Friday 20 November 2009

This is Panic 15 - Robert Enke

This one folks, will be a different format to TIP and also there'll not be a massive amount of humour involved. I am sorry for that. I try and make these entertaining to read but the subject for this one hit a bit close to home for me for a variety of reasons. However, as ever, I'm going to talk about it because that's the best thing to do.

Many of you who know me personally know that I speak German fluently and follow German football. After a couple of problematic years away from Germany, Robert Enke returned to the German Bundesliga at the time I was just moving there.
Enke had started his career in his home town of Jena before moving to Mönchengladbach and then overseas. After an unspectacular career in Europe during which he played little and was bottled by his own fans while playing for Fenerbahce, Enke moved back to Germany to join the club he would later captain, Hannover 96.

The details of Enke's last few years and death are tragic to say the least. He became depressed and had regular panic attacks, crippled by the fear that he would be overtaken by a younger, better player. However football remained his release but he never felt like he could be open about his illness.
In 2006, his daughter died aged 2 from a heart infection which is said to have really affected Enke and plunged him back into a downward turn.
8 months before his death, Enke and his wife adopted a little girl but the German international was so worried that he believed if people found out he was depressed, they'd take the child away.

We all know how Enke died and I will not re-hash that again but it spoke to the real issue and one of the reasons why I started this blog in the first place.

I sat with my laptop and watched Enke's memorial service in front of 45,000 people inside Hannover's AWD Arena and thousands more outside. These people were friends, family, colleagues, supporters and admirers of this one man and yet he felt that he couldn't be open about what was wrong.

The stigma around anxiety and depression can cripple us as much as anything else and we can spiral downwards into an emotional black hole. Believe me, it's happened to me and I know it's happened to at least one other person reading this. We can change attitudes towards anxiety conditions and other mental health problems and we can hold out our hand and help each other through this.

I beg of you, if you are feeling really low and depressed about any condition you have, please talk to your GP. There are also great groups like Depression Alliance who can help and if you really need to talk to someone right away, call the Samaritans who also do excellent work.

As a fan of German football, Robert Enke to me was Mr Hannover 96. He was the man I saw leading Germany into the World Cup and beyond and was one player who I respected greatly. Even as a hardend Hansa Rostock fan, I will admit to having wished we got to see him play more.

Please folks, never ever think you are alone with this. Together we will all make it through.

For Robert Enke; that which we do not see on this Earth will live forever in the stars. Schlaf gut.

Monday 9 November 2009

This is Panic 14 - Finances

Hi folks, after a bit of a brief break due to the hectic nature of life, we're back and this one's been brewing for a bit.

This is another attempt by me to be slightly topical. You can't escape it on the telly or in newspapers or articles online, this financial recesion is everywhere and we keep hearing about it...constantly. With money getting tighter and things like loans and the like becoming harder to come by it can start stressing us out and that can't be good.

Think tank The Young Foundation published a report in January of this year called Receding Tide: Understanding unmet needs in a harsher economic climate. The conclusions coming out of it were that the recession will have an impact on the mental health of the nation. The report comes to the conclusions that as finances get tighter, we start trying more and more to satisfy our material needs and this means that our psychological needs suffer as a result.

It's actually something a lot of us tend to do. I certainly do; we get so wrapped up in all the other little things in life like paying the bills and doing this and that with friends and keeping up with the Jones' that we forget that we need to look after ourselves. I have done this at work from time. I try to make sure everything is done at work and run myself into the ground and make myself ill both physically and mentally.

That report points out that our system is geared much more towards the material than the psychological and I'm inclined to agree. Without getting to much into my own personal political philosophy, there never seems to be much of a focus on how or why we do things but simply that we do them and do them at the expense of everything else, including ourselves it seems.

I know I am lucky. I got laid off about a year ago, was out of work for 2 months and then got a job paying a significant amount more than what I was earning while I was employed but I still have a lot of empathy and sympathy for those out of work. It is really worrying as we sit there thinking of how far we can make things stretch or last that little bit longer. Coming up to Christmas as well and all the expectations on people regarding presents and decorations and the like.
Last year I managed to do ok. My money I got from my old work was enough for me to live and be able to do ok at Christmas along with the fact I could go shopping whenever I wanted to but what I was spending on Christmas presents could not be spent on other things.

I made a really concious choice when I had no real income that I was going to use the money wisely. I cut out anything that could be cut out. I cut back on foods that I could do without and planned more clearly what I was going to make for meals during the week so I could plan expenditure.
Budgeting if money is tight is time consuming but it is a really sensible idea. If you are worrying about stuff then you need to do what you can to minimise that worry. If you know how much you have then it makes it easier to plan it all out. Sure it doesn't improve the cash flow or get more money in but if you know what to work with, it's one less thing to worry about.

All in all the finances story is one that acts as a good similie for us in general. We need to ignore the bits and pieces around the outside and focus on the middle, ourselves that little bit more. There is no shame in putting ourselves first at all if we're low on funds or if we're not well.

In these trying times we need to orangise our priorities and making sure we are well and can live properly is one of them. To some, money makes the world go round but decent mental health cannot be bought.