mustn't grumble: the story of my great good fortune

My mate Claudia collects the OFM's Best Food Blog award on my behalf. Surely it'd be all beer and skittles from here on in? You might well think that, but...

you'll be doing alright with your christmas of white, but i'll have a blue, blue christmas

The more eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed a certain lack of activity on these pages of late. I’m afraid that, as last November bled into December, I went into one, big time. I resurfaced only a couple of weeks ago. Cooking, at least cooking anything that might merit a mention here, has been beyond me these last few months. I’ve been eating shite.

If you don’t know, writing this blog and volunteering (at The Maudsley and The Dragon Café) have been the two major pillars of my recovery. So when, in October, the blog won an award and the volunteering led to me being offered a job at the Maudsley’s new Recovery College, you might reasonably have expected a festive season of unrestrained jubilation, fireworks and marching bands.

But that would be to ignore the fact that you can’t chart the recovery journey in a straight ascending line. Not only does it rise and fall, it also spirals backwards before continuing along. Even when your demons are at bay it’s never safe to assume that it’s more than a fragile peace.

You know how you can work your bollocks off all year and then, when you take a holiday, you come down with awful aches and pains? Well, it’s the same with we frazzled of mind, except the aches and pains are psychological – in my case self-loathing, self-doubt, anxiety and alienation. With Princes Corned Beef and Findus Frozen Macaroni Cheese for Christmas lunch – culinary, maudlin self-harm.

But fear not, because The Skintster abides, and is currently bobbing along on an ocean of wellbeing. And it’s all because I started the job three weeks ago. The first paid employment I’ve had in eight years. And what a joy it is. I hadn’t quite realised what a vast difference being a wage earner once again would mean – I’m even walking differently, the service-user shuffle replaced with a spring in the step. I should have known because, before my crisis, I’d had a long and rewarding career; had, in fact, never been out of work since I gave up studying for a law degree to run off and join the theatre. But you don’t, I guess, realise the weight you bear on your shoulders until it’s lifted from you.

The corrosive effects of unemployment aren’t limited simply to the obvious financial hardships or to the stress imposed by the current system of demonization; a big part of it is the loss of identity, of status, of a sense of self-worth, of a valued place in the community. If you find yourself without a job, without a home, and mentally ill then you find yourself in a world devoid of hope, control and opportunity. And without those three elements in place, nobody can have a satisfying and meaningful life. I’ve now got them back.

The story of my life for the past decade could, I suppose, be told in mainly tragic terms and I have, of course, told it that way on occasion, both to myself and to others. But now I’d like to tell it a different way. I’d like to tell the story of my great good fortune .

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