Ruby Wax's Blog, page 9

A Letter from a Fan

"Dear Ruby,  at first let me say that it is great of you to come forward with your personal story to create openness and awareness on the matter. By talking about it, getting it out there, other people can be inspired to do the same or to get help for their selves or their loved ones . You often don’t know how bad the situation is, until you are confronted with a reality-check.

I consider you as a very open and honest person. Maybe your openness helped you to cope or to get help. Though I can imagine it was (is) also a shield where you could hide yourself and pretend that everything was ok.

I can imagine that people automatically think or presume they can make a claim on you due to the fact that you were a TV-figure. Did it make for you harder to find your way because reality and friendships presented were sometimes misleading and were there people in your life who kept your feet on the ground (and cherished you for who you are)?

I also think that by coming forward with your story and becoming a kind of spokeswoman on the matter, people think you are a pocket-sized shrink. I already had much respect for you in the past. Hats off for the work that you are doing and trying to help other people.

Not that I consider you as a Mother Theresa now (joke), but because of being open yourself, you open the door for others and you show the way to get help and get better. If adults become aware of this issue, they can also be cautious and address it better, so that children don’t need to go through the same ordeal as their parents.

Therefore a ‘big thank you’ to you for being you.

Wish you and your family all the best.

Stephanie
" Thank you for that email Stephanie.

When I worked in T.V I certainly never got mail like this. When you’re a comedian and meet people it’s usually so superficial and embarrassing; they relate to you as the person you play on T.V. and you have to pretend to be that character otherwise they’re disappointed. It’s so exhausting and you want to say “Hello, there’s a person in here not just a clown.” What I really found upsetting is when people laughed before I even said anything. Writing my book and being on tour I’ve been able to meet people from the UK, Cape Town, Belgium and Holland and when the book signing happens it’s been a profound experience.

During the book signing for some reason, people open up to me and that’s such a great honour to be trusted with their stories. I feel this tremendous warmth and care from almost every person I make eye contact with. Even when I’m tired from doing an interview on stage, once I meet the people in the audience, I get energized from the warmth and kindness they put out. Some say thanks for talking about mental illness and bringing it into the open, others ask what they can do about their sister/cousin/friend/co-worker/mother as far as getting them help? What this intimacy does for me is so healing for someone with depression.

Thank you everyone who I’ve met for giving my heart a kick start.

Sane New World: An Antidote to Christmas

I offer my book “Sane New World” as an antidote to Christmas for those of us who don’t feel jolly, and I suspect there are far more people out there who won’t admit to it and smear on a cheery face.  ‘Tis not a season to be jolly,’ tis a season to have a nervous breakdown from buying gifts in a stampede of The Crazed; catching the madness like a virus from everyone out there so you end up buying things no one will ever want, like a pitchfork. 

It’s an alternative to Christmas book for those of us who hold onto our sanity for dear life at this most insane day of the year. Sending Christmas cards to people who do not send you one back is a one-way ticket to a mood disorder.    There you are preparing the turkey, broken and bitter, stuffing stuff into some bird’s ass as you watch your life go by and no one will even remember that you stuffed it. You end up so out of it you don’t know if you’re stuffing the turkey or your brother-in-law. And to make things worse, you know you’re slaving over something that will go in one end and out the other. 

 There is nothing more upsetting then buying someone a cashmere scarf and getting a candle. That is what you mean to them- a candle – a social leper. I usually wrap up the gifts each person gave me the year before with a card that says’ same to you’.  When you buy presents you try to pick a price based on how much someone means to you and that always changes moment-to-moment. And then there are the people you need favours from.  I always send a big gift to my banker hoping it will stop him ripping me off for the coming year. The worst is counting down on New Years Eve to ‘1’ and not feeling that erection of exhilaration like everyone else when the fireworks go off; that’s when I know to go into my closet and not come out till February.  I think I’ve finally cracked it now I go far away each Christmas and come back looking surprised saying “Oh did I miss something? Sorry.”

School of Life

I did my sermon yesterday at the School of Life.  The event takes place in a church but isn’t based on any religion, it’s just as a great venue where everyone sings and shouts and then you (which was me that day) give your philosophy of life at a pulpit. The hymn’s yesterday were “Crazy” and “Reach Out” by the Four Tops. It’s got such a great atmosphere, everyone is there open and ready for action. Derren Brown does the next sermon on December 4th.  I did my speech after listening to 300 people singing at me so my hair was standing on end.  This is my first try out of the new show based on my book “Sane New World” it’s always interesting and sick-making to wing it.  I haven’t memorized the script yet so I’m roughly getting the ideas across hoping I’m making sense. 

The show is for the 4 in 4, not the 1 in 4 who have mental illness.  It’s for everyone who feels the pressure of just living and getting through the day.  Our brains don’t have the bandwidth for living in the 21st century, evolution didn’t know this was coming and so we can’t really cope. Part of our brain (the cognitive bit) created this glorious technology which was supposed to make life easier and give us spare time. We wouldn’t know spare time if it came and hit us on the head. The emotional part of the brain is stunted, it just didn’t develop so we don’t know how to cope with the continuous flow of bad news.  You open a newspaper and everyone in it is was killed.  It’s like we’re junkies for things that drive us nuts even though we know it drives us nuts.  Our own thinking is what’s driving us mad. The world is the way it is so now we have to learn how to rewire our habits of thinking and find the brakes so we’re not dragged through life by an endless list of emails to answer.  The idea is to become the master not the slave of the mind. 

