Tom Wicker on Mental Health, Self-Care and the State of Theater During Coronavirus [Video]

We recently caught up with Tom to discuss his life today, his advice for others going through anxiety and depression, and how the pandemic has impacted the performing arts.

October 3, 2020 by I’m From Driftwood Leave a Comment

 

.

.

Six years ago, Tom Wicker told us about a time in his mid-20s when life as an out and active gay man collided with crippling anxiety and depression. Fortunately, with the help of medication, therapy and a readjusted view of what gay life was, Tom was able to live a healthier life.

We recently caught up with Tom to discuss his life today, his advice for others going through anxiety and depression, and how the pandemic has impacted the performing arts.

 

Transcript provided by YouTube:

00:06

story update today we’re going to be

00:08

speaking with tom wicker who’s all the

00:10

but before we speak to tom let’s take a

00:19

my name is tom wicker and i’m from louis

00:22

east sussex in the united kingdom my

00:25

first memory of anything gay related was

00:30

a tv ad when i was probably

00:34

about four or five and it was of

00:37

a stormy volcanic landscape

00:41

with lightning in the background and an

00:44

which i later learned had the word aids

00:48

written on it it is a deadly disease and

00:52

if you ignore aids it could be the death

00:55

i think for the best part of the first

00:58

18 years of my life that was what gay

01:01

sadness and illness and death and the

01:03

only other experience i had of

01:05

of being gay in my early teens before i

01:08

was a public toilet in my hometown where

01:12

i used to go down because people wrote

01:14

stuff on the walls and it was quite

01:16

and i remember going down to that toilet

01:19

once one saturday afternoon

01:21

on my way into another town and there

01:23

was a man at the urinals and i went to

01:25

take a pee and he wasn’t peeing he was

01:28

and i was sort of dumbstruck and then he

01:31

reached over and grabbed my arm

01:33

and then went to move me into one of the

01:36

cubicles and it was as if the spell had

01:38

broken and actually then i was terrified

01:40

and i pulled away and i went to leave

01:43

that was the only experience i had of

01:47

until i came out at 19 and began dating

01:51

one of the the other issues in my life

01:54

during that time was that i suffered

01:56

depression specifically anxiety and it

01:59

seize on certain things and i’d become

02:01

paranoid and obsessive about them

02:03

and as i continued to be a sexually

02:06

gay man the anxiety and can an obsession

02:10

focus on sex and my mind would always

02:15

and to that dirty disgusting toilet in

02:18

i do all the things that people tell you

02:20

not to i’d google symptoms

02:22

i’d go on to forums i’d read about these

02:25

things i’d scare myself after death i

02:27

in the insidious way depression works it

02:30

began to take over my entire life

02:31

and around the autumn time of 2005 it

02:36

i stopped sleeping altogether i’d lay

02:41

sure that that i had caught something i

02:44

did the thing that seemed like a

02:46

solution which is to get tested but of

02:49

all of that was symptomatic rather than

02:52

momentarily happy with the result and

02:55

then the doubt would creep in again what

02:56

if it had been what if they’d made an

02:58

error what if someone else’s blood had

03:00

and i went back from work to my parents

03:04

having by that point probably not slept

03:05

properly for almost two months

03:07

i i i vaguely remember one day where i

03:10

and i have flashes of my dad coming back

03:15

um surprised to find me sitting on the

03:17

sofa pretty much non-responsive

03:19

um i remember that little bit um and

03:23

bundling me into the car taking me to

03:27

gp clinic um him explaining what had

03:30

happened him crying i remember that

03:32

that’s essentially where i stayed for

03:34

three months in the spare room in my

03:38

and then we all decided that i probably

03:41

needed to do what i hadn’t done and was

03:44

way overdue was to find a therapist

03:46

so we did some research and i found a

03:51

dealt in cognitive behavioral therapy

03:53

and for the first time someone said to

03:56

instead of talking yourself out of this

03:58

instead of saying don’t be stupid you

03:59

haven’t taken these risks you’re going

04:02

the therapist said okay you get the

04:04

result and it is positive

04:10

no he said so you don’t die straight

04:11

away he said no he said so and in fact

04:14

does anything else really change do your

04:15

friends and family disappear

04:17

i was like no they don’t he’s like then

04:19

work with that and in some ways that was

04:20

a breakthrough because it meant that i’d

04:22

this bogeyman under the bed was

04:23

something i had to sort of pull out and

04:25

hold by its shoulders and look at

04:27

so i kept seeing the therapist stayed on

04:30

and actually the combination of the two

04:31

was great because the meds leveled me

04:33

out and the therapy gave me an outlet

04:35

but also what i realized at that point

