The Living Artist. Some adventures of an unknown, unfamous painter.
Having sold a few small circular paintings in December, for once I could afford to buy presents, and Christmas with Nicki and Joe in North Woodchester was the happiest I could remember, bolstered by the sense of being a responsible adult instead of the usual — feeling the guilt of being a burden, unable to contribute much to the annual theme of giving.
Being on hard times and accepted by your loved ones at Christmas despite the frugal offerings of a pauper to the family feasting, would be tolerable occasionally, but it had become my life role. It was the same way every Christmas, every birthday, wedding and anniversary. I’d don my best self, and was quite able to bring some joy, some humour and a sense of celebration as my gifts, but before leaving home and after returning home, I’d usually be wracked with some degree of self-loathing for my general inability to ever pay my own way. Many a time my mother and father would give me the money to be able to actually get there, and sometimes they’d give me my Christmas present as cash or a cheque, well before Christmas, so that I could afford to buy some presents for the rest of my family.
Writing down these memories still burns my heart with seemingly inextinguishable shame. Deep, piercing “I-must-die” shame.
But… with my earnings from sales, Christmas 2006 had been wonderful, and I had been feeling uncharacteristically cheerful about life’s prospects. So when, as January was nearing it’s last days, I clearly saw rising up in me, there was a beckoning surge of dark familiar thoughts about killing myself, I finally went to see a doctor.
Dr Sheldon, working at a practice in Belsize Park, was the doctor who had recognised Joe’s cancer when Joe was only two years old. Nicki and I had each felt Dr Sheldon’s sensitivity and genuine care at the time, and so now, some years later, it was he I made an appointment to see. Unlike December 2005, when I had finally run out of the essential human ingredient; hope, and had planned carefully for my death by drowning, I now wanted to live in spite of the suicidal ideation. In the intervening time I had begun to see that I was in a dark tunnel, as opposed to the sealed and buried coffin I had felt I was in previously. I’d seen some light, I knew there was somewhere to head towards and I was making my way there.
Having not been to a GP for anything since my circumcision more than twenty years before, I had to first register at the practice to make an appointment. Within a few days I was sitting in the waiting area, feeling rather calm for having taken a step, though I didn’t know what a doctor might offer that could help, because I was definitely not going to take any anti-depressants.
The previous patient left and the doctor appeared at his door, calling my name, waiting to see who would respond, and welcomed me in. I hadn’t planned what to say any further than ‘I’m really struggling’. Dr Sheldon was/is a true healer though, a calling that has at its root the art of listening, and as you will recognise if you have been fortunate enough to encounter a truly compassionate listener, you’re given deep permission to talk, to reveal, to share, to open up in confidence and knowledge that you are being heard, without judgement or criticism of who you are. Something fundamentally desired and needed I believe, by every human being, from the very first to the very last. And that is fortunately where I found myself.
I talked, I revealed, shared and wept profusely, and the good doctor received my outpouring long past the suggested 12 minutes each patient was allowed. He listened intently for over 45 minutes, asking a few questions to help in his keen divination of who I was, how I might have arrived at this place in my life and what I might need. It was noticeable to me that he never once looked at his watch. He was in no hurry, as he had quickly seen more clearly than I dared admit to myself, what a deeply painful and precarious place I was inhabiting. I let out my life’s hurt, and when he responded, he had already assessed many things; immediately accepting my not wanting anti-depressants, and writing a sick note that would enable me to some financial support from the state.
His opinion of my way of living was that I had essentially been homeless for a couple of decades, I was chronically depressed and exhausted, and in need of long term help. He went online to find out how I could sign up for the appropriate benefits, recognising that just giving me advice that I should sign on, would be useless, as I wouldn’t have the wherewithal to follow through. He discovered that it was all done by phone, with no need to attend a face-to-face interview, which was a tremendous relief for me. The good doctor’s first prescription was for me to make a phone call. He asked me to call the number he’d found and get signed on with his doctor’s note as proof of need, and come back to see him in three days time.
I’d also confessed to the doctor that I’d registered at a girlfriend’s address near the practice, as I didn’t have an address of my own, for which Dr Sheldon had also checked online how I might get housed. I needed to sign on to the Homeless Register at the Town Hall.
Following my prescription, I called the Benefits Office the next day, when slightly recovered from the intensity of my doctor’s appointment. As I’ve seen for myself and also with others, when we’re on the right path, events unfold with ease, the lights are green all the way. My phone call connected me to a gently spoken, kind natured Scotsman who, with impeccable patience, took me through the arduous process of filling in a form over the phone. I wept a blend of shame and relief, and could hardly speak a lot of the time. It was a slow process, yet he remained present and considerate all the while, until I was “in the system”. Very soon after, my first cheque arrived.
