March 2012

There are still times that I fear my depression is settling back in, and on those days I am completely and utterly incapacitated. I sit for hours staring at the beige walls of my flat. I cannot listen to music I cannot turn on the phone or computer and the last thing on earth I feel like doing is watching other people act out dramas on TV.

It's like being lost, I have to swim against the tide of moroseness and the struggle to keep my head above the waves of the black sea is at times more than I can bare. All I want to do is sink into a deep and dreamless sleep. Cut myself off from the demands of life and the world I inhabit.

I was trying recently to explain to my friend Kate what its like and why there are times its almost a more attractive option than engaging.

You see depression is my closest friend, he knows me better than anyone else in my life. He is always at my side ready and willing to fill the gaps. Imagine if you will, being stalked by someone who is your guilty pleasure. I know they are no good for me but when they pay me attention I am somehow pleased to see them.

Depression is an illness from which I will never fully recover; it’s like alcoholism in a way. And like alcoholics at times I will relapse.

I know it’s a bad place and I know no good can come of it, but there are times I willingly walk into its claw like embrace and I embrace back. There is a perverse joy in entering such familiarity, I will sit with him and reminisce about old times. I will enjoy the sense of belonging it gives me. And as I sink deeper and deeper into the darkness I am subconsciously screaming at myself to not do it, to fight to escape but my willpower is overcome and I descend into the pit.

And even though intellectually I know how to get out, I choose to wallow. Yet always managing to put on a brave face and tell the world that I am fine.

The smallest things can set me off, an imagined slight by a friend or colleague. The person I am trying to get hold off on the phone cutting me off and sending me to voicemail can make me feel so insignificant that the clouds roll in.

But there are also occasions that I will be so happy that I will get caught up short and tell myself that I have no right to be happy and bring myself down to a level that although a hateful place to be is comfortable in its familiarity.

These are the times I isolate myself from everything, I am not good enough and feel a desperate pain at my lack of worth. If I am out at work it is a challenge to do what I have to do, and that’s if I can even motivate myself to leave the house.

So far this year I have had many blessings to count, but I admit to struggling to see what they are, a close friend remarked a week ago how proud he was of me and the progress I have made in the year that he has known me. I felt like a total cheat, I asked myself what the hell he was talking about, as there are days I feel just as lonely and worthless as I did a year ago.

But the difference is that now I can see some light, I recognize the signs now, and I keep myself busy so the cloud passes.

But the thing Simon said to me that struck me so hard was that he was worried about what I was going to do when I actually had some spare time.

And it has been with me for a week now, and I have been so busy at work I couldn’t actually sit and think about what he had said.

But he was right, I have filled my life to such a level of busyness that I have not got time to fall, so much to do and so little time to do it in. and being so busy means that I don’t even let chronic insomnia get me down as I always have something to do and a place to be.

So this is me admitting I am not infallible and at times I am not strong enough to do it all on my own.

So be warned people, it might be you I call in the middle of your working day or the middle of the night, you’ll know it is me as I will say one word:

Help.