About Me

My name is Marc, and for more than twenty years I’ve suffered from Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety Disorder. I’m not a doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist — though I’ve had more than my fair share of encounters with them — just a guy who’s spent most of his life trying to understand, overcome and simply survive the many pitfalls and trials of mental illness.

For the most part, until recently, I’ve failed. Often dramatically.

Though my problems began in my teens, I wasn’t diagnosed until my early twenties, at which point I began my fateful journey into the mental health system, which back then was somewhat of a circus.

I was diagnosed, misdiagnosed, misunderstood and fed more and varied medications than I can remember. I’ve endured countless and often horrible side-effects from my ‘treatments’, attempted suicide more then once, self-harmed, self-medicated with alcohol and generally made a complete mess of my life, all courtesy of a broken brain that neither I, nor any health professional seemed to understand or be able to treat effectively.

Today, In my mid-thirties, I’m thankful to say that things are different. Mental illness is more widely accepted and understood, and effective treatments are more prevalent and accessible. After twenty years of fighting what frequently seemed like a losing (and pointless) battle, I’ve finally found an excellent team of medical professionals to work with and help me, and perhaps even more importantly, I’ve found hope.

Hope. It’s a curious and perhaps trivial thing to some, but to those of us who’ve spent our lives without it, it’s possibly the most powerful and empowering emotion we can lay claim to. It opens the doors to so many of the possibilities we’ve lived without: happiness, love, functionality, even just the ability to smile.

A Winter’s Day is one manifestation of my hope, a promise of a better future both for myself, my family, and for anyone who’s been where I’ve been, or may be still there and desperately trying to find a way out. It’s my hope that A Winter’s Day can help people suffering with mental illness, and make a difference for the better.

Why ‘A Winter’s Day’?

A couple of reasons. For those of you old enough to remember (or fortunate enough to know the song anyway), ‘A winter’s day’ is the opening line to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s, ‘I am a Rock’. For myself, the lyrics of that song epitomise the sense of isolation and loneliness that depression and anxiety can so often inspire. For this reason, the name ‘A Winter’s Day’ is both a tribute to Simon and Garfunkel’s poetry, and a nod of respect to a great song.

On another level, A Winter’s Day can evoke that grey, empty stillness that some winter’s days just seem to cloak the world in, washing away details with muted watercolours. On a visual level for me at least, this is a painting of depression. Of course not all winter’s days are so dreary, and a A Winter’s Day is hopefully much cheerier!