Three Years Later…

It feels strange returning to my former lifeline almost three years later to the day when I haven’t given so much as a glance to LaBellaBorgia Speaks in just as long.  There was a time when I depended on this space for care, for self-help, for self-preservation and readers, sympathisers and even medical professionals came to me through this medium to support me and keep me fighting.  I am as yet undecided as to whether this hiatus was wise or no…for maybe if I’d come back and pushed some of my shame and sadness onto this page, the cup may not have runneth over (not the usual implication of that adage, but I’m running with it) and my mind may not have breaketh into millions of pieces.

Yes, as you will have gathered, only in times of disaster and near-death do I come to this space so my presence belies the tumultuous events of the past weeks and this post is a harbinger of death and doom (sorry!).

Let me give you a speedy update of life from 2015-2018 to paint the picture…

Upon my return from the USA, I began my career in the wine industry, which is my true second passion.  As you will recall, teaching did not pan out (when does Plan A ever?!).  This was a happy time filled with new experiences and the beginning of my true passion for wine and the industry that has been my home professionally thenceforward.  I now work as an Assistant Manager within the Jeroboams Group in which I’ve worked for just over a year and enjoy purveying quality wines to the discerning London drinker.  Personally, I still have not found love but I am not sure I’ve ever truly applied myself to looking for it or being open to it.  Also, I no longer live in a windowless room in Essex with my parents but am the proud occupant of a spacious room – with two windows, no less – in Leytonstone, London in a house-share with two of my dearest friends.  I still travel extensively and since graduating, have been to numerous places in Europe, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Israel and Palestine and am looking forward to visiting Ethiopia and Colombia in the near future.  I have more or less kept the same friends, though there have been some welcome and indispensable additions – yes, Jeroboams girls, I am talking about you here!

All-in-all, life hasn’t been too harsh a mistress this past three years.  Sure, I’ve had my skirmishes and battles, but who hasn’t who has chronic mental health issues?  I’ve wept with pride as I’ve watched this war-torn and wretched world make gargantuan strides in destroying the stigma associated with mental health and general acceptance of the shades of grey that permeate 21st century society.  Obviously, there’s still a way to go but this is one global issue that is been well-tackled.

I will say that despite these strides and new equal opportunities initiatives in the workplace, I have never once disclosed my disabilities.  I am no fool and my worldview is not so naive as to make me believe that if I did companies would be clamoring for my presence.  It is a secret I have kept in my professional life for three years and now I know what the shelf life is on that kind of repression…three years, funnily enough.  I wish to God I had and this whole sordid mess could have been avoided.

A month ago I began to feel the claws scratching away at the wall erected to keep away the crazy and keep it hidden from view.  I tried my damnedest to shore up the gaps and brace the wall but the fall was inevitable and I was always going to lose that fight.  Needless to say, when the wall came tumbling down, I went down notoriously, in flames and feeling the world of hurt.  When an anxiety disorder allies with dysthymia and overwhelms the mind’s defenses, the fallout is going to be nuclear and when you haven’t told anyone, the stress of your loved ones, your coworkers and those you respect finding out your shame, carefully concealed for years and buried deep, is the radiation poisoning that holds you down.

I don’t know that I’ve taken weeks to rally since I was eighteen or nineteen.  It’s a renewed and utterly unwelcome sensation to be rendered so powerless and so beleaguered by nervous spasms when I try to venture outside, by anxiety attacks so potent they leave my arms weak and trembling for hours after, by hallucinations in the night so real they scare the sleep from me, by periods of depression so acute my lungs hurt from sobbing.  I believed I was strong, so strong to keep all my shame buried far from the eyes of others but I was stupid, more stupid than I’ve ever been and now I barely see an end in sight and even if I make it through, I don’t know what I’m going back to on the other side.

There have been two things, two simple things that have tugged me from one day into the next over the past week since – big confession now, guys – I threw myself down the stairs on Monday (I’m fine, I have a bump on the head and some soreness but that’s about it).  Just two.  Neither of them are particularly deep or difficult to find, but they were everything I had and all I could find for myself in the moments when I truly and honestly knew there was no succour to be found on another shore or with another soul.  I think I’ve always known that in my darkest times, I am alone.  I have no partner, no BFFFFFFF, no kindred spirit that’s coming for me if I call.  I am made stronger because I and no one else pull myself up from the brink with whatever tools I can find.  This time round, I went to two things that have never let me down in the past: music and TV.

I started singing and playing the autoharp again, having let it sit and gather dust for a year.  I didn’t care that my window was open and I was singing the likes of ‘Wake me Up’ (Avicii), ‘Ten Thousand Miles Away’ (Bellowhead) and ‘Carry on Wayward Son’ (Kansas) to the population of Leytonstone at the top of my voice.  I didn’t care that my voice is not as good as it used to be.  I remembered happier times making music when I was younger and singing with people I loved and who loved me in return before we lost each other along the way.  It was a reprieve – a much needed, welcome respite from the struggle.  Step one of recovery accomplished: return to a happier place in your mind and “lay your weary head to rest” until “you cry no more“.  (See what I did there…?)

