Today we have my friend Darren giving you his top tips for getting through the end of the world in the comedy series “Apocalypse Wow”, a new episode of my podcast “Who Gives A Sh*t” and finally a new video in my mental health series “I Fight Demons”. Enjoy!
Who Gives A Sh*t with Chris Purchase – Season 3, Episode 1. The Lockdown, please check it out
Again if you’ve enjoyed these please share, subscribe and I’d love a coffee https://ko-fi.com/chrispurchase
Hello ChrisPians! Thank you again for following me on this crazy journey of mine, we’ve had our ups and downs, our highs and lows and we’ve had our “Where the hell are we? Are you sure that was the right turning? Ok I guess we live here now”s. All the way through it, so far, you’ve been with me at tour shows, coming to clubs, sharing my jokes, messaging me with support and generally being amazing so now I feel like it’s time for me to give a bit more back.
As all of you should know I suffer with bipolar disorder, have done ever since I was a tween, I talk about it extensively on stage and am always trying to find ways to help other sufferers who aren’t as far along their mental health journey as I am. With that in mind I’ve started a series of videos for people like myself, people who aren’t wealthy or have high flying jobs or multiple houses, people who need tiny steps to help them manage their mental health issue, be it bipolar, depression, anxiety or any of the other multiple new disorders that are thankfully being recognised by medical professionals.
The biggest issue people have with mental health problems is that a lot of therapists treat it like trauma, trying to make you accept it as part of yourself when in fact it’s an illness and that can be damaging. I don’t accept that, I don’t accept that it’s part of me, as far as I’m concerned it’s a demon trying to destroy me and something to fight.
Here are the first four videos in my “I Fight Demons” series, if you enjoy them and find them helpful subscribe and share with others. Everything on the videos is a way I’ve managed my bipolar. Together We Fight Demons.
I wish my illness was a more obvious thing. I wish there was this big blue lump on the side of my head that glowed when I was getting down. I wish that while I was talking the lump would play sad music so everyone knew that what I was saying wasn’t me but the lump talking through me. I wish that when I typed there was a special font so that people could see the lump was in charge and I was just watching it tap away at keys, reacting in a way that would destroy friendships and opportunities like an angry child in a crystal shop.
I wish that I could look in the mirror and see the lump and could say to myself “There it is, that’s my illness, right there on the side of my head look how obvious it is. It’s not me it’s the lump, none of this is me”. Other people with lumps would see each other in the street and nod as they passed, understanding just by how blue it was the way each other was feeling precisely.
Other people wouldn’t mention the lump in polite conversation but they’d know when I was talking as me and when the lump was rudely interrupting with it’s desperate attempts to gain favour or incomprehensible bouts of self directed rage. They’d nod at the alien words and phrases I was using and wouldn’t judge it as something I actually believed, rather as a symptom of the lump like excusing someone with a cold for sneezing.
But most of all I wish the lump could be removed, cut out like the pernicious tumour it really is. If it was a lump you’d know what it was.
I found this cartoon online (via Boggle the Owl)
The subject of depression is very close to my heart and I think that this particular comic defines how I feel about it perfectly.
If anyone ever needs a stick I’m right here holding a bunch of them.