Because I had never paid any National Insurance, for want of never being able to afford it, I was only entitled to the most basic amount. I think it was around £30 a week. A pittance to have to try and live on, unless… you’re already living on less. In the few years prior to this, I’d often started the week with as little as £5 to my name, and sometimes I had managed to reach the end of the week with the same fiver still in my pocket. And that was doubly satisfying because I was of course by then, at the start of another new week with £5 to my name.
Suddenly getting £30 was like a small lottery win for me, particularly since I knew that the same amount would arrive the next week, and the week after, etc. And as my sick note was for 3 months, I was able to let go a little of the tension I had been constantly holding for many years. Regular income, even so little, for someone with highly irregular income was rather transformational in itself.
I’d worked out, through hard experience, that because of all the instability my way of living brought, and my subsequently very unreliable mental and emotional states, finding any regular paying menial job to keep the wolves at bay, was not an option. My only real possibility of making some money by myself, was the chance of selling my paintings. I’d already seen many times that being an impoverished, unsuccessful artist was not encouraging to people who wanted to buy art, particularly if they had one eye on the value of their purchased masterpiece heading upwards. The romance of the starving genius artist in his garret was no USP (Unique Selling Point). Hence I always tried diligently to find the positive in everything and to present myself as successful and upbeat, even when my stomach was rumbling with hunger and I wasn’t sure where I would sleep that night.
My painting studio was near to Westbourne Park station in west London, and the studio manager, already very familiar with collecting rent from artists, had proven to be another great supporter. Even though I’d thought that he didn’t like me, ha had allowed me, and possibly a few others of the 100+ artists in the building, to delay rent payments on occasion. For me, there had been too many occasions and I was several thousand pounds behind my rent at the time. This was very useful though, as it meant that apart from being able to continue working, I could keep up appearances for anyone who might be thinking of buying a piece of my art who could be invited to my impressive studio. This shaky, fragile line of hope, that I would sell a painting, was what kept me going day to day.
Being very concerned with the critical state of balance he saw me in, my doctor had me come in every week for a few weeks, then once a fortnight, and once a month etc. A new doctor’s note was written when needed, and my weekly payments after 6 months went up considerably (up to about £70 I think) because when I had first signed on, the Benefit Office also began paying my National Insurance contributions, which kicked in after 6 months.
The other part of my original “prescription” caused me great difficulties. That year I made three attempts to sign on to the Homeless Register, but each time while waiting for an hour or more in the Town Hall for my ticket number to be called out, I’d got increasingly distressed, with tears of anxiety rolling down my embarrassed cheeks, until I was bursting with shame and pain, and wishing only to scream out and punch myself, I had fled each time. This was where things stood on the 30th of December when I felt the overwhelming need to get this scary task, which my kind doctor had prescribed for me, finally done before the end of the year. I needed help. I called the same girlfriend, Naomi, whose address I was still generously allowed to use. It came as a shock to me that of course she would help me. I’d expected to be turned down, because despite my own unthinking habit of helping anyone who asked, to do pretty much anything to help them, which had led to plenty of adventures over the years, including ending up in a police cell in New York with one particular friend I was helping, I could barely imagine that I was worthy of another’s time and help.
Naomi is an incredible, kind hearted and understanding woman, and was perfectly capable of negotiating the applications and form-filling necessary, that to this day remain a source of complete terror for me. On New Years Eve 2007, we got our automated queue ticket and sat down to wait with all my paperwork ready, at the Town Hall. It was not at all busy and soon we were in front of a Housing Officer to register me as a homeless person in need of being housed by the council.
My revelation and diagnosis of being High Functioning Autistic was still a few years away. In fact I barely knew anything about autism. So when I would fall into what I now recognise as autistic overwhelm, I would call it ‘an emotional attack’. My senses would rapidly heighten and flood me with impressions, while a powerful cartel of negative emotions and thoughts would rampage through me, as the fear of this incomprehensible ‘possession’ would be amplified. Now, just being at the Town Hall after my previous attempts, meant I could feel the dreaded state coming up and I was already very agitated and nervous, tapping away on my legs as my ability to understand fully what was going on around me got foggier and more confusing, until I lost my ability to speak and began weeping. Naomi held my ground for me as tears welled up and my focus went toward fighting the urge to punch myself in the head, which I had understood by then was often distressing for other people to witness, so might impede the process I was so desperate to get through.
