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0800 58 58 58 THECALMZONE.NET UNITED AGAINST SUICIDE CALM is a registered charity in England & Wales no. 1110621 & Scotland no. SC044347
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James Hickman L.C. Gutiérrez Samina Parveen
ARTISTS & WRITERS
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Faye Larkin is a 21-year-old illustrator based in Dublin. She is currently studying in the National College of Art and Design, specialising primarily in illustration but with a keen interest in risograph, graphics and typography. Her style is constantly evolving and she continuously seeks inspiration from peers and the world around her. @faye.pdf
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“ALONE” ILLUSTRATION BY FAYE LARKIN
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Drawing was always a safe place to Lindsay, and a constant and passionate thread throughout her life. She has a BA in Fine Art Painting, a qualification in Mental Health Problems and PGCERT Teaching in Higher Education. Apart from teaching art to adults both face to face and online, she offers services in illustration. With a strong leaning toward emotions and mental health, her work is diversely metaphorical. @lindsay_tempest_artist
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“LUCKY VAINEESCAPE” ACRYLIC PAINTING BY LINDSAY TEMPEST
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/ 12 WHY I'M LEARNING TO STOP TREATING MY STORY AS CURRENCY BY EVE RADVILLE ALCOHOLISM / DOMESTIC VIOLENCE When you grow up with an alcoholic father, you are taught to pretend everything abnormal is normal, at all times. He’s gone missing for a weekend? Make sure no one knows. He’s drinking in the car again? Make sure the neighbours don’t see! Act normal, stay normal. It’s not a great approach. Growing up, apart from gritty dramas about the working class or dramedies like Shameless, I only remember one instance of seeing someone reflect on their childhood with an alcoholic. Like most people my age in the UK, I was watching Friends every day after school, (it was always on) when one of the main characters, Ross, got incredibly drunk because he felt uncomfortable that his ex girlfriend, Rachel, was now dating his best friend, Joey. At one point one of them turns to Charlie (Ross’s current girlfriend) and asks, “Are you okay?” and she laughs, “Oh it’s fine, my father was a RAGING alcoholic!” When everyone looks uncomfortable she snaps, “Oh I’m sorry, does that bother you?”. That one moment in a cheesy sitcom has stayed with me for over ten years. It’s the only time I have ever seen anyone casually reference what is, for many people, a part of childhood - but something that those children spend so much of their lives trying to hide.
The reality For a lot of my adolescence, my mental health was dictated by the state of my dad’s addiction. He would quit for a few weeks, returning to his charming enigmatic self, and we would all breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe this time would be different. Because he was charming. And fun. And wonderful in a lot of ways. I would feel my heart soar, fill with an indescribable joy as now and then, my dad came back from the dead. But it was never for long. At first, he was drunk for a week every month. Then it was two weeks. So it goes. Slowly, but surely, he was poisoned until he was completely unrecognisable and the humanity was sucked out of him. That’s what happens to alcoholics who never stop drinking. The poison takes over. When things escalated beyond the point I can bear to write about (we’re talking a near arson murder scenario), and the kindly social worker looked at me, sitting ashenfaced in the living room where I had watched my mum cry on the sofa for years, and my father break things piece by piece until he was certain that her heart was broken, too - when she looked at my grey, sad face and asked me if I’d like to be referred for some counselling, a part of me thought that maybe everything would be solved.
Diana Amendt is originally from Siberia, but currently based in Stuttgart, Germany where she lives, works, enjoys, laughs, paints and loves, as much as the current situation allows. Her art deals with states of consciousness, from the macro and micro perspective. In her creative process she works with different techniques and expressions, mainly focussing on a mixture of acrylic pouring and surreal elements. @diana_amendt_art
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“LIGHT STORM” (2020) ACRYLPOURING ON CANVAS BY DIANA AMENDT
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/ 14 The aftermath When the counsellor first told me I might have PTSD, I remember finding the idea laughable. I’m not a war veteran, I’m just someone who jumps out of their skin any time they hear a loud noise, like a car backfiring or a low-flying plane, or starts shaking and crying if someone shouts really loudly near them. At this point in my life, I no longer felt much. A girl at school I didn’t particularly like told people I was emotionally dead. Sadly, a part of me felt proud - I had been sad and described as ‘sensitive’ for so long, that I thought that maybe my brain had finally fixed itself. Toughened up. I would imagine a brick wall around me which nothing could penetrate. It reassured me to think of myself as someone who could no longer be hurt. In reality, I was more fragile than ever, as my surroundings, no matter how safe, always felt dangerous. For instance, I would get triggered any time there was an open door in the room I was in. It made me feel unsafe. It drew memories of my dad trying to get in, and me trying my hardest to stop him so that I could protect my mum. I couldn’t protect anyone if the door was open, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that a threat would come in. It got to the point where as someone who was normally quiet, shy and introverted, I would get up in the middle of lessons at school and close the door, not taking no for an answer. I needed to feel safe, somewhere.
“PICKING UP THE PIECES” ILLUSTRATION BY LINDSAY TEMPEST
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Over the years, I started to recover, but the tricky part was telling people I have PTSD. Or might have PTSD - the two therapists I’ve seen, ten years apart, seem to be divided on that one, which could be a sign of the strength of my recovery. Either way, something still isn’t normal and PTSD seems to be a descriptor that people understand. In the past, I was terrified of telling people. The association with PTSD is that you’re crazy. People use it as a throw-away term, too, so it can also feel like you’re being tongue in cheek, or worse, making up a condition. “That meeting was so bad, I have PTSD!”. The language surrounding anything to do with PTSD is full of mockery for those who aren’t ‘war heroes’. Ever noticed how the word ‘triggered’ stopped being a useful mental health term by which you could sign post people to the stupid shit that sets off your broken brain, and became a joke?
‘
“In the past, I was terrified of telling other people. The association with PTSD is that you are crazy”
It doesn’t help when your triggers are ridiculous. One of mine, hilariously, is the song ‘Run’ by Snow Patrol, which makes me feel like some kind of softboi trying to shit on soft pop rock. Just thinking about the song can make it play incessantly in my head, driving me to tears, feelings of panic, and sleepless nights for weeks on end. I haven’t had the strength to explore this one, but I suspect it’s a song I listened to a lot when I would come home after school and patiently wait for the police to arrive and pick up my dad, collapsed outside the house, in breach of his restraining order, again. The discourse around triggers has made it difficult to tell people that I have triggers, because I might as well be telling them that I’m a ‘snowflake’ desperately seeking a ‘safe space’. Telling people I get triggered by a relatively enjoyable and harmless bit of Britpop from over a decade ago certainly feels like a recipe for disaster.
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/ 16 Very few people know the full story, and those that do have been told because I trust them or because I needed them to know that I have very good reasons for banning Snow Patrol from playing in the house. But I have now realised that this level of secrecy, in itself, is a dangerous road. Writing this piece has been the closest I have ever come to fully reflecting on what happened to me, and outside of the understandable impact on my mental health, one of the ways in which this has changed me is my understanding of friendships. Whenever I have told people about my past and my childhood, it’s because I have thought they would stay in my life for a long time, maybe even forever. It’s a way of sharing a part of myself that, to me, means I can be true to who I am in my friendships. I don’t have to hide my past, so I can be fully myself. But as some of those friendships have since broken up or disintegrated, I have realised I have been sitting with feelings of betrayal. The pain of someone not wanting to know me after I have revealed so much about myself often feels insurmountable and has led me to cling desperately to friendships which weren’t good for me or the other person involved. A part of me is constantly drawn back to my childhood, filled with fear - if we’re not friends anymore, they might tell. The idea of other people knowing still fills me with dread. After all, the first rule of children of alcoholics club is don’t talk about the alcoholics. Being taught to hide what happened to me for so long has made me treat my story as currency. If I tell you, it’s because we’ll be friends forever. By sharing this, now, I want to break the cycle. You, reader, stranger, are as worthy of knowing who I am as anyone I randomly choose. I have made this information hold a level of power it doesn’t deserve. And it’s not fair to create the expectation that just because you know a little about
my deepest darkest past, you will love me for who I am. And whether you like me or not, this secret - now public - will no longer define me.
