Animators, depression and wishes

Another winter. Here it is again. That dreary time of year. That time of year that so often reminds me of that dark place that is a part of me. Why is that? Is it just the weather? The lack of sunlight? Perhaps. The enforced jolliness of Christmas clashing with the reality of our own feelings? Maybe that's more relevant.

Don't worry, folks. I'm doing well. Very well, in fact. Since my last post, my life has gone through many changes and that's frightening and exciting rolled into one. And it's actually fun.

It has warmed my heart that I still get comments and mails from this little blog though. No I don't wish depression on you all. But I know how much reading other sites helped me when I was first diagnosed. Reading the experiences of others was a comfort – that knowledge that, really, I wasn't completely on my own with this. We're in it together and, while many may not ever understand what we go through, there is a select elite group who know all too well.

We're not alone. 

One thing that has become obvious since starting this blog many years ago is that depression seems to go hand in hand with animation a lot of the time. I am not unique. Not by a long shot. So why is that? It's a little curious, right? I don't have answers. Only questions...

Is it that there are so many little things that eat away at us?
Are we not creatively fulfilled?
Are we not rewarded enough for the very skilled work that we do?
Do we feel taken advantage of, trampled on?
Is it that we spend too long by ourselves, in a bubble of scenes?
Do we feel a clash of creative versus commercial and hate what we make?
Is it the endless struggle of having clear vision yet having to wrestle it on to a screen?
Is it as simple as just not getting thanked enough?

Or is it that animation and the whole idea of making films and TV a frame at a time is completely and utterly insane? Yeah, maybe that's a part of it.

Animators, any ideas? Is it animation? Or is it just about being a person?

I don't know but what I do know is that it is often hard to talk about. There is still a stigma attached to depression, mainly because those who don't get it... well, they don't get it. It is hard to be open about it publicly, especially when you're making happy fun little animations to make kids smile. It's not an easy discussion. I know that well and maybe I have been a coward all these years by not posting with my real name but it has allowed me to be very honest about a great many things about just one or two aspects of a far more colourful life. I am not all depression and animation (honest!). But being able to write about those things freely has been very helpful.

Let's try to write more and read more about it, whether we use our real names or not. It all helps.

To everyone who comes by this little blog (and most get here because they are searching for information and posts on depression), I wish you good health. I wish you peace of mind. I wish you fewer depths and less darkness and the strength to make it through both when you have to. This world is filled with shit and hideous things and that so often obscures all of the wonderful things we have, the amazing things that people do, the little acts of kindness, the huge life-changing acts of kindness, the wonder of nature, even just a pretty cloud now and then. The worst things in life are not all our responsibility, not all the time. Allow yourself to put it aside and see the wonder. Give yourself that permission.

I know... easier said than done. But I wish that for you.

And for the animators, what have you got yourself into? What were you thinking? You could have a nice job in retail, where you get to go home content if you just survive the day. No, I'm joking. Animation is awesome, in spite of our griping (well, my griping). For you animators, I wish fulfillment, contentment, pride in your work but not so much that it makes you a pain in the ass. I wish fun characters, great music, and lovely surprises of life and personality as you animate, or little unexpected splashes of colour in your backgrounds. I wish you a moment maybe once a week, hopefully more, when you look at what you have made, at what you created and brought into being in this Universe, and you think – that's awesome.

And lastly to everyone, animator or not, depressed or not, I wish you all a fantastic holiday season. Warmth, family, friends or even just the comfort of lying under a warm blanket on your own.

By the way, if you are in animation, there are tons of relevant posts buried in the archives. Have a browse!

Snow angels

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post! The first post here in a loooooong time. Special thanks to Holly, Susan's cat who gave me a mention here - This Week in Mentalists

I would put a nicer link but Blogger seems to have gone all minimalist on me and removed just about every formatting option short of posting a pic. Why, Blogger? Why?! (Edit: Think I have it sorted. Just Google and their endless mission to make stuff worse).

So it's Christmas time and, you know what? I'm feeling Christmassy. Wasn't the easiest year, not by a long shot. We're in a world of uncertainty and, for what is really the first time since the 2008 recession hit, my own work has been on the chopping block. But my latest project has just been given a last minute reprieve. My father passed away this year. That sucked on a few levels. We weren't close so part of me thinks I was protected from a certain level of grief and yet it just meant the whole thing was messy. What was unresolved will now stay unresolved forever.

So, yeah. Not the easiest year.

But a good year.

A year in which I realised just how much support I have. And not just that it's me and people supporting me or me supporting them. I really felt that a whole bunch of us are in this together. And I count many of you out there in the blogoshpere in that too. A unity. Not a perfect unity. But a strong one.

Life won't always be easy. Yes, a dog may take a piss on us while we make snow angels but who cares? We'll have made snow angels!

I hope you all make snow angels.

