Piara Strainge
  • Home
  • All About P
    • Recovery
    • The Writer
    • The Photographer
    • The Traveller
  • Books
    • Getting Ready to Freelance and Write
    • The Workings Of My Mind
    • An Introduction to the Publishing Industry today
  • Published Portfolio
    • Articles & Features
    • Guest Blog Posts
    • Web Copywriting
    • Poetry
    • Photos & Snippets
  • All Things WTP Blog
  • Contribute
    • DROP YOUR VERSE
  • Media Pack
  • DESTINATIONS

All Things Writing Travel Photography

The brilliance and beauty of tragicomedy

4/27/2020

0 Comments

 
I am devouring wonderful TV at the moment during Lockdown - The Nest, Call the Midwife, Shrill, The Split, Gameface, King Gary, Line of Duty, Killing Eve, Last Tango in Halifax, Unforgotten, Marcella, Black Mirror, This Country, Liar, Our Girl, Friday Night Dinner, Flack, Bosch, All Round to Mrs Brown's Boys and Luther. As you can see, my tastes range from absolute silliness to beautiful comedy drama to deep despair and darkness. I think this is why I'm currently really enjoying and connecting with the wave of tragicomedy from the likes of Dead to me, Fleabag and Ricky Gervais's After Life because it blends all three of these things into one, big emotional punch. It's raw and unfettered and a ballsy way to address the delicate subject of grief.

It has taken me 6 months to pluck up the courage to watch After Life after friends recommended it. They warned me I needed to make sure I was in the right headspace because of its subject matter. So now, I've almost finished Series 1 and its sheer brilliance is bringing me to my knees and I am in awe, so much so that I had to write about it on today's post. I said to my sisters that if they want to know what life was like for me when I was having my break down, please watch this. The portrayal of grief in all its many crucifying forms stomping on my heart daily and causing the greatest of pain I have ever felt, the absurdity and randomness of life when I truly believed I'd lost the only thing that really mattered to me, and the beauty of Gervais's writing that makes me laugh and cry and gasp for air simultaneously - this is the brilliance I am talking about.

Because the pain of losing your best friend and soul mate is undeniably one of the worse pains of all, powerful enough to crush your body and turn your mind to insanity and you will do anything, anything to eliminate it. And how do you tell that story without making your whole audience suicidal as well? Humour. Injecting just enough lightheartedness in whatever form you choose - romantic, tragic, dramatic - to warm the soul, whilst simultaneously feeling the pain and despair. This is such a fine balance that I would love to be able to portray in my own writing one day. 

Like Tony, I remember feeling like a suicidal, invincible superhero (as paradoxical as that sounds) - the worse thing had happened to me so nothing else was ever going to be as bad. I remember looking at suicide as my "get out of jail free" card and the odd sense of peace and comfort it gave me. I remember seriously wanting to try heroin. All of a sudden I could see very clearly how people become addicts. I remember the countless times on my commute home how I almost stepped off the platform as an incoming train rushed through. I remember standing at the tops of buildings, looking down, weighing up the pros and cons of smashing my body into the concrete below. I googled methods of suicide whist on my lunch break, looking at comparison charts rating effectiveness, reading case studies of overdose patients to work out how much I needed of each type of medication, arguing with doctors to give me more sleeping pills, plotting how I could get my hands on benzos and opiods from all over the world, watching videos to educate myself on how to tie a hangman's noose, testing out the dark web to see if I could buy a gun and then, when I realised I wouldn't be able to shoot myself because I read a story about a woman who tried to and all she did was blow her face off, I looked at hiring someone to do it for me. I even considered a euthanasia clinic to end my suffering.

It was a dark, despairing, hopeless place to be in, but, unlike Tony, I kept it to myself. And to this day, I don't know which is worse because the burden he is putting on the people around him is exactly what I didn't want to do. Yet looking back, I would also say that talking about my grief and everything else it was bringing up for me was the best thing I ever did.

When I was in hospital, in the early part of my stay, one of the nurses said to me that I frightened her because she witnessed me laughing and joking around on the ward trying to cheer up the other patients, but my notes said, if I was allowed leave, I would immediately go out and try and kill myself again. It took me a long time to realise that the extent I was going to to hide my pain was not the best of coping mechanisms and I didn't have to smile and laugh and joke my way through this crisis. And the fact I wasn't going to be discharged until I did some real work in the form of CBT, DBT and ACT - all very useful therapies when your crisis has gone beyond the spiralling stage and you've hit your rock bottom - meant I needed to be there to get myself back on track because I'd proved I couldn't do it on my own. Another nurse said to me that it wasn't just about me and happiness is everywhere if I look hard enough and that made me think too. Just like Tony, I had lost myself in my grief and it was exhausting.

I think this is why I can connect so completely and fully with the heart wrenching tragedy, bubble wrapped in the silliness and fierceness of brash and brazen "on the nose" comedy portrayed in the likes of Fleabag and After Life. In my mind, it is a way of tackling those difficult, despairing issues and talking about my own experiences so I can educate people whilst also entertaining them, or, maybe that should read "engaging them" because what has happened to me is not a joke. It was a real and painful, tangible experience which has changed me forever. And now I am thinking about boundaries and how I am still trying to find that line I decide I won't cross, which I know is somewhere in between being the shy, reserved, emotionally stunted child I was to the overly extrovert introvert person I have become. Neither of which sit well with me. But I am working on that!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Blogging is an amazing concept so here I am giving it a whirl. You'll get words. You'll get pics. Sometimes a vid or two. You'll get tongue in cheek, the odd humble opinion and an honest insight into my travels and writing life. Maybe even a few gems along the way. I'll be musing on home turf as I see more and more of the UK and sharing my experiences further afield on holidays and adventurous trips across the globe. 

    Things you need to know about me: I love music. I love books. I love laughter. I love comedy, theatre and the opera. And mixed with all of that, I LOVE to travel, write and take photos.

    And, as of the 3rd April 2017, I'm on another journey, very different to my travel adventures. This is a journey of recovery. From grief, from depression and from Fibromyalgia. I will also be sharing the impacts these things have on my life now;  how I don't want them to change me, but they will, and already have, and yes, it's a rollercoaster.

    I hope you enjoy All Things WTP.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    October 2010

    Categories

    All
    29 Of The Best Travel Experiences
    30 Things Project
    Author Platform Series
    Being Happy
    Freelancing Series
    Industry News
    Literary Memories
    My Book Reviews
    My Influences
    My Publishing Journey
    Photography And Travel
    Self Publishing Series
    The Journey Of Recovery
    The Publishing Journey Series
    Time Management And Well Being
    Word Play
    Writing Advice

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • All About P
    • Recovery
    • The Writer
    • The Photographer
    • The Traveller
  • Books
    • Getting Ready to Freelance and Write
    • The Workings Of My Mind
    • An Introduction to the Publishing Industry today
  • Published Portfolio
    • Articles & Features
    • Guest Blog Posts
    • Web Copywriting
    • Poetry
    • Photos & Snippets
  • All Things WTP Blog
  • Contribute
    • DROP YOUR VERSE
  • Media Pack
  • DESTINATIONS