Breakdown or Breakthrough?

Cloudy skies looming over St Albans Verulamium Park
(source: Ian Roullier)

I've thought long and hard about writing this post about mental illness and depression and also whether or not to post it in public like this. A friend told me to do so anonymously if I did but I believe it's extremely important to be honest and frank about mental illness, not hide from it, treat it like an embarrassment or hide it from other people.

What happened recently to Robin Williams has definitely played a part in inspiring me to take this step. I hope other people may benefit from this approach and feel less ashamed about their own difficulties and be more able to share them with their friends and families. At the very least, I hope doing this is cathartic and helps me to rebuild my life in a way that's more balanced and harmonious. There will be those who understand and those that don't but one of the many reasons I've ended up in this place mentally is by being overly concerned about what other people think, and it's time that useless pursuit stopped.

"Happiness is a state of mind, not a set of circumstances," wrote author and counsellor Richard Carlson. The same, to my mind, goes for depression.*

In my working life I have achieved many of my ambitions including:

• Writing a cover feature for iDJ Magazine.
• Writing cover features for DJ Magazine, a magazine I had wanted to write for since I was a teenager.
• Being asked to edit the first ever edition of DJ Magazine Croatia.
• Getting regular work from Mixmag, another magazine I'd wanted to write for since I was 14.
• Writing album reviews for the BBC.
• Being asked to write album sleeve notes and biographies for artists' websites.
• Being a successful business-to-business magazine editor travelling regularly to the Middle East.
• Covering all of the audio duties (studio recording, sound design, music/sting composition, mixing and mastering) sound for a series of radio comedies.
• Being commissioned to do the sound recording, sound design and music for a short film.

And on a personal level, I have a fantastic wife, an amazing set of friends, good relationships with the family members that count and have also recently moved house.

On paper, things could not have been better (although money was still very tight), and I would have bitten your hand off had you presented the above scenario to me just a few years ago. But rather than this being an amazing time of my life, it has proved to be one of the hardest and what I should see as positives just end up being sticks to beat myself with. "You SHOULD be happy," goes the mental dialogue. "Why the hell can't you appreciate all that you've achieved or everything that you have? What's your problem?"

The truth was that I felt completely overwhelmed. I felt like I was doing three jobs, because in fact I was (music journalist, business magazine editor and audio producer), and doing none of them well due to the fact I couldn't focus on any one thing. How could I devote myself to keeping up with the music scene and listen to the steady stream of promos I get sent when I should also be trying to read as much as I can about what's happening in the Middle East oil industry? How could I hone my audio skills and try and get more audio-related work when I was trying to edit and fact check a book about business in China?

As John Foxx says of Brian Eno in David Sheppard's 'On Some Faraway Beach - The Life and Times of Brian Eno': "The dangers inherent in these sorts of activity are fairly obvious […] spreading too wide and thin while not firmly grasping anything significant and losing the distinction between position and attainment." Not that I'm comparing myself to Brian Eno in any way, it just echoes the situation I found myself in of trying to play so many different roles that I could never attain anything tangible within any of them. A jack of all trades, and a master of none.

Freelancing also brings its own inherent problems: there are no working hours, there is no routine (aside from the one you choose to implement) and, for me, there ended up being no 'off' switch where I could differentiate working life from the rest of my life and just relax and enjoy things.

On top of my three (or more) career paths, I was also trying to learn Norwegian at evening classes, studying a music production productivity course (Mike Monday's 'Start Now, Finish Fast) and was part of a music-related 'goal orientated' group. I've always been obsessed with human potential and trying to keep reaching my own potential. I realise now the roots of this probably lie in the thought that I'm just not good enough as I am, so I need to constantly improve and prove myself so I can feel OK about myself. This overwhelming pressure from within led to a never-ending, insurmountable list of things that had to be done that would constantly loom over me. This clearly had to stop.

In November last year I was sent to Saudi Arabia by one of the business clients I did editorial work for and every day I walked around an oil and gas show feeling so absolutely disconnected from my environment and what I was doing. It was like an out of body experience and for the first time in years I could feel panic attacks rising up within me again. While in Saudi Arabia, I was also being pressured for work by the team involved with the short film I was doing the audio for, and I was also trying to squeeze in editing chapters of a business handbook for another client. There seemed no end in sight, nowhere for me to catch my breath and collect my thoughts for a while, no way I could breathe let alone relax.

