Jake Pickford

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Stand up Comedian based in London.

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 4.

    Today is the fourth day of me taking Anti-depressants.  They’re not working yet and I’m ill so this combination makes my mood pretty shitty.  I’m trying to stay optimistic about everything but it is quite hard.  I’ve been watching inspiration/motivational videos of YouTube whilst simultaneously working out why none of them work for my life.  Which is probably not true but it’s always easier to give advice than to take it.  And it’s even easier to dismiss advice instantaneously and eat ice cream on the sofa in your dressing gown. Fact!

    The reason I started taking these pills is pretty simple, I want them to help me look at things logically and reasonably rather than crying and giving up on life.  I don’t do alone very well.  I can do it for small amounts of time but lets say I have to go for a long drive alone, that’s when my brain decides it’s the best time to analyze my life.  And tell me that because of the things I did (like stay in a job I hate for too long), or didn’t do (like try harder in school) that it’s probably not going to get easier and ending it is a plausible and reasonable option.  And thinking like that scares the shit out of me, I don’t want to think that way but your own mind has the power to convince you of anything if you let it.  I became wrapped in a loop of constantly pondering how fast time had gone, how little I’ve achieved, how far I am away from what I think I want in life, do I even really know what I want in life? I think I do.  I want these pills to essentially reset my brains irrationality meter.  I keeps going into overdrive and it’s clouding my judgement of reality.

    I know that a lot of people go through similar thoughts and feelings and part of me hopes that not only will I help myself by taking these pills, but that by documenting my mental progress in this blog that I can help or inspire others.  I guess it took me so long to start taking the pills because I felt like it was a form of giving up.  It felt like a failure on my part for not being strong enough to deal with my own life.  I hated this idea I had that taking pills was the first step in really admitting there was a problem with my brain.  But really I already knew there was a problem.  I wasn’t always like this, I wasn’t always depressed.  I didn’t like the change that had happened within me and that was the biggest problem.  I was in a circle where I hated my life and hated myself for letting my life get that way and I certainly didn’t think there was anything I could do about it.  I’ve broken away from that circle for now, but the problem with depression as I’ve experienced it, is that it comes and goes.  That’s where these pills came in .  I don’t want to go back to my lowest.  And I want these pills to raise the floor so I can’t.  Taking these pills isn’t giving up, it’s the opposite.  It’s fighting back.

    Tomorrow I have a job interview and a gig.  It will be day 5 of my journey on anti-depressants.  Hopefully I’m feeling better as well because I imagine turning up to a job interview with a runny nose and coughing up your lungs is probably not the best way to leave a good impression.

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

    Jake

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 3. “He’s Alive”

    Well, I’m not dead yet.  This flu is winning though.  Last night it kept me awake trying to choke me to death and this morning I found that I’d inadvertently thrown up a phlegm ball onto my shoe during a particularly furious bout of semi-conscious coughing.  Nice.

    So on top of my new happy pills, I’m also taking ALL the medicine.  I bought medicine I don’t even have the symptoms for on the basis that I need to be prepared just in case I do suddenly get an ear ache or a particularly heavy period.  When this flu hit me I had no medicine so day one felt like I was defending myself against an army furious bears with a pocket knife.

    Since the “My Life” part of this blog is currently on hold due to potentially fatal (who knows) influenza, only half the title is currently true.  I was meant to have a gig tonight but I’ve had to cancel due to struggling to be able to stand up let alone do the comedy part too.  And I’ve also been signed off my day job (the one I was already signed off for with depression but meant to be going back too yesterday) until Monday.  My life currently consists of going from sofa to bed, depending upon which is closer and less sweaty, to sleep.  Also I don’t want to gross you out too much but I’m fairly confident yesterday evening I pissed out my asshole.  So not really the kind of stuff you’d want to read about or I want to relive through the medium of blog.

    Whenever you’re ill and you see people who aren’t ill, like a friend or family or anyone who knows you, why do they always say “oh, don’t infect me” or “keep it to yourself” or some other shit like that.  If I had the power to pick and chose who I could infect with this do you really think that I’d be standing here wasting my time talking to you?  No! of course I wouldn’t. I’d be using my limited time to infect evil politicians with my weird power.  I’d be pathetically trying to raise my arms high enough to cast my flu spells on David Cameron and Donald Trump.  Not standing near some idiot who doesn’t seem to understand how viruses work.

    People say such dumb things and I’m ill so I’m going to rant about some more.  Like I joke about a lot of things, can’t help it and in fact I find a lot of the time it helps me get through some tough stuff like… oh I don’t know, a Monday.  So anyway,  I could be watching TV and some politician could come on talking about how stealing money from poor people is totally justifiable and I’ll be like “I hope they get mauled by a fucking angry badger”.  Then someone will say something like “Don’t say that, what if it came true?”  Like that would be a bad thing.  It wouldn’t, and I would feel like a God.

    Another thing is when people tell you to get home safely.  Like you have control over it, or if they hadn’t said it you’re going to start jumping across rooftops instead of taking the bus.  “Drive home safely”, Oh I’m glad you reminded me because I was just about to reverse the whole way.  It’s not like you get people saying things after someone gets mugged like “I don’t understand how this could have happened, I told them to get home safely”.

    And finally the expression “It’s easy when you know how”.  No shit.

    Tell me one thing that when you know how to do it, it gets harder, other than touching a penis.