“After all, the first rule of children of alcoholics club is don´t talk about the alcoholics”
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‘GRIEF’ OIL ON WOOD BY EVE RADVILLE
Eve Radville is a charity communications professional, writer and artist based in London. Previously published in the Huffington Post and the Guardian, she is interested in politics and amplifying the voices of the marginalised and vulnerable in society in her press and fact-based work. In her artwork and creative prose, however, she enjoys playing with the fine line between a dark sense of humour and the darkness within. @eveofradville
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“SARC CHASM” 2021, DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION BY BEN MEREDITH Demonstratios later moved to the city’s Albert Square
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Ben Meredith is an artist and lecturer based in Newport, Wales. He loves sketchbooks, embroidery, Procreate, drawing, urban sketching and learning anything that makes him less sucky. He leans towards process-based art, work that provokes a reaction and/or kicks him in the feels. His future is hopefully a lifetime of sketchbooks, teaching, life drawing, collaborating, posting and getting his artwork into your grubby little hands. Alongside his creativity and professional pursuits he is a proud father, average husband and quite good guitarist. @b.e.nm
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Gaslight BY LISA KRAWCZYK
The poem was lost. Written in the hospital about the warden who kept the door open as you urinate. Written on a paper towel; paper is a lethal weapon. No privacy during the one-on-ones. The trust, the dignity society stripped away from you. There’s no way to replicate that feeling, the saline. The gown won’t stay closed. Your heartrate 150 bpm. Calm down, a voice of someone who doesn’t know what it’s like. Dignity stripped away from every angle. Saline against the tongue. Salty. You’re dehydrated, hungry, and tired. Pita chips were all they had for vegetarians. Peanut butter and crackers. You can’t stomach them. You call your lover on the phone. He doesn’t understand. It took hours to get his number. He will do whatever it takes to make himself look good. An aesthetic. You are an aesthetic. And look—he notes how pathetic you look when you get home. Your heartrate never decreased. Your heartrate doesn’t know better than you. Calm down. Breathe. You will be going home soon to a different nightmare. You won’t know calm. Try to remember.
Lisa Krawczyk is a poet originally from Milwaukee, and is currently quarantined and viciously writing in Philadelphia. Their poetry has been published in Lullwater Review, Esthetic Apostle, Levitate, and has forthcoming publications in the West Review and the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. @urbanislander
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The Hospital BY LISA KRAWCZYK
Remember oozing from your hands and thighs the distinctive orange-grey chemical stench that sticks to your teeth, hugs your cheeks. Your face is a statue, an eerie smile. You insides rot in disgust. Your back attempts to hunch in protest to existence as an arch or a question mark. The bed is an inch from the ground, yet you float and spin against the tiled ceiling (there is no ceiling fan). Turn out the lights and close your eyes, be swept aside until the morning shift awakens you with a needle jab or vital’s check. Loud beeps and tight arm squeeze —the signs you are somehow still alive— will usher horizon’s break of dawn. Your neck feels worms slither toward your useless head. A nurse pops in your open door: clockwork of a psych ward in fifteen minutes. (Don’t ask for help, swiftly they move to the next room silent, as you lay). Drift away to sleep, everything’s fine.
“EVERYTHING’S FINE”
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Born in a provincial town in Russia in 1999, Sergey is currently studying at the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow and trying to make it as a writer. @kafkaonwheelz
Unravel
“HEADLANDS” CYANOTYPES BY NATALIA TCHERNIAK
BY SERGEY GUSEV
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Chesterton said that a suicide is worse than a murder: where murder only kills one person, suicide destroys a whole world.
When you make a decision to kill yourself, you judge the world guilty, you make a stand against the legitimacy of existence. You oppose the very notion of being by opting out of it. When you kill yourself, you state that life is not worth living and that you would rather not live at all than change anything in your life. The wounds suicide leaves on close ones are so deep because they have a metaphysical nature: the whole world is upside down all of a sudden, and existence – something barely anybody thinks of, like breathing or blinking – is put to the front for a ponderous scrutiny, and the observer only finds a blank slate painted to suit people’s daily needs: we believe what we want to believe about life and everything amounts to nothing. Three suicide attempts later you abandon the hope to ever live like a decent human being. You have dared to step beyond this world and no longer belong to it: you are now in the jurisdiction of death. The worst is that you keep wondering if you’d be better off dead and secretly know that you in fact would. No, that’s not the worst. That would be words. Words are impotent to describe a tenth part of what you feel, but everybody keeps asking you, and you keep asking yourself. There’s no vocabulary for these feelings, like a predator yet unnamed because he killed everybody who ever saw him. You’re stuck between a desolate cry and a dictionary that has failed to translate it. “No pills,” I said. I don’t want to stuff my brain with happy chemicals when my mind is so obviously declaring they don’t belong there. I don’t want to depend on anything in this life, even on life itself. It turns out I don’t really need it after all. I mean, if I live, I live. If not, well, you know. It’s not that you never asked to be born. Nobody did, and yet they have no problem going on. You have a problem. It’s the feeling of alienation that creeps in first. There’s something wrong with me. I feel more like an autumn leaf in the wind than a human being.
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I don’t trust shrinks. The first one I had said to me:
“Do you know about Jesus Christ?”
By then I’d read a dozen or more books on theology and history of religion. “Yeah, and most likely way more than you do”
I didn’t say that. I just replied: “Yes”. I felt sorry for the shrink. He was sincere and helpless. We both wished he could help me and both soon knew that it was not going to happen. I don’t think Jesus himself could’ve taken me out of the pit where I have discovered myself. He did take the good people out of hell when he was dead for three days, you know, the ones that were righteous but couldn’t get to heaven because Adam messed it all up. I mean, Jesus could’ve taken me out of hell, but hell remained way above where I was. When you are depressed, hell feels like mercy. The second shrink I had was a part of a military commission or something. So yeah, I spilled my guts to him. The first attempt in detail. The second one, just a day before I talked to him, too. My mother crying in the hallway because her beloved son turned out to have it harder than most. I nearly cried myself. All the time he looked at me like I was full of shit, that lenient half-smile on his face. When I was finished, he said: “You are just trying to draw attention. You’d like to die and watch all
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your close ones at your burial crying for you” That was the only time in my non-aggressive and calm life when I genuinely wanted to beat the shit out of a person, as fat a bastard as he was. I thought of it for a moment. Mother whimpering quietly outside the office. I was really angry. Now I wish I had done it. It always happens the same way: you try to be rational and after a year or two of reflection you realize you should’ve been impulsive and stupid for once in your life. It is the absence of a goal that really gets to you. Others want something. You just want to be alone. And when you are alone, you want to disappear. Just cease to exist. It’s difficult and easier than it looks – both at the same time. Depends on how lucky or unlucky you are. You could remain crippled for the rest of your life. That’s one of the worst fears for every would-be suicide. Precision matters. You need to be certain there’s nothing that could possibly go wrong. I even found this cute detail: if you google ways of suicide, you’ll see a number of sites at the top that describe everything that could go wrong in every painful detail. That worked with me for some time and then it didn’t. Now that I think of it, hopelessness frees you. But the weight is heavy. Every time you meet a person and you shake hands and you hear something like “Charlie, manager” you want to answer “Me, a suicide”. Every time you crack jokes at the table or receive female attention it’s like you are an impostor hiding your history of relationship with death. Like you are cheating on death with a life to whom you no longer have any connection. It’s a game of pretend, but there’s no way around it. Other people pretend to be better than they are, why can’t a suicidal person pretend to be witty and charming?
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Every attempt takes a piece of you away. Most people never notice. Some do. They’ll never ask it directly, but they’ll notice and make conclusions. It shows. When you laugh or when you talk and especially when you drink. I remember my twentieth birthday. My friends were waiting for me in the bar. It was just some weeks after my third attempt. I got really drunk really fast. I puked, but it didn’t get better. I felt like shit. Then for some alcohol induced reason I just kept whispering to myself: “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here…”. After that I have always watched how much I drank so that something like this would never happen again. It happened anyway, though. When I get drunk, every little trauma I have swept under the carpet possesses me and I can no longer bear myself. You remember who you really are: a failed human and a failed suicide. There’s freedom in this, however. You know that nothing and no one has power over you as long as you can kill yourself. This breeds responsibility. Freedom always does. When you are free, you are the only one responsible for your actions, and that teaches you to behave and think for yourself. When you try to end your life and fail, in the aftermath you see that somehow your priorities and values are crystal clear now. This doesn’t make the thing easier, but I’m just trying to be positive. There’s enough negativity already for me to add. I don’t think I will ever be cured. I don’t think I will die a natural death. I don’t think I will live long. I don’t think anybody around me will ever really understand. All of this doesn’t matter, like life. I just want to tell my story while I can. For some reason that’s the only thing that really keeps me going. I feel like I have a duty to capture every memory, every feeling, everything about myself in great detail. It is as if I’m leaving a text version of myself behind for the time when I am no longer around, whenever would that be.
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Perhaps I am deluding myself. But I will write what I have to write. There’s nothing else I would ever want to do beside that. Just put down everything that has a glittering sense of significance to me. I know how stupid it sounds, but it’s true. That’s another advantage of being close to death – you don’t lie. Why would you? Life is too short even for the truth. I don’t want to lie. I want to tell the story of myself, I want to unravel myself for the life I am leaving, I want to open up like a blooming flower. And when I’m done, well. You know.