That segues into step two so beautifully I may cry (again)!  As you might have seen from previous posts, I fling myself into other worlds and fictional characters when Pippa no longer has the strength.  TV is a huge, humongous, great, large, monumental, gigantic, elephantine, immense draw for me.  I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it until the day I take my own life, TV is the perfect medium for anyone that suffers with anything like what I do.  This is naturally my opinion, but I swear by it and live my life by it.  TV has the power to draw your attention away from your trembling hands, heaving chest, pulsing brain for any amount of time you wish.  For a short recovery time, you only need a miniseries or a couple of TV films perhaps.  For a bit of a bender, you need something long, thought-out and completely immersive (not sure that’s the correct nomenclature, but I’m going to run with it).  I found Supernatural!  After many years of letting it go on and on, I finally delved into the depths of the Winchester Bros’ adventures and upon realising that no.1 on the call sheet for the 14-season strong show, Mr. Jared Padalecki, has had his own battles with mental health and suicide, it spoke to the very centre of my soul.  Yeah, it’s a show about battling demons and angels (really love it on a modern exploration on Christian theology by-the-by, but I digress!), but it’s a show about struggling with inner demons, family issues, work-related drama, nonexistent self-esteem and fear at its very core and that’s why fans adore it, it’s why the cast and crew adore it (I’ve watched more hours of Supernatural convention footage than is advised) and it’s why it’s the longest running Sci-Fi & Fantasy show since records began.  Other than the plot points and intricate character arcs that take place over the many, many seasons, the show comes with the real-life hero of Jared Padalecki, which, unusually has been more of a help than the fictitious elements he portrays along with Jensen Ackles et. al.  Going off-piste for a brief moment, I suggested a while back that the unfortunate souls who live amongst us with mental health issues manage to gravitate to those of like minds and not always knowing it is taking place.  I guess I feel this way about my own immersion into Supernatural.  I did not know that the show had such a direct and well-known link towards mental health issues and charities etc. until I reached season 6 (about 4 days ago.  I’m now on season 10 – make of that what you will).

Slogan from the March 2015 Supernatural/Jared Padalecki campaign 

Listening to the cast support their leading man as he visibly and notoriously succumbed but then rallied only to honestly vocalise his feelings and experiences and raise campaigns and funds to help others…there are no words I have that can express the irrational hope, kinship and inspiration to ‘Always Keep Fighting’ (the slogan for the J. Padalecki/Supernatural mental health awareness and support campaign).  Step two of recovery in progress: find something to obsess over that diverts attention from the pain and suffering and provides an escape hatch from an excruciating reality.

I am just over 1,700 words on this one and I’m tuckered out now.  It’s been so great to come back to LaBellaBorgia Speaks and I hope some of you give this post a read and it helps you with your own struggles or if you know me, helps understand a bit more of the disappearing act I’ve put on (I hope none of y’all think I’ve just gone to Bali or am riding round in sports cars).  I will be committing more to LaBellaBorgia Speaks over the coming months and we’ll see how it goes.

Thanks for reading, thanks for supporting, thanks for staying x

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P. Mistry-Norman

25-08-2018

 

Life: The Masquerade Ball

Since August 3^rd I have been on a Contiki group holiday travelling from Los Angeles to New York.  At the beginning of this article, I am in a hotel abutting the beach in Panama City Beach, Florida.  For most people, this state of events is ideal and has the potential for wonderful times and indescribable adventures.  Sadly, as you will all have picked up by now, I am not most people.  Neither my brain nor my heart will permit me to compute the idea of a month of such glee or merriment.  I simply cannot stress enough just how frustrating it is to me that I so desire to join in the fun and have a great time with the new friends Pippa has made (for reason I address myself in 3^rd person here, see..) and yet, there never comes a time when control of the requisite organs to appreciate my situation rests in my hands.  My illnesses are constantly usurping my power and forcing me to conceal the true madness behind the mask (yes, I am a Phantom of the Opera fan!).

The Pippa I was before I became medicated and up-to-a-point subdued and diluted would have been standoffish and shy to a fault, but eventually she would have found her feet and met her lobster (Friends has been playing on the coach!).  Sadly, the Pippa who survived assault and constant mental, emotional and physical abuse with scant comfort to punctuate the suffering, attempts to fit in and finds her lobster but buckles under the strain of being so constantly watched and masked in front of strangers.  That is what has happened in the midpoint of this wonderful trip that has been eagerly anticipated for years.

