Why this picture grounded me
I’d like to start this article by stating that I am not embarrassed to say I have been struggling with my mental health of late. But that said, I do get embarrassed talking about it. So this article is a bit tricky.
In the spirit of “It’s okay not to be okay”, I thought I’d share some things about what’s going on in my mind. It’s not easy to talk about mental health as a man of a given age, but I do find that if people know what’s going on, some of life’s challenges fall away and things are a bit easier to deal with.
This year has not been the greatest of years with regards health, both physical and mental. More to the point, stress and anxiety caused by physical health problems (and countless medical tests) have taken their toll on my mental health.
Additionally physical issues have impacted any fitness regime I had, meaning I don’t feel as fit or healthy as I used to, and this again in turn has affected my mental state.
Fortunately all tests have come back normal/negative/nothing physically wrong. Good news and for this I am grateful.
But it’s taken it’s toll on my already depleted mental state. I am a born worrier, and stress over things quite badly. I find as I get older this has become worse.
For the record, any counselling I have had has not worked, so I’ve given up on that.
Oh, and if you’re wondering, physically I’m still living with the issues that prompted all the tests, I still don’t know what’s wrong, but as I know it’s nothing majorly serious, I’ll live with the symptoms for now.
Of course mental state can and does affect physical wellbeing. The irony is not lost on me.
Add in to this a mixture of stressful work. I am part of a team of 3, but for the past 5 weeks we have been a team of 1, that being just me, due to illness/life issues with the other members of the team.
As such I have burnt through any spare mental reserves I have had just to get things done.
I have a problem in as much I cannot say “No!” to a request if I have the ability to do the task being requested.
So work has been a tad stressful, not to mention draining.
Finally, to add into the mix, I find this time of year to be mentally challenging. Coming up 2 years ago this November, I lost my mum. She was my last blood relative, and a week after my birthday two years back, myself and my partner sat for 4 hours by my mums hospital bed, waiting for her to pass after they turned the machines off.
I am not over it. This time of year brings memories flooding back. The slightest thing can trigger me. Sometimes I suffer the occasional meltdown.
I can safely say I am at 0% on my mental resilience chart. Each day, each new task, is a challenge.
I have a circle of close friends I could talk to this about, but they have their own lives and stresses to deal with. So I don’t. I bury each thing that gets to me. I feel it would be selfish of me to burden them with my woes as they have their own lives to deal with.
So now you are up to speed on the basics. So why share this?
You see, I have found my ‘escape’ from <gestures wildly> ‘all this’ has been the retro computing scene; the people, the events, the kit, the software… and the memories.
A few weeks ago I was looking to sell a spare copy of Elite for the ZX Spectrum on eBay. Yes, a spare… let’s just say I got a bit carried away with collecting things.
The box was complete save for the poster, and I thought I’d test the cassette out before listing it.
Predictably it failed to load.
After some time waiting for the Speccy to load the tape, it completed, only to produce the result shown in the photo.
Was I annoyed?
In my current mental state did it tip me over the edge?
No.
Quite the opposite in fact. I felt a strange yet welcoming sense of calm wash over me.
A number of things contributed to this but one things stood out amongst all of them.
It took me back to a time where I didn’t have the stresses I have today.
A time when things were simpler.
A time when life was slower.
A time when I had my whole life to look forward to.
A time when both parents were still alive.
(A time when if this had occurred back in the day, I would have asked school mates the next day if I could get a copy <cough> from one of them.)
For a small moment of time, staring at the screen looking at that error message, I smiled, and briefly revelled in all the stresses of the modern day melting away. Nothing else mattered for a small snapshot of time.
It was bliss.
And that is why this hobby is so important to me. It enables me to let go of the ‘today and now’, to briefly time travel back to a (for me) simpler time.
It allows me to escape.
It allows me to re-charge my mental batteries.
And sometimes that is just enough to face the following day.
Thanks for reading.
YA (Oct ‘23)