‘What have you got to be depressed about?’ is like saying, ‘What have you got to have a cold about?’

In this episode, Paul discusses his Greek Cypriot roots, his battles with depression and suicidal thoughts, and his own journey into authenticity.

Useful links:

• Support the pod at Patreon and gain access to exclusive interviews with every guest.
• Let’s chat about #QueerMusic on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
• Paul’s homepage can be found here.
• Alumni Andy Pisanu is mentioned, and his episode can be found here.
• Click here for help with suicidal thoughts.

Coming next Quesday is the second of our two-part specials in which previous guests return to deliver exclusive audio gifts to our listeners!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Dan 00:00

Hello and welcome to the first in two Christmas special episodes of In the Key of Q, the guest in this week's episode is, well, one of the family, really. He composed our theme tune and has been a brilliant supporter of the podcast.

Please be aware, though, that there was extensive discussion of depression and including some references to suicide. So listener discretion is advised. As ever, there will be support links provided in the show notes.

Paul 00:27

Well. I remember the first time I was depressed, seven years old. And my answer to me? What's wrong with you? I said, I'm depressed and she goes, Oh, seven, how can you be depressed? I was. It was this sense of someone dims the screen and your lens of perception, and everything feels heavy.

Dan 00:52

This is In the Key of Q featuring musicians from around the world who inspire my queer identity. Everybody is welcome to the conversation, whatever beautiful identity pleases you. Music helps us feel connected and know that we are not alone.

This program is made possible thanks to the financial support of listeners like you over at hatred on dot com slash in the key of queue, and remember to join the conversation across socials using the hashtag queer music. I'm Dan Hall.

Come on in, sit down and be heard. You've been hearing this week's guests since episode one. He composes and sound designs for advertising and short films and studied music technology at the University of West London, as well as a composer.

He's also a singer performing and releasing under the name to D Loono. So a big, big welcome to the horribly talented and very, very lovely Paul Leonidou.

Paul 01:45

Hello. Hello, Daniel San.

I was born in North London, which is a bit of a cliche if you're Greek Cypriot. I remember my mum telling me that at about a year and a half old, the first sign that she saw that I loved music was that I was watching Bugsy Malone with my milk bottle.

I was lying on my back with my legs crossed, swinging my leg and kind of learning every single word that musical. And I remember being so small that I didn't get that they were kids. They were like grown ups to me, you know, in terms of context.

So and then I started singing a bit of Tallulah, and then she got a bit worried was going to be warning signs.

Dan 03:02

You should be singing The Boxer!

Paul 03:05

Yeah, exactly. I sang that to a saying all of them. Yes, the thing I embrace, the more indiscriminately.

Dan 03:10

What was your upbringing like?

Paul 03:13

I had a very vivid imagination, and you know, I would talk to things and beings that weren't there. And I was so in my own world and kind of music being this intangible thing that's just surrounding you, I just get swept up into music.

I remember. I remember my mum playing Phantom of the Opera on vinyl, playing a really loud, and I remember hearing that that main piece of music and I could visualize the note, you know, I could see it. It was kind of like this symphony unravelling like an animation in front of me.

So yeah, I was very much, very, very much in my own world. My mum said when she's used to pick me up from school, actually, she could. She could touch her eyes. That was quite bad, but she could tell it was me because all the other kids are walking kind of very, you know, you uniformly, very slowly. And I'll be the one jumping up and down and spinning and deviating from the line, she goes, I just summed you up, you're always singing and you know, it's a real, joyful. Joyful child, you know, I. I remember laughing or smiling a lot.

But I also remember there was there's that tipping point where you kind of realize other kids aren't quite so expressive and then and then you start getting singled out for it and from quite a young age. I remember thinking, Oh, I'm getting picked on for this.

I'm getting singled out for this. And you start to see that. There's a message that that you're being fed, which is, you know. What you are in your natural. Form is not OK or not accepted or is a point of ridicule, and I think sadly, that's when I kind of started to retract into my shell.

You know, so…

Dan 05:04

A lot of the time we get asked as great people, when did you realize you were gay? And my stock answer to that is always been. I didn't realize I was gay. What I did is realize that other people thought I was wrong.

Paul 05:17

Yeah, that's a really good way of looking at it. A grammar school, you know, career about age 13, 14. Everyone was calling me gay, I had long hair. I remember I was quite expressive. I moved my hands a lot, which I just thought was a Mediterranean thing or just being gay.

But it was very I realized there were I was being called gay in all these different words, and I didn't even know what it meant. And I kind of thought, you know, whether they thought I was or not, I was just slightly different and a bit creative.

I don't know what it was, but it also came a point where. I did get bullied quite a lot, but I also played into it, so as in, there was one point where somebody says, Oh, you're queer, you're gay, whatever, and I said, Yeah, I am, what are you going to do about it?