Precisely halfway through my sojourn abroad my mood took a nosedive.  My sleeping hasn’t been too bad, which can sometimes lead to depression, yet just before a wild night in NOLA (New Orleans), most of which I do not recall, I felt as though I had no reason to live.  I had just seen the most beautiful natural sight I’m sure I’ll ever see: the sunset over the bayou in Louisiana from an airboat floating on calm waters.  I’ve included one of the pictures I captured of the moment that nearly brought me to tears but though it is a cliché thing to say, you really did have to be there sitting at the front of the boat with spray hitting you and showing you just how alive you are at that moment in time.  I felt free and alone in a crowd.  It was perfection.  There was no pressure, there was no suffering, there was no thinking or living.  There was just being.  I thought it God’s gift.  Sadly, as I have previously said, the greater the gift from God, the harsher and greater the payment owed to the Devil.  The Devil took his payment in full not three hours later (even Faustus had more time to settle his debts!) when I determined to drink my way down the notorious Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  It has been said that I was “drinking like I didn’t want to live” and I am forced to agree with my travelling companions.  I did not want to live.  Life will never be as perfect or easy to deal with as it was on that boat in the middle of the swamp seeing a spectacular sunset, and somewhere, subconsciously, my broken brain told my broken heart that both should go down after a high like that and then my entire system was in agreement that Bourbon Street would be a location where I tried to die happy rather than England where I have attempted to die miserable many times.

Louisiana Sunset

I remember the entirety of Bourbon Street, including the bulimic attack I had during a helping of gumbo.  I even remember being cogent enough to request the Uber to take me and my two friends back to our hotel.  The last thing I remember is getting into bed at probably about 2am, but after that, I have no clue what befell me or my roommate, though I am told I was a very abrasive drunk.

Drinking like I didn’t want to live…

Since then, I don’t know if I am almost disappointed that I am not dead or if I am just reacting to the poor opinion of me that the other passengers now have, but my mood has refused to be improved.  Despite my proverbial inhalation of my SSRIs and antidepressants, my bulimic attacks have not slowed up or gone away and I cannot get into the spirit of the trip as well as I was before I grew tired of wearing the mask that showed the rest of the world the portrait of a sane person, while beneath there resides a broken, bat-shit crazy bitch.

When I am back home, I wear a mask to a certain extent with people I do not trust or have only just met, but when you are spending a month in the company of the same people and without resorting to Facebook and Instagram stalking – something I refuse to do with my time – you have no idea who they really are as much as they cannot tell who you are.  When it’s a fortnight or less, it’s not so bad because I can keep it together (more or less…) for that duration of time, but I’ve never had to maintain a constant mask for over four weeks and to paraphrase the great Tennessee Williams, I’ve never had to depend on the kindness of strangers for so long.  It’s exhausting and it made me think about how often I don the mask and thereafter how long I wear it in the company of others.

I have since made up my mind and decided that none may know me as long as I live, save my children and the only love of my life.  They are the only ones with whom I feel – or will feel – safe.  As such, I wear a mask to all others to protect myself from being further broken and rendered unable to show my face to those who have to see it, who deserve to see it, who must see it.

Anyway, I’ll leave you all with that thought as I sit watching my roommate get ready to go to a club in Miami Beach that according to a club promoter I am too ugly, too big and not sufficiently “Miami” enough (yes, I am using Miami as an adjective that’s how low my self-esteem is currently, that without the mask I’m still too warped physically for the world that the Grammar Nazi in me has checked out for the night!).

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P. Mistry-Norman

20-08-2015

Holiday Blues

I am about to go to the United States with Contiki on Wednesday on what will be one of the biggest – and longest – adventures I’ve ever done.  That is my summer vacation (see, I’m already mastering the lingo!), but one holiday planned and approaching only makes me begin to think about my next one, which of course, for a British girl is Christmas 2015.

Christmas is a strange holiday, one about which I have mixed feelings.  When I was a younger girl I adored it.  Not because of the gifts or the great meal or because it was a time when family made the effort not to bicker and bite, but because it was a time when I was part of something…something great, memorable and important.  Ever since my paternal grandparents passed (my grandfather died quite some time ago, a nonagenarian and my nana died years after him in her 100s), Christmas has never been the same.  For a few years after, we still went up – as was tradition – to Whitnash in Warwickshire and had Christmas with my father’s sister and her family, but that did not last.  After that, the adults of the family (I was still at school and about 13 years old, I reckon) decided that presents would no longer be shared among everyone but that instead my father would give to his niece and nephew and my aunt and uncle would give to me.  Though, seeing as my cousins are closed in age to my mother and father than I am to anyone else, I was still the baby of the family and it still feels, as we haven’t had a ‘proper’ Christmas since that Christmas was another thing I loved that got taken away from me undeservingly and unwillingly.  I don’t get the wrapped gifts anymore, I don’t get to sit round a decorated tree and listen to the Queen’s speech (though admittedly that might be the thing I miss least!), I don’t feel the spirit of Christmas anymore.