04:36

was i didn’t really have any gay friends

04:38

for all of these years my overriding

04:42

was that ad or that man in the public

04:45

or any number of films i watched in my

04:48

late teens which invariably were about

04:51

so i thought you know one of the things

04:52

to do here is to make an effort to try

04:54

change that rather than see men as the

04:57

things i wanted to have sex with and the

04:58

things that would kill me

05:00

actually go out and see them as people i

05:04

started working for an online magazine

05:08

interviewing people involved in uh gay

05:11

um and reviewing and just broadening my

05:15

and actually in the end with the

05:17

combination of the therapy

05:18

and just seeing other gay men as people

05:21

to talk to to have a laugh with

05:24

and to be a part of community with made

05:28

all right uh welcome tom wicker how’s it

05:32

um how have you been these past i think

05:34

it was six or seven years ago that we

05:36

filmed your story uh that’s a long

05:38

period of time but i think so

05:40

um what have i done since i left london

05:44

uh i now live um in brighton on the

05:48

historically known as one of if not the

05:51

gay capital of the country so i’m in the

05:54

uh i bought my own flat last summer

05:57

well that’s a uh it’s been a good six to

06:01

yeah yeah i finally managed to earn

06:07

uh well i’m glad to hear so there were a

06:10

few things about your story that i’d

06:13

um i feel like one of the biggest issues

06:16

that contributed to the anxiety that you

06:18

talked about in your story was

06:20

that ad and i know there were some other

06:23

but i feel like over time especially

06:27

representation of the queer community

06:30

better and we don’t see as many images

06:33

like that about the gay community uh do

06:36

generally helping uh young queer people

06:40

accept themselves younger and you know

06:42

do you think younger people are

06:44

experiencing less anxiety than you did

06:48

oh definitely i mean you just need to

06:51

uh the the plays musicals on on stage

06:55

tv shows recently they’re showing such a

06:58

diversity of what it means to be queer

07:01

aspect of life it’s not defined by one

07:04

particular issue and i think that’s a

07:06

really healthy way to see ourselves as

07:08

fully rounded people i wish

07:09

that i’d had that kind of variety of

07:13

role models and actors and people in

07:15

public eye to look up to when i was

07:17

a teenager experiencing the issues and

07:19

and the fears that i had that i

07:21

spoke about in my story yeah i think

07:23

it’s gone a lot better too

07:25

and i don’t want to like bundle

07:26

everything that contributed to your

07:28

anxiety to that one ad so what do you

07:31

you know you hear about young queer

07:34

um struggling either to come out or just

07:38

uh what do you think that they might

07:40

need to hear uh that you wish that you

07:42

heard when you were younger

07:44

i know that the phrase it gets better

07:46

has become something of a cliche

07:48

but i wished that someone had told me as

07:51

a teenager that there is a community

07:55

to embrace you however alone and lonely

07:59

and also that family isn’t necessarily

08:03

who you’re born into i was fortunate

08:04

with mine but i know that not everyone

08:07

but we make our families through the

08:09

people we meet and and closeness and

08:12

don’t have to where you start they can

08:14

be where you choose to be

08:15

i think that’s what i would say i love

08:17

that i i read a quote and i wish

08:19

i know who said it but they said that uh

08:23

family isn’t your blood those are your

08:27

who you go and have these experiences

08:30

um and it sounds similar to what what

08:32

you just said uh so what else is going

08:35

in your life right now that that you

08:37

want to share that is different i know

08:39

we’re in the middle of the

08:40

pandemic and you know you’re in the uk

08:42

but what’s any other exciting

08:44

or different things in your life going

08:45

on i mean it’s it’s been an interesting

08:48

um i turned 40 about a month into

08:52

lockdown and it feels weird even saying

08:56

um but yeah i am a 40 year old

08:59

i have to keep saying it and i’ll

09:00

believe it um and that was a strange

09:04

many plans for parties obviously all of

09:07

um i’ve grown very accustomed to the

09:11

uh certainly on my on my birthday and a

09:14

nice thing that happened also on my

09:15

birthday was that my brother had his

09:18

my niece so she comprehensively stole my

09:22

arriving in this world rather than just

09:25

so but that’s been lovely and it was

09:28

for the first six or seven weeks when we

09:30

were very isolating not to meet her

09:32

um but it was lovely to finally meet her

09:35

a couple of weeks ago and that was my

09:37

first step towards feeling like i was

09:39

reconnecting with my uh my family and my

09:42

that’s great congratulations on on being

09:46

thank you so i wanna you you really

09:49

touched on so many important

09:50

parts in your story uh really about