Natalia Tcherniak is a visual artist, set designer and alternative photography printmaker, occasionally exhibiting locally in Toronto, and internationally in the UK and USA. Her work has been selected to be part of several international juried group exhibitions and fairs. Natalia also moonlights as a licenced architect, working on mixed-use and health care projects across Canada. @nattchbob
“ALONE” BY FAYE LARKIN
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BY DOMINIC THOMAS
Dominic is a librarian, writer and musician from South Wales. Poetry and songwriting are his main creative outlets, although he also dabbles in scriptwriting. He is the co-editor of VAINE alongside his partner Siria. @d.thomas.writing
I would like to talk about the dread, The one that lurks in mirrors And creeps up like Sunday afternoons At the end of a week. Does it conspire to undo us, in the end? Or should it simply be ignored, Like the winter’s dreadful hate? Many days have I dwelled in its presence Dulled out by its glare. Sometimes it’s like Living with an elephant, in secret Sometimes it’s like A vice around the brain, And thoughts, shrunken, Sit stuck on the things I cannot change.
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Louise is a 23-year-old graphic designer and illustrator based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Most of her collage is created from daydreams and vivid imagination and normally the output is something odd, which she loves. @pretty.odd.designs
“SCREENEYES” COLLAGE BY LOUISE MCCOMISKEY
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“NEMESIS #2” ILLUSTRATION BY FAYE LARKIN
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BY LOUISE LONGSON
I am here in body, but not in mind. It’s like a scene from a film where the actor stands still and everything else moves really fast. There’s a lacuna between thinking and putting thoughts into motion. I am told by professionals that it won’t last. It’s like living in treacle, but doesn’t taste sweet. My mouth is dry, my intestines turn to concrete. I cannot follow a thought to its conclusion. A sentence is started never coming to an end. There’s only so much of this I can take. One-hundred-and-twenty milligrams is about enough, though. For two years a void; strong emotions, held in a vacuum until my mind is cleaner. A point at which the pain has gone. Perception becomes keener. I am clear. I begin to amortize my deadened self to life. I make a decision. I leave the packets of bitter pills alone, on a high shelf, on top of a pile of books where they gather the dust that was me.
Louise Longson lives in West Oxfordshire. She has been published by One Hand Clapping, Fly on the Wall and Dreich. A qualified psychotherapist specialising in trauma and enduring mental health issues, she is currently working with those distressed by loneliness and social isolation. Recently, she has finally cleared enough of her own head-space to pursue her writing in earnest. @LouisePoetical
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interview with Nigel Evans Nigel Evans is a recently retired NHS psychiatrist from South Wales. Since his retirement he has dedicated his time to painting. His painting ‘King of the World at Last’ was featured in the first issue of VAINE. We decided to catch up with him again for this issue to talk about his experience of working in the field of mental health.
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What is your experience of mental health in your professional life?
Working as a psychiatrist places you in a very privileged and unique position as you find yourself trusted with the most private details of an individual’s life and psyche. By the nature of the work you are witness to people experiencing profound and disturbing emotions, frightening perceptions and distressing thoughts which influence their behaviours and social relationships. To witness someone struggling with severe depression or a disturbing psychosis is emotionally challenging but is
tempered by the knowledge that as a psychiatrist there are things you and the wider team can do to help. It takes time at the beginning of your training to slowly find your own way to manage your emotional reaction to such experiences. This is done by a process of peer support and supervision by senior colleagues and is an ongoing reflective learning experience throughout your working life. Having positive supportive relationships helps inside and outside of work.
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“Admission to hospital can be a frightening and traumatic experience so should be avoided where possible. We work through a principle of intervention in the least restrictive manner and in the best interest of the patient. “ I’ve found it essential to have interests outside of medicine - music, film, mountains to name a few – as this allows you to switch attention from the stresses and strains of work and recuperate. One of the great stressors for psychiatric staff is when a patient dies by suicide. Mental health staff will have known some service users for many years so it can be particularly difficult if the doctor has known the patient and their family for a long time.
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How do psychiatrists deal with the responsibility of determining the right care for someone who is in poor mental health?
In my experience psychiatrists tend to be on the more empathic, open minded and socially liberal end of personality attributes so find themselves in something of a paradoxical position at times when, in order to ensure treatment is given, an individual is deprived of their liberty via the Mental Health Act and admitted to hospital. Detention in hospital is not a situation that psychiatrists would wish to happen and we endeavour to manage most situations outside of hospital and it is worth remembering that the number of people treated in hospital is very much a tiny minority of people with mental health problems. Admission to hospital can be a frightening and traumatic experience so should be avoided where possible. We work through a principle of intervention in the least restrictive manner and in the best interest of the patient. Our professional bodies have become more attuned to supporting staff and help is more available than it was when I was in training.
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How do you feel the provision of mental health services compare to other fields of medicine?
During the Covid pandemic there has been much written in the medical press about the concept of “moral distress” amongst health staff where decisions about patients’ care are being made so far outside of the normal practice due to severe resource constraints and workload pressures that clinicians are struggling with consequences of the decisions they are forced to make.
I think a case can be made that psychiatrists have felt some of this for many years, albeit at a less intense level. Mental health services have been severely underfunded for many years in a way that would be totally unacceptable for other branches of medicine. Patients continue to be admitted in some places to old, barely fit for purpose buildings which would not be tolerated in general medicine. Staffing levels are often minimally adequate both in hospital and in the community. Access to psychological therapies is still too limited. The provision of good quality, timely rehabilitation services remains too inaccessible.
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There is often limited access to meaningful psychosocial care in the community and limited supported housing projects to facilitate timely discharge from hospital. It has been difficult at times to watch patients’ wellbeing suffer due to the lack of access to services that would help them. There are also strong correlations between social adversity, social inequality and poor health, so there are many factors outside the control of psychiatric staff that have major detrimental effects on service users’ wellbeing, that can only be addressed at a societal and political level.
04.
How have things changed in your field throughout your career?
A big change in practice since I started in psychiatry has been a slow reduction in hospital beds and the development of services to prevent admission to hospital via home treatment and crisis interventions teams.
This has helped to change the focus of treatment from hospital to the community but inpatient services became somewhat neglected in the process and patients’ experience suffered as a result.
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Other specialist services have also developed and whilst this allows a development of expertise, it can present the service user with a seemingly unfathomable organisation which is difficult to navigate and at times difficult to access. In recent years, service users, their families and allies have become more proactive in demanding change to services and this helps to influence decision making, but there is still a long way to go.
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How has the patient/doctor relationship changed over that time? The greater involvement of service users in their care is one of the biggest changes I have seen during my time as a doctor. When I started to work in 1989 the practice of medicine was much more paternalistic, whereby the doctor would be seen as an expert decision maker and patients’ views on treatment canvassed less. There has been a shift to working more collaboratively with service users in that treatment options are considered taking into account the values and views of the patient. This is especially true of longstanding conditions where the patient develops a deep understanding of a health problem through their lived experience. There are tensions here at times, especially in mental health, where an individual’s capacity to discuss treatment may fluctuate. The aim here is to formulate plans during periods of wellness regarding how to manage future episodes should they occur.
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What is your perspective on the way mental health issues are treated and understood in the UK and other Western cultures? Do you think it is overly-medicalised?
There are a variety of service user-led groups and allied health professionals that are critical of psychiatry as it is commonly practiced believing it to have medicalised aspects of human experience for which solutions should be sought in other spheres. It is difficult as a general adult psychiatrist to accept these arguments fully but we need to find some common ground from which to maintain constructive dialogue. We are neither just our biology or just our social construct but some complicated interaction of genes, biology, early life experience, social environment, exposure to substances, interpersonal relationships and current life circumstance. Treatment and support should take into account all of these factors and ignoring any one of these does service users a disservice.
o be t r a e p p a y we l e t a n u ty t e i r c o s d e s “Unfo i olar p y r e v a by d e t a b living in r e c t, exa n e m o m e ment n o r i at th v n e media l a i c o s c i x to e m a to o s y b l usa and a ref torical injustice his p e e d e s i n our n i recog s n o i t a c mifi and its ra s.” e v i l t n e r cur
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How do you think society in general can come to a greater understanding of mental health? Or remove taboos?
Stigma remains a significant issue despite lots of work to examine and understand its origins and effect change. Attitudes are slowly changing over time thanks in part to campaigns such as Time to Change. Their website is a useful resource for people to look at and become involved with. Participation in education and policy development has an important part to play in changing attitudes. Positive role models have an important part to play to demonstrate that most people recover well and to instil hope. Ultimately mental health services are made up of individuals who reflect the values and views of the society in which they reside, therefore measures to educate people properly, promote respect for each other despite our different beliefs and values, and reduce inequality and exclusion within wider society are essential.
