Inside Out: a lesson in what depression does to your mind.

We have established by this point, I love Disney films.

So, when the Pixar studios released another wonderfully creative film heavy in both concept and characters, I was clearly first in line, right?

No way.

I know Pixar, and considering the studio's track record for energising inanimate objects with more emotion and vibrancy than most people I know are capable of: there was every possibility that whatever they came up with using actual emotions would be too much for me. 

You're talking to someone who cries at Cinderella castle image at the beginning of all the newer Disney films. 

Well, I went along to see it a few days ago. All the emotions are inhabitants of an 11-year-old girl's head, and we watch the emotions navigate Riley's growth and her temperament. Whilst on the job, Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness log important memories, experiences, likes and dislikes to form Riley's personality as she grows up. 

Joy is Riley's primary emotion, acting as a perennially delightful beacon of positivity. The others get their time at the 'controls' of Riley's mind but Joy cleans up most of the messes and keeps things cheerful and positive. 

Yep, all the emotions have a place in Riley's head. Except for Sadness. 

Speaking to friends after I saw the film, one commented that they wanted 'to punch Sadness in the face' the whole way through. Fair comment, negativity can be grating for those around us. As someone with depression, I know this all too well. 

"Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems." 

-Sadness, Inside Out 

Joy routinely excludes Sadness, and every experience or memory that Sadness touches turns sad. Sad, here meaning, bad. As Riley is a young girl, her life has been largely very happy, and the emotions at the helm of her brain are scared of what would happen if Sadness was allowed to navigate Riley's life.

Through a series of events meaning Joy has to abandon the controls of Riley's mind to retrieve her 'core memories' from the maze of her head, the displacement of Riley's primary emotion takes a huge toll. 

But through her sadness, to cut a very long and weepy (for me) story short, Riley becomes wiser and more self-aware. Simultaneously, Joy comes to realise that without Sadness, nothing can quantify the happiness and high points of her 'career' as Riley's key emotion. 

Inside Out tells those of us with depression one very important thing. Sadness is an incredibly important part of our mind. Times of sadness make the brighter moments of life so much more beautiful. Crying, addressing  the sadness within us all, even if we don't understand it; gives it a place in our lives. Until we handle sadness as it is meant to be, it will creep into every area of our lives uninvited in search of a home. That is what depression means to me.

One of Riley's earliest moments of frustration and sadness, resulting in the collapse of one of her 'personality islands' started the waterworks for me, and until the end credits they didn't stop. 

No one has ever made it this simple for me. 

Depression made things, people and pastimes I love seem bleak and uninspiring. Old loves went away and even being confronted with interests the 'old' me had could be very triggering to me. 

Why do we ignore or demon-ize sadness? Society told those of us with depression to just expel the negativity from our lives. Ignore it. Give it no home in your head. 

But who would Riley have been without Sadness? Sadness brings understanding, empathy and connections to other people. 

Sometimes having depression feels like the loneliest state of mind you could ever be in, and you don't even get a say in when your own apathetic mood hits most of the time. 

Inside Out teaches, so incredibly simply by the way, that sadness is totally essential to our human growth. It doesn't excuse it. It doesn't green-light pessimism or negativity. Within Inside Out, one constant of emotion is entirely unsustainable, be it happy or sad. It is more than okay to feel the full spectrum of emotion that life triggers in your brain's control centre. 

Because each bite out of a red velvet cupcake with your name all over it is far sweeter contrasted against every nauseating sip of that green tea that's supposed to do you some good.

Nothing makes you thankful for the comfort of your own bed like your car breaking down on the darkest, most desolate and Transylvanian-looking road you had never noticed on your daily commute home. 

Because looking down Main Street, U.S.A. on a quiet November morning in Orlando holding the hand of the person you love sure seems a lot more magical when you are certain you almost didn't make it there. 

Finding the Pixie Dust Prescription.

My name is Clara and in 2014, I was diagnosed with" moderate-to-severe" depression and panic disorder. 

I will start by saying I started The Pixie Dust Prescription to share my journey with depression and what Disney has done for me to start turning my life around. Things will sometimes be a little heavy around here but bear with me. This one will be the 'worst' of it, so power through and I'll tell you in future posts how reverting to your inner child is the most fun way to piece your life together.

It was late springtime 2014 when I first attempted some bid at suicide (I said stick with me...) . I had been failing to keep afloat in my first year of university, where I had lived mostly alone and without any real friends. On weekends I took a train home to work two or three ten-eleven hour shifts at a restaurant, to hop back on the train to repeat the cycle of invisibility I had come to accept as, what I was told was supposed to be, "the best years of my life." 