09:54

uh as just a gay person and was there

09:57

any other parts of your story in terms

10:01

mental health and overcoming those

10:05

that you want to talk about or address

10:08

not even within the minutes of your

10:11

how that’s continued today and over the

10:15

um of you know basically any advice on

10:20

improve queer people’s mental health

10:24

i think there are i mean obviously i i i

10:26

don’t want to talk on behalf of people

10:28

with mental health issues because

10:30

there’s such a variety and diversity

10:32

of things that people confront and face

10:34

and it is different for every single

10:36

person so there is no one fixed rule

10:39

behave either if you have mental health

10:42

issues or with someone that does have

10:44

i think from my own personal experience

10:47

what proved to be toxic at the time that

10:51

seriously ill was shame i think

10:54

i think i felt ashamed of the reasons

10:57

that i was feeling anxious

10:59

i think i was ashamed of the fact that i

11:01

had become so obsessed with my sexual

11:04

and i think shame means you don’t speak

11:07

your loneliness is multiplied by 100

11:10

when you live that much inside your own

11:14

echoing place so i think whenever people

11:16

are struggling and and whenever they

11:19

and in whatever way they can they can

11:21

reach out and talk to other people it’s

11:23

what a difference that can make but

11:25

again i’d say that has to be your own

11:27

and you shouldn’t feel forced into a

11:29

conversation you’re not ready to have

11:31

that’s great so don’t keep it to

11:33

yourself speak out be open

11:35

and reach out to others for help um is

11:38

there anything else that’s going on in

11:40

your life that you want to share

11:40

any other life updates besides you know

11:43

buying a place and turning 40 and

11:45

becoming an uncle oh my god what do you

11:48

um what about professionally what are

11:52

uh well i mean i i don’t think i

11:54

mentioned it in my story but

11:56

um i was an arts journalist specifically

11:59

a theater reviewer now obviously

12:01

as we know on both sides of the atlantic

12:04

theater isn’t really happening at the

12:06

moment but i am trying to navigate that

12:09

and i’ve still been interviewing theater

12:10

makers and i’d be so impressed by what

12:14

a passionate and impassioned bunch of

12:15

people they are i mean during the course

12:17

of my work i’ve interviewed

12:19

a number of queer artists who have been

12:22

and i know that they are still looking

12:24

for avenues whether that be digital

12:27

outdoor performances i think the spirit

12:31

i admire in the lgbt community and the

12:34

friends that i’ve made is very rife in

12:36

the theater world as well and i think

12:38

so much is happening in the world that i

12:40

think the one thing that feels

12:42

optimistic is that people have a burning

12:45

improving and moving and forging forward

12:47

even though we seem to be facing

12:49

adversity on every front at the moment

12:53

what’s some hopefulness in the future

12:56

like what what do you in terms of art

12:59

you know everything has changed so much

13:03

you know what light at the end of the

13:04

tunnel do you see in terms of

13:06

art yeah it’s it’s tricky i mean i think

13:10

i think certainly theaters are spaces

13:13

with people that’s in their essence and

13:16

i think no one really knows when that

13:17

will happen again but i’ve been really

13:20

by the way that theater companies and

13:22

artists have embraced digital platforms

13:25

online whether that be youtube or

13:28

streaming platforms i really admire the

13:32

i think maybe that’s the one quality

13:34

that i think will see us through this

13:36

our amazing ability to adapt and form

13:40

other avenues and outlets for the things

13:43

we need to say the things we want to

13:46

in a very changed world absolutely our

13:50

and ability to adapt i love that well

13:53

uh tom is there anything else you wanted

13:56

um just that i know that everyone is

13:59

an incredibly tough time but there is

14:02

solidarity in recognizing that

14:04

and i think just to keep communicating

14:07

i mean platforms like zoom

14:10

facebook skype just keep talking

14:14

keep seeing each other’s faces and just

14:18

i love that thanks tom um and if

14:21

tom some people might have questions for

14:23

you if they do uh y’all leave them in

14:25

the comments and tom will check that

14:26

periodically if that’s all right and

14:28

and maybe answer them uh and if you want

14:30

to watch tom’s story again

14:32

uh and any others we have thousands more

14:34

on our facebook on our instagram

14:36

and on our website of course so uh check

14:39

back next week for our next story update

—

This post was previously published on YouTube and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

—

***

If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.

All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.

Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.

—
Photo credit: Screenshot from video