Yes, if he's not the guy, then I'll be like, Yeah, yeah, and I'd I thought I'd play into it to kind of defuse the situation, but actually it made it worse. I went to an all boys school, which I don't recommend, by the way, but I remember I was sobbing.

In classroom and all the other kids have, all the other kids had left sorry and. Our image saying to the teacher, everyone hates me, no one likes me, and I think he kind of caught on to the fact that it was gay related issue and he was a former priest and obviously very religious, and he just turned to me goes, Well, I can't make people like you. Charming, I thought. That's nice.

Dan 07:18

So, Paul, you talked about you going from this outgoing, bubbly kid and then I guess. Witnessing the gradual disapproval of the world around you, the sort of suburban mode around you of your outgoing us, and you gradually retreated into yourself.

What did that feel like retreating into yourself and what did it look like, what was your behaviour like? What was your what were your thoughts like?

Paul 07:46

Haven't really thought about it in these terms, so I'm just kind of. Mulling it over, because I think actually. Kind of putting on an act or pretending or at least holding certain parts of my personality back became second nature.

Greek Cypriot grandparents. They loved me dearly, but, you know, devoutly religious and from a different world. So, you know, they always just thought gay equals evil. And I kind of had that level of understanding where I thought, would that from a world that can't comprehend it?

So I don't kind of I don't judge him for it. But then you fall into the the habit of apologizing for who you are and apologizing for your existence, albeit under your breath and internally. I think I found myself becoming quite exhausted quite quickly, and, you know, a sense of imposter syndrome and what if I get found out? And there's that constant feeling of looking over your back. And I remember people used to say to my mum, Of course, too soft, you need to toughen them up. You'll be a sissy when he grows up.

And so those things ring they stay in your mind, you know? And to some extent as well, I kind of agreed with the wider opinion or, you know, I did believe that there was something wrong with me as well. So just pretend, hopefully no one will find out and everything will be OK.

But obviously that takes its toll well for a while and especially when your identity still forming and you figuring out who you are.

Dan 09:15

You've spoken a bit about your Greek Cypriot identity. What does that mean to you?

Paul 09:21

It means something different to me now than it did when I was younger. I mean. So growing up, you know, single mother, she used to work a lot, so I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and so I'd speak Greek to them and I'd hear stories from the old, from the old days in the villages and some very bizarre characters.

If you go to the British Museum and look at Cypriot ancient, separate, specifically artifacts, they look like bizarre, quirky. Nutty clowns. They're just something really funny and endearing and childlike about them. And I'm going with my friend Fiona, and she saw some of these statues.

She goes, suddenly, I understand you better seeing that. I think there's such a rich tapestry to draw from, and it's wonderful to be a part of that. And then there's the kind of less appealing side where, you know, some of them used to be quite judgmental and narrow and bit sexist, homophobic, et cetera, et cetera.

I think, you know, the younger generations are definitely getting better. But there was this weird sense of balancing and treading the line. But as a child and as an adult? Being Cypriot. Greek Cypriot, especially, I think, yeah, it's I appreciate what a special island it is. It's very beautiful, has a quite sad history. But the resistance of magic, and I think that's the side I tried to embrace.

Dan 11:03

And how do you feel that weaves into your British identity?

Paul 11:09

Growing up, I see this is less politically is less politically correct to say this these days or less PC to to ask someone a question because someone would say, Where are you from? I'd say London or Rochester or wherever.

I don't know where you're really from.

Dan 11:24

It's basically saying, Tell me the origin of your otherness, isn't it? That's really what they're saying. They're saying, I look at you and you look like the other.

Paul 11:34

I remember going to Cyprus on holiday and it'd be like, You're English, you're the English boy. And in England, at school, I know your Cypriot. You're different, you're different. And so there was a sense of always being, you know, ping pong from one tribe to the other.

You don't quite belong with us. You don't quite belong with us. Your identity is this your identity? Is that? And at a point in life where you really, really want to fit in and belong, that was very difficult romantically.

I always thought the outsiders had this automatic sense of solidarity, but there can be a lot of conflict from outsider to outsider as well, because everyone's trying to struggle and find their own way. And I think there's a sense of dissonance there, which is quite sad.

Dan 12:50

What is the adult Paul like? So he's left school. So who is this person that is thrown out onto the world?

Paul 13:02

Because you pick some tough questions, don't you? All right, let's use the system, put myself in the therapy session, OK? Listen, I'm still. I'm still that sensitive kid. I still have a great sense of magic and imagination. Unfortunately, you know, there have been some very.

Very traumatic incidents in my life. Know, I think we all have. We all have things that scar us and shape us. And as you know, you know, through our friendship that, you know, depression and anxiety have reared their heads several times in my life.