    Hopefully you’ve enjoying my Day 3 entry.  I promise it’ll start being more “daily blog” style once my daily life kicks back in.  And again thanks everyone that liked my last two entries.  It means a lot that there are people enjoying what I’m writing.  It’s very rewarding and I haven’t felt anywhere near the level of depression I was at just a few days ago in terms of outlook on life.  Maybe that’s because my brain can’t process too heavy thoughts in its weakened state but I like to think it’s because the likes and followers make me happier.  Your happiness is my happiness so lets help each other out.

    Speak to you tomorrow.

     

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 2.

    Check me out, with my consistency.  I’m well aware two in a row is literally the least amount of consistency anything can have but if you knew how badly I fail at life when it comes to commitment then you’d realize how much of an achievement this is.

    Although keeping this up today has been made easier (I guess…) by the fact that I’m the most ill I’ve ever been in my life.  I didn’t know my body could ache this much and therefore I was in no shape to go back to work today after the aforementioned (in Day 1) break from employment due to emotional breakdowns combined with prolonged and suppressed depression.  Seriously, I think I may have the plague, It’s come back just to get me.  Typical, I start to try out a new, optimistic look on life enhanced by the power of modern medicine and then boom, struck down in my prime like a lion at the hand of a dentist’s trigger finger (topical… ish).  I’m thinking my likelihood of surviving this flu is about 50% so if I don’t make this then my dying wish is that Donald Trump is force fed blueberries until he turns blue and explodes like an obese, combustible smurf.

    Anyway, I digress, this blog, and my ability or future lack of ability to keep it up and therefore maintain my stroll along this pill pathway to euphoria is basically littered with countless hurdles in the form of past experience.  In my lifetime, the only thing I’ve ever stuck to is stand-up comedy.  And I’ve tried a lot of different things, here’s a compact list of just a few things I’ve attempted to learn in the hopes of finding some strange hidden talent:

    • Judo
    • Guitar
    • German
    • Keyboard
    • Harmonica
    • Beatboxing
    • Rapping
    • Ventriloquism
    • Magic
    • Ping Pong
    • Watercolors
    • Italian
    • Rollerblading
    • Skateboarding
    • BMX

    And that’s just a few of the random things I’ve spent money pursuing in the hopes of basically becoming very good very quickly, and although I didn’t become the Mozart of Beatboxing I can make a very convincing didgeridoo sound with my mouth now.  The thing is, I’ve gone into all these tasks listed above with the same budding optimism that I go with into this blog writing shenanigans.  But I think the reason I’ve failed at so many and succeeded at only stand up (I say succeeded in the sense that I haven’t quit and really that’s the same thing – that’s the drugs talking) is because of the instant feedback.  I crave, as most of us deep down do, the approval of others.  To know I’m contributing in someone else experiencing happiness is the greatest feeling in the world for me.  The laughter of a room of strangers after I’ve just told one of my jokes is like a million times more rewarding than any kickflip or spinny board thingy (I didn’t get far with skateboarding).

    So basically what I’m saying is feed my craving for love from strangers by liking and commenting.  On my last post, RoughLife4Sure did and it honestly made my day.  So shout out to you and thanks.  You’re awesome and so is your blog – check it out people.  And thanks to the others that liked and even the ones who just read.

    I hope you’ve enjoyed reading.  This has been day two of my life on anti-depressants and although I haven’t really felt any changes from the drugs yet, I am finding writing these very therapeutic.

    Auf Wiedersehen.

     

  • My Life; on Anti-Depressants

    Day 1.

    Hey there, this is a blog about my life on antidepressants, hence the title “My Life, on Anti-Depressants”.  I figure it’s mostly going to be the same as my regular life, but I’ll be on prescription drugs, how wonderful for you.

    Today is day one of taking said drugs, and really the only reason I’m doing this daily blog is to remind me to take them, well that and there is at least one person out there who enjoys it… maybe even gets inspired by it.

    But “why the drugs?” you ask.  Well a while back I basically got really sad because of that small annoyance we all call life.  I got really down and didn’t have a GP so I went to the hospital and the doctor there told me I needed therapy, anti-depressants and a GP to get those things.  I kid you not, he also told me I should try to find God.  Now I have nothing against religion or people who practice religion but that’s a terrible thing for a doctor to say.  I mean if I did believe in a God, I might have decided to try and meet them sooner.  I guess if you are a doctor and you believe in God, it might remove accountability.  If a patient dies during your surgery you could just be like “it wasn’t me, God did it!”

    Anyway, after the advice about finding God and a GP, I did both.  God is on Wikipedia so that was easy, but the GP took me around a year to get round to registering with.  I basically just suppressed my sadness, fears and frustrations, until they eventually came back and so that’s when I registered.  But I didn’t go to speak about my depressions for about another 6 months when once again, I’d broken down in tears thinking about how quickly life was moving, what was I doing with my life? What if I get stuck doing the things I hate?

    I finally went to the doctors and after several failed attempts to start taking them, I have decided that writing this blog is the best way to commit to this.  Although technically now I’m committing to twice as much and clearly I can’t commit to the ten seconds it takes to take anti-depressants in the first place so this is probably doomed to fail.

    Tomorrow is my first day back at work too, so that’s less time to write.  I kind of wish I’d started this way earlier.  Plus I haven’t told anyone in my family that I’m depressed so I may not even publish this.  I’ve been signed off work for the past month and a half so probably should have started taking my pills at the start and not when I’m about to go back into arguably one of the biggest triggers of my current mental health state.  oh well. Too late now.