TV Guided

I love television. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I really don’t know what I would do without it. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a good book, I find computer games entertaining and I adore baking (when my OCD permits me) but to me there is no better hobby than the television.

My enjoyment of TV seems to have started in my early childhood when I used to avidly watch the adverts. I seem to remember my mam once telling me that I only used to stop crying when the adverts came on. I’ve always had a fascination with adverts, perhaps it’s that I want to understand how they work, how do you encourage someone to buy your product with a 30 second idea?

It wasn’t just the adverts, I loved it all, the sitcoms, documentaries, magazine shows and I have spent the majority of my life basking in the glow of that fantastic invention.

When I was about 15 my Dad lent me his ‘media station’ – in this day and age those words mean something totally different but this media station comprised of a tape deck, a radio and alarm and a black and white TV that was about 4x5 inches. It was about the size of a small car engine and was notoriously difficult to tune in (It was a dial, not a series of channel numbered buttons). My Dad then procured me a betamax video recorder to go with it. Now, at that stage Betamax video recorders were pretty much obsolete and getting hold of the accompanying betamax tapes became an epic obsession for me. Many years of scouring car boot sales until I had a healthy collection of about 50 tapes which I crammed with episodes of ‘Cracker’, ‘A Touch of Frost’, old films like ‘The Big Sleep’ and little gems such as the ‘Ghosts’ season of mini dramas from the BBC. I adored that Betamax, even if it chewed up some of my tapes and sometimes the picture rolled as I had lovingly watched each tape so many times. I remember many nights and days, holed up in my room, obsessively watching my tapes – I’m genuinely astonished that I actually did go out and socialise with people at that time, I was so obsessed with TV.

My love affair with television has been a tempestuous one; I jumped for joy when Craig won the first Big Brother (the only Big Brother I really watched) and pledged his prize to charity, I sobbed uncontrollably at David Tennant’s final performance as the Doctor, I shouted angrily and stamped my feet whenever there was a cliff-hanger ending on Eastenders and I would have to wait a mere 2 days to find out what actually happens. I have marvelled in awe at the wildlife of our world and have seen so many unusual creatures. I have watched startling discoveries and science experiments. I have been appalled at some TV shows, hugely offended. I have watched the nation choose people with little talent on talent shows and have marvelled that people with great talent have been dismissed. I’ve spent many hours getting questions wrong on University Challenge and wondering how I ever got through university if I’m so intellectually inept. I have sat through programmes about Fishing and Barges (for which I entirely blame my husband) and have apologised profusely after becoming fascinated by the most banal shows and putting my husband through the pain of having to watch them.

Television is like a drug to me – it’s not always good for my health (mental or physical), it sometimes makes me elated and other times depressed and I couldn’t stop it even if I tried.

I once asked my husband if he would ever ask me to give up television and thankfully he said no. You see, the thing is that if he asked me to give it up – I’m really not sure that I could or would want to. I have given up smoking, alcohol (sporadically and when necessary), chocolate (on various occasions but I’ve currently fallen off the wagon) and caffeine – but ask me to give up television and I would become pretty hostile. If I did give up Television for my husband I daresay you would find me staring wistfully into the windows of Electrical shops or gazing greedily at mute TVs in pubs.

Several months ago we visited my in-laws and, as there is no TV in the bedroom, we usually bring a miniature handheld TV which I got very cheaply a few years ago – I have raging insomnia and I tend to watch TV if I can’t sleep. On this occasion my husband seemed to be under the impression that I had brought it although I’m not sure why as he has always been in charge of it in the past, he had helpfully brought the charger though. Anyway, after the initial ‘I thought you brought it...’ exchange I found myself feeling like a petulant child having their toys taken away. I think I even cultivated a pet lip I was so upset. It wasn’t my husband’s fault, it was an accident that it hadn’t been brought along but I was so upset and angry that I wouldn’t get to watch TV as I tried to sleep. I think that this definitely counts as addiction.

I have found recently that television is my way of actually experiencing various different emotions without having to go through the scenario in real life. I’ve had enough drama in my life and my mental health doesn’t really stretch to allowing me to get involved in stressful situations at the moment. So I use TV as way of letting my emotions out without actually offending anyone...well...unless they are in the room at the time and are offended at sobbing women.

For example, when the Doctor and Rose were separated in Series Two of Doctor Who and she was cast to a parallel universe I was heartbroken. The scene where he says goodbye to her has me in tears whether I watch it, hear the music or even think about it. The fact that they will apparently never see each other again (although we all know where that ended) and they care about each other so much pulls on my heart strings. It’s right up there on the sobometer with ‘Casablanca’ for me.

