Changing Speed

CHAPTER THREE: THE SELF-HELP GROUP

Being a clinically depressed insomniac with a marriage on the rocks and a career in tatters was not without it's moments of light relief! I had been referred to a psychiatric consultant who looked little older than my thirteen-year-old son. I'm not all together sure that he'd even started to shave. If a measurement of one's age can be made by the appearance of doctors and policemen as I have heard said, then I was well on my way to pushing up daisies.

He told me that it would be beneficial if I attended a self-help group that held meetings fortnightly. I was apparently in denial about being clinically depressed. I wasn't, I just didn't have it. The thought of attending any meetings was abhorrent so I offered to accept that I was clinically depressed. He didn't buy it. It was his opinion that my regular association with this group of people, who were all suffering from the same label though the causes varied, would be helpful. I had my doubts.

The thought of being in a room full of people who were at least equally fed up with their lot in life as was I didn't strike me as being too inspiring. The image of a gathering of women, being that if depression was a genuine illness then it would be a condition more affiliated with the emotional characteristics of a female, was daunting. My low level of self-esteem was only surpassed by my non-existent libido. This imaginary group of women was enough to make anybody lose sleep. For the fortnight leading up to my first meeting I blamed them for my insomnia.

I knew the building where the meetings took place, it being the same building as my psychiatrist occupied. That made approaching the door to the meeting room marginally easier. It was open and, as usual with these things, I was early. My stomach was jittery, my chest tight and my breathing shallow. I tried to swallow as I slid my clammy palms down my jeans. My mouth was dry but my hands continued to be wet. I walked in.

Without hesitation a large, portly man of about fifty-five held out his hand to welcome me to the group. His shaven head emphasised his bulbous nose and he wore both a looped earring and a stud in his left ear. Equally out of place with his age, he wore white trainers, a pair of black tracksuit trousers and a tee shirt. The printed picture on his tee shirt was stretched out of all proportion over his round belly. Even the costume jewellery draped around his neck failed miserably to bring back any of his youth. His inappropriate dress sense made me feel more at ease.

In dwarfed contrast the only other occupant of the room was a slightly built meek, mild mannered man of about sixty. Again he was most pleasant and offered his hand and his name by way of a greeting. I responded cordially. He noticeably became more and more introvert as other people began to arrive. I sat down, my eyes darting around the room taking brief stock of the other members whilst at the same time avoiding eye contact.

Chauvinistic? I had to accept that I was so proved. The high number of people in attendance almost as much as the fact that the men outnumbered the women was not as I had expected. The people talked about absolutely anything, from shopping for shoes to the colour of bathroom suites. I think that I talked more in those sessions to perfect strangers than I had with my wife over the previous five years. My home life gave them a lot to self-help about. More than that, sympathy was in abundance. Rightly or wrongly, I'd been looking for some sympathy for a long time.

The men making up the group all gave outward signs of being very placid, often subdued during discussions by two of the women in particular. One of the women was like myself, new to the group. Unlike me she needed no time to become familiar with the other members. I would imagine she was of Latin origin and fairly typical of such women I had seen from that part of the world sharing her age group, being a pensioner. She was short, struggling to make up five feet but carrying sufficient weight to have accounted for significantly more height. Her strong Yorkshire accent was not in keeping with her appearance. We were however given plenty of opportunity to become accustomed with it. The lady had been prescribed just about every tablet available for the multitude of conditions with which she had been diagnosed and I suspected for many she had not. One shouldn't be unkind but her constant love affair with her own voice made being unkind appealing. She had an annoying ability to finish other people's sentences incorrectly and then would bring the subject back around to medication.