Jake Pickford

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Stand up Comedian based in London.

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 24

    I’ve just come back from a fantastic gig and I feel great.  I perform stand-up comedy which essentially, like anything creative, turns your life into an emotional roller coaster.  Before I started taking anti-depressants and writing this blog, some of the hardest times to deal with were just after gigs, when I’d be travelling home alone knowing that my life wouldn’t reach that same level of happiness until the next time I got back on stage.  Everything else in my life paled in comparison.  Like I said I suppose this rings true with anyone who does something creative, or even just anyone who has figured out what they want to do with their life.  Life should be as simple as figuring out what you want to do that will make you happy and then trying to achieve it, but of course life’s not as easy as that.  It makes the times when you’re not able to do what you want to do, or actively work towards it, feel insufferable.

    It’s sometimes harder to look at the bigger picture, the reason behind why you’re doing the things you don’t want to do.  I currently have to work a day job that to say I dislike is an understatement, but the reason I’m doing it is to fund the rent I pay to live in a house, the electric to power the laptop to write this blog, the food and water I need to survive and arguably most importantly, fund my dream of becoming a stand-up comedian.  It’s currently a necessary evil in my life that I’ve learnt to accept is actively working towards what I want to do in life.  This is a huge thing for me, as my day job was the predominant cause of my depression, or at least the catalyst.  It’s the closest I can get to turning my day job into a positive thing.

    I know a lot of people don’t know what they want to do with their life, but knowing what you do want to do can be a gift and a curse.  The pressure we put on ourselves to achieve things is immense.  Deciding what you want to do with your life so adamantly means every other option is considered not what you really want and therefore a failure.  Whereas if you don’t know what you want to do, you kind of have more chance of stumbling into happiness.  The problem with knowing is you immediately start putting deadlines on things, by this time I need to be here in my dream or I’ll be behind.  You start comparing yourself to other people and worrying about things that haven’t happened.  But you can’t compare yourself to other people, we’re all travelling down our own paths and sometimes paths cross.  Stick to your own path and you’ll be fine.  The good thing about knowing what you want is the only time you can fail is when you stop trying.

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow

    Jake

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 24

    So I should have written this last night but after a 5 hour round trip on a train I thought I’d spare you the pain of having to read my sleep deprived stream of nonsensical  consciousness, I have no idea why as usually I just force it upon you.  But last night I was exceptionally tired.  I did a gig in a theatre which could have been great if it was full, but instead was ok due to being only about a quarter full.  Tonight I’m likely to be shattered again as I’m travelling another 5 hour round trip… the things I do for my love of comedy!

    Last night I tried to speak about depression whilst on stage and while it felt good, the problem I encountered is that rather than laughing, the audience just kind of nodded along in agreement and seemed to be looking at me with a degree of admiration combined with pity.  Not really the desired effect but I’m still happy I got to tell people and try to encourage them to communicate more about mental health.  I also got some podcast editing done yesterday.  I’m so happy with my mic and it’s really fun learning sound editing, I use audacity in case anyone was wondering and my mic is the H2N zoom.  I can’t wait to upload the podcasts and share them with everyone.  I want to try and get another one recorded today in the journey up to the gig with a fellow comic so I’ll keep you posted on that.

    I want to do as much as possible in my life to help people with depression and/or anxiety.  I’m going to devise a plan to raise as much money as possible through comedy and try to get as many people talking about mental health as possible to stop people from feeling so alone.

    Another short one today, as I have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

    Jake

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 23

    Today I woke up 2 hours after my alarm was suppose to go off and 1 hour after I should have started work, good start.  When I finally started work though, I did manage to record a new podcast whilst driving which I think I’m pretty happy with, I haven’t listened to it yet or edited it but that’s because I came home, ordered pizza and got distracted on the procrastination machine that is YouTube.  So I did 50% good.  Or 33% is you count ordering pizza as bad, which you shouldn’t because pizza is amazing.

    I don’t have to work tomorrow so once again I’m going to try to be productive on my day off.  Last time I said that I failed miserably, I think that’s because I say I’m going to be productive without actual being specific.  And then I just end up doing nothing, so tomorrow I am going to edit three more podcast episodes and upload the solo episode I recorded today (hopefully on to iTunes, Soundcloud and on my webiste), I’ve also got a gig tomorrow evening so will hopefully record another new podcast episode on the drive up.  I’m trying to keep busy but also keep my life fun, not sitting in front of YouTube fun (failed) but more like productive working towards life goals fun.

    Ah I just got to about 450 words and my computer crashed…

    Something about being tired, having weird dreams – being fascinated by them but having really vivid ones and hating the fact I never feel as fully rested after dreaming.  I then explained loosely the difference between dreams in deep sleep and in REM sleep.  It was a fantastic ending to this blog.

