Can You See The Real Me?

Why's Scott started his blog with a picture of him in his band?

It's not really me. It's another part of me.

Let me explain.....

I've always been kind of open to the fact I suffer from depression and anxiety, I've never shied away from the fact. But one thing that seemed apparent from the current bout I've had was the amount of people that said I didn't seem like the type of person who suffered from things like that. I always seemed chilled and cheery.

A long time ago I discovered a way for me to help cope with my anxiety and depression. I could disguise my shyness and quietness by becoming a different version of me. Recently I've realised I have several different versions of me. Everyone does it to some extent. People's version of themselves at work is often different to what they're like at home. It's human nature. I just think people who suffer from depression do it to a greater extent.

Being depressed doesn't mean you're sad or miserable all the time. To me it's about having that certain darkness constantly on your shoulder talking in your ear, sometimes loudly and sometimes just whispering. It doesn't go away, it's just the volume is louder at times. It doesn't mean an absence of happiness, it just means sometimes they're swamped below feelings of negativity.

As a consequence, I've developed different versions of me around different people with certain aspects turned up and others dialed down. It's become easier to compensate for this by becoming different things for different situations. It's not like I'm living a lie, it's more that some parts are exaggerated to help me cope with people, and to help people cope with me.

Work and the band have a similar version of Scott. Tattooed and sarcastic and a bit more brash. My family and close friends get a quieter, more thoughtful version of me, prone to more moments of introspection. Sarah gets the closest version of my real self, a lot more quieter and unsure of myself. It's true that you tend to be more open with the one's you love. And, it's so much easier to hide things in plain sight.

Even my tattoos are, by extension of this, part disguise. They make me look 'not like me', or at least not like person I should be, if that makes any sense. Although saying that, they're also incredibly personal to me. Each one is there for a reason and they all tell part of my story.

I don't think I'll ever be free of the various aspects. Part of me doesn't want to be. But I'm more honest about them, I've embraced their existence and their necessity in my life. But I'm also learning that I can balance them out more. Slowly people are getting to see a more universal me. There will still be slightly different versions (I don't think the real me could get onstage with my band) but I think that eventually I'll be more complete rather than having to exist this fractious existence.

As usual, I can be contacted at rustyred666@googlemail.com if you want to talk further. Also, search for The Order Of The Dog on Facebook, a closed support community we've created to work alongside the blog.

Cheers,

Scott.

"Happy People Have No Stories"

I started writing my blog, The Order Of The Dog, a month ago. I'd already been open on Facebook about my recent struggles with depression and anxiety. People said a blog would be a good way to tell my story, to help educate people and to act almost as a continuation of the counseling and therapy I'd just undergone. I thought a handful of people would read it and it would dissappear as quickly as I started it.

I can honestly say I never thought it would have the effect it did.

I typed it out and put it out onto the internet one lunchtime. By the time I'd made some soup my phone was buzzing with updates of likes and shares. I started getting messages of support, of how much people related to it. Then people started telling me their stories. Stories of confusion, of sadness, of loneliness, from themselves or family members. Some left me in tears with some of the things they confided in me. I was touched I'd been able to reach out to people and try and help them in some way.

I started thinking and decided to set up a closed Facebook group, also called The Order Of The Dog. People have been able to chat and offer each other support which had been great, the fact that it's extended from just being my story.

Over the past few weeks the blog has developed further than I thought it would. I've been able to talk openly about my previous suicide attempt, about how music affects my life and also how depression and anxiety have affected me the past year. I even managed to do an email interview with someone who's been a major influence on me, Ginger Wildheart.

It feels good that I've been able to reach out. I went to a gig on Friday night and a couple of people came up to me to talk about the blog and how it's helped them get a better understanding of what people go through. I felt a little embarrassed, to be honest, but good as well that people have been able to talk about it.

Over the next few months I've got plans, especially with where I'm taking this. I'm about to sort out some emails and chats with other people who suffer, as well as family members of people who've had to support their loved ones. I'm going to look at various aspects of what happens to suffers and what they've gone through. I'm going to sit and talk to my dad who was diagnosed with early onset Alzhiemers a few years ago about how depression affected him. I'm even toying wth the idea of a proper website, thanks to the offer of a friend who's offered to help. And a whole host of other things.

I've also started publishing the blog through WordPress as well as Blogger, thanks to Google deciding to ban the blog over the weekend, thanks to some automated service. It's helped me reach a wider audience which has been positive.

