The life and photography of Mr Bunny Chow

I’ve written and deleted many similar posts over the last year but I thought that it was time I answered this question.

So where have I disappeared to over the last couple of years?

I suppose I should go back some ways to where I was when I first went missing. When you last heard from me I was managing a call centre for a group of car dealerships. I enjoyed the role and in the set up phase of the department I enjoyed the challenge but it was hardly fulfilling and financially it got to the point where Mrs BC and I were paying for me to go to work. Childcare costs were spiraling out of control and when you add in the cost of petrol and feeding myself it was just no longer viable to continue in my role and the decision was made for me to become a full-time dad and Mrs BC (she’s a lawyer) to become the primary breadwinner of the family.

I won’t begin to even try to gloss over this, it has been tough on us as a family and me as a man, I am a shit cleaner, really really shit, Mrs BC blames Granny BC for spoiling me. I have had to find ways to entertain the kids, I have had to try to keep everything running smoothly. I have had to try to keep my macho head screwed on to my emasculated body. The first year disappeared almost instantly in a blur of kiddy play centres and chaos.

Photographically I did a small amount of work, you probably saw a little bit of it here, other bits I failed to blog about as I withdrew further and further up my own rear end. I began hiding things from my wife, I chose to hide my boredom and dissatisfaction with my lot, I became very good at putting on a mask. I was basically spiralling into the black hole of depression without picking up on it myself.

I should have known better, many people close to me over the years have suffered from depression. I always tried to be supportive but I never really understood why they couldn’t fix things with a few beers and a hangover.

Well anyway I’m an arsehole, DEPRESSION is an evil bitch and it will sneak up and bite you in the arse. I won’t go into the details of the big row that nearly ended my marriage to the one I love most in this world but it did make me wake up and speak up. I first visited my GP to discuss my head in January 2014 and the long slow road to trying various drugs, reading a million things about depression and eventually a little therapy, this is ongoing and I am by no means fixed but I’m going to jump around a bit for those who don’t know me outside of the blogosphere.

Anyway back into the chronology of where I’ve been, Mrs BC managed to secure a role with a new firm in the West Country of England and I managed to persuade her that it was now or never that we should escape London (Croydon’s) smog and we managed to sell up and buy a new bigger, shinier, although less characterful home in a small town about 20 miles south of Bristol.

While awaiting the long, slow, tedious process of house moving Granny BC and Grand Dad BC visited from Zimbabwe and we managed to spend a delightful week getting pissed with them in Malta. It was a much-needed interlude in the whole stressful process of packing up the last eightish years and dealing with lawyers and estate agents and all those other people Mrs BC normally has power over and didn’t.

Once back on Mud Island things progressed simultaneously at snail’s pace and a million miles an hour. We decided to hire someone to pack and move everything, (this was a disaster that may be the subject of a future post). Mrs BC began her job on the other side of the country and negotiations floundered and nearly collapsed as our buyers solicitor seemed incapable of pulling their finger out of their bottom and picking up the phone. I’ll say nothing more at the risk of inadvertently calling him an incompetent prat or something similar when I honestly am not qualified to judge their ability to do their job.

The day to leave our first family home came, everything we owned was packed into a couple of lorries and cars and we moved along the M4 to our new seaside home.

I began the process of unpacking lots and lots of stuff, deciding on the DIY priorities and what was best left to the professionals. Gold and maroon wallpaper and flooring were definitely delegated to others while I changed cupboard doors and did IKEA assembly and shelf hanging etc. I even built myself a little pub in the garden shed.

I might do a post about my pub one day too.

I quickly found a new GP as whilst I’d managed to secure a prescription for enough medication to see me through somehow during the move the repeat prescription had been mislaid and stocks were dangerously low. I saw several new doctors and was essentially dismissed as a drama queen. Mrs BC eventually stepped in as she had luckily come across a competent and lovely young doctor and with a quiet word from my beloved she agreed to see me. She immediately doubled my medication and referred me to a counselling service.

Daily walks on the beach with the dogs (oh yes we got a new dog too, I’ll tell you about her another time) were doing me wonders and then my eldest was due to start school, real school with a uniform and a dickhead in charge kind of school. My youngest was sent off to a nursery for a couple of mornings a week. My head melted. I was no longer needed. I disagreed with the headmaster, I must be a bad parent because everything I thought I’d learned was suddenly under question.

I undertook an eight week group cognitive therapy course. It helped a lot, I have learned many coping mechanisms for my illness, I have also come to realise that this illness has manifested itself in me many times in the past and I’ve gotten through. I will get through again.

Today though I have reached the point where I have been weaned off my medication and am without therapy. I am not on speaking terms with my eldest’s headmaster. Mostly because he has no clue how to deal with adults who don’t immediately click their heels together and shout “Sieg heil mein Führer” when he says something should be so.

I am still positive though because I’m not going to finish writing this post before I see my GP to discuss future medications and I’ve also received a phone call since I started writing about coming in for a future therapy assessment on a one to one basis.

I apologise for neglecting you my friends, you have always been there for me and never judged me. Putting all of the above down on metaphorical paper has truly helped me. I need to talk to my friends both here and in the real world and I hope that at least one person who reads this will open up to those that they love. Depression is a disease, it is nothing to be ashamed of, mental illnesses have too much stigma and people have their own problems but everyone should be open to discussing the irrational shit in their heads. This video might help.

I am not going to promise that I’ll be a better blogger but if you do still care about me then please pop over to Facebook and say hello, I spend a lot more time there at the moment than I do here. Otherwise I always read all of my comments here and occasionally pop into blogs like Cindy’s and TBM’s. They’re good people, you should read about what they have to say.

Don’t be a douche like me and hide behind a happy funny mask.

If you’d like to hear more from me then please let me know in the comments and or subscribe.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow aka Rob the Douche