nous magazine one - the insomnia issue by NOUS

F O R M O D E R N M I N D C U LT U R E A N D V I S U A L P H I L O S O P H Y

NOUS MAGAZINE ONE

THE INSOMNIA ISSUE

spring 2013 free

TEAM TRIDENT PRESS

NISHA DESAI cover photography

photography SIMON KECKEISEN

This is our first issue of nous magazine featuring creative work orbiting mental illness such as depression and anxiety. With the help of our contributors you can approach this field in an alternative, light way. In our premier publication we are promoting poetry, prose, photography and illustration dealing with our well-known companion insomnia. nous magazine will be there for you regularly. You are invited to share its stories with your friends. Get a better understanding of yourself and the people we share our lives with in a way or another. You can find this and our future issues in assorted cafĂŠs and bars in Manchester. This issue is free for you as you picked it up somewhere in the city. This was made possible by our crowdfunding supporters. The nous magazine team says thank you, friends. Enjoy your reading!

W E L C O M E TO T H E LAND OF NOUS.

I N C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H E M M A i n t r o d u c t i o n

AND I WOULD SLEEP ALL THE TIME

Mental illness is being talked about a lot in the media but not always in a positive way. So, a lot of the time, I think – on TV or wherever – people who are mentally ill can be portrayed as weak or as fraudsters or as violent which kind of creates a false image. It is good that it’s being talked about but still not in the right way. It’s people’s understanding of mental illness that needs to change. Anyone who gets up and shares

how mental illness affected them – inherently they’re a very strong person for doing that. Because it’s hard. I think it’s people’s idea of things like depression that need to change. If I came up to you and you asked me how I was feeling – and I would answer, ‹oh, not good. I’ve just been diagnosed with cancer›, then people would say, ‹oh my gosh, I am so sorry. Are you okay, is there anything I can do?›, whereas if I would go up to someone and would say, ‹oh, not good. I feel really depressed today.›, what would they say?

illustration APOLLONIA SAINTCLAIR THE BRAIN BRIDGE

I N C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H E M M A i n t r o d u c t i o n

‹Oh, cheer up!› Like it is just that easy! I want to see it so that people have the same reaction to mental illness as they do to physical illness. Because – although it is mental illness – it has a physical, chemical basis for a lot of people. It is not just a case of ‹man-up! ›. If you would asked me how and if people can help someone who’s suffering from mental illness I would say that if the person was a stranger on a street that’s a bit difficult, if you had cancer you wouldn’t just go up to someone on the street. But in terms of family and friends – yes. They are not going to be able to make it better. To make it go away. But having their support can be a massive help. When I first went on anti-depressants, obviously your depression can get worse, for the first couple of months going on them, before it starts to get better. So I had to tell the people that I was living with at the time, I had to tell them what I was doing. Just in case they would notice some kind of change in my mood. So things like that – them just being aware. And if you get to know someone who is mentally ill you get to know the triggers as well. So, one of the first things for me, when I am starting to get ill, is my sleeping pattern. And I would just sleep all the time before I even start to feel down – it’s sleep. And the fact that my friends know that means that sometimes I don’t even know what’s happening – but they do. They can say, ‹oh, are you alright? Do you think you need to go back to the doctor?›, that type of thing. There’s quite a lot friends and family can do.

And even just being aware – being aware of the fact that if I am absolutely miserable one day. It’s really not going to help to just say: ‹Oh, just cheer up! Smile, it’ll be fine.› Although there is nothing physical they can do – having that support there is crucial really. In my case first, I didn’t tell all of the people I lived with. I told three of my housemates out of six. Two of them had a kind of ‹Oh that sucks. I am really sorry, is there anything I can do?› reaction, which was really nice. One of them asked me why. It’s that kind of ignorance of it. And it’s not – it’s not done on purpose. It is not malicious. It is just people genuinely don’t know. So they think that being depressed is the same as feeling a bit down. So, yeah – he said, ‹Why?›, so I had to explain to him, ah, well you know, it is something I have been suffering from for a long time. It is just one of them things. And after that, it was brilliant. Like fantastic. He was coming every day, asked me how I was feeling, always making sure that I remembered taking my pills and all this type of stuff. He became the most supportive friend that I had after I explained to him. So I think maybe just more people need to be told. I think maybe people that have had mental illness need to take a little bit more responsibility for educating other people. If you are ill at the time you won’t be able to talk about it but people that are in recovery, if we want people to understand we kind of have to be the ones who make them understand.

We can’t just expect people to understand something they’ve never experienced. Because before I started suffering from depression I would have never understood it. I would have sympathized but I couldn’t have empathized. It can be really hard to find help at university, too. You are away from your family for the first time probably. You are around other people you are just getting to know. You probably don’t know where to sign up for a doctor; many students won’t even do even though they are told to. Many people just don’t know where to turn. It is just not really spoken about that much. It is getting better though. All the way through the exam period we get weekly emails by the student union and they will send out articles how to look after your well-being. Which I think is really good. It will be things like, if you’re feeling down you can exercise and changing your diet can help. Make sure that if you feel like you can’t cope – talk to someone. And they would also send out emails that would say if you still can’t cope this is a number you can call. But obviously, at the point well-being week comes around it is in the middle of your exams period, and people might already be anxious or stressed. They need to focus on maintaining that level of support throughout the year. And they need to call it what it is as well. They need to call it mental health. They just don’t use the term. It is always ‹well-being’, it is ‹well-being week› and it is ‹well-being classes’› and

it is looking after your ‹well-being›. I understand what they are getting at because they want you to look after yourself physically and mentally. But when they are talking about your mood and feeling down, feeling anxious we are talking about mental health. So, why are people so afraid of saying it? People don’t want to use the term ‹mental health› because that implies a label of a certain type of person. But in not saying it you are just perpetuating that label and that stigma is never going to go away. And that needs to change.

illustration JAKE BLAKE TO M B

JAKE BLAKE illustration SIN

w o r d s A N TO N Y O W E N

T H E V I S I TO R SLEEPS I bleached your room for a newcomer exhumed the cotton archaeologies Your porcelain face to a bone china sky my eyes a chalice of spilt life. Last Sunday after bingo and ovaltine snails shattered our footsteps, A grandson killed you twice with savage questions from the tender place. The visitor moved in last October, you raked in leaves with clumps of hair. The dusk of your left breast shone through nylon and calomine, That night you slept with Paddy Quinn the Liffey pulled you home through his lilt.

CHANELLE HUGHES words

Night one Nine hundred and sixteen polka dots on the curtain, I can hear the pipes talk, the floorboards whisper, What they are saying is uncertain. I am awake, asleep, awake. Suspended, In the air beyond the reach of unconsciousness, Minutes are blended, Comprehended, analysed, Each thought inside my head. The darkness knows all my insecurities. I wonder if I can count each tile above the bedâ&#x20AC;Ś Night four Watching the clock, my body sleeps. Eyes Wide open, I am awake, I am not awake, What am I? My body tries, my mind aches, Too tired to sleep, too tired to live, too tired to What did I say? Falling asleep but not all the way Effort. Exhaustion. Discomfort. Absorption. Chaos. Inside. I am awake. I am not. What am I? Night what? Night when? Noises and shadows. No sleep, no rest. Noises. Shadows. Asleep. Awake. What night. When.

