The Damaged

People always say “laughter is the best medicine”, but sometimes, when you feel like doing anything other than laughing, it’s hard to get yourself in to a position to see this.

Recently someone pointed something out to me, and even though it sounded obvious, I had never really given it much thought before.

“It’s like this,” said Big Dave at the pub, “whenever I feel really miserable, I force me self to go out and have a laugh.”

(Let’s get one thing straight, Big Dave isn’t the healthiest man I know, and definately is not in line for locum jobs for doctors; but I have to say that when it comes to forcing himself to do anything – like being happy – he is the man.)

I said, “but how do you force yourself?”

Big Dave looked at me with that absurd expression of his. “Are you deaf?” he said loudly.

I said, “apparently, can you speak a bit more quietly please?”

So Big Dave explained the secrets of healthy living, and I did my best to ignore the fact that these words of wisdom were coming out of an anything-but healthy 22 stone man.

After it, I said, “Is that it?”

He said, “Yep.”

Big Dave went on, explaining in detail how his mother had discovered the gift of laughter years ago, and he had followed suit. The deal was this: whenever he felt sad or annoyed, he made himself go somewhere where he would be forced to laugh. That was his simple cure to depression: get out before the depression could get him.

And I have to say that Big Dave has got a point. Ever since I started going out when I could feel myself start to get miserable, I could nip it in the bud before it could get me too down and I wouldn’t feel much like going out.

It’s happened to me too many times to count. I’ll be sitting there on the bus one minute, off in a dream-world where the UK is hot all year-round and pigeons poop out fresh fifty pound notes, and the next I’ll hear a “Will you please shut-up you little es haych eye tee? If you don’t you’ll get it!”

Then the dream-world vanishes. I look up and see a very angry mother. From the way she’s staring at all us bus-sitter-oners it’s seriously feels like we might all crack and break.

And nobody stands up and speaks, that’s the really messed-up part. The woman will continue to scream at the child and the child will either a) cry or b) scream back. After a while we all become numb to this and it becomes a joke to the passengers. You start to hear “Oh dear, someone’s upset” and “Well, she obviously got out of the wrong side of bed!”

It’s a Comedy show, basically.

Only nothing about this ef you see kay ed up situation is funny. In fact, it’s downright disturbing. And you can literally hear the thoughts move and form and see them materialize right there in front of you. They say things like she should have that child taken away and she’s not fit to be a mother.

They are my thoughts, of course. Don’t be daft, I can’t read anyone else’s.

And it’s a serious problem in society. When do you stand up and say “this is not right!”?