Return of the Black Dog

Robin Williams’ demons have now been laid out for the world and her husband to read. His struggle with depression, his former battles with drugs and drink; these are facts. Add to the cocktail of media inquisition, his alleged financial problems, predictably printed in the Daily Mail (but elsewhere too, to be fair) and the statement from his widow that he was suffering in the early stages of Parkinsons. The more I read, the more sad I feel.

Let me confess a little here. The Black Dog of depression has been a regular and unwelcome house guest in my life for well over 40 years. He – I’ll call him ‘he’ for now – has brought his friends anxiety and stress to the party on occasions. I am lucky. I am a survivor, at least so far, but a survivor for what?

Since I was 13 when it all kicked off with night terrors, I have seen more psychotherapists and counsellors than you could shake a stick at. Things were so bad on occasions that their names started with Mister rather than Doctor.

I was never considered a suicide risk for good reason: I have never reached the stage where it got so bad I wanted to end it all in favour of nothing, but I cannot pretend there have not been times, and a lot of them, where I have wondered what the point of it is.

I don’t know if what I am about to write will make any sense to my loyal reader but I’ll try anyway.

School was something I did. I learned very little in most subjects. The University of Life was all I learned from. I knew nothing about science, nothing about anything other than English Language and even then what I learned about English was by feel. Every lesson was a trial, spending whole days going to different lessons and never really understanding anything that was going on. Then going home to a mountain of darkness and worry, but never really knowing why. I dealt with it with excess. Not through drugs, although I can’t say I didn’t dabble, but by getting into a subject and then obsessing on it.

I bought every single weekly music magazine for years and every single football magazine for years and every single railway magazine for years. If there was pleasure out there, I had to have it. And I had to have lots of it to fill in the gaps, to cover the time. Later on it became girls but it also became being obsessed with work for a trade union and then a football club. Hedonism, without a doubt. Escape too.

Chasing the good times covered up the bad. When I lived alone for years, I would walk for miles in the darkness and the rain and the cold. It only occurred to me recently that this was a form of self-harm, something I was always asked about by therapists and I always said I didn’t self-harm. But I did, arriving home in the early hours, dishevelled and depressed, unable to sleep, not making any sense of it.

And so it drifted. Life was not a roller coaster because the ups were few and far between. And yet there was comfort in the darkness. I knew where I was in the world of despair and depression. I wasn’t sure there was anywhere better.

I didn’t quite have a breakdown in 2011/2012 but it must have been a close thing. My father’s death triggered depression like I had never known. What started as bereavement counselling led to much more, ending in a diagnosis of four different types of severe anxiety and severe clinical depression. Apart from that, I was fine.

I believe that everyone’s Black Dog is different. Mine didn’t make me want to kill myself but he is a dark presence. He affected every part of my being, sent me down roads I didn’t want to go down. Quite frankly, he made me hate myself.

But how can you hate yourself, comes the question. Look what you’ve got! A wonderful partner, two great sons, some of the best friends on the planet. You’ve got it all. And I did have it all, but it didn’t make things better.

The Black Dog wakes me up in the night and gives me horrible dreams. He stops me learning things, blunts my career prospects. He affects relationships, makes me irrational. He makes me sad and unhappy and he makes me cry. But he hasn’t made me think I’d be better off dead.

I had tried medication before, back in the 1980s when I was very ill and very alone. It was such powerful medication that I’d spend days lying on the floor, unable to move. My head would spin, as if I was drunk. I had no control. It made me feel worse. I tried to resist it because of how I remembered it. But three years ago, I’d reached the stage where I had to try something.

I’ve done CBT and other forms of treatment and along with a moderate level of medication, I get by now. As long as I plan my days in advance and there are no shocks to unsettle the plans, it’s all right. The drugs do work and they don’t make things worse.

This last week, including the last few days of our holiday in Corfu, the Black Dog has paid a visit. The lethargy, the hopelessness, the sense of overwhelming failure, the grim vision of the future has all been there, blunted by the drugs which just take the edge of it.

I sense when the Black Dog is arriving and I never know when he is leaving. Sometimes he just goes without me even noticing. But when he goes, he’s just outside the door and he is always there to remind me he won’t go away.

I am guessing Robin Williams Black Dog was much worse than this; he must have been. And I can imagine how someone’s very reason for being can be taken away, just like that.

If you think you are suffering with depression, anxiety or any other mental issue, see your GP. Just do it. Try not to worry about those who ridicule depression, or tell you to ‘snap out of it’, even though it’s hard.

I knew people who hanged themselves and threw themselves into rivers because it all got too much. Friends and friends of friends.

Maybe things will get better one day. I really hope they do.

But to me something is better than nothing, despite everything.

If you you think nothing is better than something, please talk to someone before you take a final decision. You might be wrong.

Even if you have faith and believe you will survive your own death, why take a chance?