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Sadly some of those people are in positions of power and attempt to harness this division to maintain their position. Populist governments around the world also have the worst records on protecting their populations from deaths from coronavirus.
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Speaking of Covid, how do you think the lockdowns have affected people's mental health?
Exactly how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the nations’ mental health is uncertain. I am worried about the effect of the absence from school for many children, not only on their educational attainment but on their social and emotional development so we could be storing up very significant problems for a generation of children. There is some evidence of an increase in reports of self-harm and eating disorders in children and adolescents. Deaths due to alcohol also increased in the UK last spring. Overall the pandemic has exacerbated and highlighted the significant social inequalities in the UK and is likely to make them worse given the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on health as already highlighted.
“BEN MEREDEATH VOL.2” DIGITAL DRAWING BY BEN MEREDITH
We have certainly not all been in this together, as the deaths of BAME people have demonstrated, meanwhile in the current UK Cabinet 65% went to fee paying schools (the national average for below 16 is 7% and 16-18 is 18%). I think righteous anger is the only sane response in these circumstances.
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What role does art play in mental health issues?
How the arts relate to mental health depends on how the question is framed. There is good evidence that participation in creative activities promotes improvement and recovery from a variety of anxiety, depression and trauma based problems probably through such factors as social inclusion, promotion of autonomy, installation of hope, boosting confidence and self esteem through purposeful pleasurable activity, and the pre-processing of formerly
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chaotic and disorganised thoughts and feelings into a more coherent understandable experience. The relationship between the artist, their art and their mental health is very complicated with a lot of the discussion focused on retrospective analysis of notable individuals’ biographies. Are all arts the same? If there is a consistency of psychological profile for novelists, is this the same for poets, painters, jazz musicians, concert pianists, composers or mime artists? Are there some common factors for all creative artists? How to explain great artists of seeming psychological equanimity? Prospective studies tend to be small in number, focus on specific groups and rely on self-selection or self-reporting which makes it hard to eliminate bias and to generalise any findings.
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10.
How has your own artistic practice helped you in your own life?
I have always enjoyed music in various forms, I read as regularly as my concentration allows, I avidly watched films as a younger person with a tendency to the macabre and weird and still do, I have enjoyed theatre and visual art more as I have got older. My work has always required pretty intense interpersonal contact, high emotional expression and lots of talking. I think that non-verbal art forms help to declutter the mind of the incessant chatter and emotional arousal experienced at work. I’ve started to paint in recent years, which again bypasses verbal expression, although I’ve found that some thought about composition before you start makes for a better outcome.
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/ 42 It’s been an interesting experience choosing what to paint, then seeing what comes out at the end of the process, whilst reflecting on the relationship between the object painted to myself as a painter and my emotional response to the finished work. In addition, there is the very act of laying down the paint which has a pleasurable physicality to it whilst attempting to learn various techniques in the process.
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What are the most important things that people should do to look after their mental health? With respect to good mental health it is difficult to generalise a prescription to suit all, as an individual’s risk varies with their family history, their biological inheritance, early life experience and current life circumstances so specific risk assessment would be needed for specific circumstances. One thing that has impressed me during the length of my career is the resilience and fortitude of many of our patients who have had difficult experiences, sometimes living with distressing symptoms for prolonged periods whilst continuing to live in difficult circumstances.
However, there are general measures to maintain wellbeing. We know that good supportive relationships are generally protective and promote recovery. Living life will always throw up stresses and strains, being able to recognise this is a starting point and I would recommend that people find ways to identify problems, attempt to remedy them where possible and find ways to manage stress at an early point in a non-harmful way. Most people do most of these things adequately most of the time of course. Exercise is good for most mental health issues and improves physical wellbeing. Use alcohol sensibly. Find satisfying and purposeful occupation - some of which may include getting involved in movements to effect positive societal change.
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Seeking help sooner rather than later when needed also helps. I suspect that may sound rather banal but the basics of looking after yourself probably are not that complicated. The difficulty is putting it into practice whilst navigating a path through an uncertain world, especially if battling poverty, difficult life experiences and later life discrimination at which point it is probably easier said than done alone but better if supported and sustained by positive relationships. “ASYLUM IN WINTER” OIL ON CANVAS BY NIGEL EVANS
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MISSING SHADOW, BROKEN MIRROR BY SAMINA PARVEEN
If we repeat something again and again and again It’s value decreases. Swallow the truth with sugar coat, it seeps into the body radiating it the poison, hollowed every bone. crushing every cell to ashes. I was told that I am not good I am not good I am not good I believed. I buried my innocence in a cascade Swallowed my past life, burnt my veiling dreams If we repeat something again and again and again We start believing it’s true. I was told to do what others do. I did. I did. Seriously I did? I believed. Evacuated my castle, crushing the paper boats Tore the sweater I weaved If we repeat something again and again and again It affects your mind, hostage of glass chamber of floating restrictions you don’t know who imposed, you are compelled to follow. Compromising something for no one. I was told that differences existed from birth I wasn’t born with my thoughts. You shaped the pot, made it half hollow. When consciousness entered there, it was unnourished, scattered, but it was imperative. Creativity peeped rose from its grave. I tried to light a match in the rain, it didn’t work. Ambitious creativity survived, incarnation came alive If we repeat something again and again and again It changes our lives. Mind your words. I collected the shattered glasses, unlocked my castle, threw away the veil, built paper boats, wove my sweater. And now I don’t believe what whispers birds tell, I should follow the screams of my heart Again and again and again I won’t repeat.
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Samina is a young artist, poet, graphic designer, writer, and YouTuber. In her free time, she likes to play the piano, make short films, and write poems. She has published her pieces in various magazines like Ice Lolly Review, Potted Purple, In the Write Blog, All Ears India, Bloom Magazine, Hearth Magazine, Overachievers Magazine, Star-Gazette Magazine, and many more. She is the Founder & Editor and Graphic Designer at Inertia Teens and Graphic Designer, Web Manager, and Marketing at Star-Gazette. @samina2005.2020
Illustration by Siria Ferrer
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EXPENSIVE PEE BY L. C. GUTIÉRREZ
Small precious things. Protected in plastic bottles and cotton packed in vials, prescription and OTC. Lint proof, tamper proof and child proofed, easy single dose blister pack dispensers. Germ free. Expiry date, used and best by, best buy daily dosage. Dr Paul and Dr Bob and Dr Jekyll. Betty Ford’s nightmare. Medicine cabinet, pursed glove box, breast pocket. Full, empty, dwindling. Too few, too many, not enough. Needing shaking trembling. Cry. Dispense carefully onto palm of hand or a flat clean surface. Grasp carefully with thumb and index finger or pop directly into mouth from palm with one quick motion. Follow with water, wine or cocktail. Feel, feel different, or don’t feel. Sleep. Fall into your hand like jewels. They mingle hermetic, identical. Shared prospectus and pedigree, designed to produce each one a predictable peace. Pert, perfect and precise in dosage, to the milligram. Who could fall for a generic with these beauties, individually stamped, sheeny, relished? A proper popper pill, for pain or for sane. Ritual. For you they break a tiny terrible seal; a lit match tossed in dry timberlands. Spiritual wildfire. Unquenchable.
L.C. Gutiérrez is a product of many places in the South and the Caribbean, as well as writing and comparative literature programs at LSU and Tulane University (PhD). An erstwhile academic, he now writes, translates, edits and plays trombone in Madrid, Spain. His work is most recently published or forthcoming in Cajun Mutt Press and Big Windows Review.
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“NEMESIS #1” ILLUSTRATION BY FAYE LARKIN
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Simon Linder is an illustrator and Animator from Innsbruck in Tyrol, Austria. He has been drawing and painting since childhood and has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Animation. He is very interested in interactive media, especially videogames. Art has always been a way for him to express and reflect on his own mental health. He also likes to trim hedges. @simlolinder
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On the Rocks Road Freedom from Alcohol BY JULIE BARNES
Julie Barnes was born and raised in the UK and now lives in Seattle, USA, with her husband, son and dog.
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At eighteen, I paid £10 for a spookily accurate birth chart report. I was excited to get insight about my personality and future. When I received the reading, I read that my sun sign was an introverted Virgo, which was unsurprising. However, I also learned that my moon sign, the ruler of my emotions and fears, is in Leo, and therefore deep down I am much more confident than seems apparent, especially with booze down my throat– my source of power. My heart skipped a beat after reading that I was going to be addicted to alcohol. Had I really read that right? I immediately stopped reading it and never laid eyes on it again. I was certainly not about to shape myself according to what I had read, but still, it haunted me. *** As time went on, I forgot about the chart and started living my life. In my late teens, a lot of my social activities involved going out with my girlfriends. To get ready, we would have fun listening to chart music, doing each other’s hair and makeup and trying on outfits. The preteen, sober Julie never took centre stage. Suddenly I was happy and fearless and having a great time. Getting tipsy before leaving the house gave us a head start and saved money. We continued drinking vodka and orange in bars and clubs until the early hours. I felt invincible as I danced on the top stage. Alcohol even enabled me to venture onto a London catwalk, modelling for a big hair show. Of course, nights like this came with a price the following day. Yet no matter how atrocious the lethargy and headaches from my hangover were, it never occurred to me to drink less or stop altogether.