I couldn't afford financially to take time out of work, but my low mood, the pent up anger and constant, debilitating anxiety meant I couldn't afford not to. I felt so stretched that I was snapping, even the smallest task felt like a huge burden, I had no energy, no emotional buffer. I was quick to anger, to snap, and then the guilt that followed would add another layer of self-recrimination. I felt like I no longer knew who I was any more, I would cry as I searched for an answer to why I felt this way and thought of the impact upon my loved ones.

I went to see a doctor in early December who told me that work clearly seemed to be the root cause of my mental health issues and that's what I needed to tackle. Everything else I needed was in place (a good, supportive relationship with my wife, good friends to talk to, regular cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), practicing meditation etc), the only thing I could do better with was having a healthier diet and exercising more often. Antidepressants were an option but I had come off of those that summer and was reluctant to go back on them, wanting to deal with the underlying problems rather than placing a drug-infused blanket over them (I realise now this really is not the right way to view medication though).

Still, I carried on working stupid hours, neglecting my mental health and my relationships with those closest to me. I did this with a deep knowing that I couldn't carry on like this. I needed to park the car for a while. To stop everything, take stock. Rip it up and start again, as the song goes. I gradually set about reducing my workload, and therefore my income, for example cutting back on my commitments to the short film I was working on for instance (under immense pressure from the producer to carry on regardless).

Then in April, a very good friend and colleague of mine, David, died of complications related to Mantle Cell Lymphoma, having been given the all-clear just a few weeks before. While this was the third time he had fought the condition, David's death still came as a huge shock as it had seemed he was through the worst. He had been a true mentor and inspiration to me. Much of the business editorial work I had been doing had been to help David out while he was ill. My duty and commitment was to helping him, not to the publishing company I had worked at for many years, where an increasingly toxic atmosphere had built up in recent years (despite there being a fantastic team of people there).

I'm still not entirely sure if I'm fully aware of the impact of David's death upon me. At one point during the weeks after his death I convinced myself that I was seriously ill - why would I feel like I lacked the capacity to do the smallest of tasks otherwise? - and once again made an appointment with the doctor (at a different surgery this time as I'd moved house). The same questions were asked and the same conclusion drawn - I had many key elements of support in place but I needed to alter my working arrangements. The doctor sent me for blood tests and offered to write me off work for a couple of weeks but as a self-employed freelancer, who would I give the letter to? I was my own boss. Once again, medication could be used as a last resort but I didn't want to go down that path again. I discovered later that another of David's good friends and colleagues had been through the exact same process after David's death, being convinced he was seriously ill and going to hospital for tests (that came back clear).

I gradually cut my ties with the publishing company (stepping away over the next couple of months) and it took several months to finish the other projects I was involved in, and wind everything down. Turning work away was (and is) completely counterintuitive but I had no choice but to create some space to breathe in.

My various blood test results all came back clear and I realised that I could allow myself to start doing more energetic things again, like going for long walks, which definitely helped improve my state of mind. It's almost that by stopping everything I had become unable to cope with doing anything at all. For a while though, my list of work 'things to do' was simply replaced by a domestic one of fence painting, DIY etc and still I felt overwhelmed and stretched. My whole sense of self-worth was coming from what I could achieve every day, how many tasks I could complete was commensurate with how worthy a person I was. This couldn't go on but I still don't know where people's deep sense of self-worth and their strong foundations come from. This is something I still need to work out.

Have I destroyed my own identity because that identity wasn't good enough or because it clearly didn't make me happy? My ego says I have. 'Why have I thrown everything away?' it yells at me. But sometimes you have to create a vacuum so that new things can come into your life to fill that space. I'd come up with the phrase years ago that "The meaning of life is to live a life with meaning", but didn't really take it to heart enough. Now I have to.

What have I learned or should I say been reminded of by the past nine months? That work is important as far as paying the bills goes but should not come at the top of the list of priorities in life. Your relationships with loved ones, friends, family and (most people forget this one) yourself are far, far more important. As has been said many times before, nobody on their death bed regrets not working harder, but many wish they'd spent more quality time with the people they love.

Within work itself, I also want what I do to have more meaning, to impact positively upon other people (something that writing about oil or construction never does and writing about music may even not, although music itself can be amazingly transformative). Whether this is doing editorial work for a charity, giving treatments of some sort to people (I trained in Reiki 16 years ago, perhaps it's time to start sharing that with people?), becoming a sound therapist or perhaps something I haven't even thought of, I want what I do in my working life to be of benefit to others. Driven not by my ego and an obsession with what 'I am' (a journalist, an editor, an audio producer) but driven by my calling, as this article describes so well.