NIGHT ONE

illustration CHRISTIAN BUCHNER

C H R I S T O P H E R M AT T H E W S w o r d s

T E C H N O PAT H O K O A N in a gaunt, wan pyre in this air clouds assemble atop the topography of the pyongyang of a lucid dream, of a northern england corbusier ploy aborted in the eighties draped in cotton wool hung so lazily, made so virulent by someone you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know very well but can assume is slightly jaded conspire to extricate me the glib ease of tinctures like those of erewhon childhood haunts all seep into cracks unseen; a carapace i observe from a plateau i found myself upon but none can likely see i see a poisoned snowglobe below in it an occident of ossified faces contrive to lift a spark all by which you are tied is an entropy well-dressed. the image has no taste

photography ALICE DICKINSON

from sallow debris/exacerbated desires the serpent tail will bisect at seven cracks will appear thought, in a shard, will shatter the dome

JAMES MULLARD words UNTITLED

sometimes i m anage to not t h i n k at all, terrible phantoms consume my sight and pirouette a c r o s s m y b e d r o o m c a r p e t, b o d i e s s ta c k e d l o o m i n g ac ro ss my b ed, t er r i b l e s e pa r at e d e y e s a s b i g a s l a n t e r n s s ta r e f r o m t h e s u r fa c e o f t h e c u r ta i n s

p h o t o g r a p h y TO M F I S H E R

and the sa me girl, lost

a n d b l eed i n g r ed, s t u m b l e s a r o u n d c o a r s e ly f r o m behind the door. a t er r i b le pa r a d e o f masked sounds and laughter, it ends when i r e m e m b e r t h at r e a l i t y is bet ter than m adness, t h at w i t h o u t i t i a m j u s t as lost as forgotten memories, silence whispers from my mouth closed.

somewhere outside a body collapses.

B RY N FA Z A K E R L E Y w o r d s

SHIFTWORK

Beyond the factories, in the far distance, the angle of the morning sun caught the space elevator. Like a single dewy strand of spider web it rose into the sky, just visible through the heavy cloud of steam that hung, thick and blistering, above the stacks. Fogging the window with his breath he watched the flash and wink of cargo climbing and descending that imposing cable.

Egan Chartoff shuffled about his small flat. His feet scuffed low, chewing mauve carpet in tiny arcs like a pair of broken pendulums. It was late morning. A red sun clambered over the colossal pipes and stacks of the industrial district. And though Egan’s windows were sooty and smudged with filth, enough faint light cut through the grime to make his irises clench like fists. He winced, and squinted, but even narrowed his eyes felt wide and staring. In a kind of defiance he approached the window, felt the cold shock of tile beneath his bare feet. One hand flattened against the warming glass, he leant into the morning light. The rolling focus of Egan's eyes shifted and the horizon wavered. The window showed his own reflection. A poor physical specimen: his pallid skin sagged yet looked drawn and was dusted with coarse curly fuzz.

He cut the connection.

‹Look son, I’m sorry.› ‹It’s alright.› ‹I’ll come get you.› ‹Okay.› ‹We’ll go to the beach. Would you like that?› ‹That’s fine.› ‹I’ll come get you.›

The room put the call through.

Not the body he remembered. The shift had taken its toll, leaving a deep weariness in his bones as if ‹Hello?› the marrow had been tapped like ‹Hi Joel.› tree sap. Behind him, in reflection, ‹Hi.› the antique picture frame lay, ‹I’ve finished my shift. I just face-down and accusatory on the need to get some rest and then I’ll chest of drawers, the wooden come get you.› backing scarred over with dust Inside, the photograph: His voice sounded slow and very himself, Joel, Sharon – still deliberate, and Egan concentrated and smiling and six months on shaping each word correctly. abandoned. Butterfly shadows whipped the edge of his vision Joel didn’t notice, or at and he looked away, loose eyes least didn’t respond. swimming like bowled fish.

‹House,› he croaked, ‹Joel.›

He didn’t think of much. Thought, when it came, was fitful. It stopped and started, and repeated, followed twisting paths and hit dead ends. Or was interrupted by brief bursts of broken daydream, which flashed and disappeared and were then forgotten – like pennies tossed down a wishing well. The rest was blank time filled with the act of being and not much else. Not much else but the wish for sleep. But that wouldn’t come. Not yet. He was tired, so tired his eyes felt bruised. photography MARINA RICHTER 19

After two draining days he would doze in five or ten minute snatches, long blinks from which he would kick awake, shaking, heart hammering, somehow exhausted, panicky and alert all at the same time.

It hadn’t been a choice at first, those first nights spent rolling, shifting, curling, uncurling, tucking the blanket and fluffing pillows; nights where, with every minute, the opportunity for rest dwindled and grew proportionately more precious.

first the body crashed and then the mind

When Egan’s wife died he stopped sleeping.

He’d heard shift workers say that the first two days were always the worst; that a holiday began when the drugs ended. First the body crashed, and then the mind, as the drugs leeched from each in turn.

People like Egan, working to escape. What they strove to escape didn’t matter: whether loneliness, memory, Earth, dreams; all took the drugs, worked the shifts, and stockpiled holidays and pay.

the cheapest machines on earth now were men

The cheapest machines on Earth now were men: adaptable, self-repairing, self-reproducing; metal-cheap machines whose fuel grew out of the ground. Timewasters, true, but the right mentality and the right drugs fixed that. So it was broken men and women that filled the long shift.

his cheeks, laid the picture frame flat without looking. Unable to again face the night, by midday he’d signed a six month contract, put Joel into boarding school, and started his first long shift at the factory. There, he produced mechanical resources the elevator fed up into space, a dark frontier that consumed its hinterland as a spider might the fly in its web. As Egan drifted off he wondered, would Joel still look so much like his mother?

Not bothering with the covers he lay back and closed his eyes. In the morning he would wake sore from deep, exhausted stillness. Then reconnect with his son. Would Joel be angry? How could he not be? Six months was a long time. Would he have changed? Probably. At 14 kids changed so quickly.

20 B RY N FA Z A K E R L E Y w o r d s SHIFTWORK

Awake, he'd rubbed his eyes, scrubbed dampness from

On the fifth day he finally slept, and that was worse. Eighteen hours, deep but not dreamless: Sharon had been there, as if in the flesh, more real than any photograph or recording. In the dream she spoke to him and for a moment the sound of her voice filled him with aching happiness. But then he recognised what she said was a script, the words his not hers, words written by his dreaming mind. Awareness of the dream cored it like an apple. It became hollow, the aching happiness gone. Only the ache remained. He would let go.

He could no longer see Sharonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face, not even in memory. wThat pain was far removed now, made distant by six sleepless months of shift work. He would resist the insistent pull of the picture frame.

The drugs were wearing off and sleep approached like a shy old friend. Bodily exhaustion sapped his mind, sucking mental energy down in the same entropic way the floor tiles drew warmth from his feet. From his perch by the window, Egan padded over to the bed and sat staring blankly ahead, waiting for his mind to throw a switch and let him rest.

photography MARINA RICHTER 21

photography MARINA RICHTER

A M O S B O R C H E RT wo rd s

MY SKIN A SLIVER In her heart With her idea of conception My mother came across one winter night And soon she will force me into light. But I - I fell too thin for the design Of giving emotions considered mine. Too small to efface my soul up on the Lord, Her void - was f端r ein seltsam tr端ber Ort! Her land of human flesh allows to dream Only in foolish blood trapped in a stream. My mother walks in parks so full of fall Numb to the muted curtain call. For mercy has a human heart! This day of birth tears us apart. It lays the fever next to my sleep, Pushes temporality into its deep And asks me every time I shiver If it should bring my skin to sliver. My mother passes puddles and leaves, A kick inside, a squirrel at the eaves And down there a bird in the valley Sing a dolorous death to her belly. In my heart I have a craving for this deliquescent materials of shadow days.

photography MIRANDA LEHMAN S E N S AT I O N S

In one particularly pretentious English seminar we were told that you can analyse anything - that anything can be a text, a cultural artefact. But this is not the case. Actors are hard to read because they are a step down from real people, and you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really

grey skies or weak sunshine

Three socks hang from the bookcase-like structure that stands behind me as I sit at a desk. I am flicking through a textbook and occasionally clattering away at a keyboard to produce an answer to one of the questions posed to me by p316. The textbook is designed to instruct its reader in analysing the formal aspects of films. p316 is the second final page of the chapter on acting. This chapter is close to exactly twice as long as the other chapters which we have thus been instructed to read. I suppose this is because actors take more explaining to beginner film students than the likes of genre, mise-enscĂ¨ne and cinematography.