    But now i’m too tired to re-write, I’m really sorry.  Fucking technology .  I should probably stop writing blogs just before sleep.

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow

    Jake

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 22

    Happy Monday everyone, I don’t think I’ve said that and meant it in a while.  You know when you finally do something that you’ve been putting off or forgetting to do for ages, it’s such a relief, it’s like when you’re bursting for a pee and finally make it to the bathroom, all that glorious release of tension, it’s so amazing you have to vocalise it even though no one is around to hear you.  After doing this task I made that pee noise.

    I worked today, as in day job real work.  Part of my job involves a lot of driving and I’m thinking about recording another solo podcast of me talking while I drive, I’ve spoken about the idea with a friend, he actually suggested I do it and call it “Drive time with Jake” which I really like.  I may try the first one tomorrow to see if it works.  I do this a lot though, embark on epic projects never to reach completion.  I believe I’ve spoken about this extensively in other blog posts but I’m what I’d like to describe as a ‘give it ago-er’, and I’ve given a lot of things a go… if you know what I mean.  That’s not a sexual thing at all I just felt the need to put that in there… It felt right.  I’m still in the process of editing my other podcast for release, of which I have 6 episodes recorded with 7, 8, 9 and 10 all lined up with 1 confirmed date.  But I really want to do a solo podcast too, Essentially I’m giving myself loads to do because I’ve been able to do this one thing for 22 days now (technically 21, I missed one night due to heavy alcohol consumption).  However I am going to take a huge positive out of that, 22 days ago, I wouldn’t have been trying to do so much because I didn’t believe in myself, I didn’t think I could do much of anything really.

    That’s down, predominately, to 3 things; Anti-depressants, Writing and Communicating. I’ve spoken to more people in these past 22 days about depression and mental health than I think I may have in the entire rest of my life.  And It’s made me feel so much less alone. Depression does that to you, it makes you feel alone and trapped.  Trapped inside your own thoughts, locked in your own mind.  And that can be a scary place to be, it’s full of past experiences and memories, impossible to answer questions about the future and anxiety. But it doesn’t have to be if you take the time to remember that the present is just as important if not more so.  The present can’t affect your past but it can have a huge effect on your future.

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

    Jake

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 21

    You may or may not have noticed that yesterday was the first day I haven’t posted a blog entry since I started my anti-depressants.  I was still alive and on anti-depressants but I accidentally got too drunk at a 90’s themed night out and ended up getting into a bed at 5am.  I subsequently had about 3 hours interrupted sleep before eventually travelling home and then driving a 3 hour round trip to perform at a stand-up comedy competition.  I didn’t win.  I think the night before may have had something to do with it.

    I also planned on having a productive Saturday before the party.  I even wrote on Friday’s blog post about how I wanted to wake up at a reasonably early hour and get things done.  I hit off instead of snooze on my alarm and slept until about 1pm.  Whoops.  I suck at being productive.  My worst habits are sleeping late and procrastinating too much.  Although a few days ago I dropped my phone down the toilet severely damaging both the phone and my procrastination options.  It currently sits in a bag of rice in a desperate attempt to dry it out and rescue what is essentially my life on it.  I have a calender on their with all my future gig dates and details.  If I don’t rescue my phone I may miss a lot of gigs.

    I can take a lot of good things from this evening, an audience member came up to me after the show to tell me he thought one of my jokes was the best of the night.  And another asked to get a picture with me.  It’s important to not dwell on the fact I didn’t win and instead remember the good things.  My anti-depressants are really helping me to do that. I know another technique people use is writing a list of three things that happened at the end of every day.  I’ve tried that too but I couldn’t commit to remembering to do it and now I write a blog every night (except yesterday but that’s the only time so far!).  I try to write about the good things that happen every day in this blog though, so if anything I’m doing a better version than just a list of 3.  It’s kind of like asking for a burger and some one giving you a cow, you may be happy, you may be annoyed but you can’t deny that it’s definitely more.  That’s a terrible analogy but I’m sleep deprived and it’s 1am.

    On the way up to the gig, I was in the car with three other comics and we spoke a lot about mental health.  About our experiences with it and our thoughts about it.  And how common it is, not just in the world of comedians but in the world as a whole.  People of all careers and backgrounds.  We’ve all felt sad, depression is a different version of sad but it’s still relatable to everyone.  It’s one of the few things we all have in common and yet we don’t talk about it that much.  We’d rather talk about the weather.  I think that needs to change.  But I live in England so I also wish the weather would change.