The Housing Officer completed the form filling with Naomi’s help, and suggested the Mental Health Officer might be free to assess me there and then, as the office was so quiet, rather than having to come back at another time. We readily agreed and were given another form that I would need to fill out later, which amongst other things, needed me to list the addresses of the places I had lived for the preceding 3 years. (There was space in the form, on one page, for 6 addresses with names of people to contact, to verify I had lived at each address, and by the time I returned the form a few days later, I’d had to expand the form, to list the 28 addresses and names of those who I’d managed to get in touch with, who had given me shelter over the previous three years.)
We waited for a short time in an interview room before the Mental Health Officer arrived. He was a big, gentle man, and he’d brought one of those large tins of Quality Street chocolates. The staff had been eating their way through the tin over the Christmas period but were now trying to get rid of the remainder in order to honour their New Year diets. He also shared the fact that his young son was called Joshua as I am.
I think Naomi was still answering some of the questions for me that he was asking, as I could barely speak, as I was writing my responses down slowly. Then he asked me directly what was making me cry, what was distressing me so intensely. This set me off even more, and I was rocking and bent double with tortured crying. He and Naomi patiently witnessed my state, not trying to console me or prevent my feelings from manifesting in me. It was five or ten minutes before I could breathe steadily and answer him, confessing shamefully, “Because I don’t feel I deserve a home.” As I resumed my emotionally choking inner struggle, he told me how many people he would see each week who knew exactly what they needed to say in order to play the system and get housed, “but you Mr Wiskey, you deserve a home.”
His sincere words became my mantra for many years, which I often used whenever my demons raised their heads to sabotage my route to having my own safe place to live.
I was awarded a total of 205 points in the system of merit for being housed, the year ended and the new year began.
I soon had a shabby room in a temporary-temporary accommodation hostel in Earl’s Court. My room was on the top floor, just large enough for a single bed with vinyl-covered mattress (no bedding provided), a small wash basin and tiny wardrobe. The floor of this Victorian building sloped so much from subsiding age, that after making my bed and getting in, I and my bedding actually slid off the bed. The super hard-wearing plastic covered mattress gave no grip for my sheets, which acted like a sled on snow, with me ‘aboard’. I tried tying myself in with a scarf, then tried tying the sheets on, knotting their corners together with socks. What finally worked was stuffing most of my clothes under the lower side of the mattress to level things out. I fell asleep smiling at the comedy of my new situation. Meagre though my temporary new home was, it was a home for me, and though I’d been warned it could be a year before I was properly housed, it was a great prospect to live for.
This first temporary housing stage within the whole re-housing process was meant to last no more than 6 weeks before being put into less-temporary, temporary accommodation. In fact it was only after 12 weeks that I was finally given the keys to my long-term temporary home, which was in a block between Latimer Road and Holland Park. A living-dining-bedroom, a small bathroom, a kitchen and a mini hallway. After years of mainly living in other people’s homes (enormous gratitude to each and every one of you), and being as diligent as I could be to keep everything in each owner’s chosen place, leaving as little a Wiskey ‘footprint’ as possible, I could now arrange my plates, pans, cutlery, pens, papers, books, toothpaste etc. exactly how I wanted them, without having to remember or photograph the original positions of people’s belongings in the homes I was looking after.
During the 2 years and 3 months that I was eventually in my less-temporary accommodation, I continued as a patient of the wonderful Dr Sheldon, who bent the rules a little to allow me to continue with him as my doctor, despite being a long way outside the surgery’s catchment area, and he continued to play a significant role in what by then I’d begun to call my ‘mid-life full service and repair’. It was a few years later, and only once he could see I was strong and capable enough, that he suggested it was time to find a new GP, which I then did.
At one point, while still under Dr Sheldon’s care, after I had finally given in during another crisis moment, and accepted to take some low-dose anti-depressants, which did have some beneficial effects for about 2½ years, he asked me to participate in a two year mental health research programme, which I happily agreed to do.
For this, I would be interviewed about my depression every six months. The initial two hour meeting was a general assessment with a psychiatric nurse, who was a pleasant, cheerful man in his thirties, during which he would guide me through filling in one long and one short multiple choice questionnaire. Now form-filling and educational examinations really terrify me, but this kind of test I enjoy. It’s one aspect of my autism that I’ve not really been unable to understand the ‘why’ of, but certainly see how they do affect me. Badly. With this kind of test though, I’m not being required to answer anything ‘correctly’, but just to find out what is, there is no pressure to be anything other than who I am. It can be illuminating and helpful, so I am interested.