Of the three socks one is navyblue-black, one is grey (decorated by a pattern of dog shaped areas of darker grey fabric), and one is white. The longest sock is the white one, the black second largest, and the patterned grey sock the smallest. This renders it impossible to organise them in a curve ascending the grayscale range

I am happiest when outside of the flat. The time of day is always clear and sharp outdoors; marked by grey skies or weak sunshine or pretty sunsets. Space is open and real; inhabited by the wide reassuring greys of the pavements and further out the warm browns of formerly suburban housing. Outdoors the sky is a vast, transient, shifting ceiling. In flat 2 the ceiling is cream and somehow scuffed.

stray, and to seek out other strays

room 4 into the rest of flat 2. Out there is a kitchen, two toilets, two showers, and nine other rooms occupied by nine other people.

26 A N G U S S T E WA RT wo r d s

CHSCEBFFF2R4

The socks lie limp off the edge of the top shelf, occupying its central stretch which acts as the upper border of a wooden framing device obscuring room 4’s sink and wardrobe from vision whenever I turn around. Beyond the socks the only object I can see is the door which leads from

ever read people, not properly. We are far too alive and intricate to be something as static and dead as a text. Leave people alone; go pick apart novels, graffiti, socks.

from dark to light, or vice versa. This is not the kind of thing I do but it is the kind of thing I worry I will end up doing one day. Each sock is a stray- separated from his partner by human error as I unpack them from washers, driers, and suitcases. I’ve never been one who wore odd socks, but do have in me a tendency to seek the path of the stray, and to seek out other strays.

There’s comfort in a mutual search for something different and special. Do the other people in flat 2 ever feel like strays? And, continuing to ask questions, what does it mean to be separated from a partner? Is the couple the ideal unit, or is three company?

painting HENRIK ULDALEN 27

SOPHIE LEIGH JOHNS words

MIDNIGHT At midnight, I awaken, I dream, I feel, I live. Stars envelope the world outside, as I lay in darkness The moon, a lantern in the night sky glistens humbly But still I lie. Tick, tock, tick, tock... Time passes by, slower and slower... An owl, a midnight regular, hoots from the mysterious beyond Against a silent, dark world. My heavy eyelids tremble, But still, I lie.

p h o t o g r a p h y C A R L O TA G O N Z A L E Z

One day she came over my apartment and I snapped a few photographs of her. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do a painting or some sketches from the pictures but decided maybe later some

This painting is based on a person I used to be friends with for a brief time - about a year or so. For the most part she was a nice enough girl with a good sense of humor and a care-free attitude, which I liked about her. We got a-long well and quickly became friends. However, there would be instances when she would be fine one moment and almost hysterical the next. She could be very fickle about things and would get so upset to the point where she would even cry for minutes on end. It was as if she would turn into someone whom I almost couldn’t recognize. I’m not sure whether she had bipolar disorder or some type of minor psychological issue but I found it very odd. She was never mean or malicious towards me, however I always felt uneasy when this occurred.

I altered the image some in Photoshop and toyed with the background and lighting to make it brighter than the original photo. I decided to make this a diptych painting as it fit well with what kind of person she could be, at least from what I personally observed. I painted on the one canvas something that looks like a standard profile portrait – although I don’t do portraits in a traditional sense I try to paint references to portraiture – and the next canvas the same thing only blurred and obscure.

30 T R AV I S K . S C H W A B w o r d s & p a i n t i n g s K AT ( 2 0 1 2 )

K AT

Some several months later I thought an interesting painting could come out of those photos and worked from that as source material.

day it could be something. She was someone I thought about from time to time after we lost touch and I was curious as to what happened to her. I also kept thinking about the idea of someone being two people, such as people with split personality disorders, and how you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t recognize someone you know.

I wanted them to be kept together as one piece because it is the same individual yet at the same time split from each other. You can see who it is on the first canvas but you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see it as clearly on the second canvas, which is what I was trying to deal with, so I think it worked.

K AT I S Z I L A G Y I i l l u s t r a t i o n

words JAKE DUFF

THE UNBEARABLE SHITENESS OF BEING

I woke up disappointed. There was sun coming in through the window and I hadn’t died in my sleep. Both of these things were really starting to become a bane on my life: unseasonable weather and being around to experience it. I generally avoid breakfast, replacing it instead with coffee. I would drink coffee by the gallon, even though it made me feel sick and nervous all the time; though having said that I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t so nervous. Maybe I’d get on more public transportation. That’s not even a bonus. I’d hit my third gallon and was staring suspiciously at the wall when I heard the flutter of my letterbox. This is usually the highlight of my day.

This day would go on to become the highlight of my life. Why? I’ll tell you fucking why. 6 rejection letters in the post this morning, a new record. I celebrated by staring at myself in the mirror for as long as I could stand it (33 seconds). I have become so used to rejection that I can’t function properly through the day unless I’ve been rejected at least once in the morning. On desperate days I would call my broadband provider and ask them to send me some flowers, but I had to stop doing that since they actually did send me a bouquet of flowers once. I suppose they thought I was some kind of lonely maniac and wanted to do a good deed to boost their public profile. The absolute bastards. Now I just call

Look. I’ve read through the last ten of your novels. The sad thing is, they’re not bad; you clearly know literature and how literature works. The thing is, and read this next bit very carefully; nobody fucking cares about orphans. Did the last hundred years not happen to you? Have you visited a book shop recently? Do you ever see rag-

Dear Elliot.

banks and ask them to put money in my account. That hits the spot. I do get a bit of an odd kick from rejection letters, some kind of strange masochistic thrill. Never had a ‹stranglewank› or paid a woman to sting me with wasps while I wear lederhosen or anything like that, so I don’t think it’s a sex thing. It just feels like a bit of a sick buzz. Sometimes they can be quite cutting. This morning, however, I struck gold:

bottle of wine; it wasn’t even a gory scene. In fact, I think it was a doctor telling someone they no longer had cancer. Maybe it’s not that I’m squeamish, maybe it’s just that Holby City is just that crap. I couldn’t stop thinking Jeff about this woman, I even looked at her profile on Facebook. I was This, of course, is not amazed people had the gall to tell your standard ‹thanks for the papers that her suicide came as a interest, but we’re not looking surprise, I only had access to a few for this kind of book right now› photos and the odd status update fare. This is hardcore. This and I could tell she hated her life. I isn’t just a rejection of your hated her life, for fucks sake. book, this is a rejection of your These people who that entire outlook on literature. said they were ‹shocked› by her cashing out early clearly weren’t What this letter tells me particularly close to her. Pictures is that I’m a good writer, but what I of her on a ‹night out› looked like write is not good. adverts warning people about That’s like being credit card fraud. I sent her a called the world’s greatest lover friend request; seemed hilarious and a ‹flaccid pin-dick› in the at the time but then when I drank same breath. Kind of, anyway. more I realized that I’m actually I’ve certainly been called the a dickhead and hated myself. latter. One of the many reasons I was so glad when I moved I would go for walks and out of my parents house. wonder what this woman did when I started to think Jeff she was alone. Did she stare at the might be absolutely right. I was wall as often as I did? Did it take hung up on sounding like I knew her 20 minutes to work up the something. energy to make a cup of tea? I was I don’t know fucking trying to find parallels between anything. I don’t even know why

Christ’s sake, try and bin off that whole ‹little pippin’s mum has cholera› bullshit. It’s never going to take off. Think about it.