Have a very happy Christmas/holiday season/Winter Wonderland/Snowy Surprise or whatever it is you all celebrate. Stay well!

December again

Every now and again, I come back to this place... my old blog. There is a lot to look back on and always a reminder of a particular time in my life. A while before I sort of wound down the blog, I stuck in one of those Google Analytics code things to see how many people were coming to the blog. Turns out it was pretty popular.

Obviously lack of posts caused that number to go down and down. But, looking at the little graph now, somewhere in October it began to go up. And it rose through November to now. Why? Was someone linking to my blog? Writing about it?

No.

It was simply coming up in Google searches more as more people searched for information on 'depression'. It's that dark time of year. Wouldn't it be nice to take my increasing numbers as something positive? The truth is, it's a bad sign for many people. I think I'd be happy if my blog never came up in searches again because nobody needed to know anything about depression any more. Because it was a thing of the past.

But it's not.

Depression is still all around us. Probably more now than ever. It's a tough time of year for many. But you know what? This is why I appreciate all those who blog about depression and tell their stories. So that people who realise they or a loved one may be facing depression have somewhere to go. Real survival stories to read. And even the stories that did not have happy endings, to serve as a reminder that, sometimes, people need help and it's not always obvious. Every one of you who have written about depression help.

Being that darker time of year, I hope you're all doing okay and are looking out for yourselves and others.

And those writing about animation, well look, some people are just beyond help. Making films a frame at a time? Honestly, it's too late for those people. Just get out before they drag you down with them.

Is that a faint smile?

It's Christmas!

Hope everyone who has made their way to this fairly inactive blog has a wonderful Christmas! Or whatever holidays you celebrate. Or don't. It's fine just to wish you some wonderful days, I think. Happy Friday and Saturday all!

Unless you don't recognise the traditional week and then it all gets quite difficult.

I think it's been both a great and crappy year for the world overall. Great in that whole systems fell apart economically revealing the fragility and sustainability of systems based on bullshit, truths were revealed that we all suspected and the world has fewer lies today than it did this time last year. Crappy because the worst we suspected has been confirmed and very few seem to be bothered to do anything about it. So the world is a bit more apathetic and hypocritical than this time last year.

But, hey... there's always 2011! The year people take the world back? Or at least consider it? Let's hope so.

Between now and then, however, take the time off. Let yourself off the hook. The world's ills are not your ills. Let them go for a while. And have a lovely holiday time with friends and family. Just enjoy it.

Happy Christmas all!

Oh, but if you do find yourself dwelling on the world, please consider making a donation to the defense fund of Bradley Manning, the soldier suspected of leaking confidential documents. He is being treated hideously and is being punished without even a verdict yet. If he is innocent, he needs all the help he can get. If he is guilty, well... if he is guilty, the man is a hero, putting his conscience above blind orders and has done the world a favour. Either way, he needs support. I have donated and wish Bradley Manning as happy a Christmas as he can possibly have under the conditions he is being kept in.

Holiday time again!

It's the one thing I always wanted

I have a void in my life. No, it's not dignity. Fuck dignity, who needs it? No, it's the Big Trak. The "six-wheeled tank with a front-mounted blue photon beam headlamp, and a keypad on top", as wikipedia describes it. It was the tank that could do everything. Everything.

Each year, I asked Santa for it. Each year, I was disappointed.

Did you see the Big Trak ads when you were a kid? It could bring you stuff! Like, say you wanted an apple, you could programme it to go get it. A tank that would bring you an apple. Wow. And that was a long time ago. Probably almost 30 years. Back then, a child's toy could bring you an apple.

And now at the very end of the Space Year 2008, we don't have robot butlers?! What the hell?

I'm not sure what I was thinking with the picture. I mean, waking up on the street with a Santa suit on and a bottle in my hand would be a sign that I broke out of the day to day rut and went and did something. That could only be positive. I suspect the part of my brain that draws the images is a whole different beast to the part that writes these words. Otherwise, I would have known that when drawing it and the whole idea would have been very different.

Almost 2009... I almost feel I should do an end of year round-up but then that's what the archive is for. Maybe tomorrow I'll do a little one. Are you all evaluating your year? I have some serious evaluation to do, I'll hopefully be approaching 2009 more positively by looking at the negative of 2008, as demonstrated in the book I'll never write - Life Stinks. Now Fix It!

Merry Christmas!

I saw the cutest little puppy today. He was tiny, scruffy and full of fun and life. For a moment, I thought he might be my Christmas present. He wasn't but that's okay - it would have been a slightly crazy gift. But still, there's nothing like a puppy to put a smile on my face.

When it comes down to it, it turns out I'm easily pleased.

It hasn't been a great couple of weeks. Partly, that's just because I love Christmas. I love the lights, the atmosphere, the same old Christmas songs, Jingle Bells and mince pies. But, this year, I haven't had a chance to enjoy the run up to it.

