Tales from a Bruised Mind

When we feel down and out, whether that be during a period of depression or simply just in a bad mood, it can often seem hard to look past the dark shadows in your life.

But you have to remember there is a lot of light in your life, right now and all throughout your past.

For me, periods of depression feel like I’m wearing sunglasses inside a shopping centre. You can see okay, but everything is just that little bit more difficult.

Sure, we have plenty of bad days – unfortunately that’s life – but we also have amazing days. Days we wished would never, ever end. Moments of great happiness and of joy and celebration.

I don’t want to get bogged down and become a depresso writer, so here’s some of my happiest ever days where I’ve never felt better. I’ll explain a bit about each while I’m there.

Landing my dream job at 23 years old

To this day, I still don’t know how I did it. I guess a serious amount of persistence is what got me here, plus just some lucky moments. I was aiming very high when I finished university and wanted to become a motoring journalist. Not a lot of people held much hope that I could do it and make it work successfully. But you can never, ever give up on your dream, so I didn’t. The passion underneath everything kept me aligned on the path and, sure enough, I got my first full-time position in Sydney in September 2021. I remember the day they called and told me I got the job. I was so bloody happy, I could have cried. My hard work had paid off and I saw the opportunity as proof that I can get through anything, even terrible bouts of mental illness.

Driving my first Porsche

Last year, I helped the great organisation Drive Against Depression, which I will link here, to run their first ever Sydney drive event. It was an absolute pleasure to do so. These are great people with real lived experience. They just get it. Anyway, after the drive had ended, D.A.D director David James handed me the keys to his classic Porsche 911 and said “Let’s go for a drive”. I couldn’t believe it, that someone would trust me with their pride and joy. With a freshly rebuilt engine, the 911 just wanted to rev, and I can vividly recall the gorgeous flat-six howl that these cars are famous for. It was intoxicating and beautiful. A real ‘never-forget’ moment in my adult life.

Finishing and publishing my first-ever book

I’ll be honest: I never thought I’d ever finish my book. Every time I got close, I was either back in hospital or in recovery and just didn’t feel like it. But somewhere deep inside me, I realised that people could benefit from it and that it was far more than just a story about me. When I sent the book to the printers for the first time, I was so emotional. I felt so many different thoughts and feelings. It was as if I had run a marathon and it was now all over. I was nervous, yet excited. It had been a very rocky and unstable road, but here I was, at the top of my Everest, and I couldn’t have been more proud.

Being creative and writing music

I was never any good at writing music and I’m still not very good even now. But the first bits and pieces I wrote for piano were enlightening. It just felt so good to be creative and express myself through music. I’ve written a lot of what I call ‘sad boy’ lyrics, too, but I’m just happy about those moments sitting at Mum and Dad’s piano and writing cool little ideas that flowed out of my mind.

Getting my first kiss

This is a funny one. I think it was grade 8, so I was a wee little boy then. My group of friends used to always hang out at the local shopping centre and I was lucky enough to have my first kiss. Sounds super lame, but in a young boy’s life, it made me very happy.

Adventuring with my best friend

My best friend Josh and I hated each other when we were little. But that all changed when we reunited in Grade 8 for high school. Like me, Josh didn’t know many faces at a new school, so I took him under my wing and the rest was history. Sharing a love of cars and driving and going on adventures, I remember we would spend lots of Grade 11 and 12 planning on where we would go next and which adventure lay ahead. We spent a lot of time in Kenilworth, a small country town in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, where Josh’s Dad is from. We would drive out to the nearby creeks, drive through the water and just have a blast. Back then, we didn’t have a care in the world. We were just kids having fun. I wish oh so much to be back in those times because they were easily some of the happiest.

Falling seriously in love

When you fall seriously in love with someone, it’s as if you are put in a bubble. It’s hard to see outside of that bubble because the love is all encompassing. And it’s just so damn good. It makes you so happy, that feeling that someone cherishes you for who you are and what you are, no matter what. Falling completely in love is a very special thing and has made me very happy. So many good times were had. Now forever etched in my mind.

Seeing many great artists live in concert

I’ve been fortunate to see some of my favourite musicians live in concert, including Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, The Kooks, The Paper Kites, The Jungle Giants, Billy Joel, HONNE, The Temper Trap, The 1975, Catfish and the Bottlemen and many more. No matter what band it has been, the experience has always been happy. During COVID-19, the music scene collapsed. It was a very sad time. When live music was removed from the equation, a lot of the happiness went away. Despite this, I look back at each of those concerts and realise just how good they were. I’ll never forget them.

Buying my first car and loving every minute with it

When I bought my first car, Rhonda, I was ecstatic. Having a car that was all mine was a very big achievement in my eyes. It was something I always wanted to do. Rhonda was very special to me because of the adventures and drives we shared. It was a strange human to car connection.

It’s not unusual for car fanatics to have special bonds with their vehicles. And that comes down to how the car makes you feel when you drive it and the places it can take you.

Rhonda made me happy and also let me down from time to time. It was like a relationship. I miss the feeling of driving my Ford Focus, even to this day. Cars can be so powerful sometimes. And Rhonda was the one.

As you’ve seen, happiness comes in many different forms

The point of this post is to show that there are lots of happy moments in life. You may look back from time to time and only see the negatives, but it’s crucial to see the lighter sides of life because there are many.

As Erie Idle happily sang in Monty Python, “always look on the bright side of life”.

Love,

Zak