My dad always says that Christmas is for children, so maybe as an adult I shouldn’t care or I should feel that it was only natural that Christmas should be cancelled as there’s no one younger in the family that celebrated Christmas together than me and I’m all growed up.  I disagree with my father.  Christmas isn’t for children.  It’s for family.  It’s for togetherness.  It is for home.  Just because members of the family who died naturally first are gone does not mean the world shuts down and what makes the living happy dies along with them.  If it did, wouldn’t the world be a depressing place?

I may sound callous, but I am one of the most unfeeling people, so I’ve been told, concerning death and sympathy for bereaved.  My motto is that people die and that’s the natural order of things.  I’ve felt grief but I have not the constitution or the mindset to let it claim me or take things away from me.  The most I have ever felt and constantly feel to this day concerning grief and the death of someone loved is that my godbrother died when he was only just out of school close to Christmas and I never met him but if he had not died I doubt my godparents would be my godparents.  So, the only thing I ever think is that if I could I would swap with him.  I never met him but the amount I love my godparents and their son and his family, I would do anything to spare them from losing such a valued member of their family, whereas if I could, I would gladly sell my wretched soul to the devil if he sent Tim back to his family.  You can tell from all the photos and painting of him that there was brightness and happiness in his soul, and he was taken before his time, whereas my soul is black as pitch and I’m still here to miss Christmas and lose my sanity bit by bit.  Why should I be here suffering when I so wish sometimes that I could be put out of my misery and many people could benefit from someone much better and much more loved than me taking my place on an earth that to him, I’m sure, would have been full of glee and unknown contentment?  And Christmases with his family…

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked!  The point was that I feel things so differently from others because somewhere along my brain broke, that my feelings about the dead are so warped and confused that I hold the unknown dead so dear in my heart but cannot wrap my head around how the death of my grandparents resulted in the death of Christmas.

At Christmas time, the world is bombarded through social media with photos of happy celebrations and times spent with the family.  There are, naturally, instances where Christmas is a time of sadness and grief and loneliness as it has become for me, but usually pictorial evidence of that state of mind during the Yuletide rarely makes it onto the likes of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Actually, though the idea of suicides being more common in the Christmas holidays is shown to be a myth (see the links to the CDC report), as it has been found that the summer months actually see higher rates of suicide and suicide attempts than the winter.  However, for Christmas to be no more a time when I wonder why the hell I’m on this planet, traditional Christmases like I remember when I was in my formative years would have to resume.  I tried to make a go of it and force it myself, for who can you blame if you don’t make an effort yourself, yet I having Christmas in a student property in Exeter was almost twice as depressing because I actually plucked up the courage to invest my heart in it.  That was the last time I even contemplated trying to resuscitate the Ghost of Christmas Past and accept that what my Ghost of Christmas Future was showing me was a lifetime’s supply of Christmases travelling and forgetting that December 25th has any significance whatsoever.

Last year, I went to Morocco for the Christmas holidays on an Explore tour and as an Islamic country I saw maybe two Christmas trees maximum.  There was no atmosphere of the holiday at all and weirdly I loved it.  On Christmas Day itself, we arrived in Rabat and the Holiday Blues were starting to get to me a bit so I left the group for a day and explored the city on my own in my “Frozen” t-shirt with Olaf on the front saying “I like warm hugs”.  That was the only Christmassy element of that trip but I thought about what other families back home were doing and enjoying together and it made me realise I will never stop looking for that.  One day, I won’t have to save up to go travelling the Silk Road or Jordan or Ethiopia.  One day, the only thing I’ll have to save up for is turkey with the fixings for a family of my own.  That is a day I’ll love, but it still gets me down that I’m about as close to getting that day as I am to getting to hold my son in my arms.

Just for information’s sake, here are some useful links to articles and reports concerning Christmas holiday suicide and suicide epidemiology in general:

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/suicide/holiday.html

http://www.samaritans.org/sites/default/files/kcfinder/branches/branch-96/files/Suicide_statistics_report_2015.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2040383/

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Suicide+Rates

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P. Mistry-Norman

24-07-2015

Music of the Night

Softly, deftly music shall caress you

Hear it, feel it secretly possess you,

Open up your mind,

Let your fantasies unwind

In this darkness that you know you cannot fight,

The darkness of the music of the night.

