Mike's Pith & Wind cont.
..step at the back of Festival Hall. Ariel was on the the bill that (Sunday?) afternoon with Sherbet and the Coloured Balls, and we had another gig that evening at Berties. (Those were the days!)
It would be fair to say I was under a fair bit of pressure, trying to juggle the demands of my family and trying to cope with the destructive politics emerging within the band, but I wasn’t consciously thinking about any of these things at the time – just trying to relax in the afternoon sun before we hit the stage - when I began to notice that my breathing was becoming more and more restricted, which is enough by itself to induce panic.
The result was that I was bundled off to hospital and sedated, and Ariel’s part in the concert was cancelled. I can remember waking up on a hospital stretcher and looking around and thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ and then thinking to myself, with all the wisdom that hindsight affords, ‘I just panicked then, and it buggered up my breathing, which in turn buggered up a gig – what an idiot!’ (Mind you, we did do the Berties’ gig later that evening).
I vowed there and then that if ever I was visited by those symptoms again, I would banish them with my new-found wisdom, and banish them effortlessly. Hooray!
Depression is far more insidious. Running on ego, as we musicians/entertainers do, we are far more likely to suffer depression due to the insecurities of our lifestyle, than say an accountant or a council worker,. (Then again, perhaps not - just being an accountant would be enough to depress me. I’ll thank me not to interrupt my train of thought).
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of depression is its seductiveness. The depressee (?) is typically contemptuous of the lifelines being offered by concerned friends, and secretly triumphant as hapless victims are enticed into the numbing vortex of their self-centred indifference. (Excuse me while I pause to admire that last sentence..)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems there is no limit to how low you can go when in this self-destructive mood. Everything you touch turns to shit: even as you feebly attempt to counter attack you know you’re doomed, and you’re right. When in this state of mind, you can almost understand how death becomes an attractive option.
Ultimately, all the best-intentioned help in the world can’t help a mind determined to be depressed. The victim/perpetrator has to somehow execute a volte-face defying his or her own monstrous self-loathing; and when you are your own judge, jury and executioner, that’s a tough ask.
Now I’m depressed. Luckily for me there’s always music, and I’m never happier than when I’m playing and creating music.
I was watching a show on ABCTV last night called Scribblers. The show followed this particular writer as she attempted to finish her grand opus, which had been thirty or so years in gestation. Just when the end was in sight she almost succumbed to a life threatening condition and needed a major operation to save her life. The book’s completion was delayed another few months while she recovered – but, finally, it was finished. Was she happy it was over? No, not a bit of it. There she was, miserably signing copies of her book while people gushed about how wonderful it was, just managing to cope with the living hell of the first class hotels, the strokes from all and sundry, the money pouring in.
‘Is there life outside writing?’ she asked the camera wanly - and concluded there definitely wasn’t.
Is there life after depression? Sure there is – but first you have to get to the other side.