And where am I now? Well, trying to make sense of it all. Realising that I need to start working again soon to pay the mortgage. Working out which path to choose. Most of my days are still off days. I often can't face going out but force myself to, I don't pick the phone up, no matter who is calling, (as my friends are probably all too aware) because I'm not 'at my best' (not that my genuine friends expect me to be, these are self-inflicted expectations). At the moment I am nothing (workwise at least), I have purposely wiped the slate clean, but it's time to unpark the car again and start moving in life, wherever I end up.

*When I say that depression is a state of mind not a set of circumstances, don't get me wrong. I don't know how I would have got through the past nine months without the support of my wife, friends and family. But no circumstances guarantee that you won't suffer with depression, just as being rich or successful doesn't make you immune from catching a cold, breaking a leg or becoming ill. There are certain ways that you can try to help yourself though that are proven to at least help lift the cloud slightly. These include exercise, eating a healthy diet, CBT, mindfulness and meditation and medication helps some people as well. The main thing to do when you're in such a hole is to speak to your friends and family though, or if this isn't possible an organisation like the Samaritans can help. Remember you don't have to be alone and that asking for help with mental illness is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength and your will to get better.

Where’s my money? What to do if you’re not being paid on time

The magazine I wrote about in my previous blog has now gone into administration leaving me over £600 out of pocket. This is of course hugely disappointing and something that I can ill afford financially. On top of this is the loss of what was a fantastic music magazine, contained well-informed, hype-free articles that, while being aware of trends, didn’t pander to them and had fantastic, professional staff.

Barring the Managing Director of course who I’m still yet to hear one nice word said about (most people warrant a ‘Nah, he’s alright’ from someone but not this bloke). Had he cared even five per cent as much as his staff, this may not have happened. Now they’re all out of jobs and there is a huge gaggle of unpaid freelances, who have helped him sell his magazine, out of work and out of pocket.

And just to reinforce what a one-sided ass UK company law is, he’s already set up another company (having saved one of his three magazines) which should buy him another few years of being an MD and not paying his writers. So he’s fine thankyouverymuch.

So, yes, I should have seen this coming from the lack of response to emails, the mounting unpaid invoices and ignored red statements I sent. And, yes, I should have acted sooner to take the matter to the small claims court. But I didn’t and now I’m poorer for it so what can you do if you find yourself in a similar situation?

How to get the money you’re owed:

1. Call, call and call again. Emails are easily ignored so get on the phone to the person responsible for paying you. Yes, you may come across as a pain in the arse to the accounts department but this is work that you have done and have not been paid for. If you were in a full-time position would you accept your boss not paying you your monthly salary? Of course not, and let’s not forget that the ebb and flow of money as a freelance makes your finances uncertain enough. Even if you’re only owed the money for a single invoice, chase it as soon as payment becomes overdue.

2. Speak to the editor. You may be locked away in your bedroom-based freelance ‘office’ but more often than not the person that commissions you shares the same office as, and hopefully commands some respect from, the person responsible for paying you. A word from them could speed up payment of your hard-earned fee and ensure you can pay the bills that month.

3. Stick religiously to payment terms. Under UK law you are entitled to payment within 30 days. Stay on top of this as you don’t want to create the impression that you’re one of the writers that’s happy to wait for payment. You did the work, you want your money! Email a statement of outstanding fees immediately (attaching relevant invoices) and follow up with a phone call. Most clients you work for will respect this nudge and pay immediately. Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, you can also charge 12 per cent PA on any invoices that are not paid within the 30 day period.

4. Withhold copy. You may fear that this will upset the editor of the magazine you are writing for but any editor worth their salt should understand that you work hard and deserve to be paid on time for your efforts. Without copy, there is no magazine; a fact that should resonate with the person responsible for paying your wages as the magazine also pays theirs. Call the editor to let them know that this is what you have been forced to do – some editors have little or no idea that their writers are not being paid so if you fail to tell them why you’re not sending your copy through, you’ll just look tardy and unprofessional.