But it's Christmas now.

I can enjoy it. I can eat those mince pies. Stare at Christmas trees. Yeah, I really miss old friends and my life feels very different to where I was this time last year, not all in good ways, but I'm here and, as it turns out, I have people who like me. Or at the very least, don't actively dislike me.

It is a good time of year.

If you pass by my blog and read this, well, firstly I'd like to thank you for stopping by. It means a lot that some people can relate to some of the things that seem to fill my head. It really does - it means I'm not alone and, as I'm sure you know, sometimes it's very easy to feel alone in a crowded city, even a crowded room full of people who know you. But, here, I often don't feel alone.

And, secondly, I'd like to wish you all a very happy Christmas, or any event or rituals or just plain ol' generic holidays that you're having. Even the Xenu people (do you guys have a Christmas equivalent?). I hope you spend time with people you love and who love you and have a peaceful and fun time (sometimes those are mutually exclusive so it might just be one or the other).

You guys rock. All of you.

All I want...

I've barely noticed Christmas coming this year. I think that's why I left the Christmas shopping so late. Work has been really busy, leading to the attempts at cancelling the holidays (my response took the form of a middle finger extension) and home life has been tiring and overwhelming and that plague I contracted didn't help matters.


With Christmas coming and, with it, the end of the year, all I find myself thinking about are the things I haven't done. The never-ending list of failed or, more usually, unattempted goals. And then I think I have to let myself off the hook and give myself a break but it's doing that that led to so many of them being left undone in the first place.

I am my own worst enemy. I should bomb myself from a great height in the name of freedom or something.


Next year, I'd like to hate myself less. I think for that to happen, I need to achieve something. Anything. This year, I achieved nothing. Yes, I need to get something done and make some progress next year.


If I don't, I'll just find myself wishing the world into oblivion for yet another Christmas.

This is the best thing I'm capable of right now. I have been cursed with the ultimate lurgy. I believe it may be sweating sickness. Or some sort of rather large animal flu. I've got a full-on chest infection and, even after several days, have a fever.

I'm ill.

It does think the studio's policy of encouraging people to come in when they're sick needs revisiting. Staying healthy in there is like trying to... well, it's like... something to do with a leper colony. I don't even have the energy to string a decent sentence together.

My apologies. There was something I meant to post this week too. In my head, it was important. At least it was last week when I thought of it.

I haven't done any Christmas shopping either. I'm so screwed.

Well anyone could have seen this coming

I knew this would come back to bite him in the ass when the lack of any common sense in the scheduling became apparent.

There was almost a mutiny in here this week.

And the reason for the mutiny was quite simply that the producer did not take Christmas or holidays in general into account when making up the schedule. I guess it's hard to blame him. I mean, who could have seen Christmas coming? But the reaction was obvious - it was going to piss some people off.

And pissed off workers are not good workers.

They never are. Ever.

When the reaction became apparent (unlike the image above, the producer chose not to deliver the news himself), the scheduler in question went on the defensive. Went on to prove he was right about the schedule and that everybody should have known about the Christmas plans and then was afraid to budge in case it was seen as a sign of weakness.

Like the animators are the enemy.

I wonder if there are any management books anywhere that recommend you should view your staff like they are your enemy? I'd be surprised but who knows... maybe there's one out there somewhere. But I'd be pretty damn sure that there are many more that would advocate treating your staff well, recommend not using 'I'm right and I'll prove it' as a tactic for dealing with people who feel antagonised, point out that the cost of having angry workers steaming and bitching together is far greater than working a few more days into the schedule.

It all just seems like common sense to me.

Don't forget to take down the decorations!

I'm not sure if this is a global tradition but, round here, the 6th of January is your cut off for taking down those decs. Or Santa will cut you. Actually I think it's after the 6th but getting them down before then would be safest.

Here's a top tip: if your tree is real, try planting it in the garden so you can reuse it next year. If your tree is fake, well, there's no point in planting it so don't do that. Really, it doesn't grow any bigger.

People like me

I mean, they must. Why else would I have been given such fantastic gifts this year? Wow, I'm overwhelmed with the giftness.

What a nice few days I've had, even without the pizza (I had beer). Oh actually, now that I think about it, I had pizza on Christmas Eve so it was a perfect Christmas after all.

I guess the next thing is to make up some New Years resolutions that I won't stick to. I think I won't bother going through that process and will just hope to have a year no worse than 2007, which actually turned out to be pretty good.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and follows it with an excellent 2008!

Is that the sound of sleigh bells?

Ah! Pizza and beer. The meal of Kings! Really, if it were down to me, this would be my Christmas dinner. As it is, I'll end up with turkey like everyone else. Nice turkey but still... pizza and beer...

Hope whatever you're doing that you have a great Christmas!