34 JAKE DUFF words THE UNBEARABLE SHITENESS OF BEING

gedy children in cloth caps stealing handkerchiefs? Of course not. People like violence now. Kids aren’t stealing handkerchiefs and loaves of bread any more, they’re taking widescreen televisions and drugs. Is that not something you could write about? If not, how about vampires, wizards, things like that? I personally think there’s a gap in the market for a Harry Potter type novel but aimed more at adults, like instead of going to Hogwarts and fight ing evil magicians they’re going to the GUM clinic to get that weird rash looked at and getting beaten up at tube stations. You know. What I’m saying is I think you’ve got potential as a writer and I do want to work with you, but for orphans would want to steal a handkerchief, what would they do with them? Sell them? Who on earth would want a second hand handkerchief? You could steal all the handkerchiefs in the world, little orphans, but your parents will always be dead. There was a story in the newspaper about a woman who threw herself in front of a train during the morning rush, delaying everything by 3 hours. People were absolutely horrified because they had BUSINESS MEETINGS and fucking IMPORTANT PHONECALLS they had to make. Not because some desperately lonely soul had been minced up by a god damn train but because of the miniscule inconvenience they had to suffer because of her ‹lack of consideration›. I felt myself falling a little bit in love with this woman. I think we shared an ethos, only where she practiced; I simply preached. This woman made me feel like a fraud. I could never kill myself, but only because I’m a massive coward. If I get squeamish watching Holby City how could I ever kill myself? I caught about 15 seconds of it last week and had to finish a Fuck sticking your head in an oven, you go out and you make a fucking stain. Be an inconvenience. You go out and you make people late for WORK dammit! Wear a shirt with ‹YES, I DID JUST KILL MYSELF. NOW WON’T YOU PLEASE STOP FUCKING MOANING?› written on

our lives, but I wasn’t getting very far. I felt encouraged to try harder. My favorite thing about her suicide was how upset people were about the impact it had on their lives. This woman felt she had absolutely no business being alive, to the point where she felt she had to make lasagne of herself on a train track, and these people, with their jobs and their friends and their families and their expensive Italian shoes felt hard done by because they got to work a few hours late: They probably had time to grab a coffee and a bite to eat, catch up on the news, read twitter and what have you. It occurred to me that if anybody were to kill themselves, they owed it to the world to do it in such a way that made people appreciate what they had.

off Pippin’s mum and her bloody cholera and write something with a bit more bite. Something

to the point where she felt she had to make lasagne of herself on a train track

I had Jeff’s letter memorized. I’d find myself repeating his words over and over in my head, I’d always catch myself at ‹bin off that whole ‹little pippin’s mum has cholera› bullshit›. I felt it was time to bin

it. These ideas seemed bigger than anything I’d had before. In fact, it occurred to me that I’d never had an idea in my entire life. I’d been writing and writing and saying absolutely nothing, just aping writers I had admired at college and subsequently came to dislike at university.

It wasn’t long before I came up with ‹How To Throw Yourself Off A Big Fucking Building› with a side note of ‹and other effective ways to end your shit life›. That’ll do, I thought. Usually I celebrate this kind of a breakthrough with a cup of tea and a sandwich, but this is not the kind of attitude I wish to continue so I poured a glass of cider. Before getting to the end of this book, I’ll have finished several bottles of cider and shaved a good fucking chunk of my life away. I imagined my life as a revolving lump of donner meat and this book being the spluttering leper you tend to find in charge of serving it, shaving off slices with the same device he used to shave his arse the same day. I decided that my best course of action would be to call Jeff and explain my idea to him. It might not have had anything to do with GUM clinics or depressed wizards but it seemed like something he might get behind. I’m sure if it was a dealbreaker I could have someone kill themselves by dressing as Harry Potter and picking fights with gangs of youths at train eventually managed to talk him into reading what I had written so far, which was a problem as I hadn’t written a great deal of it yet. I told him to expect an email by the end of the week, which left me 3 days to get something done. He told me he was just glad

how could i ever kill myself

market and that he might be willing to publish it if involved more teenage vampires. I asked him how on Earth I would make that work and his response was ‹you’re the fucking writer, you work it out›. Fair enough, Jeff. I

did she stare at the wall as often as i did

did he understood. I explained both the concept of my book and the thought process behind it. Jeff didn’t like it. He said he was looking to tap into the ‹Twilight›

36 JAKE DUFF words THE UNBEARABLE SHITENESS OF BEING

I sat with my hands poised. I usually take my time with naming my novels. I want to set an atmosphere from the moment they pick up the book, I want to capture an essence of the overall tone and the flow and the message of my writing in a catchy phrase. This tactic had gotten me nowhere, and so had to be expunged. I looked up at the ceiling, fingers poised at my keyboard and tried to think of the most crude, stupid and ugly turn of phrase I could that could still sum up the theme of a book.

but that’s pretty unlikely. Where would they even get it?

‹how to throw yourself off a big fucking building›

I decided I would write without thinking. Thinking is the worst thing a writer can do. Of course it’s not the WORST thing a writer could do. They could rub napalm on the face,

with less handkerchiefs at least.

I picked up the phone and dialed Jeff’s number, I let it ring 5 times and put it down. I didn’t want to seem desperate. I started to feel a bit like some silly teenage girl worrying about asking someone out so I took a good glug of whiskey and tried again. This time I managed 6 rings before putting it down. Now I felt like a slightly more nauseous teenage girl worrying about asking someone out. I’d make quite a dent in my bottle of whiskey before the phone rang. The voice on the other end of the phone was exactly the kind of voice you might expect the writer of such a letter to talk in, like some kind of tired, failed comedian. Theatrical with a vaguely miserable, disappointed edge. As it turns out, he wasn’t a failed comedian at all. Why would he be? I was drunk. I started to panic, saying the first syllable of a word that I hadn’t really elected to say and then stopping to breathe. Jeff didn’t seem to realize, or if he

stations. Christ you’d get stabbed to pieces. Actually, fuck it – that’s going in. Bit of comic relief.

Step one: Find yourself a building. Make absolutely certain that this building is of a sufficient height that you could not possible survive the fall. It is unimportant as to whether or not you are allowed to be in this building, in fact – if you’re not

HOW TO THROW YOURSELF OFF A BIG FUCKING BUILDING

not be difficult as I had no money to do anything else but sit at home, drink and spout crap. Write drunk, edit sober would be my manifesto. I wrote it on the back of a receipt and put it on the fridge door. I would be getting quite well acquainted with my fridge door these next few days.

i imagined my life as a revolving lump of donner meat

I’d stopped writing about 19th century Londoners in factories. I had to get myself into the right mindset. This would

Waking up in this way was a good indication that I drank myself into such a state that my writing might have struck some previously undiscovered, entirely untapped seam of brilliance lurking away in the

I woke up the next morning freezing cold. I was completely naked, the window was wide open and all the sheets from my bed were nowhere to be seen. I didn’t feel too much like questioning the thought process that led to such a situation. It felt good and natural to just accept this as a consequence of some higher logic that I was too sober to understand.

Step two: Jump off the bastard.

supposed to be in this building it’s a bonus. Make sure it’s a building full of bastards. Real bastards like bankers or dodgy insurance type people. Loan sharks. Fast food executive type people. It’s worth thinking about what time you’re going to do it. Make sure you reach as many people as possible. Possibly do it in the morning. Friday turned up earlier than usual. At least it certainly felt like that. There was an odd feeling, similar to when a bus flies past you, as the little clock in the corner of the computer monitor stopped reading Thursday. I remember that much. My next memory came in the form of a screeching sound from outside waking me up. A car had flown out of nowhere and took some guy completely off his motorbike. He flew about 30 feet into the air and landed without a sound in a crumpled heap. That’s what the lollipop man told me anyway, though for a lollipop man to describe a car as having ‹flown out of nowhere› seems ridiculous. It must have come from a bloody road. I did want to argue with him. I like arguing with the lollipop man; sometimes I’ll do it all day. He’s one of those mad bastards who think the world is run by some shady cabal. At first I was sympathetic towards this; for all I know it could be. Then when he mentioned that they were all lizards from space that eat babies and that Jeff called my mobile when I was in Tesco, staring long and hard at a pre-packaged chicken korma. I became so engrossed in this pre-packaged meal that I at one point lost the ability to differentiate between

Step two: Jump into the bastard and make confetti of yourself. Make your boss the unwitting star of the world’s ugliest ticker tape parade.

a problem. They are available to rent, who cares how much they cost? You won’t need money where you’re going, regardless of what you believe. The tricky part will be deciding on where to do it. Did you ever have a shit job? Maybe the reason you’re reading this right now is because you have a shit job. Take the wood chipper to your shit job. Make sure you get there nice and early. Do you know where your boss parks his car? Point your wood chipper at that. Get yourself a step ladder and rev that fucker up.

write drunk, edit sober

Step one: Find a wood chipper. This shouldn’t be too much of

38 JAKE DUFF words THE UNBEARABLE SHITENESS OF BEING

I would have to either find a new approach or find more time with which to use the same approach. So I opened a bottle of cider and stuck some bacon under the grill. Write drunk, edit sober. The method was fine as it was.

step two: jump off the bastard.

