Do not be ashamed of help. It is your task to achieve your assigned duty, like a soldier in a scaling-party. What, then, if you are lame and cannot climb the parapet by yourself, but this is made possible by another’s help?
Book 7 – 7
I once described my overall experience of secondary school as shit. Thinking about both learning and the social development sides of it, I broke it down as being alright at somethings at crap at others, putting that into the formula of alright plus crap equals shit. I was proud of it; the equation that is, not the sentiment.
What that line really meant was that I was ok, or very average, at some subjects like English and PE, I had a few mates, but struggled in most other subjects, and was never that cool, the net result being, on balance, my experience was largely negative; a bit like, I imagine, supporting a club like Crystal Palace (mugs) just aimlessly bobbing about in the lower reaches of the Premier League and never really doing anything of note; and having that fanbase with the banners and drums.
There were many subjects and concepts I struggled to get my head around. The idea in the French language of having a masculine and feminine for most words always baffled me. Most things in maths, beyond add, subtract, divide, and multiply confused me. I had difficulties with spelling and my handwriting was terrible. And I couldn’t sit still for very long, or I’d just stare out the window.
The most common feeling I felt in school, was the feeling of inadequacy, the feeling that everyone else is racing ahead in their learning, and you’ve not got a scooby-doo what’s going on, but you’re still trying to do what you can to keep up, hoping that no one notices. Like running a race, with your shoes on the wrong feet, laces untied and no idea what direction you’re meant to be going in, so you try and badly imitate what the others are doing, and push down those feelings of frustration, anger, shame and despair; just praying that you get through it without making a bellend out of yourself. Or you just give up running and slink off to the park to dick-about and feign indifference to it all.
What I’ve come to realise, and it’s taken me a long time to reach this point, is that when I need to do something important, I panic a lot, inevitably leading to making poor decisions. My life’s been full of them. Years of doing that probably affected confidence in my own ability to do anything competently and to a degree, probably leading to sometimes displaying an air of indifference about things, like my days at secondary school, or worse; helplessness. The latter resulting in people sometimes stepping in to try and assist me with something; like when I can’t seem to operate the trolley release mechanism at the supermarket, even though I’ve put my £1 in. At times, this is useful, and genuinely helpful, but most of the time, absolutely infuriating and embarrassing. But I got used to it to a long time ago, and at some point, just accepted that this is how it is.
This panicking thing has haunted me a lot. The only way I can describe it, is like someone asking you a fairly simple question. Let’s say in this example, the question is represented by magnetic fridge letters which spell the question or an instruction out on a fridge. When it comes to my turn to respond, and the panic sets in, it’s like all the letters on the fridge are suddenly ripped-off and thrown in the air, so you end up on the floor, manically trying to arrange them back into something that makes sense, which is really difficult, and the longer it goes on, the more the pressure builds, till you end up either giving-up and withdrawing inside your own head, or spelling out any old shit, just to get the person asking the question off your back, then withdrawing inside your own head. The consequence of both, often ending up being, the person on the other end of this, thinks you’re not capable, or thick, you’re don’t care, r you’re someone that needs a lot of help. Well, at least that’s what my paranoia tells me.
Over time, I probably became scared of that feeling of panic, so would avoid situations where it might arise, which is probably how I wound up in lower sets for some subjects, or doing these ‘extra help’ sessions, or taking up pastimes that I knew no one else who was doing, like this. It’s maybe also why, a lot later in life, I started performing, I felt I had to put myself into uncomfortable situations, maybe to compensate for all the other times I chickened out of others. Taking up different forms of writing, as much as I enjoyed it, really meant, that I’d be doing it on my own, so no one could intervene, take-over or boss me around. It’s this last part which I hate more than anything. Most of the time, I didn’t want the help.
