Long ago I remembered watching this children's TV program which really freaked me out at the time. I didn't purposefully intend to watch it, I just caught the first episode and got hooked. The last episode terrified me especially, so much that I blocked out most of the memories, and for years could only recollect a faint glimmer of it and thought it had been a bad dream. Then in a late night nostalgia IRC moment, I tossed out what faint memories I had of it to see if it was real and got the words back: Dark Season.

Dark Season is like a cross between Doctor Who and The Demon Headmaster (I was a bit old to watch that on telly but read the book) with some Nazis thrown in for good measure. It even had the very young English rose - Kate Winslet in, what more could you want??

I won't let go Jack! oh fucksticks

It took place over 6 episodes, the first 3 being the Demon Headmaster stage. I'm probably going to spoil the hell out of this but I don't think there's any chance it will be back on television ever again so I guess that's ok. All the kids in a school are given free shitty laptop computers, this was in 1991 mind you so digital watches were still a marvelous technological achievement. But somehow these machines had the ability to hypnotise the kids and turn them into horrible zombies with strange psycho-kinetic powers. The main characters seem to escape this fate through luck or judgment but one of them isn't so fortunate. Meet Olivia, former speccy geek and now Class-A psychological disaster area:

Hay guys....URRRGH BRAIIINS

This was pretty damn scary for my 10 year old eyes, but in the last few moments of episode 2, the terror was ramped up to ULTRA-FEAR. After doing the usual crazy antics such as exploding light-fittings, Olivia had disappeared for a while so I hoped the scary quotient had been used up for that episode. I was so wrong. One of the only likeable and non-insane teachers in the school was trying to get to her car. I was waiting, on edge for Olivia to pop up and try to stop her but she didn't and the teacher reached the car and got in. Me and several thousand other children around the country breathed a sigh of relief. And then silently..

...Olivia's face rises up from the backseat.

:(

ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH

That was honestly one of the most terrifying moments of my childhood televisual life. Christ, they shouldn't be showing shit like that before 9PM, yet alone on kids TV at 4 o' clock. For the next 3 years I had carbackseatphobia. I couldn't get in a car without doing a close inspection of the back of the vehicle, including any compartments crazed zombie girls could hide in.

After an anxious week of waiting, the next episode finally comes around and mercifully, the teacher manages to escape before Olivia can eviscerate her using only her mind. The kids using master hacker skills manage to save the day and stop everyone become zombies as well as reversing Olivia's transformation. Hooray, celebrations all round. But it wasn't over yet.

Miss Pendragon: scary witch and super-nazi

Now started the even more creepy second half of the series. It revolved around a giant Cold War-era supercomputer buried under the school, ominously named the Beremoth. Miss Pendragon and her aryan followers are trying to uncover it, under the guise of archeology. As the plot progresses, it's revealed that Pendragon was in the charge of the original Ministry of Defense project many years ago, but was shut down because of her twisted ideology. The Behemoth needs a human "implant" to operate properly, and one of the three children from the first three episodes has been selected, due to his blonde hair. But he reveals it's dyed blonde, and through a twist of fate, Miss Pendragon gets pushed into the seat of the Behemoth, clamps springing out to lock her in place. The machine takes over her mind and she starts talking in a cyborg voice. Then the Behemoth rises, taking the evil teacher with it, bursting up through the floor of the school hall.

Crazy bitch and supercomputer combination

Lots of things seem to happen next, including poor English rose - Kate Winslet being trapped in the lower chambers, running out of air. Pendragon is rejected by the Behemoth, either because her mind was adsorbed, or because she was a nasty nazi bitch, I can't remember. Eventually Behemoth takes on it's own identity, and producing the moral conclusion to the story, one of the school kids reasons with it that war is wrong, and if it was truly intelligent it would know this.

Lets do the time warp yeah!

