We can cure you . . .

“You will get better” my doctor kept saying on that first visit, “We will cure you”. I know that he was just being positive to balance my negativity so that hopefully I would not throw myself off the nearest cliff (a possibility not as far from the truth a you may think), but afterwards as I sat in a cafe thinking about it my first thought was no I don’t want to be cured. This was something new, a part of me that had always been there but I had not realised, and I wanted to say hello first, to make friends rather than swat it like the mosquito on your arm that you kill without thinking.

Diagnosis can be a double edged sword. For some like myself it can be a revelation, suddenly everything clicks into place. I now was not a normal person who could not cope as I had always thought, but a depressed person who was doing the best he could, my past made more sense now. The danger comes if you use the diagnosis as a crutch, an excuse for not coping. I have a pregnant friend and it is amazing the things she cannot do now “because she is pregnant”. Like getting up and boiling the kettle to make herself a cup of coffee for instance! This route is to be avoided at all costs because then the diagnosis owns you, it takes control feeding your blackness as you spiral further down. No lets not go there . . .

Instead use this new discovery about yourself make friends with it understand this new part of yourself and use it, like a dog or a horse perhaps. Treat it kindly and it will return the favour helping you go places you could not otherwise get to, it’s intuition may even help you in times of danger but ultimately you remain in charge.

Having discovered all the artists that have suffered from depression, like Van Gogh I now see my depression as the artistic part of my nature pushing through to be noticed. It has made me stop and think . . . a good thing to do do occasionally I reckon.

But talking about stopping and thinking, do not forget the people around you - depression can be very inward looking and isolating but to cope you are going to need your friends, and I am so lucky to have Nicola alongside me . . .


Depression may be dark, but life will never be dull if it is part of you . . .

What is depression?

If you have ever lost somebody close to you be it person or animal, and been left feeling deeply empty and lost, and that life is pointless or too painful to continue with . . . that is depression. In the case of a loss that grief is a natural process and must be worked through in it’s own time. You will always feel it to some extent afterwards, I remember fondly all the cats I have lived with, but gradually you return and continue with life.

But in some people those feelings of hopelessness arise with no apparent cause. Why? I have no idea it could be genetics, it could be upbringing, I think it is probably a combination of lots of factors with chronic stress in there as well. We are all different physically and mentally and whereas some people may thrive under certain conditions others will not. Under stress some people will fly others will get stomach ulcers and a depressive person will descend into blackness. The limbic system of their brain which deals with emotional response becomes damaged leading to a drop in serotonin levels that causes alertness to reduce. Hence mood turns to hopelessness and you do not have the energy to even get out of bed.

Stress is a factor for me but I imagine it is different for everybody. And actually, having thought about it the stress is there for everybody, it seems to be part of modern life. So it is not the stress itself that is the cause but how I deal with it, how I handle it that is the problem.

And the way to recovery . . .




You know, depression is such an inward looking thing that I have not felt much like writing over the last couple of months, or at least not sharing, some things are just too personal . . . 

But “keep writing” said swallowtail in a comment on my last post, and she was right - it helps, thankyou.

Life in Black and White

Imagine waking up in the dark. Not the usual darkness though this is close and black like there are walls surrounding you, shutting everything else out. Looking up you can see a small circle of daylight way above you and hear everybody else up there. The blackness is pressing in and you need to get out. You could call out but people may just point and laugh at the daft situation you’ve got yourself in, and anyway you pride yourself on your independence and resourcefulness. So you start to climb.

It is not easy, the blackness is cloying and sucking and you have no energy. Just moving takes a tremendous effort but by the end of the day you make it and collapse at the top, exhausted but glad to be back with your family where you belong. It was a strange experience, one that you don’t fully understand so you do not mention it out loud, perhaps it was just some sort of virus you think as very tired to go to bed early that night.

Next morning you wake up at the bottom of the pit again. And the next morning, and the next. Each day you climb out or attempt to, for some days you are so tired that you fall asleep halfway out and just slip back again as you sleep. Eventually the weariness becomes so great that you cannot climb, you decide to rest at the bottom for a day to regain some strength. That helps the next day and for a while things seem to be improving but the effort of constantly climbing day after day with no respite, no sun, no joy, gradually becomes too much again and you sit at the bottom wondering what is wrong with you . . .

“Go to the doctor” said Nicola, “And tell him how you feel, the truth!”

So I did and it seems that I am suffering from depression. It also seems that I have been this way for a long time, most of my life probably and because of that have become very good at hiding it from others.

But it can be treated . . .