One year in secondary school, year nine I think, I’d had a particularly bad report sent home and with exams looming, the school decided that those of us who’d got crap reports, would have to do these not-quite-afterschool-detention-help-sessions. The first of these not-quite-afterschool-detention-help-sessions, involved watching a documentary about a teenage girl who tried to stab her mum and got sent to young offenders. The rest, if I can remember, were talking about fairly useful things like time management. I can see why the school did it, and the intentions behind these classes were good, but I do remember thinking, why am I here, and why I am watching videos about nutters? Sometimes I was a bit naughty, as in I might answer-back to a teacher once in a while (then get bollocked and I’d quickly have my tail between my legs), or I’d chuck some screwed-paper at some kids head in a lesson, or bunking off in the park next door; but that was about it; I don’t think I was on the path to a life of violence and crime.
Those not-quite-afterschool-detention-help-sessions were a double-edged sword, as whilst it was embarrassing and shame-inducing just being there, I also got this perverted sense of pride in it. I was in with all the rude boys, and a couple of other inbetweeners like me, as in the not-quite naughty, not-quite smart, not-quite cool but not-uncool either, kids. In either the short-term or the long-term, I don’t think it did me any good. If anything, I was already on the path to mentally checking out of school, it probably just accelerated the travelator out of there.
These behaviours carried on into my work life of post-education low-paid menial jobs, where I’d often make silly mistakes, like adding an extra 0 to a bank payment, soldering the wrong component, filing things in the wrong place, which meant my superiors would either bollock me, or sometimes deem it necessary that I needed extra help; neither of which, in principle, I have a problem with. You’re on someone else’s dime, you’re meant to be doing a job.
In one of these gigs, in fact no, this happened at two different jobs (a call-centre and an office) someone was detailed to sit with me, one-on-one for a few days, to try and make me less-shit at what I was doing. It was humiliating, especially in an open-plan office, but like the not-quite-afterschool-detention-help-sessions; well intentioned. I seem to remember it helping me a little bit with the office job, as we had to work this spreadsheet which was pretty complicated for me, but mainly, it just made me hate the job even more than I did before; spending my days, where I could, withdrawing inside my own head; either cursing the world or thinking about things completely unrelated to what I was meant to be doing.
Did any of that extra help make me a better employee? Or student? Probably not. But neither me, nor them, could identify that I was panicking a lot of the time, and when I wasn’t doing that, I’d be numbing myself to it by indulging in ridiculous hero and victim fantasies, or I’d distract myself by thinking about silly things that made me laugh, or sending stupid emails to work colleagues. I passively accepted that I was no good at whatever it was that I was meant to be doing, and spent my days trying to avoid people and just getting through it. But sometimes, that’s impossible, especially in a job where all your vital statistics get printed up on a display board every month and you’re consistently languishing down the bottom; for everyone to see.
Something else I should mention here, is that toxic form of learned helplessness. That is something that at times, has reared its ugly seductive head with me. These difficulties one may have, whatever they are, can appear to give you some sort of special status. In a very distorted way, it can feel somewhat good, almost powerful, but can end up becoming a crutch, or forming a part of your identity, as opposed to just a bump in the road that needs addressing. Thankfully, I’ve largely been able to see through that kind of thinking, and the perverse benefits of adopting that attitude to all that crap, never over-powered the shame and negativity of being seen as someone who struggles with stuff. But in most cases; I just wanted everyone to fuck off and leave me alone; including me.
There’s an accomplice to the learned helplessness too, on the part of the helper. Over the years, I learned to do things on my own, however incompetent, as long as I was doing something that vaguely resembled what I was meant to be doing, that was better than nothing. I became very distrustful of people who wanted to help me, probably at times to my own detriment, but at least some of that mis-trust was justified.