So often I feel that life and living is simply a run.  It’s a run from the time you’re expelled from a womb to the time when you decay and die.  To get from A to Z you have to run, whether you choose to run towards death or away from it.  The irony is that I am as bad at running as I am at life.  Somewhere, sometime before my brain and heart broke, I couldn’t keep up with life’s pace and I slowed down, then stopped altogether.  Now, whether a hurdle tripped me up or I wasn’t fit enough or I ultimately decided I would not run, I got left behind.  Life, the living and all that encompasses left me behind.  Others who fall and fail and struggle through life, who cannot keep pace with the run of life, are tugged along by the other runners in the race, those who knew them, loved them – who would miss them – and saw them fall.  Nobody saw me fall.  Nobody looked back at me lying in their wake.  Nobody realised I was no longer in the race.  Someone had already won and I had already come last in that instant.  Now, I’m up and I am walking.  I am walking but nothing I, or anyone else, can do now will lessen the distance between myself and those ahead of me who might have knelt down and given succour.  So, when humankind forgets you are part of it and is complicit in your survival or lack of it, to whom or what do you turn so that you can keep walking towards death and find an end to the journey?  What is it that keeps you company on your long, dark, solitary odyssey that your life is to you with a broken brain and a broken heart?  The caress and possession of your mind, heart and body by music, the sweetest and darkest music that lets the burning in your muscles dwindle and is the balm to the crushing weight of the world’s dismissal and apathy of you on your shoulders.  Music is the door from this world where Pippa trudges to Calvary alone, no longer able to run with life, to the sacred world where Lucrezia and Cordelia sing with angels and thrive away from the great race in the night no longer “dark and full of terrors”.

• I realise at this point that I am referring to a lot of media excepting music, but they’re all expanded upon in other posts on this blog or media files elsewhere
  • Me, Myself and Cordelia: https://labellaborgia.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/me-myself-and-cordelia/7
  • Brothers & Sisters: https://labellaborgia.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/brothers-sisters-3/
  • The Night is Dark and Full of Terrors: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/R’hllor

My extended metaphor aside, I want to write about music today, seeing as I’ve been crying (inexplicably, I might add!) through three episodes from season 2 of Glee!  It was nothing in the show particularly that elicited such a visceral response from me but it’s a show that, despite being cliched, unbearably American and full of unrealistic teen drama (even from the adults), is about music and the joys of music healing people and bringing them together with other people, who would have left them behind or never known them and made a difference in their lives.  Can you see how this fits in with my metaphor dragged out above?  Just in case I’ve been too cryptic, I’ll spell it out: it’s a show about people falling, failing and fumbling their way through life but more than that, it’s a TV show about others picking you up and being aware that you matter, especially in the episodes aired in the aftermath of Cory Monteith’s tragic passing.

Anyway, back to music!

The first tunes I remember and the first moments of insurmountable joy I experienced during a melody were those of Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s composition.  I used to adore musicals and Kid’s Week in London was the highlight of my year.  Now, I find them just adaptations of better works and overly sentimental romances, but Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s works still hit a resounding note with me, despite the fact that I listen to them less and less.  Just to give you a rundown, of all his musicals, I have seen (though, even where I haven’t seen the show, I know of the songs, e.g. I have never seen Song and Dance but I have sung Tell Me On a Sunday):

• Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968)
  • NB. also my first exposure to Donny Osmond, whom I love also!
• Jesus Christ Superstar (1970)
  • At Chigwell School, this was one of the shows and I played trumpet in the orchestra
• Evita (1976)
• Cats (1981)
• The Phantom of the Opera (1986)
  • I believe, other than the Joel Schumacher film, I have seen the show in London’s West End over ten times
• Whistle Down the Wind (1996)
• Bombay Dreams (2002)
• Love Never Dies (2010)
  • NB. I saw this twice and the original ending (SPOILERS!) was that Christine dies and Gustave resides with his natural father, the Phantom, after losing his mother and I LOVED THAT!  Then, after a cast change and alteration to the musical, I saw it again and the ending was changed so that Raoul returns after leaving his wife and “son” and the Phantom lets Gustave return to the father he knew rather than stay with the father he knew no and I HATED IT

I have also seen all of the BBC 1 talent show-auditions for Andrew Lloyd-Webber productions and adored them, but I’m getting sidetracked by a delineation of the history of my fanatical following of Lloyd-Webber.  I’ll get back to proper writing now!

For my third form prom, I sang The Music of the Night from The Phantom of the Opera and for the reason that it speaks of how music brings a lonely, scarred, incomplete man love, a vocation and a life, I have never found another song to replace it in my heart.  Those lyrics that opened this article are words I long to sing and love to recall when nothing but music for a while (kudos to any music lovers who get that reference!) can soothe my achy, breaky heart.  (I am on fire with these references!).

