some of my physical pain symptoms due to nerve damage and neuralgia are even now treated with medication that is more commonly used to treat depression.

I am pretty open about my feelings and often between comments from some people who only see me on days I am in some way able to function, such as “you’re not ill” or “you can’t be disabled” despite my qualified and experienced doctors and consultants with all the facts and test results assuring me that I am, I get told “you are very depressed” or “you need help”. Now, it is good that people recognise you are experiencing hard and challenging periods within your life, that you are not the person the faux smile and clowning seems to suggest, and for a few to recognise that behind the façade you build up anew every single day that you truly do struggle at every moment to remain here, often looking for ways to end it without leaving behind the pain of loss for others to experience. I recognise I need help, I have screamed, cried and begged for that help, for support. I have researched ways to end my life, looking objectively at the tools I have, from a knife to an injection of insulin, and what they would leave others to clean up after I passed.

I consider daily the people my death may effect, and cry for those no longer on that list because either they too have gone,or they are no longer parts of my existence.

Despite the pleas, any support is minimal and still after now well over a year since i recognised and excepted that i needed help i have yet to receive anything beyond a couple of assessments, and promises of what may at some time in the future be on offer. Yes even my writing this sounds like my depression defines me, and I do agree with the diagnosis, however it’s not quite that simple.

Along with my depression, frustration has been a guiding factor in my decisions, both rational and occasionally completely irrational. For a long time after losing my career, my focus and my life path, I carried anger that was born from frustration. That anger worsened with the death of my brother Robert, and that was fuelled by frustration at the futility, the failings of services, such as the GP’s, hospital staff, community health, the ambulance crew (on one occasion) and social care. I was frustrated at his estranged wife for the cruelty and abuse Robert disclosed she had dealt upon him, frustration at my family, but most of all frustration at the guilt I carried myself for choosing to be away the one weekend that resulted from his being failed and led to his death.

I was and still get so frustrated that cuts in services mean so many are so vulnerable, and that Roberts death was not isolated nor rationally with hind sight unexpected.
I am continually frustrated with the corruption of those who hold power, those who govern, those who are supposed to represent us, the people of the UK.

That frustration again breeds anger and borders upon rage at times. I watch when it cannot be avoided, the effects of corruption and cruelty upon those who are vulnerable to ministerial decisions on statute and cuts, I get angry at their puppets (or are they the masters) who own the media, those true scum that vilify the sick, the disabled, the powerless, to protect the abusive elite who manipulate us as if we were measly pieces upon a board game, and all expendable in the name of their god “greed”.

So why do I bother getting frustrated, why do I allow (as if it was a rational decision I could make) myself to feel anger at these people? I can only surmise that my values, my morality and hopefully my empathy mean I cannot sit watching the rise in hatred being focused upon ourselves in support of the true enemy of our nation, of humanity,the puppet masters themselves.

So yes Depression is the clinical diagnosis I have to endure, but frustration to me is not just an effect of this, not just a factor within the term of depression, it defines me as much if not more. Frustration has motivated me to spend my immobile day writing this rather than watching someone else’s limited imagination play put on my TV screen whilst I lay semi helpless on the sofa, in a t-shirt and shorts because their is little chance in my health allowing me to leave my prison like bungalow today.

Frustration likely is a factor in triggering my heart attacks, in raising my pulse to SVT levels, maybe of the refusal of my brain to shut down even in the event I actually fall asleep.

Is it frustrations or stubbornness keeping me breathing, a need to remain, to ensure change does come, even if I amno longer able to activate it?