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/ 52 As much as I mostly enjoyed what I did, I struggled with existential depression. I had never found my true calling. I pursued different careers, all of which I was passionate about at the time, until my interest died. Then there would be a cycle of crisis until I found my next desired profession. Each time the depression would slowly lift, and I would feel temporarily renewed. I also started needing a glass of wine to relax after a nonstop busy day. Yet however much I drank, I never felt peace of mind. *** When I was thirty, I met the man who would become my husband. He is from northern Italy. He is scientifically minded, rational, strait-laced and does not drink. This never really bothered me, and fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on which way you look at it), my drinking was not a big issue for him at the time. In 2007, after being a couple for less than a year, we moved across the pond to San Francisco. I had a habit of going with my gut and not thinking things through thoroughly beforehand. We were smitten with each other, so I rolled with it and left everyone and everything I had ever known. Due to our relationship status and his visa, I was not entitled to work or even study in the US. I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands alone. Domesticity as a full-time job was new to me, and it didn’t stimulate me. So, to make this duty more pleasurable, a daily pre-cooking ritual began: I applied perfume, poured myself a glass of wine and turned on some music. This routine may sound wonderful (and often it was), but all was far from perfect. I grieved the loss of my independence, my identity, my family and my old friends. In November the following year, we got married and my immigration status improved. I was still not allowed to work but could at least study for academic qualifications. I pursued degrees in Italian and English literature. During my final year I became pregnant. I gave birth to our son a few months before my graduation.
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“LOVE VAINEGHOSTING” DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION BY SIMON LINDER
“The preteen, sober Julie never took centre stage. Suddenly I was happy and fearless and having a great time”
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As soon as I became a mother, things regressed. I had postnatal depression and other health problems related to the birth. I lacked relatives in the US to support or help me. I was completely clueless in my new role. The unknown territory was rough, and I couldn’t ever switch off. I was exhausted.
all. On more than one occasion, I arrived at his preschool in tears and hours late because he would not cooperate. Often, I almost had to pin him down to get him dressed, as he was kicking and screaming so much. Remaining calm, deflecting with humour, showing empathy and negotiating did not work. It took hours for him to No surprise that I thought calm himself down; he I needed some wine at was so worked up. Half the end of the day. I bethe time it was easier “Even lieved it was my reward. for me to give in to his I even got my lactation requests so I didn’t though I made it consultant to persuathrough cancer, my alcohol have to deal with the de my husband verbafits. Naively I thought habit remained. I needed a lly and in writing that wine would relieve my glass of wine to feel I was allowed a genestress—I was a wreck.. rous glass every night.
normal”
He had begun to dislike my drinking. He said wine made me say things and behave in ways I later regretted. He was right. It did. However, he could see how stressed out I was, so he put his tail between his legs and backed down. ***
My son had extreme tantrums from the age of two to four and a half, meltdowns that lasted hours whenever he was tired or didn’t get what he wanted, and sometimes it seemed for no reason at
***
A couple of years later, my sister’s husband left her broke and alone with her sons. The thought of her being in this awful situation was too much to bear. Because of my lack of healthy coping mechanisms, the bubble burst and a breakdown materialized. My body started violently shaking from head to foot, and I began hyperventilating. Her situation made me relive my parents’ divorce, which I had never processed as a child. My nervous system got stuck, and I was una-
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ble to make sense of what happened. For decades I had struggled with upsetting emotions, memories and anxiety from that event and others throughout my life. In October 2019, I paid a visit to my primary care physician for an annual wellness exam. After we had discussed my current health issues, I commented that I was grateful I did not have a disease that was life-threatening. My doctor then carried out a manual breast exam and discovered something that felt worrisome. After my first mammogram, I was told that if all was clear, I would receive a letter in the mail, but if they spotted something, I would get a telephone call in a few days. I received a telephone call after just a few hours and went back the next day for a more thorough mammogram. Less than a week later I was having a double biopsy. In December the same year, I had a bilateral mastectomy. During this time, I drove myself crazy worrying. The stress of not knowing, until after the operation, if the oncologist would be able to remove all the cancer and whether it was invasive did little to help my alcohol intake. I’d tell myself that I would just pour myself a glass or two of wine. But before I knew it, the bottle would be empty, and I would be opening a second one.
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/ 56 “I no longer enjoyed alcohol; I just drank to satisfy my need for it. I woke up to the extremity of my situation”
“WARM DEEP SELF-LOVE” ACRYLPOURING ON CANVAS BY DIANA AMENDT
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Then COVID-19 hit. Before the schools closed, I rarely poured my first glass of wine until I started cooking. When the coronavirus struck, and my husband and son never left the house, I felt claustrophobic. Drinking also became logistically difficult now that my husband was at home. I had to secretly smuggle wine into the house. I had become good at finding hiding spots around the house and drinking without being noticed, as well as sneakily taking the bottles outside to the recycling. Alcohol dominated my every thought, which meant that I struggled to be present for my family. I knew I had to do something before I jeopardized losing them—before my drinking had an affect on my son. I did not want him to grow up hating me. My relationship with alcohol was now really on the rocks, as was my marriage. I no longer enjoyed alcohol; I just drank to satisfy my need for it. I woke up to the extremity of my situation. *** I was forty-four years old when I gave up drinking alcohol on 8 June 2020. I had been drinking for twenty-nine years. I went around our house and emptied out the last few wine bottles, well hidden behind other things. I then put my wine glasses into the goodwill bag in my car to donate and binned
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all the corkscrews. I didn’t want any temptations or reminders. My husband, of course, supported the idea of me quitting. He also helped me in practice—I told him that I would no longer prepare the evening meals, as I associated cooking with drinking wine. He started cooking our dinners, delicious ketogenic meals full of protein and vegetables, while wearing my black and white polka dot apron. To have external accountability, I also told two of my close friends that I was going to quit drinking. They were both supportive and encouraging. Fortunately, these days, many of my girlfriends are nondrinkers, so my social life no longer depends on drinking. I read Annie Grace’s This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life. The book helped me to understand the ugly truth about alcohol—what it does to the human body and brain. Prior to reading Grace’s ‘bible’ and seeking out more information about alcohol, I was not wise to how detrimental it was to my physical and mental health. I also quickly became aware that I would be happier without it. I discovered that I was drinking to give myself confidence, have fun, relax, relieve stress and self-medicate. All of these were false beliefs. By drinking
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for many of these reasons, I had rewired my brain to believe that I needed alcohol for survival. The more I drank, the more tolerant I became, so in turn, I needed even more to feel like myself. I also signed up for The Alcohol Experiment (a thirty-day alcohol-free online program) so I could join a supportive community and receive a daily guidepost with inspiration and information about the medical, psychological and physiological aspects of alcohol and addiction. I wrote things like ‘Good riddance, (alcohol) monster. I’m going to starve you to death,’ on my kitchen chalkboard. Alcohol had already stolen too much from me; I was not going to allow it to take anything else.
“The more I drank, the more tolerant I became, so in turn, I needed even more to feel like myself.”
When the cravings came, I was not fazed. I saw them as a massive challenge that I needed and wanted to rise to. They were out of control, as were my headaches and mood swings. On the kitchen whiteboard, I wrote the number of days I had been alcohol free. It felt good to come downstairs in the morning and see the number rise each day, reminding me of how far I had come. Every time I had a craving, I told myself that if I could get through it, I would be one craving closer to being free. It was worth going through a couple of abysmal weeks to have a lifetime of happiness. *** A few weeks after I gave up drinking, the transformation was astonishing. Once the alcohol was out of my system, my mood improved. I felt and still feel less anxious and calmer. The quality of my sleep has also improved and I wake up feeling happy and excited to start the day. I do still have bad days, but they are in the minority. And when I have them, I have healthy coping mechanisms in place like reading to my son or taking my dog for a walk. Rather than being on the rocks, I’m happy and healing on this even keel road.
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“NEMESIS #3” DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION BY FAYE LARKIN
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It's Noisy Inside BY CLAY STEWART - LARSON
It’s noisy inside, The screaming, the shouting, the yelling. It’s noisy inside, The searching, the yearning, the looking, Reaching but not quite grasping. It’s noisy inside, The same methods drown out songs of solution, The noise overflows, roots do not turn with the same stone. Abandon ruthless attempts, embrace the symphony of reason, Breath in, windows shatter, the noise escapes, it is free. Quiet has finally arrived, comforting as the great bosom that nurtures all creatures in the garden. Calm at last, the storm clears, I see the sun.