The lyrics of the entire song are about transcending out of this banal and brutal world to one where fantasies can come to life and you can be who you are, not who you appear to be.  That is my life, through television, through film, through whatever I can find.  My need is to leave Pippa behind and become someone else who can feel love and give love in a world that is not going to find pitchforks and cages with which to punish me for being ugly, for being evil, for being a monster.  For, that is what you become when you fall and the run of life leaves you behind because no one living, who runs away from death and towards life itself, remembered to look for you or reach for your hand to save you, who are forced to begin the long march to death.  You become a monster and a beast with no salvation other than that you search and yearn for beyond this life and away from this earth that has forsaken you.

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P. Mistry-Norman

28-06-2015

 

Up & Down on the Silver Screen

In honour of…oh, who am I kidding, it always seems to be Mental Health Week this or Awareness of Something Week, so in honour of every week of the year in which I suffer from my mental health issues and awareness of how broken my brain is, I have decided to dedicate a post to all the moments in TV I have found where it is a sad moment with a funny bit sneaked in or a comedy show with a moving and tear-jerking moment.  These moments on television do – up to a certain extent – epitomise how mood can go from ecstasy to the depths of despair and vice versa.  For example, as I have said previously, I have a theory that mentally ill people such as myself can never experience one moment of happiness, no matter how minuscule, without paying for it in full by experiencing at least double the amount of time in sheer agony that does not let up.  In short, when we are given that one, precious, fleeting moment WE DESERVE IT because we always know it’s not going to last…before we know it, it’ll be gone and we’ll remember how we didn’t deserve it in the first place.  What spurred this article is what happened yesterday.  I am so close to the end of a 3-year BA that has taken me 4 years because my first attempt at second year was such a calamity.  Yet, a spanner was thrown in the works yesterday when I received the mark of 70 on an essay and had just finished my final exam.  That was literally so great to feel smart and successful for the briefest of moments but then I got an essay that I worked my ass off for which was marked as a 42.  I had been told that the marker was harsh and had upset other students with the unfair grades given, but because I let myself get high on my first-class essay for the smallest of moments, I felt the plummet all the more sharply.  I’m still reeling a bit from that, though not going off my medication would be a step in the right direction, but what made me certain I would write this article is the series finale of Spartacus: War of the Damned, which I have just cried my way through.  When Spartacus finally dies, that was not the sadness that gave me an outlet, but instead I have felt so much throughout the show: love, hate, excitement, pride and laughter, that I’m sorry to have reached the end of another piece of media that left broken little Pippa behind in the sand and let Agron (yes, I found another character to disappear into!) takeover, to the point where when he was crucified – but survived, thank God – I began to shake uncontrollably as if some of the pain was in my brain and able to be felt by me.  That is how far I can leave Pippa behind when her life goes to crap.  Even shadows of Agron’s pain felt with nails in his palms is preferable to the pain that Pippa undergoes everyday but especially when it all goes tits up.

So, that got me to thinking about what moments in television history have elicited a similar response.  Therefore, I’ve decided to share my findings with you!

• Agron’s Crucifixion (for those who might like to watch it)

• Rodney and Cassandra’s baby (a truly tragic moment in one of the funniest comedies ever broadcast)

• Death of Solan (for a strong woman to experience the death of her unknown child and completely fall to pieces in an otherwise light-hearted show had my poor heart on a piece of elastic)

• Chuck crying and Blair goes from happy to sad (it is Blair’s pain that is of note to me in this…going from the happiness of her mom’s wedding to her future husband crying over the “death” of his father…rollercoaster much?)

• Klaus is reunited with his daughter (I don’t actually watch The Originals except in clips but this broke my heart…)

• Atia’s heartbreak (another strong woman brought low, yet Atia’s truly naive feelings that bring her such emotional pain in a show about blood, sex and politics shock, but in the finale you see her hardened by her broken heart and rise from the ashes of the woman who loved Antony)

• Ianto Jones dies while Jack cannot (in the comedic spin-off to Doctor Who, Torchwood, Ianto and Jack are a funny yet awkward pairing, but Ianto dying by breathing is so heart-wrenching in a dark series in all the light-hearted ones but still a blow nevertheless)

• Daniel realises who Vala truly is (in the final episode of all 10 seasons of Stargate: SG-1 my favourite character for her very bipolar nature springing from abuse and assault finally gets her man when he insults her enough for her to break her walls down and he sees beyond them…would that all men could)

• “Bad Timing” (in this episode that serves as sheer proof that a good moment must be paid for in full by an equally or greater bad moment(s), star-crossed lovers – literally – get together and are broken apart within seconds…story of my frelling life!)

This is just a snapshot of moments like these, and I hope you have enjoyed reading my thoughts on them and watching them unfold.  Stay tuned at La Bella Borgia Speaks!

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P. Mistry-Norman

14-05-2015

Depression Awareness Week

Some people may not know that this week is Depression Awareness Week, and while I have always been a few days late to the parties for mental health awareness scheduled events because I am in a state of constant vigilance (hats off to Alastor Moody!), it’s important to mark this one.