     

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

    Jake

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 19

    Today has been an emotional roller coaster.  My first customer and I had a deep discussion about spirituality and religion.  I’m not a religious person, I’m not an atheist either, I believe that anyone is entitle to believe what they want as long as they don’t bring harm to others.  I believe in energy, I believe that we are made of energy, and that energy cannot die, it can only change form.  I think that our energies are constantly changing and influenced by what is around us, who we meet and spend time with and how we’re feeling. I don’t mean that I believe in the power of crystal healing or that people need to realign their chakra in order to be happy, but if you do that’s fine.  I don’t think you can control everything in your life, you can’t change the past for a start and that’s always a huge part of who you are but you can change the way you look at it.  But I do believe you can affect your energy.

    Another customer told me about her personal recent tragedy, out of respect I won’t go into details but it certainly made me realise how important it is to cherish what you have.  I wish absolutely nothing but the best for this woman and I felt sick that people exist in the world that can do such horrible things such as rape and murder.  The rest of my day was filled with traffic and mediocrity.  Which much better than before my anti-depressants when it was filled with rage and sadness… and traffic.

    Tonight I hosted one of my monthly stand up nights, it was a brilliant night in a sold out room.  There was a hen party in the audience, I hate weddings, but apparently a lot of people love them so I have no choice but to accept that, and as a result of this acceptance I will be invited to weddings.  Just to clarify, I was not invited to this hen party bride-to-be’s wedding, but friends and family tend to invite me to them.  Family wedding are particularly weird, standing around with a load of people that you may or may not be related to.  I have a large family – like 7 aunties and 7 uncles, lots of whom are married.  That’s a shit load of cousins… and weddings.  Back to the gig though,  I had a brilliant time and I’m feeling more confident every time I step on stage.  My next gig is a competition for English Comedian of the Year on Sunday so wish me luck.  I’m going to go to sleep now because it’s 3am and I need to stop staring at a computer screen and have a productive weekend.

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

    Jake

     

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 18

    Today definitely felt harder than yesterday.  I was at work and I felt small moments of stress creeping it.  I was able to catch myself and think calmly though  and that’s really what these anti-depressants are allowing me to do.  They’re calming, soothing my irrational thoughts and helping me deal with them better.  I know they’re not a miracle drug that will make my life perfect, that’s for me to do, but they do seem to be making my life easier.

    Tonight I had a gig at a really well established venue so the pressure was on to perform.  The audience were polite but not hugely engaged.  I went on in the second half and got some good laughs in places.  An audience member came up to me afterwards to mention how he’d particularly enjoyed a joke I have about breaking up with my gas and electric supplier.  I learnt a lot from the gig and also felt much happier on stage than I had in a long time – before I started taking my anti-depressants.  They’ve given me my stage mojo back and now I can focus on polishing up the other parts again.

    I don’t worry so much about the future now, that was a huge factor in my depression.  I would sit and get trapped in endless thought cycles about everything that could go wrong in my life.  And then I started to believe those thoughts.  I started to convince myself that I wasn’t good enough to achieve anything because I hadn’t achieved enough yet, and I couldn’t imagine a future where I did.  But now I’m starting to believe in myself, I have to and I want to.  It’s such a cliche I know but it’s so true, if you don’t believe in yourself you won’t ever get anywhere.

    Right now I’m focusing on the near future and the present, rather than the distant future and the past.  I need to focus on the present to remind myself that everything is ok right now.  I’m alive and I have a roof over my head.  I can feed myself and I’m not in any immediate danger of dying, it’s like a self risk assessment.  And I’m thinking about the near future to put in place plausible plans on how to get from now to then.  There’s no point in getting upset or thinking about what my life will be like in 10 years time, or even 5 years, because I have no idea.  And what I do right now is the deciding in factor in how my future turns out, so I think from now on I’ll focus on that.

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

    Jake

  • My Life; on Anti-depressants

    Day 17

    My day job has felt so much easier since I started taking these pills.  My 12 hour shift today seemed to go quickly and I didn’t feel stressed at any point.  I’m feeling so much more relaxed and happy.  Like I’ve mentioned before I attribute a lot of that to daily writing as well as the pills.  I know other people who have taken anti-depressants and not felt this level of change but of course everyone has different types and levels of depression.  Every person’s brain is different and that’s why depression and mental health issues on the whole can be so hard to deal with.

    A big part of my depression was feeling like I couldn’t talk about it and I think a lot of people feel that way.  Which is partly why I started this blog, to encourage communication.  The world is a big, scary place.  And schools certainly don’t prepare you for it, they don’t tell you about debt, about trying to figure out who you are, how to be confident.  They just teach you how to memorise and regurgitate information.  Then you become an adult and you have to do adult things like watch the news and read newspapers where you’re constantly bombarded with stories reminding you how shit the world is and how much closer we are to a mass extinction through the result of our own stupidity as a species.  Not to mention having to constantly engage in conversations with other adults who are trapped inside the same conditioning you are.  So is it any wonder so many people get depressed.  We’re not prepared for how hard life can be and we start to feel alone and helpless.