Behemoth concedes to this stunning show of logic and shuts down, destroying itself. It starts receding back into the ground from which it came, and before anyone can stop her, the now clearly insane Pendragon jumps back into the operator's seat and is dragged down with it into the abyss, swallowing her up. Explosions and fireworks happen and the hole is sealed up behind her. The last picture you see is her locked in the Behemoth's seat, in the now semi-flooded subterranean chamber, with water up to her chest, staring blankly into the distance. Is she dead, or still alive, trapped down there for eternity, her brain no longer in any working state? It sent shivers down my spine, thinking about it, and it still does. Then the story ends with a 'Hey aren't kids like us great? Lets go home' moment. It is never explained what happens to Pendragon, and that's probably the most creepy way of ending it, left to an unknown fate.

scary fate :(

That was my lasting memory of the whole series, which I had kept locked away, like Miss Pendragon, in my mind for 12 years until it popped out again last month. This stuff is oscar material compared to some of the trash I catch on today's children's telly. Writer Russel T Davies went onto bigger things, including Queer As Folk, and is now working on a new Doctor Who series.

In doing this update, I am indebted to a bloke called Roy and his excellent Dark Season website - http://www.xanderly.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk which jogged my memory and from which I stole those screencaps. For more reminiscing, have a look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ilove/tv/darkseason which even includes some video clips, that still creep me out to this day.

Hmm I was going to write about other old TV and laugh at the craptacular new Thunderbirds film, but I've written enough for one update.

Byebye ^^;

Right, hello again. To re-cap, I'm now at around December-January time, about a year since I left university. I've been drugged up for most of that year, and had lost the real-life friends and meagre social skills I had to begin with. I was also a very anxious anxious monster.

The thing that sticks in my mind about this time is going out to a restaurant for my brother's birthday. It wasn't particularly a high class establishment, more pub than restaurant, the menu being anything plus chips. Squished away behind a little table in the corner next to a boiling radiator with a speaker blurting out pop trash above my head, my stomach just started churning away. And then I went into what I later found out to be known as the 'Catastrophic thought process'. As I'm a bit lazy, here's something about it I found on google for you:

"In this cycle, the individual feels a potentially worrisome sensation such as an increasing heart rate, tightened chest muscles, or a queasy stomach. The triggering event could be some worry, an unpleasant mental image, a minor illness, or even exercise. The person with panic disorder responds by becoming anxious and this anxiety triggers more unpleasant sensations which heightens anxiety even further and gives rise to catastrophic thoughts. As the vicious cycle continues, a panic attack results."

Woo panic attack! I think there used to be a kids tv show in the UK called that, set in an old underground station. Actually now come to think about it, maybe it was called "Panic Station". It was weird as hell anyway and had horrible puppets that scared me as a child. Quick edit back to the scene in hand, I practically race out of there at speeds that would make Linford proud and sit down in the nice cool carpark out of breath and shaking. We had just got the drinks in and were about to order food when it happened, my Dad ended up making excuses and settled the bill. The drive home was deathly quiet, I was so embarrassed and ashamed at what happened, and still feeling pretty shakey.

My doctor referred me to the local mental health hospital, to the mysterious Dr. Weatherly. I say mysterious because I never actually met him in person. He may have been a weird horned hell-beast for all I know. Instead I got to speak to his lackeys, most of whom hadn't quite mastered english yet. Theres only so many ways I can say "Ok, I'm not feeling so depressed anymore, its the anxiety thats doing me in" before I start feeling slightly exasperated. After each explanation of things, Doctor-Lite, Diet-Doctor if you will, would then phone up the king of darkness Weatherly himself and relay on the information I had just spent long enough trying to tell them. After 5 weeks of sessions, and turning down Prozac for the third time, we eventually reached a conclusion that maybe therapy could be a wonderful idea. I was recommended Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - oh yeah, and the waiting list was 5 months. Could we interest you in some Prozac while you wait sir?

Ooh where to start?

Hello people and welcome to my first (proper) blog update for nearly 12 months. I'll have to be honest here, and say that I'm writing this more for my benefit, than your entertainment. Trying to think back to last year, I was beginning to climb back out of my depression. Looking back on it now, I really don't think I was trying hard enough. Like a certain grimace-faced video games charactor, I was using the pills to take away the pain, which in hind-sight was a really BAD idea, but more on that later. Around this time I crossed online paths with a lady who would become very special to me.