Clay is a young creative based in Bristol. They study and practice holistic therapies and use artistic outlets as a tool for deeper healing and self-expression. They write from the perspective of a queer person of colour, exploring a variety of topics including, but not limited to; emotional experience, identity, spirituality and the intersectionality between race and the queer experience. @claystewartlarson
“CELULLAR” ILLUSTRATION BY JAYLON GOODE
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Seashell or an anorexia tale BY THEA MANGATAL I spent my last summer in a seashell. It swallowed all of me, my curves and spine. Mom saw it, she pulled me out with a nail, she looked at the space between my outlines. It swallowed all of me, my curves, my spine curled a little, I was glad to fit in. Mom looked at the space between my outlines and at the transparency of my skin. Curled a little, I was glad to fit in. New outfits on my crustacean body and to cover up my transparent skin. I thought I had found the cure to heal me. I’m looking at my crustacean body, knowing I’ll spent next summer in a shell, thinking I have found the cure to heal me. Grab their tools! They’ll pull me out with a nail.
Thea is from France, she studied for one year at the University of York where she developed her writing skills. She is still currently a schoolteacher. One of her poems “She rinsed” was published on the Iceberg Tales’ website. Her short story “Waterhouse” was published in the ninth printed issue of the Unknown magazine. Her favourite form of poem is pantoum. @theamglpr
Illustration by Siria Ferrer
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/ 64 the monsters inside me A PHOTO-STORY BY SIRIA FERRER SAINZ-PARDO
In spring of 2019, I suddenly began to experience intrusive obsessive thoughts, later diagnosed as pure, or primarily-obsessional OCD. The lesser-known form of OCD is characterised by persistent unwanted and intrusive thoughts, which are not specifically associated with compulsive rituals (such as the typical handwashing or counting). When I first had it I thought that these thoughts must be, obviously, my own, and that therefore I was a bad person. It made me doubt everything. There is a cognitive dissonance between what’s happening in my day to day life and what my mind is telling me. Over the last few years I’ve struggled against the vicious circle of intrusive thoughts, which I know could return at any moment. One of the most frustrating parts of the condition for her is feeling ‘stuck’ with these thoughts, which repeatedly intrude on your thinking, over and over again. It feels as if someone has entered my brain and all I can do is watch. It feels like torture. You’re being made to see something you don’t want to see. Although I know they’re irrational, and even though I’ve had the same thoughts before, the next time the thoughts continue to affect me just as much as the first time. I start to believe it all again, even though I know it’s not true.
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Siria is an artist and photographer from Ibiza, Spain. She studied Fine Art at the UPV Valencia, and finished her Masters there last year. In her photography, she prefers artistic portraits, but is also intrestd in fashion, architecture and nature photography. Her artistic influences come from movements in art history such as surrealism; literature, music and cinematography. She is the co-editor and designer of VAINE. @siriaferrer_
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VAINE The Vicious
Cir
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It returns me to the vicious circle again. And it feels impossible to break out of, because the more you fight against the thoughts, the stronger they become. I decided to make a photo-story to illustrate my experience of pure OCD. The photographs represent different stages in the process. The process starts the moment an unwanted thought pops into my head. There is a duality created here, between the intrusive thought and my own thoughts which recognise it as a threat. Then comes fear, as my brain registers the unwanted thought, the amygdala feels under attack and so gives me the sensation of alarm, accompanied by distressing feelings. Then comes the experience of feeling ‘stuck’. The thoughts and the feelings dominate your mind to such an extent that you start to feel like you will always feel this way, and that this is your new reality from now on. I have learned that the common sense response to the thoughts, to rationalise with them, is actually the worst thing that you can do, as it further fuels the strength of the intrusive thought and generates more anxiety and distress. This stage is known as False Comfort. The best thing to do is just to acknowledge them, and let them pass. While trapped in this entanglement of thought, a natural response is triggered to sooth the distressing feelings, such as sitting in the foetal position. There is simply nothing to do but wait for the thoughts to pass.
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Stuck
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Playing the Silent Voice BY JAMES HICKMAN In that moment In that beat There was a pause A breath A silence I could have grabbed it I could have filled it I could have spoken my truth Taken that moment Held it in my hands Thrown it up in the air Watched Waited And Lived through the result And I would have lived Regardless of the result Instead I played the silent voice And I live with the ‘what if’ And nothing else
James Hickman is a part time poet, based in London, slowly emerging from his poetry shell by posting poems on Instagram. @bignosethinbeardstripyeyebrows
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Photography is the basis of Stéphane’s work. He SUICIDE started exhibiting at an early age in galleries with artists like Araki, Dolores Marat and Paul McCarthy at the Damasquine Art Gallery in Brussels. Since then, he has exhibited around Europe and in New York. He explores the relationship between human beings, their sociological condition and their futures. Both raw and surreal, his images explore alternative forms of existence. The drawings, fragmented and incomplete, represent an unfinished story. @stephanevereecken
“WORK 33” BY STÉPHANE VEREECKEN
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SEXUAL ASSAULT / RAPE
Experimenting with the Vigenere Cipher (A DRAMA-CONSTRUCTION: HAIKU-PLAY) BY ZUKHRA ABAKAROVA English translation and adaptation of cipher by Anna Noble
Characters: Me – any young woman N – any young woman
ACT 1. SIDERATION OR DISSOCIATION I first encountered the term la sidération psychique in a French YouTube video. The term refers to a psychological phenomenon whereby a victim of violence or assault simply freezes, making no attempt at resistance or self-defense. As the video commentator explains, the victim remains completely detached and passive—paralyzed, essentially. Later, confounded by this reaction, the victim sees it as evidence not only of her own culpability, but also of the absence of duress—since she did not resist her attacker, was it even an assault? After watching the video, I immediately googled the word “sideration,” assuming that it must be the same in Russian. The result was unexpected: Sideration is the growing and turning of clover crops (green manure) to enrich the soil with organic matter and nutrients. French scientist J. Ville (1824-97) coined the term “sideration” for this process. Green manure typically consists of leguminous crops—such as lupine, bird’s-foot trefoil, melilot, deervetch, Lathyrus, clover, vetch, Crotalaria, etc.—which are sown specifically for sideration. Usually, they are turned into the soil of the same fields in which they were grown; less commonly, they are harvested to fertilize other fields or for compost. The use of green manure improves the physical and physicochemical properties of the soil (by reducing acidity and increasing buffering, absorption and water retention capabilities, etc.), and activates beneficial microflora. As the plant mass is incorporated into the soil, the plants are broken down by nodule bacteria, releasing nitrogen and other nutrients the arable layer of soil. - Definition from the great Soviet Encyclopedia
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In Russian, “sideration” is an agricultural term; it has nothing to do with the detachment or numbness experienced by a victim. Rather, this condition is called “dissociation” in Russian. Nevertheless, the word “sideration” struck me: the agricultural practice is also a story of victimization. The blossoming sideration plant is crushed into the soil to serve as a fertilizer for other plants.
ACT 2. SEARCHING FOR A METAPHOR I shared the video, along with my vague, meandering thoughts, with my friend N. on WhatsApp. Me: Take the clover, for example, frozen in one spot on the verge of sideration—it’s analogous to the person paralyzed in the face of aggression. N: (voice message) I don’t think that’s the case. It’s sort of romanticizing fear, like in “The Last Day of Pompeii.” In reality it’s not like that. Me: Do you know what it’s like in reality? N: Yes. N: Typing… N: Typing… N: Typing… N: I do. Me: How? N: Well, something like that might have happened. N: Can we talk about this later? I’m busy.
“SAD FACE” ILLUSTRATION BY LINDSAY TEMPEST
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ACT 3. THE FIRST LINES SPROUT I sat in a lecture, dwelling on the realization that N had apparently experienced violence she couldn’t speak about. Why was I hearing about it for the first time? She can’t entrust anyone with her story. Did this happen a long time ago? Violence has no expiration date. How did she resolve the problem? She’s kept silent this whole time. Did she go to the police? Definitely not. What does she feel? Fear and shame. What is she ashamed of? Or afraid of? Judgment, slut-shaming, accusations of slander, her boyfriend dumping her. My contemplations culminated in the first lines of the haiku: sideration is the inverse of love rends me open with guilt and shame
“HAPPY FACE” ILLUSTRATION BY LINDSAY TEMPEST
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I wanted to send it to N. I wanted to hug her. I wanted to be silent beside her. But I couldn’t figure out how to finish it. I couldn’t come up with the last line. After several attempts, I realized that it’s impossible to describe an experience one hasn’t lived through. The third line was contained within the experience itself; it was enveloped in numbness, and the poetry would only be revealed when the experience was described.