Write drunk, edit sober. Write drunk, edit sober. After I’d cut away the crap, I looked over what I was left with. Not a lot. I worked out that I would have to continue with this method for about a year before I would be left with anything that even remotely resembled a book. This did not bode well for my promise of sending Jeff my work. Right now you could fit most of what I had written in a text message, with ample room for the occasional ‹LOL› and kisses.

cobwebbed ‹restricted area› of my terribly boring mind. I read over my notes and found that while this was absolutely not the case, some of it was useable.

HOW TO FEED YOURSELF INTO A WOOD CHIPPER

the queen gave birth to them all I became distinctly aware that the man was a crackpot. Who gave him a job protecting children from traffic? Are they vetting these lollipop people? I found myself so distracted by these questions that I crossed the road without looking and nearly found myself making sweet love to the undercarriage of an Eddy Stobart. He called me a dopey cunt and told me to watch where I was fucking going. I felt that if they replaced those road safety adverts with the hedgehogs with this swearing truck driver we could probably eliminate car accidents completely. Maybe once I’ve wrote my suicide book I’ll make adverts. Apart from a man being killed on a motorcycle the day passed by without incident. I sent my heavily edited work off to Jeff and had a day of not drinking. The small of my back was aching, kidneys working overtime to process the smorgasbord of rotten cider I’d been sustaining myself with. Jeff had in fact called to tell me he was going through a divorce; a real fucker of a divorce too, as I understand it.

I told him I’d been drinking a lot lately, and hadn’t really left the house. He sounded aghast. I explained that this had been the case for the vast majority of my adult life and that it was unlikely to change.

myself and the chilled, artificially colored mess encased in plastic. It did not feel at all like any kind of great epiphany, that maybe we’re living a shallow life devoid of meaning, that consumer culture might have eroded our values and principles. I was just quite hungry and bored. I’d hit a dead end with the writing, and I hadn’t spoken to anybody for weeks. I answered the phone to a different Jeff. His voice had been stripped of theatrics and replaced with concern. He asked me what on earth was going through my mind when I started to write this book. I explained to him once again that I was not advocating suicide. He asked if I was ok.

HOW TO DECAPITATE YOURSELF

might even get some inspiration from him. He certainly sounded depressed.

maybe once i've written my suicide book i'll make adverts

Jeff seems to be quite the bastard and I certainly didn’t feel sorry for him. I’d have divorced the bastard too. All the same, he just wanted someone to talk too, and suggested that we meet at a bar in the city center; one of the more upmarket bars that I couldn’t even remotely afford to drink at. I mentioned this to him and he told me not to worry about money, he was happy to provide booze in return for a listening ear. I figured it couldn’t hurt to go for a drink with the guy I wanted to publish my book. I

off as a joke. Peculiar man. His wife had custody of the kids, which he didn’t seem too fussed with. Usually in films about divorce the lead male is always saying ‹I just want to see my kids› – but Jeff simply didn’t give a fuck. His problem wasn’t that he missed his wife and kids but of the social stigma attached to divorce. I confessed my ignorance as to such matters and he looked at me funny. He asked if my parents were divorced, I told him that they weren’t. He tutted and rolled his eyes as though I was being a bit of a prick for not having divorced parents; and I kind of felt like one for some reason. I finished off my beer with an overly obvious gesture, smacked my lips together and went ‹AAAHHHH› – he must have got the point because he disappeared for a minute and came back with another drink. I could get used to this. It gets so easy to nod and make noises at the right moments after a while, as though you’ve unconsciously picked up on the speech patterns. It essentially renders conversation completely meaningless. After a while it

you.

I’ve written about a

Step two: Try harder, I beg

there is no step one, just follow the damn instructions. Would it be too hard to dress yourself up as someone important, maybe even wear a mask? Do it in the toilets of some huge megarich business and say in your note that your boss forced you to kill yourself. Hopefully the resulting controversy will be bad enough that their share prices will hit the floor.

he asked if i was ok

Step One: If you’re going to kill yourself with one of these, I do hope you’re planning on making a fucking good point. Step one is that

very good to write drunk and edit sober – but it’s important to not let that become a routine. Sometimes a good point can hide behind a badly constructed sentence. I agreed with him. That night when I got home, I went straight to bed. Conversations exhaust me. PROPER USE OF AN ‹EXIT BAG›

40 JAKE DUFF words THE UNBEARABLE SHITENESS OF BEING

Step two: Fucking jump. Your head will pop off like a champagne cork. Bottoms up. Jeff began the night by asking if my book was an attempt at ‹exorcising demons›. He even asked if I was gay, and when I questioned him on what that had to do with anything he passed it

Step one: Find yourself some chicken wire, the thinner the better. This is very important: DO NOT SKIMP ON THIS ONE. Buy GOOD QUALITY CHICKEN WIRE. Chicken wire is available in most hardware stores: B&Q, Wickes – places like that. If not, find a chicken farm and steal it. What are they going to do, arrest you? Now it’s time to choose a location. Are you a very bitter person? Are you consumed with bitterness? Why not choose your location as to the object of your bitterness? How about the church you were married in? This is perfect as churches tend to be quite old, which fits in with the methodology quite nicely. Find yourself a rafter, nice and high up. If not a rafter, any sturdy protuberance will do. Tie the chicken wire around your neck, nice and tight, and the other round the rafter/ protuberance.

occurred to me that I should mention my book, see where it stood with him. I kept trying to find an edgeway but he was so wrapped up in his divorce that I couldn’t manage it. It was after maybe 3 hours that he asked me what persuaded me to write a book about suicide. I had already explained this to him over the phone twice now, but I had to have patience. I got the impression that this was the closest I would ever come to having my work published and I was keen not to fuck it up. I told him the story, slower and with more detail than I had done the previous two times, and he nodded along to show he understood. I got the impression that this was his turn to display his ‹smile and nod›. He mentioned that he had been seeking to publish something a little more unusual and that this may very well be the book he had been looking for. I mentioned to him that I would write drunk and edit sober and he smiled. Said that I’d be surprised at how often he would get that from writers. Before I left he gave me some advice; namely that it’s all Until I have that, the only person I would even remotely affect even slightly is the bloke who runs the off licence, and only then because he’d lose out on the 50 quid a week I spend there on cheap booze. I’m sure he wouldn’t miss that too badly. I don’t like blood, so I can’t slash my wrists. I don’t like heights so I couldn’t jump off of anything. I’m a fussy eater so poisoning myself is probably out of the question. Hanging myself seemed like a good idea, but if I have so much as a tie around my neck I start to gag. In fact I had a turtleneck that I had to bin because the collar made me feel nauseous. I’m caught in this feedback loop of wanting to die because I feel so pathetic, but being too much of a coward to do it, which makes me hate myself even more.

hundred suicide letters, or at least tried to. The problem I always encounter is who to address them to; who would read them? They wouldn’t get published. For suicide to exist as a concept, there has to be a reason; there surely must be a target? A crosshair?

out, but where the fuck would I find a gun? I remember once I tried to shoot myself with an air gun. All I managed to do was get a pellet stuck in my temple, which then went on to become slightly infected. Suicide attempts should not be curable by fucking Savlon. I feel as though if anybody could hear my thoughts they would find me far too embarrassing to pity. There’s a limit to pity and I think before long I would be overdrawn on pity. The Royal Bank of Self Indulgent Misery. Brilliant. Would they send bailiffs round, dressed as clowns and brandishing boxed sets

i don't like blood so i can't slash my wrists

If I got ‹accidentally on purpose› ran over that would be good, but I’d have to leave the suicide note in my pocket and that could be risky. It might not get found. It might get covered in motor oil and blood, and that would be an absolute waste. I could blow my brains

It was about 6 months and 3 stone of lost weight before I finally finished my book. I had stopped drinking and put myself on a detox diet.