I’ve been having a rough time where pain is at a constant eight and every day I wonder what’s the point of getting out of bed when the duvet just seems too heavy to even bother.  My dissertation and pressing exam revision are not helping this any…but that’s beside the point.  The point is that the more people that are aware of depression and willing to put a stop to the stigma surrounding mental health afflictions and treatments, the more people will be open to caring about those who suffer from those diseases and the less people like me will feel ostracised and isolated because their pain never ebbs away from an eight.

So, I guess, I realise why there isn’t a greetings card that wishes people a Happy Depression Awareness Week but there should be, because it’s a time when depressed and other mentally ill people feel like the world gives a shit and is at least attempting to understand the fog of rubbish that percolates in our broken brains.  This is why I’ve designed my own card and am sharing it with all of you, with my best wishes and hope for the summer of 2k15.

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P. Mistry-Norman

24-04-2015

Pippa AKA River Tam

I was watching the episode War Stories from Joss Whedon’s AMAZING series, Firefly, when it occurred to me that the quote in the little spotlight I put together is such a good expression of what I feel 99% of the time and what I am sure other people who suffer from depression and other mental health illnesses feel too.  For those of you who have never seen the show (and therefore have not lived!), it is only fourteen episodes long, plus the movie Serenity to tie it all off, because FOX cancelled it prematurely and a decision that is rage-inducing to all its fans still going strong today as Browncoats.  River Tam is the character played by the glorious Summer Glau who has her mind altered painfully by the government, leaving her lobotomised but clever, agile and more perspective than her other shipmates.  It never occurred to me until today how good a character she is for mental health illness sufferers to relate to, but I guess I’ve found another kindred spirit in a TV show.  Let’s face it, no matter how much I tried to believe it, I was never going to be the eternally happy Kaylee (Jewel Staite), was I?  No, best make myself into the lonesome, ostracised and damaged young girl that is River Tam.  That’s realistic thinking for you.

Hope that speaks to you as much as it does to me!

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P.Mistry-Norman

02-04-2015

In Memoriam

On Saturday March 21st, 2015 I had the great honour of giving a tribute at my late Latin and Ancient Greek teacher’s memorial service.  He was an octogenarian when he retired and, indeed when he taught me for my GCSE and A Level exams.  Though he was a private man who mostly kept himself to himself and his humour in check (before pupils, at least it seems!), Mr David Horton was a genteel and amiable soul to write about and to recall in front of – I believe – a hundred or so ex-pupils, former colleagues and old schoolmates.  Two others preceded my brief eulogy, including one of Mr Horton’s first Classics students whereas I was his last proper Classics pupil at Chigwell School.  Mine was the shortest reflecting the time in which I knew the man himself but I am led to believe it had a measure eloquence and wit about it…a tall order considering that only a few hours before I was throwing up and passing out in a bathroom, bruising my arm on a cleaning bucket in the process!

I find social speaking and public speaking nigh-on impossible now, but to speak for such a man, a teacher I hold up as the best example of what I should aim to be, was a privilege had I passed it up, the nightmares truly would have never stopped.  For those of you who deem that last statement hyperbolic, even if you did not know the person intimately, when you feel the loss of a hero or admired figure whom you know you will spend the rest of your life emulating and trying to replicate in the hope of being just as good but knowing full well that you’ll be lucky to be a third as good, your mind does seep through the cracks into the darkness percolating below.

So, I can truly say I will miss Mr Christopher David Horton and I will forever treasure the gift of learning and knowledge he gave me during the final years of his long lifetime.

And now…I have recorded below a 98% accurate transcript of my speech, should you be curious, should you be needing it someday.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Now, I have many memories of one of the greatest inspirations to me, David Horton, all of which come from my Ancient Greek GCSE lessons where it was just him and me in a room in Radley’s Yard during lunchtimes, or band rehearsals and concerts where he would play the trombone, or even A level lessons where he taught a class of three pupils about Tacitus and the uses of the gerundive – a tough task, which I can now fully appreciate as a Classics-Teacher-to-Be – and finally, the chapel services where he played the organ.

Before I launch into an encomium, I would like to just share one anecdote with you all that in my view sums up the man that was David Horton.  Let me take you back to my GCSE year when Mr Horton was around eighty and I was the only student of Ancient Greek.  He used to teach me unseens and prose composition, two of the things I found most difficult and therefore made for difficult lesson time.  Now, back when I was a less PC and tactful person, I just had to tell Mr Lord that I didn’t want to have Mr Horton as a teacher anymore.  When he was shocked to hear this, he asked me why I didn’t want a teacher willing to devote his lunch hour to teaching me, my answer was that during that hour, only the two of us were in Radley’s Yard.  This worried me because I was scared that if Mr Horton had a heart attack I’d be the only one there with no idea how to help.  This did make Mr Lord laugh but he informed me that Mr Horton was still driving and teaching so he would be around long after I took my GCSE’s.  What I was not expecting was that this exchange reached the ears of my Greek teacher and all he could do was laugh and in the next lesson told me to pay more attention to my genitive absolutes instead of his health.  A classicist’s humour but a good sense of humour nonetheless…