I won’t spoil the following film for anyone but my friend Ewen will tell you that anyone mentioning the film ‘The Iron Giant’ and the word “Superman!” is guaranteed to make me fill with emotion – seriously, even writing this at the moment I have tears in my eyes. I cried for about two hours after that film and each time Ewen cried “Superman!” it just set me off again.

I cried on awaiting Allie’s decision between Gavin and Finn in ‘Cutting It’ at the end of the first series. I clasped my hands to my chest and only moved to wipe the tears from my eyes so that I could see the screen. Don’t worry, I know that it is not real, but if the actors are skilled enough, watching their emotion is thrilling.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been happy times too...

I obsessively consumed ‘Red Dwarf’, ‘Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe’, ‘Fawlty Towers’, ‘dinnerladies’, ‘Blackadder’, ‘The Mighty Boosh’, ‘Life on Mars’. I have laughed myself silly at ‘Mock The Week’, ‘QI’, ‘Not Going Out’, ‘Rab C. Nesbitt’, ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ etc.

In some ways I miss the old days of watching a TV show bit by bit, now I can go out and buy a DVD and watch it in the space of a day and once spent I feel sadly dissatisfied. I’ve been watching ‘30 Rock’ week by week and in some ways it has been like constantly teasing me which has just made it all the more alluring. I watched ‘The Thick of It’ series 3 week by week and thoroughly enjoyed it. The only problem with this is that I saw the third series of ‘The Thick of It’ before the first two series so now I will definitely watch the previous series, which I have already bought on DVD in anticipation, within a short space of time because I can’t help myself, which somewhat spoils the excitement.

Such is the nature of my addiction that I can quite happily sit through most shows, I’m not a big fan of reality TV and talent shows and I do find that the news, while fascinating, is ultimately quite depressing - doesn't stop me watching them all on and off though. I find some soap operas a bit boring but it still doesn’t stop me from switching them on from time to time and getting sucked in again.

I often wonder if I really should curb my television habit, if I’m spending too much time doing something that may be considered so amazingly pointlessly time wasting by some people. My agoraphobia affects me in such a way that I only really feel comfortable going outside with my husband and with him at work full time I find it very difficult to go out on my own so most of my day at the moment is spent inside. In the flat the TV is a constant feature of my life and I do tend to find that if I watch too much TV I find my worldview is often skewed, depending on what I watch. I often have the TV on while I am doing other things, don't worry, I don't spend all of the day watching TV.

I’ve started listening to the radio more lately and watching shows on the internet but I still see that huge comforting box sitting in the corner of the room, dolefully willing me to switch it on, to see what it has to offer and I can’t help but run my fingers over it’s well worn remote buttons and wonder what delights I am missing. Perhaps I won’t give Television up just yet...

Smoke Free, Wheat Free, Alcohol Free and too much Free time...

My OCD has finally reduced me to this, sitting in front of the PC unable to go outside on my own and having to be looked after for a large amount of the time by my wonderful husband.

Don't get me wrong, I really like our flat - it's warm and safe and contains a large amount of fluffy bears - but staying in the flat for pretty much the best part of the last month is not my idea of a good time. I'm not being held here against my will, I could leave any time I wish - except I can't.

My OCD has reached epic proportions and I seemed to have developed some kind of agoraphobia which seems to mean that any time I need to go out, my husband has to come with me for reassurance and seeing as he works full time it's not always practical.

I never thought it would come to this, I'm under the care of my psychiatrist and my hormone/chemical levels are being checked. I have lost almost 2 stone due to stress and anxiety (which, while certainly not a good way to lose weight has made moving around slightly easier for me).

Anyway, I didn't decide to blog today to tell you all about my woes, not at all, I just thought that with the credit crunch, recession etc that I would discuss giving up my vices.

5 years ago I was a relatively heavy smoker, I guess you could say I was binge drinking a fair bit of the time too - although to be fair, my idea of binge drinking was drinking 2 glasses of wine on a saturday night then nothing else for a week. Perhaps you might have called me a sporadic drinker. I ate chocolate, lots of it - sticky, gooey, moreish chocolate. Essentially my diet wasn't exactly what you would call healthy.

Anyways, in 2007 my OCD caused me great distress and I gave up smoking - as terrible as it sounds I didn't give up for my health or because the cost was starting to get galactically high, I gave up smoking as I was so worried that an unextinguished (is that even a word???) cigarette would cause a massive fire and I couldn't cope with the responsibility of that happening. I always stubbed out my cigarettes and got rid of them but you never quite know if there are definitely out. So I stopped smoking, just like that. Well...I say 'Just like that', three little words that do not in any way shape or form convey the sheer torture of giving up smoking. Now, I know what you're thinking, that being a non smoker is a good thing and I should have felt healthier...but I didn't, not at the time anyway. I craved cigarettes, all I wanted was just one, that's all, I could stop anytime I wanted! Except...except that wasn't strictly true was it - I actually started smoking in the first place attempting to show someone how non addictive cigarettes are! What a fool I was!