At the minute, the blogs are sitting at nearly three and a half thousand views. I thought when I started I'd be lucky to break double digits. It's really enforced the feeling that I'm doing something right, that I'm going on the right direction. I know I've helped people open up and get an understanding. There's something about taking something that was negative and making something more out of it.

That's it for this one. I'm hoping to put these up a couple of times a week now. Some will be about me, some will be about others. I hope to build a stronger relationship with everyone I can through this.

If you want to take part in telling your story you can email me at rustyred666@googlemail.com or do a search for The Order Of The Dog on Facebook.

Much love,

Scott.

Story Of My Life (Part One) - The Downward Spiral

I was a quiet child, quite introverted. I often preferred my own company. My mam often tells of family get togethers where I'd disappear at the first opportunity. I still feel like that a lot today. I'm not exactly the most social of people, often preferring to be on my own in the house than being out. The internet and social media has kind of helped me create a side of me that's been a bit more outgoing. I suppose this has been helpful to me.

Thinking back on it, my dark moods and melancholia first started showing signs in my early teens. The early eighties were a hard time for my family. My dad was a miner as were his family, so we were hugely affected by the miner's strikes. The Conservative government of the time tried to tighten is grip on what was already a dying industry. They wanted to finally destroy it like they seemed hell bent on doing with most of the working class industries. My dad went on strike, fighting for his livelihood. I saw the view of the picket line a few times, pretty grim. My dad would come back from visits to other picket lines elsewhere in the country with tales of violence and brutality, but also of the kindness and helpful nature of strangers. 

The strain on my family was tough. Money became scarce but we tried to make do. We were given free meals at school. I remember being bullied and beaten a few times at school by some of my friends for my dad being on strike. They called the 'game' Strikers and Police. They would hit me and kick me, trying to break me. Kids can be cruel. The pressure on my parents became unbearable leading them to decide to separate from each other. The main difficulty at the time was because of when it happened neither of them had anywhere else to go immediately. So, my sisters stayed in their room, my mam took my room and I ended sharing a room with my dad for several months. A pretty odd situation.

After a while, we moved. My mam, my sisters and me moved a couple of miles away to Penshaw, my dad moved a bit further away to Askern, a pit village near Doncaster, where he had some cousins and had spent quite a bit of time when he was growing up. 

My parents both wanted me to do well at school. I was always academically bright so I think they thought I would do well. Unientionally it out pressure on me. I don't blame them, they've always wanted the best for us. I remember when I was younger my dad sat me down and said that he never wanted me to work down the pits. Not that I'd ever have the chance. By the time I was old enough my of the North East industry had been consigned to history.

Iseemed to do well at school. I enjoyed science and English. I'd always loved reading so I loved literature. I'd also developed a good imagination and a way with writing so I was in my element when we had had to express ourselves through writing. I did quite well with my O-Levels and went to a local sixth form to study further. It would prove to be a pivotal time for me.

At first it was great. I was studying Chemistry and Biology, as well as English Literature. I was hoping to go on to study biotechnology but my heart was falling more and more for literature. I had a teacher who really encouraged me and my writing, something that was slowly developing. It had started when he asked us to write a haiku. I can remember writing mine quite quickly. After the next lesson he asked me to stay back and complimented me on my writing. He offered to help me with my writing, giving me private classes at school. I relished it. I felt like it was the first time someone had seen something in me that was worthwhile, that I had some kind of talent. I'd write and write, just letting my imagine stretch itself. It was mainly poetry I was writing. I'm sure looking back on it now most of it was rubbish, but it certainly helped me. I still have quite a bit of it today. Occasionally I'll look through it, then put it away. 

Around this time I went to the doctors. I realised my mood wasn't quite the way it should be. I would feel a certain darkness sitting at my shoulder, always there in varying degrees. I found it hard to articulate things verbally, which seemed really odd as I could easily write with metaphor and imagery to describe how I was. My frustration would lead to a point where I would lash out physically. Not at anyone but at walls, solid objects. I punched walls so much my little fingers both now pop when I flex them. I would scratch away at my arms and my chest, cutting away at it, trying to draw blood but more importantly trying to articulate what I was feeling inside, trying to physicalise my confusion and mood. Don't worry, said the doctor. It's common in people of your age. You're maturing, it's a chemical imbalance, you'll grow out of it.

You'll grow out of it. I wonder how many people have heard that in the same situation?

Things slowly started slipping away more and more. I was feeling removed from everyone, distant to family and friends, and started behaving quite erratically and ways that were completely out of character. I felt hollow. Everything I wanted seemed like a fiction and were unobtainable.

