I’m fine……

I don’t know how fellow sufferers feel, but I have reached a point with my ‘Black Dog’ where I pretty well know when he is arriving. I know when I am going down, there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it but by the same token I have invented, created, call it what you will, techniques to get through the spell.

My depression usually arrives slowly, steadily, creeping up on me so at least I can see him coming. But other times, when I have not properly prepared, he can catch me from behind and threaten to drag me down.

I don’t know how much of my ability to at least recognise when this horrible beast is arriving is down to the ongoing medication or as a result of the various treatments I have had during my lifetime. I think it is a little of both.

Last week was especially difficult because there were days when I felt I was wading through treacle, barely able to get up from the chair. Where I was supposed to be writing, I was staring at a screen not knowing what to write. When I woke up in the night, my mind was racing with a myriad of issues, all negative and bad. And sometimes during the day, I would find myself thinking of death; my death and the death of others. Standing in the rain at a nearby railway station, peering through the gloom, getting wet from the sideways rain, wondering what the point of it all was. Then, half an hour later, I was gurning and laughing as if nothing was happening. And then I would start mind reading, a terrible negative trait pointed out to me at therapy, where I felt I was able to know and understand what people were thinking about me. He’s not depressed. Just look at him. He’s laughing all the time, the life and soul.

There were times last week I forgot where I was or where I was going. Nothing new there. That’s been happening for 40 years plus. Would people think I was wallowing in a pool of self pity? Should I simply snap out of it, pull myself together? Fucking grow up. You’re not a kid anymore. Actually, I don’t think people I know did think that but there are plenty of other people I know, through my social life or at work who have the first idea about these demons. Now they certainly wouldn’t understand, would they?

Sunday night and I am very flat. I have had good news in the last few days by way of a very positive meeting with two wonderfully creative friends and another scheduled for this week AND I am starting another new job on Tuesday. Why the hell am I not smiling? Because I am ill and always will be.

I am one of the lucky ones. I have had friends who have suffered similar demons and friends whose lives were literally destroyed and ended by that bastard Black Dog. Off the top of my head, I have lost three friends through suicide and I have numerous other friends who struggle through on different levels. And in most instances, you would never know, unless they had the guts to talk about it.

I am hoping that this week will see a turning point and life will return to a more even keel. It’s no fun when the creative juices dry up when the brain shuts down and I can’t even read let alone write.

I’m seeing a doctor soon – if I can get an appointment: no easy deal – and maybe I’ll say that the drugs don’t work, that they’re not strong enough. I’m wary about that because I have been on medication in the past where I was rendered almost lifeless, unable to lift myself from the floor, overwhelmed by nausea. Funny old game, anti-depressants.

In the short term, it’s hard so please excuse me. I don’t mean to be like this but you have to be there to know. I am so much luckier than many who suffer from terrible conditions and afflictions, some mental, some physical but I can’t change how I feel on the basis of relativism. I just feel how I do.

The dark days don’t help. The pointless changing of the clocks last month took away the tea time light and now it’s one big squint.

I daren’t wish my life away, longing for the end of winter, which hasn’t even started yet but the dark suits my mood and it’s a mood I hope leavs me alone.