Doctors told me all kinds of "reasonable" explanations and solutions for feeling inexplicably tearful as I lay awake at night, the pit that took up a permanent residence in my stomach every time I left the house and the apathy that replaced true peace or happiness in the signalling of a 'good day.' I was seeing out the arse end of my adolescence and my hormones were having none of it, so Dr. Russell said. The menstrual cycle could play tricks on us women, Dr. Anrush explained. Maybe I should just try to look on the bright side and not think bad thoughts, one well-meaning nurse said all matter-of-fact moments before I left the practice to wail behind the wheel of my car in the car park for the second time that morning. The consensus reached? Medication. And a stiff upper lip. 

Not one person in my life actually knows about my suicide bid. In the height of my panic-induced lock-down at home, every single day around 2pm, I would take a bath. Without going into too much triggering detail, not-so-happy things happened during this ritualistic reminder of how trapped I was by my own body and mind. 

There was a time in my life where my passion to die was far, far greater than my will to live. 

What the fuck was wrong with me? Was I too young to feel this way? Was I too seemingly 'privileged' to so desperately wish I was someone else, anyone else? I wanted to stop hurting, and in turn, hurting others. 

Disney

Something convinced me otherwise that afternoon. I thought of Ed. Ed is my boyfriend of nearly two years, and he represents some kind of soul-mate to me. I thought of his understanding, his support and his unwavering strength in our struggle with my mental health. I thought of his unbelievable emotional investment in me, loathsome as I was to myself. I could not turn my back on the gamble this man took on me. I had to succeed.

Raw from this struggle with myself, I sat alone smoking cigarette after cigarette out of my window. I wished I could reverse the clock, shut off my mind for one fucking minute and just let something else into my head. Hell, even something that could lighten this horrible darkness up for one moment. 

I opened my laptop and started to search the usual sites I would use to watch terrible American reality television, like the Real Housewives franchise, of which I had seen every series. And I cannot explain to you why, but I thought of Cinderella, my favourite princess as a child. As a middle child, I never felt immaturity or childishness was desperately encouraged as I grew up. Before I knew it, I was watching Cinderella singing to some cheery, impossibly domesticated woodland creatures far too early in the morning for my taste and looking out wistfully to a dream-like castle, the picture of a true fairytale damsel. And I was fucking loving it.

Anastasia and Drizella tore Cinders' makeshift ballgown to bits, and I cried with her. The Fairy Godmother turned up inexplicably to set things right, and I felt the relief of finally having things come up Cinders. Then the mess left by the 'ugly stepsisters' was transformed into....well, at this point you can guess my chilly little heart gave an uncharacteristic flutter as Cinderella magically emerged in a beautiful sparkling gown, in what is one of my favourite animated moments of all time. 

Now, this isn't the moment where I start running down the snow-covered roads of Bedford Falls screaming "Merry Christmas" and holding those dear to me in a tight embrace after consulting with a guardian angel. But what I got from watching Cinderella after, most likely, the lowest moment of my life; was some magical feeling of 'everything is going to be okay, one day.' 

(I watch Cinderella every time I feel inexplicably sad and have access to a DVD player. I have seen Cinderella, as of September 2015, ninety-one times).

A terrible picture of me and Cinderella. This accurately demonstrates how weirdly starstruck I was. 

From that moment, I began trying to treat myself more delicately, instead of as a cooker-pressure churning out the illusion of stability and togetherness. I afforded myself alone time, and gathered the courage to spend time in the company of others. I shared my love of Disney with those around me, planning dream trips back to Walt Disney World in times of insomnia, collecting every Disney animated classic on DVD, decorating my space with reminders of princesses and fairytales and magic. 

As far as I'm concerned, life can be really, really tough.

Once you find whatever it is that sets your heart back into motion, once you find something that allows you to really be yourself; hold on to it and don't ever let go.

This is why The Pixie Dust Prescription exists. 

I am pretty much entirely doing this written record for myself, to track my journey and stay closer to what makes me happy. When I went to WDW after 'getting over' the hump of my depression, I thought to myself how much richer the Disney estate would be if you could somehow bottle and sell the magic in the air there and take it with you everywhere you went. 

What if the magic of Disney could be in your life, every day?

Well, no developments on the commercialisation of emotion from Disney yet. In the meantime, welcome to my bootleg medicine cabinet: the Pixie Dust Prescription.