There’s been countless times where I’ve been doing something, like cooking dinner, just happily cracking on with it, in my own little space, thinking about stuff, and someone uninvited, has decided I need help, but ends up taking over what I’m doing. I generally don’t like confrontation, and don’t like being rude to people, so often stay quiet to not upset the apple cart. Often, that help, didn’t much help me, at all. It just left me infuriated and humiliated, but as it’s all done on the pre-text of helping, it’s difficult to call-out the bull shit of it. The bullshit, I’ve often suspected as being, that the person in that scenario trying to help, is just doing it to make themselves feel good, or feel superior over someone like me. At least, that’s what my paranoia always tells me. They would walk away feeling good, I’d be left to eat the meal I’d hadn’t made, pissed off and deflated.
One of the reasons I took to writing, was that I could do it on my own, on my own terms. I didn’t know anyone that was doing it, I didn’t really tell anyone that I was doing it, not for a while anyway, therefore no one could tell me what to do with it, or, tell me that I what I was doing was no-good. And that I needed help. Being isolationist like that, in the long run, probably stunted my development, but had I not done that, I probably would’ve got fucked-off with it and stopped.
Over years of quietly beavering away at it, I built up my way of doing things and had a couple of minor results with it, like gaining a little bit of a name on the London spoken word circuit. Largely, at the start of it at least, on my own, off my own back.
Aside from all of the above, I can also be a stubborn prick, which in some weird way has also probably helped with me persisting with this. Sometimes, well-meaning people, would suggest things for me to do with what I was writing. Nine times out of time, I’d completely zone-out and ignore them. This was my thing, and yep, I was probably overly-sensitive about being criticised, but my thinking was, fuck off, just leave alone to make mistakes, I’ll figure it out, thankyou. In most other areas of my life I’d gotton so much criticism, so just give me a pass on this one. No one had asked me to do this, I did it off my own back. Most of those people meant well, but some, I think just got off on pointing out mistakes, or making out they had some knowledge they could impart on me, again, who was this help really for? So again, I’d withdraw. So despite a couple of good outcomes, a bit of music produced, a few gigs etc, I largely worked away at it, on my own, for a long time.
At some point, though, with no outside influence, or people to bounce ideas off, you start getting stuck in your ways, and eventually eating yourself. I realised, almost too late, that if I wanted to progress, that I needed help, I wanted help, I didn’t know what I was doing. My dad helped me find a writing course at Birkbeck college that introduced me to loads of stuff and I joined a poetry group, where we had to write and share what we were doing every week; in both of these things we also had tutors, who knew what they were doing. I’d never had one before; the feedback I got was both encouraging but more importantly, crucial, as it pointed out things I never would’ve thought about. And pushed me into trying new things.
Sitting in rooms full of other writers, could also be really inspiring. Someone presenting an idea could spark off an idea in me. All of this helped me to push what I was doing, and more importantly, develop it, get better at it, try new things with it. I then went on to make, what at the time, were a couple of really big leaps with what I was doing. I went from writing raps and silly poems with punchlines at the end, to stories and long-form monologues, which eventually pushed me into theatre spaces and I learned even more new stuff; and I’m still learning.
I’ve sat in rooms with dramaturgs and had my writing pulled apart. I’ve had my work reviewed by critics and put through its paces by editors. All of which, has vastly improved what I was doing. It seems strange to point out, but the help, really helped me out. Which is what help is for
I’m at a stage now where I feel I could do with some help again. Some sort of guidance or mentoring would really be of benefit right now. I feel that most things I’m working on could be a lot better but I’m not quite sure how to get there, and I know that on my own, I’m likely to stay stuck in a place where I’m pumping out the same shit, and I end up getting negative and restless. But the help has gotta be right, and meaningful. I’m at the parapet again, and Marcus is right, I will need the help, and I want the help. Last thing I want is to remove myself away, , withdrawing back into my own head and cussing everyone around me, if anything, that doesn’t make interesting reading; and perhaps I’ll work out a new formula to summarise a good experience. Hard work plus good help = happy times.
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Romeo & Julliet @ Polka Theatre
On Good Help vs Bad Help