ACT 4. N’S RESPONSE After some time, I revived our conversation: Me: “la sidération psychique” N: Yes Me: Tell me, pls N: (voice message) Listen, I’m at work. Later, ok? Later that evening: Me: So, can you tell me? N: Is it ok if I do a voice message?
g u h o t d e “I want e b o t d e t n her. I wa ” . r e h e d i s e silent b
Me: Sure. N recorded a 10-minute voice message, describing her “weird experience.”
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ACT 4. N’S WEIRD EXPERIENCE Below is a transcription of N.’s voice message; I kept all of her lapses, interjections, and pauses in the transcription. “So… This experience was really weird. I don’t even know how to describe it… I’m actually not sure if this is the same as what you sent me… But it’s really similar. But just to be clear, I’m not saying this was, like, rape or anything, just, you know, kind of foggy, or ambiguous, or something, but nothing scary (laughs), no one dragged me into the forest or whatever (laughs). Anyway, I was coming home from work around 6 or so. And, you’ve been to my apartment, right? Remember that bus stop just past the karaoke place? That’s where I was standing. It was fall, dark already, but tons of people around, as usual. It was cold. I was wearing a light cardigan, standing there and shivering. And suddenly this guy comes up to me and offers his scarf. He’s like, “Here, you look like you could use this,” but in this really matter of fact way, you know, and meanwhile he’s not even looking up from his phone, just holding out the scarf, saying, “Take it, go on.” I kind of protested at first, but it was getting awkward, so I’m like, fuck it, I’ll just take it, it’s really cold. I said “thanks” and he just nodded and walked away, still doing stuff on his phone, all businesslike. But I’m looking over at him now, and he’s kinda cute: light hair, fit, but not tall. He’s nicely dressed, in a peacoat and a navy suit, like a bank worker or something, which I’m not really into. So, I decided I should sit next to him on the bus and give him his scarf back before I get off. Maybe that’s what made him think I was flirting back? You know, cuz I’m the one who’s clinging to him… So anyway, the bus arrived, and I sat next to him where the elevated seats are. He’s still just glued to his phone, and I’m absorbed in a book. And then, all of a sudden, he starts talking to me. And soon we’re chatting and laughing; he was pretty funny. And it turned out he actually does work at a bank, the one next to the subway station.
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Anyway, one stop before mine he says, “Wanna see a beautiful view? Come on, I’ll show this this one spot—it’s incredible.” I’m like, “Nah, I just got off work, I’m tired, blah blah blah…” But he’s, like, really insistent and I felt bad, so I was like, ok, I’ll just go for five minutes, it’s not far from home anyway. So I went with him.
“WORK 23” BY STÉPHANE VEREECKEN
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/ 78 We go to a building that’s basically across the street from the Pyatorochka store. And my guard kind of went up when he started opening the entrance door to the building. So I’m kind of jokingly like, “You tryin’ to take me home with you? “I’m not going, I’m scared.” I actually was scared. And he says, “It’s even more fun if you’re scared” and winks. And at this point my thoughts are just all over the place… I’m thinking, “If he’s really a psycho would he wink? [For some reason I got really hung up on the winking.] What if he’s just a normal dude, trying to show me something cool, and I just turn around and run, like a weirdo. He’ll think I’m completely nuts…” But this whole time I’m following him, going into the building, waiting in front of the elevator, feeling kind of awkward. I honestly wanted to book it outta there, but I, like, couldn’t figure out how. Meanwhile he’s going on about how he just visited his grandma in Tula County, and went to that place Tolstoi’s from… White… no, dammit, Bright Glade. I’m all, “Really? Wooow, that’s so interesting.” And now we’re in the elevator, going up to the top floor. At this point I decide I’m gonna get out of the elevator, scream and run downstairs. I’ve realized that I’m a total idiot, going directly to some psycho’s lair. So I’m getting ready to start screaming my head off, and I remember that I read somewhere on Facebook that you’re supposed to yell “FIRE!” So I decide, “Okay, as soon as the doors open (laughing) I’m gonna run down the stairs, yelling FIIIIIRE!” But when the elevator doors opened, I didn’t do any of that, as you might’ve guessed. I was thinking again that that would be kind of crazy and embarrassing,
“THE SHADOW SELF” BY HANNAH ROSE BERGMANN
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and he hadn’t actually done anything, right? As they say: “No body, no crime.” So he takes me over to an ordinary window—the kind you’d see in any apartment stairwell—and says, “See how beautiful Ostankino Tower looks from here?” But the view from my own kitchen is exactly the same; everyone in this neighborhood can see Ostankino. So I’m like, “Yeah, cool. Alright, my dad’s messaging me, so I gotta run!” And he says, “Hang on, I’m gonna have a cig and then walk with you, okay? So you don’t have to walk alone in the dark.” I’m like, “Okay, sure.” So I stand there and wait while he finishes his cigarette. He’s smoking, looking out at the tower, saying how romantic it is, how great it is to share such a beautiful view with such a beautiful girl. I’m thinking, “Mkay. Here we go…” But I’m smiling and saying, “Ooh yeah, beautiful!” And then he wraps his arm around me, gazes at me really intensely, like in a movie, and with his other hand—the one holding the cigarette—starts fixing my hair.
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I’m trying to sort of tactfully brush him off, like, “I gotta go, my dad is really strict, he’s military.” I was really emphasizing the army dad thing, like, “I really need to run, but I’ll leave my number.” Why did I even suggest that? He must’ve thought I actually wanted to stay in touch. So, he’s moving his lips closer, but he’s short, so they’re, like, near my chin, and he’s all, “Will you introduce me to your dad?” Hanna Rose, is a 22-year-old from Germany. She loves everything that has to do with art and creativity. Besides painting and illustrating, she plays numerous instruments, sings and writes songs. Having struggled with my mental health and being “different” from others, she feels that in art and music, she has found a way to show what defines her. @hannaroses_moonypapers
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And I’m like, “No, it’s too soon, he’s only interested in meeting husband material.” And I’m nervous, laughing like a hyena again. Then he steps away to put out his cigarette, and I’m about to head toward the elevator. And then he just grabs me by the hand, pulls me over, and kisses me. I didn’t kiss him back; I just stood there like a statue. He starts telling me how sexy I am, how turned on he is, but I’m just completely frozen and don’t know what to do.
“WORK 24” BY STÉPHANE VEREECKEN
Someone else in my shoes would’ve slapped him or kicked him in the groin. But I’m just frozen like a deer in the headlights. I don’t want this, I don’t like this, but all I can do is stand there. So he goes on, takes off my scarf, his cold hands on my neck, unbuttons my blouse, cold hand on my breasts. And he’s still going on about how hot and sexy I am, how much he wants me. And now I’m thinking to myself, “What is this, a pep talk? Is he, like, talking himself into this?”
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“WORK 25” BY STÉPHANE VEREECKEN
And no matter what he does, I just have this running commentary going on in my head, sometimes even laughing to myself. But meanwhile he’s doing his thing, you know. Anyway, you get where this is going. Sooo, yeah… Everything happened. He pulled off my tights; my bare thighs were against the cold wall… And he pulled off everything else…
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/ 82 So... Can I have wanted this to happen? It makes me scared… Am I, like, one of those pervs, you know, just can’t resist… like that- “the fox in the henhouse” saying—can’t resist the urge to… to fuck any guy who’s desperate… Really, though, he was the fox… I didn’t want to do it there, in a stairwell, between a trashcan and elevator… Someone could have seen us! But I didn’t resist. I didn’t yell or fight back, just stared into space… My face felt numb… and, like, there was pins and needles in my legs. I… I could barely stand up, like, I was somehow lifeless, like a doll… it was so weird… Anyway, he finished and then stood there, smirking and saying stuff like, “Wow, babe, that was awesome!”
I wanted to cry, but instead I just smiled and nodded along. I felt like a slut. I was filth. During the… during, I had braced myself against the trashcan, and afterward I felt like the smell of rotten garbage was trailing after me for days… Anyway, I don’t really remember coming home but I remember showering cuz I burned the shit out of myself. So that’s the story. As I said, it wasn’t, like, violent or anything. It’s just that I froze, didn’t react at all. Maybe I had some kind of subconscious craving for adventure, but… I just couldn’t admit it to myself… I don’t know, it does kind of seem like sideration. But it’s not like I really got raped, you know? Your line about being rent open with guilt and shame – it’s a little over-the-top, but also kind of on point. It resonates. But don’t tell anyone, okay?
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“Nonetheless, I felt that her suffering contained a message, waiting to be decoded.”