Step one: Identify your enemy. It could be anyone. An old boss, a gobshite at a bar. Now comes the tricky part. Find out what his mother looks like. Spend money on getting a proper mask done and steal some of her clothes. Trickier still: you have to lock yourself in a room with your chosen victim. Make sure you have a bottle of gin and a big fucking box of strong painkillers. Dress up like your victims mother. Step two: Eat every single one of those painkillers and glug that gin like it was the first liquid you’d had for weeks.

‹THE FREUD›

take a psychologist to deduce that maybe, just perhaps maybe perhaps perhaps perhaps, I wasn’t in a positive frame of mind when I wrote this? There’s nothing anyone can do, or is willing to do. What a grotesque fucking mess life is.

of her to properly turn. Pulsate, perhaps. I don’t know. I love to dwell on things. Dwelling on things is my favorite thing to do. I’m not even going to open those emails any more, they’re just so dull. They seem mostly concerned with my sexual technique, or apparent lack thereof; so boring. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if they were from my mother. She’s still not forgiven me for getting her crisps for mother’s day, even though they were posh crisps that weren’t called cheese

suicide-attempts should not be curable by fucking savlon

stripped of all meaning. I see girls wearing shirts with the MTV logo as the American flag and wonder what the hell is going on. I wrote a book about suicide essentially just to be a dick. That girl who threw herself under a train would be turning in her grave, if there was enough left

42 JAKE DUFF words THE UNBEARABLE SHITENESS OF BEING

of Friends? Oh god they might hug me. Best to leave the self-indulgent misery under the mattress; where it belongs. Of course I’m more likely to wank myself to death than to actually go through with it. I wish I had something real to complain about. It’s like some kind of Greek play, only written by a tragedy instead of actually being a tragedy. If I were to write ‹the boy and the girl split up› you would have to be an emotional wreck to feel anything other than blank, bewildering apathy. If I were to write ‹The girl left the boy, so the boy went home, took a vase and smashed it against the wall. The boy took the biggest, sharpest piece of shattered vase and stuck it as far as it would go into his side. The boy lay bleeding for 6 hours, passing in and out of consciousness and writhing with agony. The boy was eventually found dead by neighbors after a week, rotting merrily away in the blistering summer heat› – that might have more of an impact. That is, as far as that story goes, what happened. That’s what I did to this poor prick. Does it

Even Jeff had cleaned up his act, got back together with his wife and that. Stopped fucking call-girls. What a trooper. At no point had Jeff expressed any interest in publishing my book. In fact, he would often implore me to stop writing altogether and get into publishing. Apparently all publishers are failed writers. I told him I had plenty of time to fail, yet; and to perhaps concentrate on his career as a publisher and fucking publish something. My book, maybe. This never once amused him in the slightest. I don’t know if I even meant it. I had started to receive these emails, seriously angry emails mind, not Nigerian prince emails. It might have been a Nigerian prince, of course. I didn’t have the slightest fucking clue. I don’t remember pissing off any Nigerian royalty, but then I didn’t remember pissing anybody off. It seemed like the kind of thing a disgruntled ex-girlfriend might write, but I don’t have any ex-girlfriends. Let’s face it. I hate my own company. I have no idea whether or not I’m being ironic any more, the word has been The emails stopped, too. I washed my bedding. No fucker noticed, because nobody was around to notice. It was only after I logged in to my Facebook account for the first time since I had started writing the book that I realized who the emails were from. I thought I hate the fucking internet. I had sent a friend request to the ‹under the train› girl but I had actually sent it to someone who was, most unfortunately, alive; and took great exception to my liking her photos.

and onion but fucking Brie and shallot. I thought I was being nice. Nobody published my book, thank fuck. In fact, I threw the manuscript in the sea. God it was so cliché, I wanted to be sick. At least I knew I was being at least a bit ironic, at least. More ceremonial was probably when I deleted the file off my computer and then browsed porn for 3 hours. It was kind of like a whole ‹life being born from death› kind of thing, only with more pot noodle and Kleenex and less meaning. In fact no meaning. What am I even thinking.

NAOMI DANIEL words

YOU Then one night I lay down my head Yet could not sleep inside my bed Insomnia, the doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s say Had taken over night and day

i l l u s t r a t i o n J U L I A P O LT E R G E I S T T H AT ’ S W H E R E I W I L L WA I T F O R YOU

JAMES ANDREW photography

LENA WOLF words

INSOMNIA und ich weiß nicht wohin mit mir wir haben den moment zum losrennen versäumt die orte sind vorbeigezogen und doch geblieben und mit ihnen der schmerz ich spüre es ist zeit zu gehen doch ich weiß nicht wohin mit mir die turmuhr schlägt wie sie es immer tut wie sie es nur dann nicht tat als du so nahe bei mir lagst und wir gegen die müdigkeit ankämpften mein kopf zerbricht in eintausend gedanken und umso mehr gedanken an dich je stärker ich versuche sie nicht zu denken so wie du da lagst wie deine arme mich hielten doch wir haben unsere schatten nicht an die wand gemalt der morgen verteilt die blumen auf dem boden und ich weiß nicht wohin mit mir

and i don’t know where to put myself we missed the point of starting to run away the places passing by but stay and with them the pain i feel it’s time to go but i don’t know where to put myself

the clock strikes as usual how it only did not when you lay so close to me us fighting the weariness my head is bursting into onethousand thoughts even more thoughts of you the more i try not to think them how you once lay there how your arms held me but we did not paint our shadows at the wall the morning spreading out the flowers over the floor and I don’t know where to put myself

p h o t o g r a p h y A D A M PA R T O N

ich suche den ort an dem deine worte nicht sind nicht deine hände deine augen deine arme und deine haare nicht deine nach dir riechenden haare ich kenne dich gut genug und mich gut genug um zu wissen was auch du weißt wenn du anrufst und wenn du kommst und gehst und den kaffee umrührst und die tür hinter dir ins schloss ziehst doch ich weiß ich werde diesen fehler immer wieder machen und ich versuche die lücke die du hinterlassen hast mit sambuca zu füllen wir haben dem moment zum losrennen versäumt die orte sind vorbeigezogen und doch geblieben und mit ihnen der schmerz es ist zeit zu gehen solange du noch da bist doch ich weiß nicht wohin mit mir während der morgen graut als wäre nichts gewesen

i’m looking for the place where your words are not, not your hands your eyes neither your arms nor your hair your hair smelling of you i know you well enough and me well enough to know what you know, too when you call and you come and you go and you stir your coffee and you close shut the door behind you but i know i will repeat this mistake over and over again and i’m trying to fill the gap you left behind with sambuca

we missed the point of starting to run away the places passing by but stay and with them the pain it’s time to go as long as you’re still there but i don’t know where to put myself whilst the day is dawning as if nothing ever happened

SOPHIE BARROTT illustrations SOS

SOPHIE BARROTT WE ARE INFINITE

LAUREN COULSON words

R I VA L R Y

I spent the entirety of last night listening to the rhythmic creaking of the guy upstairs’ bedsprings. No matter how hard I try I just can’t seem to match him when I’m on my own. So I woke him up with lousy punk music.

photography JAN MÜNSTER

E L E N A H O N TA N G A S

illustration

PA U L B A LY K I N i l l u s t r a t i o n

words JAMES MULLARD

W H AT S H E S A W I N THE DARK

As Alice stepped through the imposing red doors and into the theatre, almost dancing in a swoon, she felt before her the blackness like lace to her fingertips, and decided she may be dead already. She realised, for the first time consciously, that a few moments ago she has began the execution of her surprise end and had silently reached into the pocket of her boyfriend Robert’s leather jacket, took out the small knife he usually carried for pro-tection, or possibly bragging rights, and quietly dug it into where she supposed her heart may be. Although, having not looked at the wound, she felt no pain, as the trailers rolled on she thought it felt as if the film had ended already and, with a light sigh, she threw her head back onto the rest of the leather chair. Robert soon after did the same, albeit with slightly more grace, and put his arm lightly, but visibly, around her shoulders, as if to show her off to the rest of the cinema.