And there was kind of a coming out when I first admitted I had depression, and that was interesting, and I was almost too ashamed to admit that to see this as a running thing, this internalized shame and this sense of what you are isn't OK. It's not OK to be depressed. It's not okay to be gay. It's OK to be sensitive. It's not OK to be not as masculine as as, you know, cowboys, you brand cattle or whatever. So. I think.

The grown up me now is more accepting of the of the darker aspects of of of my psyche and to realize that. If you are depressed or anxious, you know, it's well, I remember in a in a therapy session, Akanbi who said it, but there's a sense that your brain is just trying to keep you safe. And so it will try and lock you down and make you more lethargic and make you want to stay at home and protect yourself because that's just it. You've had something traumatic happened to you in a certain sphere of life, somewhere out in your travels and your brain is just simply slowing down, trying to keep you in a sense of in a lockdown, in a sense.

Dan 15:01

For those who haven't experienced it, can you help? Creates a picture, a 360 picture of what that experience is like.

Paul 15:10

All right, well, let me start with anxiety, because I find that one easier to. To describe, and I remember writing a blog about this because I, you know, I've nearly taken my life on a few occasions and when I kind of got to the other side.

I had this thought that I needed to make sense of the suffering, and I thought it was any good that can come from the suffering is that perhaps it can ease someone else's. one day I had I felt like I had three exam nerves, pre driving test nerves.

I felt like I just received terrible news about death or something like that. And then the house was on fire and the anxieties of all of those things combined, which is condensed into a tiny ball. And that was with me for most of the day, for several weeks, several months, and it became torture.

It was awful. And there's just a there's a degree of suffering that just seems so senseless because, you know, rationally, I know I'm OK, I'm safe in the space that I'm in right now. But something was spiralling out of control, and a lot of people would say to me, it's the opposite, but I always felt that anxiety so exhausted me to the point of depression, whereas a lot of people would say, actually, depression will trigger the anxiety and who's to say? But that was my experience of anxiety, and after that, I was heavily medicated. And even though I I will say that the medication did saved my life. It also it comes at a price you're addicted, you are foggy, your brain is a bit. Is a kind of Claudia. And there are other issues, let's say that, so, you know. For me, medication wasn't that wasn't the solution, but it did save my life and is one of many stepping stones.

I remember the first time I was depressed, seven years old, and my aunt said to me. What's wrong with you? I said I'm depressed and she goes, No. seven, How can you be depressed? I was. It was this sense of. It can be quite a physical sensation, it's like someone dims the screen in your lens of perception and everything feels heavy, you feel tired, you feel defeated and just lost in this fog and it just genuinely feels like there's no way out and in the same way you get the endorphin rush when you get a text message or a like on social media, it's the polar opposite of that is the antithesis of that.

Dan 19:07

Depression and anxiety were a big part of your existence and continue to be so what is the interconnectivity that these feelings have with your music and with the music that you create?

Paul 19:21

When when I'm deep in a depressive episode, there's very little I can do, I don't have a desire to create to even get out of bed, so that's quite difficult. But as it's starting to lift, there's this kind of like this, this just before the dawn. The Sun starting to come up and you can kind of reflect on what's just happened, and I wrote a song called Underworld at the end of a depressive episode, and it was really about feeling like I had died; gone to the underworld and then really asking someone, Don't bring me back to life. Don't don't make me cross the River Styx and come back to this realm of reality unless you mean it. As in, unless you're going to allow me to to live in a way that is, I don't know, authentic, if you like. It's part of the journey where you you travel and explore and and the darkness sometimes forces you to try to access places that you wouldn't normally access. And so you kind of have to take the gifts that are given even in the awful scenarios.

Dan 20:40

one of the most lovely things about you, Paul, and my friendship with you is how open and honest you are about the anxiety and depression that you're experience, and it makes me feel that I can be open with you about things I'm going through.

And it intrigues me as to why there is society's stigma around mental health and around having discourse about mental health. Where do you think that comes from?

Paul 21:07

History. And I think in order to explore various mental health issues and those kinds of themes, you have to be in touch with your emotions and display a certain degree of emotional intelligence. And I think historically showing emotions has been deemed a sign of weakness.

I think that that definitely is changing there is less of a stigma, but I think it's so hard wired into people that there is still that slight resistance and sometimes people will be, you know, have the attitude of pull your socks up and.

And also, I think people who've never experienced depression, I think it's it's it's hard. It can be hard to relate because people often say, what have you got to be depressed about? And I think, well, you know, it's like saying, Well, what have you got to have a cold about? It's just you. You have the cold, you have the depression. It's it's not always circumstantial, but I think circumstances can. Can exacerbate. A depressive episode, if you like, but yeah, I think it's just it's just been talking about our feelings, especially, you know, in the masculine kind of patriarchal kind of society. You know,...