Then came my tipping point.

My English teacher was replaced. Instead of someone who would listen to me and help nurture me, they were replaced by someone who was purely there to get the job done. The one outlet I felt I had was gone. There was something between us that didn't click together. We had a lot of work to do in a short period of time. I started to crumble, I started to break down. I was rapidly becoming a mess. Even I was starting to worry about myself.

I talked to my parents and we decided I would go away to my dad's for a couple of weeks to decompress and find myself a bit. I prepared to leave by going through the last thing we had to read, Doctor Faustus by Marlow. I fell in love with the play and wrote a lot about my understanding of it, tackling it's themes and it's ties with other classical works, linking it with Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Paradise Triology. It was hard work pre internet times but I loved it. I handed the file of my work in to the sixth form along with a short letter to my teacher saying that I wasn't going to be there but I was still working away.

About a month later I was back and almost ready. I went back to sixth form and was immediately greeted by a shit storm and was dragged in front of my head of sixth form. I was confused as I didn't know what was going on. My crime was the Doctor Faustus work. My teacher took offence to it, especially one part where I suggested how it could be approached in class. Apparently I was undermining her authority by it and was trying to subvert the class. Don't know what she was thinking. I couldn't organise myself nevermind stage a revolution. I faced being kicked out, just before my exams unless I apologised to her and promised I wouldn't disrupt her class anymore. 

I felt betrayed and hurt. I apologised and shrunk further and deeper into myself. It broke my spirit and I all but gave up with sixth form. I turned up for my exams but couldn't put together a cohesive answer to anything. I went one better in the English exam by writing pure gibberish. Everything that I'd had and worked hard towards felt like it had been stolen away from me. 

I was lost. I couldn't think straight. And I felt alone. Things possibly couldn't get any worse, right?

I would totally bottom out within months.

After the debacle that sixth form turned out to be I decided to give college a try. My heart and spirit had been broken by the reigimentation of sixth form and destroyed my love of science. College seemed a lot more bohemian to me and a lot more forgiving. My study choices reflected th8 changes in me too. I decided now to focus on artier pursuits and took up Theatre and Communication studies instead of science. But I still felt like a ghost, just shuffling through my life hoping that nobody would really notice me.

And then I completely succumbed to the dog.

Thursday 4th January 1990 I took an overdose, I'd had enough and wanted my invisibility to be complete.

My girlfriend at the time had been cheating on me with a friend of mine. That seemed to be the final straw for me but in all honesty by then I'd pretty much stopped caring about anything at all. I just remember feeling hollow and empty. Before I'd realised it that afternoon I'd taken a lot of mixed prescription painkillers washed down with some lager. I honestly don't even realise I had done it, my actions had been processed completely on autopilot.

Within a short while I was completely out of my head. By hour two by bodily reflexes had kicked in and I threw up in on the toilet. It was odd looking into the toilet bowl, seeing vomit mixed with tablets. Surreal. I felt that my body had divorced me and I seemed to be watching everything from a little distance in both space and time. I was fucked.

Early evening, I admitted to my sister what I'd done. Phone calls were made and I was rushed to the nearest hospital, my mam coming from work and my dad driving up as quick as he could from Doncaster. I went through A&E pretty fast. There was no point in pumping my stomach as by then they were already in my blood stream, so I had to wait it out.

I have a really vivid memory from the time, something that's burned so much in my memory that I can't remember now if it was real or if I'd imagined it. I was being wheeled down a hospital corridor. My long hair hung limp from my head. My flesh seemed yellow and clung to my bones. I felt completely emaciated, my skeletal arms and hands rested upon the arms of the wheelchair. My immediate surroundings made me feel like I was looking through a fish-eye lense, a distorted bubble while the corridor ahead headed off to infinity.

I was taken up into a ward and placed into a chair beside a hospital bed. I wasn't allowed to sleep, I just had to let me body sweat and expel the toxins out.

My vomit was black by this point. It was like I was throwing up tar. By then it was a mix of liquid, charcoal and lumps of my stomach lining. My throat burned as I'd been sick that much. All I could do was sit and think. All I could see was the hurt and worry on my family's faces and eyes. I knew they couldn't understand why. Who could? All I could do was sit like a skeleton king on my throne and watch the night slowly dissolve through the hospital window into a pale washed out dawn, wondering what would come next.

To be continued.....

If you want to contact me you can email me at rustyred666@googlemail.com. I've also set up a closed support group on Facebook. Search for The Order Of The Dog. 