5. Send a Letter Before Action (LBA). The clue is in the name. This is the first step towards starting court action to get the money you’re owed. The letter gives the company a fixed amount of time (usually 14 days) to respond before court action is instigated. See the links below for template letters or how to get a solicitor to send the letter for you on headed paper (this carries more weight and can cost as little as £2). 6. Court action*:

• Small claims court – once the LBA period has passed, then you can proceed with taking the company to court. This will initially cost you the court fees (which vary depending on the amount you’re claiming) but the defending company is liable to pay these if the case is settled in your favour. You are also able to charge the defending company interest on the money you are owed and claim this back.
• Winding up petition – any court action is risky if you want to keep the client but the chances are if you have to go to these lengths you’re probably just interested in getting your money back. You can apply for a winding up petition against a company which basically involves saying that if the company cannot pay its debts then it should no longer be trading. More information on winding up can be found here: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1073791109&type=RESOURCES

*IMPORTANT: Before taking court action, check to see if the company has already been placed in administration (see Companies House). If you begin court action while the company is going through this process, you may end up being liable for the court fees that you would normally reclaim as part of the settlement.

7. Contact the administrators. If the worst comes to worst and the company has been placed in administration (you can check this on the Companies House website) then you should contact the administrator (details also on Companies House) so that they can list you as one of the creditors. Be aware that your claim will come quite near the bottom of the list below those with larger claims such as suppliers. You may end up getting a token percentage of what you’re owed (say a penny for every pound you’re owed) and may well end up with nothing but if the administrator doesn’t know you are owed money then they cannot account for you when it comes to handing out the money raised from selling the company’s assets.

Related links:

Companies House: http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/

How To Get Paid On Time article on journalism.co.uk: http://www.journalism.co.uk/news-freelance/how-to-get-paid-on-time/s12/a51656/

Template letters and advice: http://www.justclaim.co.uk/index.php?file=/procedures/index.page

Thomas Higgins solicitors: http://www.thomashiggins.com/

Winding up petitions explained: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1073791109&type=RESOURCES

NOTE: I AM NOT A SOLICITOR and have no legal training. The above guidelines relate to the UK and are just that: guidelines that should not be taken as legal advice. If you have any queries about any of the above or are considering taking a company to court, please contact a solicitor. This need not be expensive and there are companies, such as Thomas Higgins, that specialise in this area and can complete the whole process relatively inexpensively.

Originally posted on http://blog.ianroullier.com on 13 August 2011.

Writing for free: experience or exploitation? (Part two)

So, I stopped writing for the non-paying indie music magazine, whose cover stars became increasingly A-list as the ads became increasingly numerous. I decided that I deserved to be paid for the time and trouble I was taking interviewing, transcribing, writing, re-writing, editing, subbing and submitting (on time) my copy, so focussed my efforts and energies instead on magazines that rewarded their writers with something more tangible than prestige and pride (which are nice but don’t pay the rent).

Having built a portfolio by writing for a variety of websites – yes, for free, but magazines still retain a much better and more profitable business model than websites – I was extremely happy when I got my first offer of paid work from another magazine. It was only £20 for a short review, which I probably more than spent that night on travel to the event and alcohol, but it was a paid job – better than nothing, which is what the other magazine were offering for my labour.

This in-turn eventually led to being commissioned to write short interviews and then, a dream of mine for many years, full-blown features. I have to say I was ecstatic to finally receive payment for all of the hard work I was putting in. The problem was, it wasn’t that straightforward.

I interviewed musicians and wrote and submitted copy but getting paid for it was hard to say the least. The terms of each commission, which I naïvely accepted, were that payment would be made within 30 days of the issue going OFF sale. With lead times on magazines being around five weeks anyway, plus the four weeks the issue is ON sale, this equated to not being paid until over three months after the copy had been submitted.

Unfair? Yes. And, as I’ve since discovered, also illegal. Under UK law invoices must be paid within 30 days of being issued, otherwise interest is due (see here for more information from journalism.co.uk). More unfair though was the fact that even this three month rule was not respected by the owner of the magazine. The unpaid invoices mounted up until I was owed around £500 and then, the magazine folded. When I say folded, the magazine didn’t miss an issue, just merely carried on with the same name with the same Managing Director but under a different publishing house name – a bizarre, somewhat unfair quirk of British law. I lost the money but was assured by the MD that I would be recompensed by the editor giving me more work.

After much thought, and legal advice (there was no way I could get the money owed to me) I decided I would continue to write for them and the editor did put more work my way to make up for what I had lost.

The close working relationship I shared with the editor once more came into play when, once again, the publishing company went under (again, not an issue missed) and I was one of the few writers that the magazine paid in full to keep me on board. Lucky for me, my hard work and professionalism had been recognised enough by the editor to want to keep me. (Incidentally, the editor was always professional and produced a fantastic magazine - how do so many poor MDs get such great staff?!)