Black Dog Tribe

Just to remind everyone out there that BlackDogTribe.com is still cooking and still hooking up like-minded people to support each other or just talk to someone like them. I originally set it up a few years ago because during my shows the audience would ask questions; “What do I say to my kid/friend/co-worker?”  “Should I take drugs?” “Who can I go to for help?”  I had a free walk-in each week where I’d supply experts on the brain and a whole band of volunteers from Sane to answer individual questions. 

I really wanted to start walk-in centres everywhere but because a lot of people don’t want to admit anything is wrong or feel that shame we all feel, the next best thing was to create an anonymous on-line community where people can meet people who suffer the same symptoms. That means care-takers can talk to other care-takers and give each other advice on what to say besides “perk up” (that’s a killer).  People who can’t get out of bed can talk to others who can’t lift themselves up and out.  It’s such a relief to talk to your tribe who will never get bored talking about how they feel. People who haven’t got a mental illness can get bored or feel helpless so it’s such a relief to talk to your own kind. Last year I handed BlackDogTribe to Marjorie Wallace who runs Sane, an incredible charity where they have a continual hot-line for support and how to get help among other things.  She is an angel and worked 30 years to create Sane. I hope you all join the BlackDogTribe so you do not feel so alone.

Self-esteem and your plain old self

Why is it you can accomplish so much, have so many people tell you what a great thing you’ve done; how proud and impressed they all are and the next day feel like shit again?  I peaked last week graduating from Oxford; feeling slightly hysterical and inflated (a feeling I cannot recall having in my life ever) because I felt I finally cracked into the world of people who used to terrify me with their encyclopaedic brains.  What happens is when you’re wearing that black bat cape and square hat with the tassel is that suddenly people assume you know something and converse with you like you can actually bring something intelligent to the table. 

 In the past I used to drip in sweat when seated near an ‘expert’ on anything from politics to worm farming, terrified they would find out that I knew absolutely nothing; my mind an empty, cloudless sky. In those situations I always wanted to call a friend like they do on game shows to get some info on the subject to show I’m not such an idiot rather than have to hold some inane smile on my face expressing fascination. Does anyone have that thing called self-esteem for more than a few hours? And what does it mean anyway? How can your self have esteem about it self?   It’s just another thing (sensation) you stick on you but nothing to do with the ‘self’. What happens the next day after they put the gold over your neck at the Olympics or you score a goal in football and a hundred people hug you? How long can the esteem for themselves stick around before it loses it’s erection? 

 For reason’s of health I think we should all put our efforts on just feeling our ‘self’ without the accoutrements of pride or esteem or even disappointment.How this is done is not easy because there so much out there to tempt us to look great, make money, get power, be famous, to get more than the other guy, to win, win ,win whatever there is to win. Here’s the real bitch: No one likes you any more when you get those things and, underneath, when you’re alone you’re just your plain old ‘self’ anyway. I hope this doesn't sound too weird but I know what I mean and that’s all that counts.

Not Good News

Okay here’s a little sampler of what depression isn’t; it isn’t because something bad has happened in your life. I am a living example of that myth put to bed. Nothing bad happened, as a matter of fact I just graduated from Oxford on Monday; this should be every Christmas that ever was wrapped together in the world of self esteem. That ‘I’m so happy I could burst thing’ lasted one day, today is Friday and I’ve recognized only this morning that I am going down the rabbit hole of sanity.  Even I, who thinks I’m such an expert on those who are mentally unwell took a full 3 days to realize my thoughts are turning sick and vindictive  that comes with the infection of depression. 

Thoughts are the signals of the illness, there’s no other way to recognize it. There is no lump, no rash, no scar as proof, only warped, vicious thoughts. They start off rational enough then I start looking through my contacts list at how many people I know and then decide I need to call them all immediately.  I do this probably out of extreme fear that I’m disappearing and will shortly be forgotten by everyone in the world.  I feel death is imminent (another bad sign).  I start with a few ‘how are you’ calls and then like a flood-gate opening, they become obsessive; I call people while I’m driving, sitting on the loo, shaving my legs and cutting them by accident because my  hand is dialing on the phone. I’ve also started to answer every email that’s ever been written to me for no apparent reason, hoping they won’t be answered so I don’t have to answer them back.

I could tell I needed to call a doctor because this morning after insisting on an x-ray for everything I went to pick up my glasses from the shop at 7 in the morning and parked outside waiting for it to open on a double yellow line with the blinkers going and trucks honking at me to pass the one lane road. While I was sitting there meditating I realized I needed help so I’m going to the doctor now.  There is solace in this that I am aware the black dog is back but may only stick around for a little while; at least I know and that’s a gift.