Her eyes now tearing slightly, but no more than if she’d made a mistake applying makeup, and her heart fluttering, as if to repair itself, Alice felt that the blood from her self inflicted wound may now be seeping through her white ruffle dress, and then she saw it for herself, lightly saucing the popcorn they were sharing. Feeling quite light headed, and definitely faint, she closed her eyes and began to shudder. Robert, with a grunt, muttered what’s wrong, or something to that effect. Alice replied, in her usual mousy whisper, that she had decided, just like in a movie, that your life ends when you stop watching it. Robert remarked that he agreed, probably, his eyes fixed blankly on the opening credits of the movie.

G R E TA C A R O L L p h o t o g r a p h y F L O AT

w o r d s D AV I D F I T Z PAT R I C K

T H E G R A S S WA S SO GREEN T H AT I T C O V E R E D T H E FA C E S O N T H E OTHER SIDE

What I don’t understand is how someone can come to this country, have a great time and be relatively ‹successful›, driving anything from a Vauxhall Astra all the way up to an Aston Martin or a Jaguar or a 4th-generation Jet Fighter Plane, whilst I’m here, sat at a desk, typing pointless information into a pointless system for pointless people to make pointless money only to walk home yearning for an Astra that I can’t afford and sitting down in my shit-tip house of misery, failure and blame wondering who’s gonna be on The Graham Norton Show later.

I felt the world would be a better place if I wasn’t in it or if I was never born. I found myself acting differently. Hurting the people I love.

I just said the forbidden ‹D’ word. Depression.

Admitting you have depression is probably the biggest and hardest step you’ll have to That word is treated with take to recover. To actually stop and realise that something isn’t such dismay yet it is something that more people need to be aware right is hard. Seeking help is the of. I used to be like that too. When next hard step, but the step that needs to be taken. Nothing bad I heard people had depression can come out of taking this step. I just used to assume they were I realised that I needed weak or seeking attention. I am, help when I went out for my 23rd of course, ashamed to admit this now, as from first hand experience birthday. I was surrounded my all my best friends. Yet I was unhappy I know this is not the case. and sitting in the corner by myself A person suffering from depres-

‹I’m made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.›

Isolating myself from everyone who cared about me. Not wanting to do anything, accept lie in bed and dwell in self-pity. I felt as I was watching from the outside You may be wondering as this person, that looked like me, why I am writing this. This is to destroyed everything in sight on a help myself. To get all my thoughts downwards spiral of self destrucdown and out of my head, maybe tion. even to potentially help someone else one day. About a year ago now I wasn’t me anymore. I didn’t know I was diagonosed with depression who I was or who I was becoming. and anxiety. All I knew is that I needed help.

I am Lauren Pennington. I am 23 years old (nearly 24). I am not a writer. I am a thinker, an over thinker at that! I think way too much and over analyse everything. That is one of my flaws, one of my many flaws.

60 L A U R E N P E N N I N G TO N w o r d s

THE DARK T R I B U L AT I O N S OF THE MIND

A few days later I went to the doctors and explained everything. How I felt, how I had been acting and treating people. It didn’t take him long to realise I was in a bad state and he diagnosed me with depression. I felt a weight being lifted of my shoulders. That I had finally confined in someone. The next step was to explain everything to my family and friends. This was something I wasn’t looking forward too. If I would explain, would they even understand? Of course they understood to their best ability. They care and love me. They just want me to get better. Something I am still working on but getting closer to everyday.

not wanting to speak to anyone. This eventually resulted in me being horrible to all my favourite people and going home early in tears. It wasn’t till the next day when I was sat on the floor of my ex’s bathroom being sick from anxiety that I figured out this wasn’t right.

They were probably making me slightly worse if anything. So I decided to stop taking them.

with an ex who is also your best friend and we get to where I was a couple of months ago. I felt I was getting better and getting to myself. However, I was just kidding myself because I was desperate to get off the antidepressants and be ‹normal’ again. I was still, deep down, as bad as I was before I got put on the tablets. The tablets were not working.

Never just stop taking your Fast forward to six to anti-depressants without seeking Why should you live if you feel like seven months later, add a rollermedical help. there is nothing to live for? coaster of a whirlwind relationship

Clinché as it sounds, everything just seemed so dark. You have this cloud of negative thoughts that are constantly consuming you. No energy. No enthusiasm for life. No life in general. You wake up ever morning with sheer disappointment, due to the fact that you actually woke up and weren’t submitted to a coma of nothingness.

sion is neither weak nor seeking attention. Actually the person is probably a strong individual. The fact that they have realised they have this illness shows that. People don’t understand it so therefore feel it is easier to judge instead of even attempting to understand the truth. From my experience, depression is an awful illness that eats away at you until you are only a shell of the person you were before. I wouldn’t wish depression upon anybody because no one should have to be put through it. Let me attempt to paint a picture of how I first realised I might have it. illustrations JESSICA MARSHALL OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER 61

The fact that I wasn’t taking my tablets probably didn’t help with the situation. In fact it probably made the situation a million times worse. The funeral was the day I was going to Leeds Festival. I decided that I would drive to Leeds The constant pressure with a friend after it was over. Big from myself to get better, the mistake. pressure from my ex to make a Leeds Festival was a decision to whether we should get massive destructive blur. I wasn’t back together or not, the presfully there in mind or body. The sure from work, everything just first night I wrecked my ex’s tent continued to build up. I started and poured away all his alcohol. to push people out again. Close Why? I have no idea. I do not even up. Then my granddad died and I remember doing it, I had an out of broke. The majority of my family body experience where I could see were away on holiday, my ex and myself do something yet I didn’t best friend was also away on a lads know why. The rest of the weekend holiday, I felt totally alone. I broke was equally dreadful. down. One night I just lay in the middle on the front room floor, Yet I painted on my smile and tried face down in the carpet and cried. to act ‹fine’. I tried to scream the pain away. I felt so alone. I felt like I had no one The day after Leeds my ex to support me, I couldn’t do this and I went for dinner to discuss my alone yet I had too. This was the antics and decide where we should start of a very destructive downfall go from this. The decision was to which would result in me hitting work on our relationship and for rock bottom. me to get better. That strangely enough I, however, feel he had would be the best thing that could different intentions. A few weeks happen to me and my recovery later he suddenly decided that I process. should just concentrate on getting better and when I got better we

I learnt this the hard way. My moods persisted to drop, I was slipping back into the way I was before but I just kept convincing myself I was ‹okay’. I wasn’t. I was far from ‹ok’.

This is where I hit rock bottom again. To me I had no hope left. I didn’t have my drugs to help me get through anything anymore. What was I suppose to do? The next

While I was concentrating on getting better so we could be a couple again, he was concentrating getting into the knickers of another girl. Couldn’t get sex from me so he had to get it from somewhere, didn’t he? When I eventually figured this out and the truth came out my whole world came crashing down.

would see if we could get back together. This just spurred me to get better quickly, because I thought I loved him and being with him would make me happy. At that time he was my world and I couldn’t see my life without him. He was my drug. I needed him to function. I couldn’t imagine life without him.