She immediately caught my attention with her photo in a Pics of You thread, there was just something that stood out as beautiful and honest to me. Not the usual camwhorey antics that seem to be in fashion right now. I just dismissed it as "Well as if someone like her would be interested in me" as well as the pain I still felt from being jilted at university. Then she emailed me out of the blue asking to borrow some webspace to host a picture. She had this great fun and cheeky atmosphere to her, and we just kept exchanging emails, eventually moving onto IRC, and webcams. It was wonderful wonderful escapism, she was a Brit on the other side of the world in America, and we would spend hours talking when our time-zones crossed. It was all pretty innocent really, but talking to her made me forget about my shitty life, and made her forget about a dreary job. Things took their course and we became very much more than friends, but I always knew in the back of my mind, it was never going to happen in reality. Until she decided to pack it all in, and move back to the UK. I was shocked, amazed, apprehensive, delirious, all in one go. Maybe this was fate, it was all coming together, a new start for me. We had to meet up.

The time she came back coincided with a Weebl meet-up, which thinking back may not have been a great idea. In fact, when she got there, she was still jet-lagged. We said we would go as friends and see if the attraction was the same as online. For me it was, and I was instantly smitten, she was everything I had hoped for. But this was no fairy tale. She seemed cold to me, I was confused, hurt. Eventually we got some space alone and talked, she couldn't continue a real relationship with me, I was too young for her. We both knew the age gap, we were at opposite ends of our 20s, but seeing it in real life made her feel guilty and she couldn't go through with it. Needless to say, it kinda spoiled the rest of the weekend for me, I met some fantastic people, including Weebl himself, but I could hardly raise a smile.

It was only really when I got home that the full force of it hit me like a crazed maniac in a rampant bulldoser. Everything I had been trying to escape from came right back and re-introduced itself to me. Hello Mr Depression, welcome Ms. Anxiety, please invite yourself into my head and make yourself comfortable. Having to see her about online still was heart-breaking, she had invaded most of my online life and everything reminded me of her. We tried to just be friends for a couple of months but my broken mind couldn't accept it. Eventually she took things into her own hands and in a self-less act left the whole community. We've kept in contact through monthly emails, and its through those that I'll probably relay the rest of whats happened recently. I still think about her, however briefly, nearly everyday.

My poor doctor noticed my sudden change in mood and shoved up my pills dosage again, and I went to a NHS counsellor who was probably one of the most useless people I've ever met. He would just sit there listening to me babbling away about stuff that was upsetting me, then would repeat back to me almost exactly the same words, as if confirming what I said. If I had wanted that, I would have bought a tape recorder, or a parrot. Eventually I got too exasperated with him and cancelled any future sessions. He also had a girls name.

Now to get back to something which I hinted at the very start of this entry. I was on a drug called venlafaxine (Effexor is the brand name I think), and for me, it worked by sucking away my emotions. On the high dosages I had been put on it made me feel and act like a robot. And not in the good way, like a cool japanese ninja fighting robot. More like Marvin the paranoid android from HHGTG. I didn't go out, I didnt try to make myself better, I didnt contact any of my friends back at university. I just let everything wash over me. Sometimes I would get aggitated and cause a disturbance (usually aimed at anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby) just to let out some emotion. To get people angry at me, so I felt justified, so I felt alive, so people noticed my existance. I told my doc this, and he weened me off the pills. After the withdrawel effects had cleared up, I began to feel human again but then I looked at my life. My whole time while on the tablets I hadn't done anything to try to better my life. Over time it had all eroded away, I was left with nothing.

Now if you dont do anything for a while, it becomes harder to repeat it next time along, just as practice makes things easier. I hadnt really 'lived' for months and months, and it had all built up and manifested itself in cripplling social anxiety. Going out into a public situation was a horrific thought to me. Let me describe the symptons of anxiety for you. You start feeling very hot and flustered, your stomach churns and you start sweating. Your throat dries up and you think youre going to throw up. All your senses are heightened, any little noise becomes an immediate annoyance. Its not particularly pleasant. It's also all in the mind, theres no physical sign of it to anyone on the outside, apart from I would go very pale when I had an anixety attack, or so my mum would tell me.

So the lesson is really this: Anti-depressants do work, and they have an immediate effect, but you can't let yourself just float there and think theyre working way inside your head, because you're lining yourself up for a fall when you come off them. You have to push yourself, make the effort to get better, while the pills help remove the distractions of depression. Then you have something to work from when you come down. In my opinion, doctors should be forced to give advice when perscribing anti-depressants. They have to tell people its not a quick fix and they will have to work for it. Counselling is good too, but not parrot style, proper counselling such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, more of which I'll speak on in a later date.

Its getting damn late now so I'll call it a day and write the rest, including more tales of woe to do with anti-depressants next time.