    But we’re not helpless and we’re definitely not alone, we only think we are because not enough people are talking about how they feel .  How the world makes them feel, what makes them anxious, what are they afraid of, how they deal with depression.  If people don’t talk then no one can listen and no one can help.  Writing this blog has helped me talk to people about all of those things, and in doing so, I’ve got to listen to a lot of people talking about their experiences with mental health.  People want to talk about it, it just needs more people to start the conversation.

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

    Jake

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 16

    Hello there, welcome to day 16 of my blog.  If you haven’t read the other days don’t worry, think of these blogs like the 7 Police Academy movies.  It’s great if you’ve seen them all but don’t worry if you haven’t, they’re all good on their own in any order.  Except for Police Academy 6 – City Under Siege, that wasn’t so good.  But I too have written blogs that aren’t as good so this Police Academy analogy still fits.  I promise to make this one a Police Academy 3 – Back in Training blog, I think we can all agree that’s the best.

    I know right now I can divide my readers into 3 categories, those who have seen all of the movies and can totally get it, those who sort of understand and have maybe seen a couple of them and finally those that are just like “what the fuck is he talking about?”.  And if you’re in that third category then I thank you especially for still reading.  I feel in a really good more today.  I didn’t have to go to work and instead spent the day filming a comedy project with some university students.  It was the third day of filming I’ve done with them and by far the most fun.  They decided to re-shoot some of the previous scenes which meant I got to have doughnuts poured over me again as well as to break into a house and get busted by the cops.  I really enjoy acting and actually went to college to study performing arts with the intention of becoming an actor.  But I ended up dropping out of the second year.  It wasn’t a complete waste of time, I still got some qualifications and met a good friend I still speak to now, admittedly not as much but it was a big part of my life just being there.

    After I left college I felt like I still wanted to do some performance related, I always wanted to be a stand-up comedian but I didn’t live somewhere that was brimming with a comedy scene, or any scene for that matter.  That’s when I took the job that has haunted me for the last 8 years of my life and counting.  I started it as a stepping stone between not having any money and making it as some sort of performer.  I’m really happy that I did get that job in a way, I have learnt a lot and met some fantastic people.  I also don’t if I ever would have started doing stand-up comedy 4 years later if it hadn’t been for that job.  If i’d have tried to be an actor I might not have had the money I did make from my day job, I might not have been able to see the comedy show where I met comedian Greg Davis who told me about the course he did, I might not have been to travel to London to do the course or pay for the course and I might never have done my first gig at the end of that course.  Who knows what my life could be like but right now I’m happy with what it is and am just working on the next stepping stone to get closer to my dream.  And that’s a huge difference from 16 days ago.

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

    Jake

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 15

    Hello there readers of my blog.  In case you haven’t read any of my previous posts I’ll summarise.  15 days ago I started taking anti-depressants after feeling very depressed and getting signed off work for 54 days.  I only started taking the pills towards the end of that 54 weeks period, which I regret, so am now back at work doing a day job that was a huge contributing factor in my depression.  I have been performing stand up comedy for the last 3 years and 10 months.  I’ve also made a few podcasts and YouTube videos, and have many more planned.

    Today I’ve mostly been at work, I did a 12 hour shift.  It was the longest shift I’ve had to do since going back to work but it was actually not bad.  I’m looking at work from a new perspective now thanks to my anti-depressants.  I’m remember the good rather than the bad.  And more importantly, I’m reminding myself it’s not permanent.  I get to go home at the end of the day and I will succeed as a comedian as long as I don’t give up.  I won’t say what I do for a day job but my day started at a psychiatric ward  where I was threatened by a patient there for laughing at something and ended with me having a deep conversation about the countries political issues with a lovely Quaker.  We also spoke about mental health.  It’s something that runs deep with everyone, it effects everyone in someway or another.  Yet we understand so little about the mind.  Where do thoughts come from?  What causes those neurotransmitters to fire?  What causes them to misfire?  We’re along way from understanding mental health but I believe that talking more about it is the best possible way forward.  I’m going to talk to my family soon about my previous mental state.  My depression, my thoughts of suicide.  I haven’t told them anything yet.  I don’t want them to worry but I feel like I’m at a point where I can explain where I was in life, what was wrong and more importantly how I’m resolving it.

    I also found out today that someone I work with has a twin.  Which is a bizarre thing to see before you’ve heard about.  I had no idea and then all of a sudden there were two of the same person.  And we have to wear uniforms at work so they were wearing the exact same clothes. Same haircut, same weight, same glasses.  It’s was very hard to deal with first thing in the morning.

    Tomorrow I’ve got some filming to do for a project I’m working with some university students on.  I play a burglar whose obsession with doughnuts gets him arresting and sent to court.  It’s been really fun filming so far and I’m looking forward to sharing it with people when it’s done.

    Thanks for reading and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.

    Jake