62 L A U R E N P E N N I N G TO N w o r d s T H E D A R K T R I B U L AT I O N S OF THE MIND

I did not know the reason for my waking up until a later date.

I did wake up. Dazed and confused. I couldn’t walk properly could handle stand. I was so disappointed with myself because I had taken this overdose. Though I was more disappointed it didn’t work. I got myself up and took a shower. However, it was a quick one as I nearly passed out when doing so. I then got myself ready and drove myself to work. Legs constantly shaking. Vision blurred. I don’t know how but somehow I had gotten myself to work.

thing I did was probably one of the stupidest things I have ever done. I went to bed and I swallowed down a cocktail of any drugs I could find. Down went all my anti-depressants I had saved up by not taking them. Mixed together with the rest of my extra strong painkillers from a car crash I had been in months before. Washed down with your standard over the counter painkillers. I rested my head on the pillow, kissed my panda teddy and prepared for a sleep I thought I wouldn’t wake from. illustrations JESSICA MARSHALL OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER 63

D A N I E L RY D E R w o r d s

LIGHT SWITCH Poetry. That is the thing which I was told would relax my mind, Sleep would unfold before my eyes but infront of them is a greyhound track where dogs bet on buses as they race round and round So doc, I’m not sure if this works you see, Trying to get me to write poetry. I recall seeing an advert as a young child, where a man couldn’t sleep. They said his mind was like a light switch. Except it could only turn On, and on. He couldn’t switch off. But I can. I often do. Sometimes in the park. mostly at work. There are no ducks there

p h o t o g r a p h y M A R C U S S C H W A L B A C H & W O L F M AT TA R

to quak me back into action. Just copy co workers. I leave on a sour note no epic quote, so here goes, â&#x20AC;šNightfall ---- too dark to read the page, Too coldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Jack wrote that I am falling away While Tyler comes out to play.

B A R B O R A M R A Z K O VA w o r d s & p h o t o g r a p h y INSOMNIA OF THOUGHT

B A R B O R A M R A Z K O VA w o r d s & p h o t o g r a p h y

INSOMNIA OF THOUGHT

At very young age, my brother has been through a serious illness. During an over three months long stay in hospital with serious pancreas irritation he was even fighting death i think. This completely disabled him from working or travelling in the future. I did this series of photographs about him to document how he needs to deal with his depression in everyday life, especially after losing a beloved girlfriend, as a consequence of the long stay in hospital.

His story is maybe not very much connected with insomnia but it very much deals with depression and mental illness. It could encourage people to realise that sometimes their worries about life are silly letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s say. I was thinking that there could be some parallel of the insomnia of thought. This never-ending, frantic, bitter anxieties, pulling him in and out of consciousness. Something that will stay with him for the rest of his life, something he cannot fight.

MICHAEL WEHRMANN words

W U N D E N U N T E RWA S S E R Ich habe gelernt, Die Luft sehr lange anzuhalten, Steige ins Wasser, Steige hinein wie in einen sehr großen Saphir, Halte den Spieß wurfbereit Und laufe wie in Zeitlupe In dieser Unterwelt. Ein Rochen streift meine Schulter Und zieht Kreise um meinen Oberkörper. Jetzt steckt der Spieß in seiner Flosse Und er geht zu Boden, Dort bei den Korallen, Dort wo sie sehr rot sind wie Wunden unterwasser.

I have learnt, To hold my breath for ages, Enter the water, Enter it like a giant saphire, Hold the lance ready to pitch And walk in slow motion In this netherworld.

A ray streaking my shoulder Orbiting my torso. Now the lance is stuck in its fin And it is going down Where the corals are Where they glow red like Wounds underwater.

photography ALEXANDER KILIAN INSOMNIA

ALEXANDER KILIAN

photography ALEXANDER KILIAN INSOMNIA

JAMES BELL words

BANANAS

+ C H O C O L AT E

roll up roll up toward, the downward flow at the bottom awaits, generational demolition! while the dancing bears were fun (I ask, adjectival experience?) the drink has dried. youre about to meet the coldest of orange glows and when theyve tumbled from the cone of your sandy eyes youll feel as empty as this sealess beach. misgivings crowned with laughter and your naked self, encompassed who will be your towel?

illustration REBECCA FIELDING

please, a moment of silence. for the closing doors, shattered rooms, unstable floors. even the uneven bed. sounds and pictures may ease the most agitated of minds, though Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d not to neglect the vibrant triumvirate. where are the towels for a withered heart and pulsing soul? redundant. look, to the kitchens of your youth theyre freer than you ever was. and lo, the fallacy is taking hold the yllw nd gld sustainers of life will remove the glue from the dirt and sftly ntie, rbbnsq. hurry, fr dinosrs are rming the snds. to cherry-pick the roundest fruit clashes . not mine or theirs nor the want to care existing in the sorry present state. iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll laugh at your lost lizards and kill them if I have to. ahh, the nectaresque again. solidified as if an emblem of this present presence.

TO M P O T T S i l l u s t r a t i o n

words INEZ BRUCE

AN-XI-ETY angst against society. they tell you, ‹embrace the feelings! don’t shrug them off so violently.› glazing at the bedroom ceiling wondering where these feelings are stored, why is it sleep can’t be controlled by our own accord? the sub-conscious mind, the power and the beauty; the grind of each hour, ‹what have I done to deserve such cruelty?› the duty of sleep, something much to our dismay the rolling days of sleeplessness leading us astray.

MARINA DEL RIO photography NIGREDO

words SARAH JAMES

THE COLOURS OF INSOMNIA light-cracked red of faulty eyelids, broken white of eyes pricked by glass, shadow blue of veined skin sails, grass-green greener still the other side of stalled yawningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s jumping-sheep fence, yolk yellow of raw egg bursting to drip, drip pukish pink of the mind turned upside-down and inside-out, black black of the lack of black whole, which haunts in colour my inability to sleep.

thank you to everyone who helped support nous magazine and the insomnia issue especially for your contributions AMOS BORCHERT ANGUS STEWART ANTONY OWEN BRYN FAZAKERLEY CHANELLE HUGHES CHRISTOPHER MATTHEWS DANIEL RYDER DAVID FITZPATRICK INEZ BRUCE EMMA JAKE DUFF JAMES BELL JAMES MULLARD LAUREN COULSON LAUREN PENNINGTON MICHAEL WEHRMANN NAOMI DANIEL SARAH JAMES SOPHIE LEIGH JOHNS

ALICE BESTER ANNEKE GERLOFF APOLLONIAN SAINTCLAIR BLANCA MARTINEZ VALIENTE CHRISTIAN BUCHNER ELENA HONTANGAS ELLIE BOYAZITOVA HENRIK ULDALEN JAKE BLAKE JESSICA MARSHALL JULIA POLTERGEIST KATI SZILAGYI NATASCHA HOHMANN PAUL BALYKIN REBECCA FIELDING SOPHIE BARROTT TOM POTTS TOSH HOHMANN TRAVIS K. SCHWAB

print risograph paper editor design

lisa lorenz lisa lorenz

with friendly support of hendrik schneider

proofreading

hendrik schneider

contact hej@nous-magazine.de www.nous-magazine.de

ADAM PARTON ALEXANDER KILIAN ALICE DICKINSON BARBORA MRAZKOVA CARLOTA GONZALEZ GRETA CARROLL JAMES ANDREW JAN MÜNSTER MARCUS SCHWALBACH MARINA DEL RIO MARINA RICHTER MIRANDA LEHMAN NISHA DESAI SIMON KECKEISEN TOM FISHER WOLF MATTAR

I CAN'T SLEEP

W W. N O U S - M A G A Z I N E . D E

last words of j. m. barrie author of peter pan