Thanks, 

Scott Hamilton. 

"Be open and you will find openness, be honest and you'll find honesty" - An Interview With Ginger Wildheart.

Where to start.......

When I first started this blog just a couple of short weeks ago I was surprised about the feedback I was starting to get about it and whom I was able to reach. I started thinking about trying to tell other people's stories. I had a crazy idea of contacting someone who was a huge influence on me, someone who's had such an influence this blog is named after one of his songs. I slept on it and fired off an email the next day asking if they would be okay answering a few email questions. Within a short while I got the okay and today I got the reply from the man himself. But before I put them up, here's a quick introduction to him.

Ginger Wildheart was born in South Shields up here in the North East. His first taste of fame was as a guitarist in the Quireboys before being kicked out for his rock and roll behaviour. After a while he formed The Wildhearts, a band that unfortunately became just as well known for their behaviour as their music. As a result, they've gone through line up changes, break ups and reformed get togethers. Ginger has also been just as well known to his fans for his multiple side projects and solo career. He has a new solo album out this week and an upcoming tour with one of his band's Hey! Hello! in a couple of months. His fans are fiercely loyal thanks to his openness and honesty. Ginger could be one of the last great rock stars our generation has. A long sufferer from depression, he's told his unflinching story on several occasions. The answers to my questions resonate like someone who's deeply on touch with themselves as well as the outside world and he speaks with an honesty most people could only dream of. I'd like to really thank him for taking some time to answer these questions. It means a lot and I hope people will relate to them.

Ladies and gentlemen,I give you Ginger Wildheart.

When did you first start noticing the first signs of depression and when were you originally diagnosed?
I knew something was up when I was a little kid, but being from the North east we didn’t talk about feelings, or feeling different than everyone else. We try to tough it out, so that’s what I did.
I didn’t get properly diagnosed until around 2003, but I’d read enough literature on the subject to self diagnose fairly successfully.
Even since my first professional diagnosis, which was under private medical care, the odd times I’ve tried to get help on NHS the doctors would invariably be of the opinion “well, you seem happy enough”, such is the lack of understanding of the condition, even professionally. So finding the right counsellor could be the difference between help or continued suffering.

How have you tried to manage it over the years? Has different things worked better than others?
Early on I self medicated, starting with speed, magic mushrooms and alcohol when very young, all the way up to heroin, crack and cocaine as I got older. In recent years I’ve settled with using sedatives from online pharmacies. It got to the point where I assumed the illness was part of the comedown from drugs, so I stayed high as effectively as I could to avoid withdrawal.
Until recently prescribed Venlaflexine nothing really worked, rather obviously, and I’ve largely struggled through without medical assistance and continued experimentation. I figured I’d make it through life that way until I realised that this is impractical, that this illness would get me one day. It’s obvious.
And if I committed suicide then at least one of my children could follow that example. I figured I’d rather seek professional help than run that risk.

Obviously there's been times when things have built up to a degree when it's become too much. How hard has it been for you to get the help you've needed?
I’ve tried getting help through my GP, and have hit bureaucratic brick wall after brick wall trying to find assistance. Eventually I had to go private and book myself into The Priory to get professionally diagnosed. Only then was I afforded the help denied to me by NHS.
Part of the reason I want to be so open about my experiences is that the NHS is woefully underfunded, and in serious danger of being privatised. The government don’t take mental health research as seriously as they should. I hope that in speaking to people I can inform others in areas where their local GP may not be equipped to do so. No one understands this illness as well as a sufferer. This is a sad and unfortunate situation that I hope one day will be viewed like burning witches.

How has The Dog influenced your writing?
It has influenced the lyrics more than the writing and arranging of new music. In fact music has helped take me out of reality more times, and more effectively than anything else, often lifting the weight of illness or incoming attack. Even in the middle of an attack, when I’ve been unable to do anything else I’ve been able to write. I’ve always seen songwriting as medicinal and consider myself lucky to have this release at hand.

Reading through your G-A-S-S diaries and being a fan, you've had an incredibly busy schedule with your various projects.   Things obviously came to a head last December when you were hospitalised and were forced to cancel the Hey! Hello!  shows. Would you like to go through what happened and what led to this?
Stress related depression is probably the most common cause of depression amongst men. And I have the tendency to work through problems, taking on other peoples tasks along with my own and grinding myself to a halt. You can lie to your brain and your body to a certain extent, but in the end you won’t get away with it. Not in the long run. And every time I’ve got to the point where I’ve needed professional help has been as a result of identical conditions. Working myself into the ground until I feel no joy or stimulation in what I’m doing.

