Paul Schiernecker

Category: Mental Health

  • I’m not brave.

    Firemen are brave.
    Malala Yousafzai is brave.
    Lightning McQueen is brave.
    I probably shouldn’t compare them. Only one of them managed to purposely lose the Piston Cup championship and still put Radiator Springs back on the map.

    Last week I published a blog post about my mental health. It was pretty personal. It dealt with some dark shit. It featured a picture which included my nipples.  That’s not brave to me.

    The thing about mental health, and no, I don’t want to be someone who is solely known for speaking out about their psychological well-being, is that it is the same as physical health. It’s intrinsically linked. It’s all in the same body. In my case, it’s all me.

    When someone has an accident, and breaks their leg, they aren’t brave. It’s just something that happens. They talk about it and people sign their cast and in time they get better and it’s something of an anecdote. They might feel twinges of pain in the same area. They may even break it again as there’s a pronounced weakness there, but there’s nothing brave in them telling others that they have broken their leg.

    It’s okay to ask me about my injuries. I’m open to conversations about it. Others might not be so it’s always best to tread lightly and gauge the reaction.

    That aside, I am so grateful to everyone who took the time to read my post last week. The comments and messages I got as a result were incredibly overwhelming. The more I can do to encourage others to talk about mental health then the better I am doing as a writer on the subject. The private messages I received from friends who I didn’t know were going through hard times were incredibly touching and I remain completely available to anyone who wants to talk anything through.

    You are not alone in this and I am not going anywhere.

    Thank you again for your displays of affection,. My little blog didn’t know what had hit it.

  • Sad face and silk sheets. 


    This photo is a year old today. I only know that because a part of me knew I would get better and therefore kept note of the date. I don’t know if you can tell but this is me at a real low. The lowest I had felt in a very long time. I got so ill that I had to go and stay at my dad’s, in the spare room. I was 29 years old and I felt like I had ruined absolutely everything. The days were dark. I couldn’t see a way out. I wanted to die.

    Most people won’t know about this. They know I suffer from depression and anxiety because I try to make it known but it is often hard for people to understand just how consuming, overwhelming and encompassing it can be. I am very much a victim of wearing the painted on smile. That’s why I talk about it. Talking makes it better. A problem shared is a problem solved and all that jazz.

    It was only thanks to the incredible people in my life that I was able to get through those dark days. I had panic attacks at work. I spent my weekends and evenings in bed. I struggled to do anything but I knew I had to. I was a functioning depressive. I got through the days but I was not living, not by a long shot.
    I didn’t feel comfortable in my own home. Nobody else felt comfortable with me being in my own home.

    I was fortunate that my dad had a spare room. He knew that at some point, in his own words, “one of his boys would need it”. He still refers to it as Paul’s Room. When I had an operation in November, I ended up there again.

    I packed the things I would need and I stayed at my dad’s while everyone did their absolute best to pull me through, when a lot of the time, I was loathed to try and do it myself. I owe those people my life.

    So, what’s the point?
    Why am I telling you this?
    It’s because it is important.
    Suicide is the number one killer of men between 25 – 40.
    For far too long, we have been made to bottle up our feelings, to stiff-upper-lip our way through difficult situations and it’s toxic and it has to stop. That’s why I am sharing.
    So what can you do?
    You can do what the people around me did.
    They asked what they could do.

    A friend at work took me aside and told me that she didn’t personally understand what I was going through but that if I felt comfortable explaining it to her, then she was happy to listen, and maybe, it would help. That olive branch got me through another day.

    A lot of the time, I didn’t have the answer. People were there for me when I needed them and even when I pushed them away, I knew it was at my request and that they would be ready and waiting when I was able to talk. It’s a hard thing to get your head around, for all concerned.
    Just listen to people.

    There are some things that help when you feel that low, even when you think they aren’t going to:
    · Get outside
    · Eat
    · Drink plenty of water
    · Watch old films
    · Stare out to sea
    · Tell people you love them
    · Create something
    · Destroy something
    · Pet a dog
    · Read “Reasons To Stay Alive” by Matt Haig

    While on the subject, Reasons To Stay Alive became an incredible source of strength for me. So much so that when I felt better and one of my friends was feeling low, we met for lunch and I gave him my copy. For over an hour we talked about the misunderstandings that come from friends and family when your mental health is bad and what we could do to combat it. We have a project in the pipeline as a result.

    There are so many people around you who are in a very similar head space, even if your twisted melon wants to make you feel like you are completely on your own.
    Fuck it, talk to me if you can’t find anyone else. I’m all ears.

    So, here we are. A year on from the sad face and the silk sheets. What’s happened since?
    Well, I took a trip to Asia to forget about everything.
    I shaved my head.
    I came back and realised I was still me and I was going to have to deal with that.
    I lost weight from depression.
    I threw away or gave away a lot of possessions.
    I got a few more tattoos.
    I lost my dignity in a strip club in Krakow.
    My anti-depressants flattened any sensation so I switched to others which made my hair fall out.
    I gained weight from anti-depressants.
    I tried being vegan.
    I took up meditation.
    I tried being gay.
    I joined a gym.
    I became an uncle.
    I bought a freezer.
    I remembered what it was to love myself.
    I got my creativity back.
    I’ve managed to get a lot of the flying monkeys off my back and day-to-day, I feel pretty good.

    That’s why I am able to look at that picture, and know that I am well and truly on the other side of the lens.

  • Five Years

    Five years ago today I tragically lost a very good friend. How strange that time has been.

    I often find myself thinking of him, wondering what he would make of the world as it is today.

    There is no doubt in my mind that he wouldn’t have been happy with the ending of Peep Show or the way things have changed at work, or in the wider world, but I hope that in some way I am carrying the torch for him. Losing a friend when they are just twenty-seven years old is fucking gutting. Realising that you have passed the age they will always be is a weird thing to comprehend. All of us are changing so much. We are having kids and getting ourselves wrapped up in mortgages. The jobs we had for a laugh so we could spend our Friday and Saturday nights pissing it up the wall are slowly turning into careers and we are losing sight of those teenage daydreams and becoming functioning adults who talk about politics and cavity wall insulation.
    There will always be a little part of whatever I get myself wrapped up in that will be intrinsically linked to what he would have made of it and that cannot be helped. I’m glad of it in fact. In many ways I think we are pushed to perform and to achieve because life really is too fucking short. I miss Danny every day. I see him in the faces of strangers. I hear him at the end of corridors that I can’t get far enough down in time. His influence echoes in the best possible way.

    As a result of knowing him I have so many friends. I will always be thankful to him for that. I will always be thankful to them for sticking around. He had an ability to throw people together and expect them to stick, and for the most part, it had to work.

    At his funeral, Sam read from Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Danny’s favourite contemporary book. I would like to paraphrase from it here:
    “I was suddenly very aware of the fact it was me standing up in that tunnel with the wind over my face. Not caring if I saw downtown. Not even thinking about it. Because I was standing in the tunnel. And I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite.”

    Please look after yourselves and cultivate relationships with those you truly care about. You never know when that time could be over and it will always be too soon.

  • WMHD 2016.

    While I was away I missed World Mental Health Day but this went live. I’m proud to be able to talk about what anxiety and depression feels like to me and want to spread awareness.
    If anyone is suffering then there is always someone there to listen. You are not broken. You are not crazy. There’s nothing wrong or emasculating about struggling with your mental health. You’re fucking badass. Look at you go.

    https://twitter.com/HSBC_NOW/status/785329033173098496