“Now’s not good, but now’s better than then. And tomorrow could be better again. It doesn’t have to be the same, the same, the same.”
Known to friends and family as Jez, Jeremy Simpson has suffered severe depression since adolesence. Now 50 years old, he has also been recovering from a brain injury caused 5 years ago when he was hit by a bus in Bristol. Having moved to Bath for a fresh start he hopes his life might be beginning to improve. From the age of around 14, Jeremy Simpson has had a troubled life. Though he didn’t know it at the time, he was suffering from depression, a mental health condition that would plague him through to adulthood. Despite hating school, his natural intelligence enabled him to get good grades and he went on to get a degree and then a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. This lead to a successful job working for Ericsson in Germany. During this time, he lived in The Netherlands and has often said that this was the happiest period in his life. Unfortunately due to financial cuts, the company announced mass redundancies and Jeremy lost his job. Instead of taking redundancy pay, he agreed to a scheme that promised to find him similar work nearby. This never materialised and he soon could no longer afford to live there. He was forced to move back to England and live
Jeremy’s basement flat in Bath
with his parents, which was a tremendous blow to his confidence and ultimately his depression became much worse. Eventually he was able to get out of his parents’ house again and moved to Bristol in the hopes of a fresh start, away from family problems that hadn’t helped his depression. It was then, shortly after the move, that he was tragically hit by a bus whilst crossing a road. Initially he was treated very poorly by the staff at the hospital, who thought he was merely a drunk. However it was later realised that the reason he was slurring his words and struggling to stand upright was because he had become severely brain damaged in the accident. In the years since then he has re-learnt to walk with the aid of sticks and his speech has improved a lot. He now lives in Bath, a place where he feels much safer and that reminds him of better times he had there as a student. I met up with him there to see
how he is coping. Despite being happier in Bath than in Bristol, he still misses being able to travel. Due to his brain injury he has had to come to terms with the fact that he will never be able to cope with going abroad again. For someone who has lived in and visited so many different places, this has been a difficult thing to accept. To escape from his feelings of being trapped, he often uses the street view feature on Google Maps and “travels” around the world from the safety of his basement flat in Bath. He regularly visits Maastricht, where he lived in in The Netherlands, but also explores new places;
“I went on holiday, I went all the way round the coast of Scotland. I’d always wanted to do that, never will now. But I’ve done it on Google Maps.” Due to the damage caused by the brain injury he finds it difficult to walk, but manages to shuffle short distances with the aid of two walking sticks. He regularly visits the pub just down the road and there is a small corner shop within walking distance. Once a week he tries to make the half mile journey into the centre of Bath but sometimes overestimates his ability and struggles to get home, often needing to get a bus or taxi in order to make it back. He wants to get to a point where he no longer feels trapped. This is not only due to his physical mobility issues, but also his mental state - leaving the safety of his flat makes him very anxious and working out which problems are down to the brain injury and which are down to depression is something he is trying to accomplish.