Families And How To Escape Them - Chapter Thirty - A Haircut

By the autumn of 1991 I thought that I had got the hang of the Job Centre shuffle. It was a weekly negotiation where my aim was to present myself as potentially 'going somewhere' to the Job Centre staff where the 'somewhere' was in the direction of paid work. But I not really going there. There was a recession in the air. As I looked at the cards for jobs in the job centre I could see it. But in my interactions with anyone I had, the Job Centre staff, people in church, whoever, they wanted the recession to stay at the level of media rumour. They wanted the media hot air to keep them warm, however cold it left others. 7

The recession hit home to me in how much more it exposed the gaps in my my poor work record in a harsher light than earlier times had. I was contracted to visit the Job Centre twice a week. Getting through their front door was the easy bit. Being courteous with the staff won me minor brownie points. That was where the hope for the better stopped. One tactic that got me slightly further was to do the maths with the jobs on the Job Centre cards. When a job was one I could apply for, but when I did the maths then I could prove that I would be worse off than my simply being left on benefits, then I would quote the reference number on the card to the staff and in discussion with the them civilly point out the financial disadvantage to me if I applied for it. They would equally civilly let me off from looking any further: We had engaged with each other, that was enough. The Job Centre shuffle kept them in work, me out of work, and took us both that week's steps further on.19

Another variation on the Job Centre shuffle was to apply for a job that was obviously heavily applied for, say a job working for Nottingham City Council, but put too little effort into presenting myself as vital to the employer. Even though the surface detail given about it the job made it look good. When I inevitably did not get the job I then told the Job Centre 'I did my best' their reply was 'Better luck next time'. Both of us denied how regularly this exchange was repeated. No honour lost. Politeness retained, no change in the un/employment figures.26

Amid the economic shrinkage the jobs that the inexperienced unemployed could apply for shrank, and less the inexperienced could do about it. Many employers who forwarded their names and the detail of the job they would pay employees to do to the Job Centre wanted applicants who drove and had cars. Not applicants with desperation in their eyes and the equivalent of a Norman Tebbit style bicycle as their level of social mobility.31

I was sure in myself of why I did these 'holding operation' evasions with the Job Centre staff: they hid loss of face for both parties but what they did beyond that I could not tell. I was less sure about such 'holding operation' thinking when it were used by others at me in other contexts. I was still on the list for group therapy. if I asked them about it all my doctors surgery might tell me would be 'The list is moving. You are higher up on it than you were when your doctor first put you on it. It is all a matter of limited supply not meeting demand.'. I don't know what my doctor would have said if I had shared with him that I journaled to get to sleep at night, and in my own estimation seemed to be part way through processing the issues that originally drove me to ask for therapy.40

Occasionally I had experiences of fantasies where supply met demand far more instantly, and vividly, than supply ever met demand in real life. Never did this happen more memorably than when I went with my landlady, now newly a parent, to the baby wear shop near the doctors surgery. There she was looking to buy baby reins for when her child started walking and negotiating with the female shop manager for the best type to buy. I was stood close to a wall some distance to give them privacy in the discussions when suddenly, and without warning, my raging stuck teenage self flooded my thoughts much less of a child walking safely with it's mother because of the reins, and much more with images of two hulking great American wrestlers both wearing the adult equivalent black leather baby reins across their huge chests and shoulders, where the straps stretched across their extremely muscular backs. Everywhere the reins touched emphasised the muscularity around them. I doubt my landlady noticed how I actually fainted when this vision of implacable aggression flooded my thoughts, from out of nowhere. I was already close to the wall. It was not much further effort for me to lean against the wall to keep what was left of my balance whilst I was fainting in the moment that the vision overwhelmed me. Troubling as that moment was, it was a release from something, but I did not know what.58

Had I talked about it with anyone immediately after who had a sense of proportion they would have said 'You have been reading too much Sigmund Freud lately.' and gently laughed in recognition at what had genuinely scared me in the moment.61

Mostly I enjoyed my personal journey of going nowhere slowly, making rejection agreeable, and drawing the goodwill out of social stalemate situations. I could journal about any discomfort that I was presented with. Nobody had to know I did that. My days were full enough making the little money I got each fortnight stretch as far as it needed to. I could even navigate conversations around the imminent economic recession with some skill. I enjoyed being where I was in the heap I was in. But I could not deny that with my appearance I presented myself as 'lacking self esteem', even scruffy. When others projected 'could be marriable if he was tidy enough' onto me they could do that without doing anything to help towards that.70  

Though perhaps I was more transparent about how I thought less of myself then I how I had intended to be. As this image shows my letting my beard grow had been another of the ways that I had chosen to resist being how my family expected me to be. I was well away from my family now and had never really styled my appearance that much. I looked as happy as a cleaned up biker or late period Jim Morrison on a bad day. This is what I looked like before I talked the Lady Bay church leaders I knew well enough to ask to as for help. 

Pauline and David were people who treated me as if I were an adult. They seemed to understand how I was unsupported by my family compared with the standards of most church members. They said 'Yes'. We agreed an early evening mid-week time for them to come around to Agape House. They would bring everything required for the hair cut and clean shave. With very little talk required they understood that I was looking for a change I could make. The change I wanted was both spiritual  and mental, I could not separate one from the other.86 

With more time, and in a better world, I might have gone further towards the idea of a more thorough make over, and asked Pauline for advice about a different way of dressing. She would have been the one to ask: she must had some times when she wished her truck driver husband would dress less often in jeans. But that was not to be. 90

Whilst this outward change made many in church better disposed towards me, underneath it change little with regard to me how my poor reactions to what were known as 'the clobber verses'. These were verses in The Bible where homosexual behaviour was condemned. And the church took the condemnation further than The Bible and condemned anyone who identified with homosexuality as if it were a personal characteristic-something not known in Biblical times.96

These 'clobber verses' came up most in the midweek Bible Study group that I was part of. They were part of the less logical parts of The Old Testament. When I was presented with these verses I zoned out. My heart went AWOL from the topic. The more in The Biblical God threatened and smote his most errant followers, and similar fates were promised for those identifying with their error, the more I identified with the errors of those threatened, with a barely hidden glee. Where there was a mechanism to the sense of sin and punishment we never had the time to probe the text with enough rigour to clarify the mechanics of it all. The backgrounds to the situations Old Testament characters get themselves into always seemed to be poorly sketched out. Many of the Old Testament patriarchs were often alarmingly uncaring of their female dependents. But like the loss leader jobs I weakly applied for, the best thing to do was not press too hard in the matter. 108

Still the poor explanations of the lives of Old Testament patriarchs was probably more logical and illuminating than worrying about the economy, where, logically, the less people had the less they had to worry about.                                                                                                                           

As you see the hair cut and shave made a big difference to my appearance, even to my posture. From this distance of time I don't know what the hair cut and beard trim took away beyond my self imposed pressure to not be who my parents wanted me to be. It may be that the event gave me a certain lightness with how much I disagreed my family, compared with the former suppressed anger I had against them that I had which always seemed impossible to dissipate.120

I don't know how much my Jim Morrison on a bad day look added to my feeling depressed and the clean shaven look cheered me up. What I do know is that depression is about a lot more than appearance and appearance may be a symptom of depression but a change of appearance my now does not mean ''depression lifted'. At most it meant that I had learned more how to ask for more appropriate help.

I still needed to journal, nightly. Particularly when I came up against church talk where I found the lack of acceptance of homosexuality felt personal to me in ways they did not realise and did not want to know about.

Please left click here for Chapter Thirty One.