Curing My Depression with the Business of Colour
Curing My Depression with the Business of Colour
Depressed and dyslexic, having been stuck teaching business English in the big banks of Luxembourg for years, I really needed to bring a little colour into my life.
Monday morning early May 2008, having just moved into my new apartment that weekend, I woke up and saw my life stretch out in front of me. A straight forward highway of English lessons to pay the bills and paid bills to teach the lessons. I crashed.
Teaching English made my dyslexia ache. The constant repetitive drone of business terms sedated my brain. The interfering micro-management of language schools, HR departments and middle managers suffocated my creative instincts. I was depressed.
Depression is a curious thing. It doesn’t just affect your emotional and intellectual state, it affects the way you see the world. The walls fold up around you and
everything becomes grey.
I had a few false starts: scribbled attempts at poetry, a movie script intended for Hollywood, on demand English correction via e-mail and my own home-based teaching business. None it made me much money. All of it left me feeling ashamed.
I needed to change my life. I needed a creative, visual business that I could be proud of. I needed Colour Matt.
After so many forced false starts, it happened very naturally. A borrowed camera produced surprisingly high quality results. I had studied Film & Video at Art College and, before falling into teaching English and depression, made a couple of no-budget never-to-be-seen-again features, but had always
struggled with the photographic aspect.
I decided 2010 was going to be a good year. Put simply, I was bored of being depressed. I swallowed what was left of my still stubborn pride and booked an appointment with a psychiatrist. I finally admitted to myself, I needed help. I finally felt, I deserved it.
Earning money from photography proved problematic. Weddings and portraits felt too similar to what I was already doing: service industry. Online selling sites, although inspiring, were at best, a long term, long shot. But unlike in the recent past, I refused not to move forward.
‘We love it! It’s the most original film we’ve seen in years, but we just can’t make any money from it.’ The words of a distributor back in 2004 have quietly haunted me since. I’d like to say my work was just too edgy, too ahead of its time, but in truthful
hindsight, I was only making films for myself.
I won’t speak publicly about a large part of my depression (it involves other people), but I can’t help feeling that the last dismal five years have somehow been necessary. An inevitable need to finally listen to what had polluted all of my films, that curing my depression is an intrinsic part of being able to produce quality work.
I think of my depression as an addiction. A barbed wire blanket I wrapped around myself. A desperate self-destructive last line of defence against feelings I couldn’t bear to feel. Like all addictions, once I got clean I had to face up to all the reasons I started using depression in the first place.
Trying to build a successful online business is immensely stressful. I still worry about money all the time. The indifference of the market place can feel a lot
like a personal, humiliating rejection (get over it Toby). But, at the end of the day, I’m excited about the possibilities of next day. It’s worth it.
Teaching English wasn’t stressful at all. Being average at my job was not just acceptable, it was required: ‘Just teach the text book Toby’. Like going to a mechanic to ask them what needs to be fixed on your car, teachers were encouraged first to ‘under evaluate’ clients, in order to secure contracts, and then ‘over evaluate’ their progress to keep HR departments happy.
I think this is one of the most misunderstood aspects of depression. In my experience depression doesn’t occur when a person’s life is too difficult, it occurs when a person’s life is too, nothing. People, who are not depressed, think of depression as intense sadness. Sadness is a healthy, vital emotion. Depression is not
sadness, nor is it any emotion, it is nothing.
It is an odd thing to realise you have not ‘felt’ for years. What I thought was sadness, was in fact depression. What I thought was happiness, was in fact anxiety: depression / anxiety, up / down.
Over the past few years, I’ve read a lot of articles about depression. They fall into two basic categories: personal stories and how-to-cure-depression-in-blah-blah-easy-steps-self-help-guides. The first is almost always fascinating and ultimately comforting in its honesty. The second is almost always tedious, glib one-size-fits-all arrogance, seldom written by anyone who has ever suffered from depression.
I hope this article falls into the first category. This is what works for me. John Lennon sang, ‘Whatever gets you through the night, it’s alright’: Sine qua non. Without
creativity, my life doesn’t make much sense to me. However ridiculous and self indulgent that may or may not be; that is how it is.
I need to be able to create, both in terms of production and in the overall approach to my business. To work in a business where cheeky, outside the box solutions are essential. I never want to find myself in the position of having to be average, where I am obliged to add to the grey again.
I was 19 when I said ‘no’ to an interview at Cambridge University. I wanted to go to Film School. I felt that life was hard regardless of what you do, so you might as well do what you want. I’ve questioned that decision in the past five years many times. I’ve worried that it was the arrogance of youth, rather than the insight I believed it to be at the time.
They say the test of any decision is, given the same set
of circumstances, would make the same choice again. At 33 I find myself taking chances again, and feeling more alive than I have in years. That arrogant kid wasn’t far wrong:
Find that one thing that brings meaning to your life. And make sure, whatever else happens, you always have it in your life. It’ll help you get through the night.
I brought a little colour into my life: www.colourmatt.com
I was born & grew up in the North of England. I now live in Luxembourg.
I first learned my photography in the guise of film-making which I did at Art Collage for three years. Like most filmmakers of my generation I did a lot of my work on video, but I also had the good fortune to work with 16mm film on several projects. After leaving Art Collage I had a fair crack at independent (noooo budget) film-making, but stopped when I felt I’d reached an impasse.
About two years ago (after being bored out of my mind teaching English in various Investment Banks here in Luxembourg) I borrowed my sister’s Canon 400D camera, and started to take a few photographs. Having not been very good at the photography component of my degree, I was as surprised as anyone to discover I could actually take one or two decent photographs.
At the end of last year, I decided to see how seriously I could take photography, and, in turn, where that would take me.
I have just created my first series of products: Colour Matt
With 12 original designs in 6 eye-catching colour schemes over 16 different products, Colour Matt allows you to pick ‘n’ mix your favourite designs & colours, customize and place on the products you like best.
Brighten up your darkest days with fun and friendly products for your home or office, university or school: binders, calendars, magnets and mousepads, mugs, posters and stickers.
Share the colour with your family, friends and loved ones: greeting cards, postcards and stamps.
Take the colour wherever you go and brighten the lives of everyone you meet: bags, bumper stickers, buttons and keychains, shoes and skateboards.
Bring a little colour into your life with Colour Matt.
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