But once again, invoices have gradually piled up, the amount owed has spiralled upwards and my countless emails to the MD have gone unanswered. Now I find myself in the position of having to take one of my clients to court for unpaid invoices. And it is this that inspired my change of heart: the indie magazine I once wrote for were open about their non-payment of writers, which, while unfair for a popular, well-known publication, is surely more honourable than offering money and then not paying it?

I noticed recently that the indie magazine had placed (no doubt very expensive) ads above every urinal in men’s toilets at major train stations across London. But while they may still be taking the piss, at least they’re being honest about it.

Originally posted on http://blog.ianroullier.com on 22 July 2011.

Writing for free: experience or exploitation?

This was going to be a blog entry criticising a particular indie music magazine. One that doesn't, and has never, paid any of its writers. But then something happened that gave me a change of heart. First of all though, allow me to explain some of the background.

At the start the full-time editorial staff of this magazine, which you can find at WH Smith and 'all good newsagents', were earning next to nothing and had to fund themselves through other jobs. So if they weren't in a position to pay themselves, they certainly wouldn't be able to pay anyone else. With this in mind, I happily kept writing for the magazine, content in the knowledge that they needed to increase their brand and circulation etc.

But as the big company ads from companies like Top Man, Firetrap and L'Oreal pushed the front cover and contents page further and further apart and the sponsorship deals, branding stages at festivals and an endless stream of gigs and club nights, increased, I became certain that they must now have some money coming in. I asked repeatedly when writers were going to be paid but as those requests for payment were met with, 'Not yet', I realised I was now being taken for a ride.

What the magazine's owners were relying on was the fact that there would always be a pool of up and coming, inexperienced music journalists that they could draw upon; writers that would write for pride and prestige and to increase their portfolio rather than for money (see the recent UK launch of the Huffington Post for a vaguely similar scenario). As a start-up magazine, this was acceptable but as a successful, ad-filled, glossy and, it must be said, well-respected and recognised publication, I felt their business model was built purely upon exploitation so I stopped writing for them.

But while this blog entry was going to be an acerbic rant against the magazine in question – who I must add are not alone in filling their pages with unpaid copy from hard-working journalists – I realised that perhaps they weren't that bad after all.

So, why the change of heart? I'll explain tomorrow.

Originally posted on http://blog.ianroullier.com on 21 July 2011.

Procrastination

Well, I was going to write my next blog entry sooner but I needed to erm wash the dishes and watch that programme about the sex life of fleas and then there was the reorganising of my bank statements into date order which I really HAD to do NOW, OK?! Anyone who remembers studying at school or university will identify with being faced with a deadline and feeling compelled to do just about anything else under the sun aside from the task in hand. It can be the same when faced with writing an article. Out comes the hoover, you feel compelled to call that friend you've quite happily neglected for the past three months and you find yourself taking a real interest in Murder, She Wrote for the first time in your life.

If the TV isn't a big enough distraction then there's the time sapping black hole of the internet to contend with too. The interweb is a devious beast as well because even when you do finally start researching your article online you can either find yourself distracted by the 'related links', which often send you off on a completely useless tangent, or you automatically log into your Facebook account out of habit. This can often lead to the obsessive compulsive procrastinators loop of Facebook, Hotmail, Facebook, Hotmail, Facebook, BBC Weather, Facebook, Hotmail. Neither direction is a good one to go in when you have that big black dreadline cloud hanging over you and can only lead to a very late night, two hours sleep face down on your keyboard and then the realisation when you awake with marginally more sense that nothing you wrote before you passed out makes the slightest bit of sense and even if it does there's five times the amount of words you were commissioned to write. The wood and the trees look remarkably alike but you're on a promise to get the article in first thing in the morning and that happens to be a mere 90 minutes away. You struggle through in between swearing and frustratedly tugging at clumps of your hair while feeling like some kind of drug-addled space cadet.

But somehow, you make it. You meet the deadline. The editor is happy and no one aside from you knows the ordeal you've been through to get the article written. To think you could have just bloody well got on with it without the impromptu spring clean or the assistance of Angela Lansbury... but that's something the professional procrastinator can only dream of.

Anyway, time to exorcise some more chart trivia from my overloaded noggin with useless music fact #2: The Prodigy reached number three with their debut hit 'Charly' in August 1991. The fairground style follow-up 'Everybody In The Place' went one better and hit number two but it wasn't till 'Firestarter' in 1996 that Liam Howlett and co. finally hit the top spot. However, even though that is their best known track to date, follow-up 'Breathe', which also hit number one, sold more copies. Fancy that eh??

Till next time…

Originally posted on http://blog.ianroullier.com on 8 June 2009.