ACT 5. THE BIRTH OF A HAIKU I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t assert that N.’s experience is actually la sidération psychique. Nonetheless, I felt that her suffering contained a message, waiting to be decoded. Here is what I did: 1. Researched different ciphers on Google 2. Found polyalphabetic ciphers with keys (like the Caesar cipher) to be the best fit 3. Chose the Vigenère cipher 4. Decided to work in Excel 5. Downloaded a table containing the cipher and formulas from an IT forum 6. Replaced the left column (original meaning) with the first line of the haiku 7. Replaced the top row (the key) with the second line of the haiku 8. Filled in the center of the table with excerpts from N.’s monologue (instead of the alphabet).
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The line emerged when I entered the following excerpt into the table: “Can I have wanted this to happen? It makes me scared… Am I, like, one of those pervs, you know, just can’t resist… like that- ‘the fox in the henhouse’ saying— can’t resist the urge to… to fuck any guy who’s desperate… Really, though, he was the fox… I didn’t want to do it there, in a stairwell, between a trashcan and elevator… Someone could have seen us! But I didn’t resist. I didn’t yell or fight back, just stared into space… My face felt numb… and, like, there was pins and needles in my legs. I… I could barely stand up, like, I was somehow lifeless, like a doll… it was so weird… Anyway, he finished and then stood there, smirking and saying stuff like, ‘Wow, babe, that was awesome!’ I wanted to cry, but instead I just smiled and nodded along. I felt like a slut. I was filth. During the… during, I had braced myself against the trashcan, and afterward I felt like the smell of rotten garbage was trailing after me for days… Anyway, I don’t really remember coming home but I remember showering cuz I burned the shit out of myself.”
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ACT 6. HAIKU sideration is the inverse of love rends me open with guilt and shame cast the heavier stone if you dare
I sent this to N and said: I want to be silent beside you, I want to hug you, I dedicate this haiku to you. She replied, “Wow! Sweet!” But after that our correspondence kind of petered out. She stopped initiating conversations, and always kept her responses brief.
Zuhra, 24, was born in Dagestan, the most multi-ethnic region in Russia. She has lived in Moscow since the age of 13. She has performed, and been nominated for several prizes in youth theatre internationally, both as a playwright and as a performer. @warinsideyou
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What I could never prepare for was the separation of emotion, & with it, the dissociation of everything coupled soundly between it. Indifference becomes the smallest distance to life’s final destination. A closely clipped fingernail’s width of space presumed uncharted, despite contrary maps previously constructed. I’m a cartographer retracing a border inked onto the paper. A border as thick as telephone wire transmitting dead air to the living still connected. Dead air once split the distance between my indifference & a blade in a house of recollection I unwillingly revisit. Where creaking floorboards sound like the snapping prongs of a ribcage, & with it, a natural translation to a wordless language. Where the rotting doorway of the living room whispers
Illustration by Siria Ferrer
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a windowless breeze, deflating like the stomach of a rupturing carcass squeezed by desert heat. Where an armchair pressing paling crimson from its fabric beckons with protruding guts of stuffing & springs. Where I can sink into the rat-gnawed cavity of the cushion, tuning eyes to waves of glowing pixelated static, irises melting into the flickering television prison, while I repeatedly fail to feel anything—at all.
J.A. Handville is a poet based in Syracuse, New York, and the self-published author of 2018’s Internalize. In between consuming copious amounts of coffee, J.A. Handville creates collages and poetry, often themed around the difficulties of mental illness and the human condition. His poetry has been published in Unvael, Into the Void, and is forthcoming from Dissonance Magazine. He is currently writing his second poetry collection. @j.a._handville
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/ 88 contagion BY J.A. HANDVILLE
The twelve steps to the receptionist span twelve miles, each a reverse moving walkway of carpet trapping my feet in stationary motion. I’m fifty minutes early after skipping fifteens from the driver’s seat, but she is not as surprised as I am to see me. She slides the surgical mask of plexiglass to the right, provokes the dull tooth of her clipboard to lock my paperwork in a perpetual bite, & politely gestures me towards a seat stating that I will be seen shortly. The surgical mask is slid back, & I see in the quarantined aftermath that she collects seashells. Moonshells, conchs, cross-barred venuses. Perhaps what we choose to collect is what we wish to reclaim, & our dying echoes of memory lay living inside these hollow items to soothe our souls. I face the furnished fullness of an empty room, & silently hope she’s okay. A crimson armchair beckons me from beyond row after row of vomit-colored green, as each seat spreads an illness infecting the nearby paintings
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inside their half-glass houses. Restless frames shift in fever dreams to whichever side is facing me, glaring in swollen hunger as the walls themselves are incessantly swallowed. I’m squeezed to the back of this brute throat, a sunken lump left tongue-pressed against the off-color backwall, waiting for the moment when I’m regurgitated to the front again, where I will slip from this room like thick phlegm only to be collected softly in the tissue of my diagnosis: clinical depression. & again, I will visit here, wrung out into a seat reeking of yesterday’s Cabernet & today’s sobering nausea, careful to avoid the crimson armchair, knowing there’s a desire there better left unspoken, a desire to be the color of the fabric & choosing nothing but the reassurance of my sickness to sink myself into, hoping as the receptionist continues to collect more patients & more seashells, that she will remain unaffected inside her half-glass house.
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Therapy
BY MARIAH SHIPLEY
I began therapy it was for my child self processing. We talk about being hungry how angry I am in the grocery store and the hands I feel around my neck anxiety. We discuss my father’s note passing and the shrink recommends breathing. I say, I need more help than that he thinks I mean pills. So he prescribes yoga, something a survivor I can’t overdose on. I eat lunch with my friend colleague, and find she is missing something a parent too. We do this sometimes, I don’t know how often weekly and I don’t care look forward to it. I accidentally joke about suicide
Mariah Shipley is a poet and film photographer living in an old boarding house in the Pacific Northwest. She aspires to keep making art that helps people either like or understand life better than they did before. Her sidekick is a Pomeranian and together they walk many places and see many things that inspire her work. Slightly technophobic, Mariah is out of touch with television and does many things the hard way for the pleasure of the experience. @untrained.i
dying and she doesn’t laugh, she asks if I’m really ok and I am finally breathing, after everything. She reaches up to high five me and the stretch to reach her hand heals loosens me in a way yoga therapy never did.
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“BETWEEN TWO WORLDS” VAINE COLLAGE BY FEDERICA COLLETTI
Federica Colletti is a digital artist from Rome and majoring in psychology. Her artworks are surreal collages created by free associations, born of a multitude of thoughts left free to circulate, poured into a unique representation. There are recurring themes (time, illusion, hope, subjectivity and change) but she likes the observer to be able to decide what they mean for them. She has participated in six exhibitions and won two contests, collaborated with a publishing house, art magazine and other artists. @nonsuperareledosiconsigliate
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Melanie Wichlein is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Berlin, Germany. Since 2012, she has illustrated and designed several books on global warming, ergonomic education and stories for children. In recent years her artwork has focussed on raising awareness of environmental issues and climate justice. A percentage of her earnings is donated to organizations that protect the environment, conserve wildlife and improve human well-being. @everyarthelps
Cameron Macgregor, 20, is a student at Bristol University. They identify as trans/ gender-non-conforming. They are also a freelance performance artist, model, professional tutor and regular volunteer. They have training in Russian ballet, and are an avid writer of spoken word and scripts for films/plays, exploring themes of identity, dealing with trauma and love. @coco_cha_fuckyou_no5
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QUEER BABUSHKA BY CAMERON MACGREGOR
Musaka Bed-knobs and chunky knit headspace Broom sticks and head-scarfs wrapping headaches warping hope Egg yolks, parmesan Mayonnaise and breadcrumbs Glaze me like a teapot with one of those weird puff pastry egg brush things Grab me by the handle and just you watch me sprout fields of pieces of paper folded up and tucked away I don’t want you to graze me I want my body be a fist full of food like that feast they have in Shrek where they have a food fight that was fuelled by family feuds DONKEY Shameless cottage core, Aimless soft porn Doilies, boy toys, toilets seat covers and boiling phallic kettles I am a queer babushka I am not a baby I am a big bitch - fuck fairies I got a big nose, square toes and I’ve been told people find me scary This witch has a pointy hat, a black cat And a Broom sticks that never got to fly because there is so much shit on my kitchen floor I wallow in the potato peel Put me in with spouts and rinse me - colander tossed - of my mud I want to go back Underground Where I can hear my own heart beat again Where I can chop myself in half and keep on growing Spud me square Hit me head on My cyanide roots will fight or flight to find the light And I I will grow
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3rd Edition, 2021 vainemagazine.com vainemag@gmail.com Instagram: @vainemagazine Twitter: @vainemagazine Facebook: @VAINEmagazine
Cover artwork by Siria Ferrer Sainz-Pardo Editor: Dominic Thomas Co-Editor: Siria Ferrer Sainz-Pardo
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