I had tried a few things in the past but nothing seemed to replace that craving. Now, before I go on, I really do wish to say that I feel 200% better as a non smoker and I would encourage anyone to give up smoking where possible. However, when giving up smoking I had no way prepared myself for the hacking cough and hideous chest infection that I got just after quitting. For me, getting through the first three months was possibly the most unpleasant period of my life health wise - just to reitterate though, definitely worth giving up smoking. It took about 6 months before the cravings really subsided and after that it's been pretty easy.

I gave up caffeine and anything caffeine related about 10 years ago so I was ok there - the next thing I had to give up was alcohol. Aaah, alcohol - a glass of chilled wine with a meal or the riotous tequila slammer - so good and yet so incredibly bad if I have too much! In order to get through my OCD bad patch I had to dispense with the alcohol altogether in order to prevent my condition from worsening - believe me, I held off the giving up of alcohol for as long as I could but when I was scrubbing my hands raw and crying with the fear of contamination and the sheer anxiety of worrying about the door not being locked, I had to concede that the OCD was back big style and my relationship with alcohol had to stop. For the moment anyway.

I gave up chocolate last month, I suppose strictly speaking that was down to the fact that I couldn't go out anywhere alone to get some and I had sort of said to my husband that I was giving up chocolate so he didn't buy any - bless him.

Also, due to the pain I am still suffering in my abdomen (yep, it's been approximately 10 months now and I still don't have a diagnosis for the pain :( ) I was told to see if a wheat free diet would help, just incase it was wheat intolerance.

Now, before I continue, I just want to say to all those people with wheat or gluten allergies or intolerances - I really feel for you. Going on a wheat free diet was the most complicated thing I have done in a long long time. You see, my main diet has always been rich in things such as pasta, bread, biscuits etc so giving up pretty much everything I usually eat and adopting a wheat free diet for a month was incredibly hard. I lost half a stone purely from lack of food as it was just so difficult to find things that were wheat free. The local supermarkets have a range of wheat free foods, some better than others, but it was just so hard to think about anything other than bread! I didn't think that you could become addicted to bread but there you go, I thought that the wheatful loaves in the supermarket were mocking me, saying 'aah, what's that in your basket there? Wheat-free bread? Hmm, going to enjoy that are you?' when all I wanted was a thick slice of buttered toast. The wheat free bread, whilst trying darn hard to satisfy me was just not enough and I started craving illicit sandwiches in the wee small hours oozing with mayonaise and mustard...

Then there was the matter of wheat free pasta. Again, it tried it's best but there is just no substitute for a wheatful lasagne. So every day I ate my wheat free pasta and bread. I didn't eat any rice either as I was told to avoid that too. Essentially I existed on chicken, a few veg (shock horror) and potato - incidentally, when it comes to potato products, there's wheat in some unexpected places.

Like I said, I really feel for anyone on a wheat free diet as my husband and I only kept to the menu for a month before diving straight back into our old ways. Sadly, it didn't help with the abdomen pain but as experiments go, it was fairly eye opening.

Which leads me to the enormous amount of free time I seem to have at the moment. Recently my role at work became redundant and due to the lack of any other suitable roles within the company I find myself consigned to the unemployment queue of life.

Unfortunatley, as my OCD has worsened to terrible levels and my abdomen pain is still there, the chance of finding a job at the moment is bleak. I have a fair amount of therapy to undergo before I can even leave the house, let alone find a job.

I haven't felt well enough to go outside alone, I've found it difficult to talk to people or see my friends or even communicate at all and I worry constantly about contamination from objects in my flat so, as you can imagine, my life at the moment has consisted of hours of TV.

With all of the other things I have given up, my lack of vices, has led me to becoming addicted to Television. My free time is consumed by repeats of Casualty, Doctors, The Jeremy Kyle Show along with the newer additions such as The Inbetweeners, Torchwood, Psychoville, That Mitchell and Webb look etc. Which just goes to show that my brain always has to have something to be addicted to just to keep me going.

With all this free time and mental issues I have started to become peculiar - yesterday I had to admit to my husband that I talk to my teddy bears during the day, I don't have long existential discussions with them I just comment on the TV to them. Surely that's not too strange though, don't judge me :)

Stress and anxiety can do a lot to the body and mind - I find it extremely difficult to have a shower these days without having a panic attack. The only thing that I can successfully do on my own is go to the toilet, everything else seems to have become a team effort or tasks that my husband has had to take over from me. While I know that at some point I will feel better, things are pretty hard at the moment.

Giving up all the things I have given up has certainly been quite a journey - when do I get to be OCD Free?