THE PORTRAITS

Jeremy: “When I was younger I was consumed for a couple of years with anxiety and depressive thoughts. Many people are at some stage in their lives, and there are a myriad different ways of
describing those feelings. The Cloud is my
attempt to put into words the way that my head functioned (or didn’t) at the time - where any image or situation I was exposed to could be transformed into a portent of doom and I battled to free my mind of everything circling around it. I’ve since read a great deal about the way the
depressive mind allows itself to descend into loops or cycles of negative thought, and how the medical profession today tends to advocate
treatments involving training the sufferer to
control the dark images that enter your head, rather than necessarily analysing them and trying to explain them. In fact, my attempt to escape was always to force myself to think positively as much as possible, even if this ran against every fibre of my being which felt utterly consumed by blackness at the time. But when I was able to force the thoughts to turn off, to fade out the noise that seemed to be coming from all around, I would invariably feel refreshed and renewed - until the next attack of blues or blacks followed soon after. There were times back then that I couldn’t imagine getting through it all, but in time, we humans learn to cope and adapt our
behaviours and the world is thankfully far brighter today. I hope this song reaches others who may be in The Cloud right now - there are always routes back to the daylight.”