I could relate the intricacies of the lessons, and how I’m pretty sure that Mr Horton knew every word in the Ancient Greek and Latin lexica, but that would be a poor tribute for the man who had higher value than the syllabus allowed.  For, it’s not the learned Tacitus or the grasped past participle which is what I remember from Mr Horton’s time as my teacher.  The inspiration and fond memory came from the incredible life he lived, spending as much of it – as I believe is almost humanly possible – in Chigwell School both as a pupil and subsequently as a Classics master.

I asked Mr Horton once if he had a favourite student and – not entirely to my surprise – he replied that it is the current Head of Classics, Mr Chris Lord, who was his pupil when he too was at Chigwell.  As both attended the same college at Oxford and then returned to this unique school to teach Classics, I cannot help but see Mr Horton as the beginning of the pathway that is guiding me through my life and that is the greatest gift any teacher or anyone for that matter, can give a fellow human being or student.  Thanks to the role Mr Horton played in my life, showing me that teaching can be both a career, a vocation and a lifestyle choice, I am now on track to be a Classics teacher.  I will conclude by saying that Mr Horton was a substantial part of the Classics teaching staff at this school and because of his example, his life’s work for Chigwell School, I am finding and making a way to one day carry on the tradition he began here and do it the justice he deserves as a superlative teacher and it is an honour to speak about him to all the people who came today to remember him, which is more of a testament to his memory than my words could ever give.

Finally, I will offer some words by Cicero, seeing as this is a memorial service for a Latin teacher: vita mortuorum in memoria est posita vivorum.  That is: the life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living.

Thank you.

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P. Mistry-Norman

24-03-2015

Many Happy Returns

I have had somewhat of a Jonah week and as such, I have decided to wish myself a happy birthday and congratulations for surviving yet another year of my existence without succeeding in topping myself, something that is in a big way due to LaBellaBorgia Speaks.  I do hope you like the little card I’ve designed myself and will wish me all the luck and pray for me to make it to my 23rd birthday!

 

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P. Mistry-Norman

16-03-2015

Contemplating Single Motherhood

As listing makes me feel better and calms me down exponentially, but I keep running out of novel things to list because I have to do it so much, I tried to find something valid and interesting to make a list of and stumbled onto the topic of single mothers.  Now, I have said before that I have no doubt that I will be a single mother by choice because I need children but cannot bear to envision a life with another adult.  However, it got me to thinking, seeing as this blog is about the media and how it can help and hinder a medium mind like mine, about how many single mothers appear and have extremely positive roles in television.  Now, you may observe that there are some controversial additions to this list of positively characterised single mothers, for example, Ellis Grey and Lettie Mae Thornton, but to me even they are good examples of mothers.  This is simply because they did their best.  They may have succumbed to obsessive working and alcoholism respectively, and throughout the TV series that feature their characters their daughters hate their mothers, but even characters whom the audience is supposed to view as villains are redeemed by the realisation of their children (though sometimes it comes all the way in season 11) that their mothers worked with what they had and did their best in the given circumstances.  There are times when I empathise heavily with Meredith or Tara Mae, both scarred and having died and attempted suicide by life, but knowing my luck my life will pan out quite like a TV show and it won’t be until the last season that my mother and I call a ceasefire.  Either that, or one of us will end up killing the other…

Anyway, this post was meant to be cheerier than the last one and here I am talking about homicidal tendencies!  So, I present to you the – by no means exhaustive – list of single mothers that I consider to be good examples of both the triumphs and mistakes of single motherhood on television.

The Single Mothers of TV

• Martha Rodgers (Castle)
• Shelby Corcoran (Glee)
• Jackie Tyler (Doctor Who)
• Ellis Grey (Grey’s Anatomy)
• Shirley Bennett (Community)
• Vala Mal Doran (Stargate SG-1)
• Patty Halliwell (Charmed)
• Liz Forbes (Vampire Diaries)
• Lettie Mae Thornton (True Blood)
• Catherine Bordey (Death in Paradise)
• Carrie Mathison (Homeland)
• Rachel Green (Friends)
• Edith Crawley (Downton Abbey)
• Regina Mills (Once Upon a Time)
• Eleanor Waldorf (Gossip Girl)
• Norma Bates (Bates Motel)
• Joyce Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
• Darla (Angel)
• Claire Littleton (LOST)
• Karen Roe (One Tree Hill)
• Vy Smith (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)

LaBellaBorgia Speaks,

P. Mistry-Norman

04-03-2015