Each test’s questions needed to be answered in relation to my experience over the previous week, and the first question, if I can remember correctly, was “Have you thought about killing yourself in the last week?” There were four options:
a) All the time
b) Most of the time
c) A lot of the time
d) Not at all
Well I told the man that I couldn’t answer truthfully with any of those four choices. None of them described my thoughts about killing myself in the last week. ‘No problem’ he said, and we went on to the next question. But the four choices for that question were the same of course, and once more I couldn’t respond with honesty to the question. This was repeated for the first nine questions of this test’s fifty questions. ‘We can come back to them’ he said each time, still full of enthusiasm for his job and encouragement for me to carry on. We got through the questionnaire more slowly than he expected I think, with the same impasse for an additional five or six questions I was unable to select an answer for.
Then we returned to the first question again, which I have to presume he expected me to suddenly be willing to answer differently, by lying. Nope. None of the unanswered questions had a different answer than they had done the previous hour.
‘Just say what the closest answer is’ he urged, getting a little frustrated with my determined stance of being truthful.
I stated my case again, to be sure he understood the issue I was faced with, that a), b) and c) were all biased to one end of a spectrum of possibilities while d) stood at the very end of the opposite bias. I explained (using visuals) that my experience lay within the large range-gap between c) and d) for which there was no optional answer. I refused to lie.
We parleyed back and forth a bit until he came up with a solution. He’d count up the ‘score’ of my answers thus far. I was intrigued. I didn’t know I’d been scoring points and wondered where he was going with this. Score for what?
He added up the allotted points that each question warranted and found the solution to our stalemate: ‘I can see from what you’ve scored that you have the wrong kind of depression for our research.’
Wow! I’d been starting to think that I could offer to respond from a pre-medicated perspective, a remembered state where I would be more polarized in my thoughts and feelings, but he’d cut me off from that offer because I had the ‘wrong kind of depression’, which he’d calculated by adding up the values to 70% of the questions. This satisfied him, and by now I was glad to not have to do this a number of times over for the following couple of years, and we started to chat more informally in our remaining time, about the research I wouldn’t be involved in. Suddenly, after he’d told me that the two year programme was costing £10m, I had a flash of inspiration and asked him what I felt to be a very pertinent question.
‘Have you ever been depressed?’
I felt I could justifiably say ‘ever’ because it was only shortly before that, that a very old friend had shared with me a little tale of his. He’d gone to Japan on a holiday or business trip, and after doing some kind of recreational drugs, which itself I’d found utterly surprising having never imagined him to have any interest in drugs, that he got lost in a deep depression for a few days. He said of the experience ‘I understand you so much better now.’ He’d never had any depression in forty plus years of life! Unimaginable for me. I’d never, up till that moment, considered that anyone could live life without having felt depression, it was so integral to my own life.
The psychiatric nurse cheerfully replied ‘No’.
He had never experienced depression yet was employed on this important research about depression.
A flash of insight or imagination (how do these differ?) struck me, which seemed quite plausible to me. Perhaps none of the people doing the research; composing the questionnaires, asking the questions and analysing the subsequent data, knew what it was like to suffer with the debilitating mental/emotional condition labelled “depression”? If this was the case, could it explain the form that offered a limited range of responses? When I asked him why there was no middling answer option, no fifth choice that I might have answered all the incomplete fifteen questions with, it was put down to cost. That a fifth option would magnify the cost of the analysis stage by too much.
When I later thought about what my experience suggested though, that if I had been willing to give false answers, which is what my nurse interviewer was strongly encouraging me to do for about 30% of the questions, just to satisfy the need to fill in the form, and tick his quota box of depressed interviewees, would I then have been found to have the ‘right kind of depression’? Would I then have been eligible to continue the whole two years of research?
If so, what would the veracity of this very costly research have been? What scientific benefits would it produce? How many scientists might have spent a couple of years of their existence working on this, unknowingly analysing flawed data, and therefore to what end? Who would be served? I never knew if this research related to policy making or implementation, or towards clinical practice or to the pros and cons of the drug I was already on, or some other drug in trial.
The experience left me rather saddened. Not depressed! Not the right nor the wrong kind of depressed, just saddened that the lack of scientific rigour at this initial level of information gathering, would objectively mean the whole exercise was at best pointless, but at worst, harmful or even lethal, given the nature of the subject under scrutiny.
To some degree I relegated the summation of my experience to just another interesting thought to occasionally share, and with no proof of my conclusions, that’s where it stayed, until I met a woman who told me an identical story. Though related to a completely different medical research programme, she had also been asked by her GP to be a part of some research and had suffered a degree of gentle coercion to give any answer rather than none at all. Two costly, time consuming bits of potentially flawed scientific research with real life implications, that I can only hope she and I were merely outlier exceptions of, within the bulk of the participants, rather than the obstinate outliers who refused to cooperate by giving false information while everyone else did give false or interviewee-biased information.