How are you finding things post this? What changes have you made to help things?
I’ve decided to take life easier and make it less complicated. Learn to relax. Do what I can do better than others, leave out what I struggle with and plan with more care and attention to obvious stressful situations that always become problematic.
I don’t find work, or making music, to be stressful if I’m in control. It’s when I let others take control, and they do what I consider to be a bad job of things, that I find myself doing my duties as well as repairing their mistakes, and ultimately stretching myself too thin. Once I lose my joy in what I do it’s a slow, downward spiral from there.

You've always been really open about your depression and how it's effected you. Do you think that's has helped you cope with everything? What kind of feedback to you get?
Apart from a very small, and obviously uninformed few people with negative feedback I find that most people who respond are grateful for my attempts to de-stigmatise the illness. I’ve never thought it brave to admit to weakness or illness, I consider depression to be a physical illness every bit as much as asthma, and every bit as debilitating. And no-one considers asthma sufferers particularly honest or brave. I hope that depression sufferers can enjoy the same openness and transparency in the future.
It’s 2016, no-one need suffer in this day and age.

Finally, for anyone who's out there going through similar things, have you got anything you'd like to say?
Be open and you will find openness, be honest and you’ll find honesty. Hide it and you’ll associate yourself with people who hide it and congratulate you for getting through life without medication and therapy. And remember that people who try to hide it either have choices that others don’t, or perhaps they don’t even suffer from clinical depression.
People often confuse depression with feelings of sadness and low mood. Acute depression is more like a feeling of nothingness, numbness, and an inability to perform the simplest of tasks.
So know your symptoms, get a professional diagnosis and don’t feel weak for agreeing to a spell on medication or therapy.
These solutions save lives and they could save yours.


Thanks again to Ginger for taking the time for this. Look for Ginger Wildheart on the internet to find more about him, his music and his many projects.

Please feel free to email me at rustyred666@googlemail.com anytime of you'd like to talk further. Alternatively, we have a closed community on Facebook also called the Order Of The Dog, where we talk about anxiety and depression, and offer support to each other.

Cheers,

Scott Hamilton.

Music, Music, I Hear Music......

Music saved my life.

It's as simple as that.

When I was at my lowest point, music was always there for me. It doesn't judge you, it doesn't leave you, it doesn't betray you.

Music has always been in my life. Like many of my generation I remember car trips listening to the radio with my parents. It became a soundtrack for holidays, for journeys to visit families. I remember exposing myself to my dad's record collection as I was growing up, feeling the riffs of Kieth Richards cut through me, of Roger Daltrey offering me escape.

As a teenager, as I was slowly falling to pieces, it would speak to me. It would tell me I wasn't alone in this. There were other people who'd been there before, who had the same scars. It would articulate the noises in my head, it could make sense of the pain. It could connect me to life when I felt at my most disconnected.

After my suicide attempt in my late teens, I spent time trying to find myself again, trying to reconnect back into life. I felt lost, alone, and I was struggling with what I'd done and by my actions, what I'd put my family through. I'd spent a night drinking with friends. Trying to reach through to me, one of my friends, Dean, said something to me and it was the first thing that broke through all the crap I was wallowing in.

"Listen to the music, let it help you"

It sounded simple, but it helped so much. In the middle of the night, you could rely on music being there when you needed it when everyone else was asleep, you could let it take you places when you needed to go somewhere better, somewhere safer than where your mind was trying to take you.

A couple of years later, Dean (again) introduced me to a guitarist called Peter. He was looking to jam some ideas for a band. I was into performance art and was looking for a way to express myself. A few months later I was onstage, throwing myself around, exorcising the darkness from inside me. The white noise that would suck away at my soul could find a way out, it had it's release.

I had found my balance.

Even now, music does something to me I can't quite describe. Albums like 'The Downward Spiral' aren't just a collection of songs. They would soundtrack my moods. They would console me at my lowest. It would reach inside of me and connect.

I'm still playing music, I'm still connecting with it, it's still a major part of me. I knew I was bad recently when I couldn't face playing guitar. I would look at the acoustic guitar that's in the living room, and I couldn't find the part in me that wanted to coax some of the darkness out from me and channel it. Tomorrow, I step back into the practice room with my band for he first time in almost four months. I'll stand there with my friends and we'll complete my healing by connecting in way that only musicians can understand.

And I really can't wait.