The black dog

I haven’t posted on this blog for a while, at least not in length. This is partially down to our family moving home, but also that I’ve wanted to write about a particular topic, and once struck the bell cannot be unrung. Others have been braver than I, and shared their own struggles, but it’s taken me quite some time to be ready to share my own.

I’ve suffered with depression for as long as I can remember. It has nearly cost me life more than once. For a long time it was more of a constant in my life than anything else.

My earliest memories of it are as a weight that hung on me that I couldn’t shift. It’s common to confuse depression with sadness, but one might as well confuse climate with weather. I felt happy (sometimes excitedly so) while still feeling that cold ball in my chest pulling me down.

My mind twisted itself around the problem. Why did I feel this way? Along with being both aware of my own exclusion from social life in school, and completely unaware of what was causing it, I started to believe that there was something *off* about me at a much more fundamental level than suffering an illness.

There’s a page from the comic Supreme Power that struck a chord.

I took the pain that I felt as a guide. I had to try to get rid of it, and anything that helped me forget it was worth pursuing. I didn’t fall into substance abuse or the like as some people have but, at its worst, I hoped that relationships might fix the problem—because even if I didn’t accept myself, at least I’d know that someone else did. Given that this is too much to expect someone else to solve, things never worked out, and when they failed I fell back into the pit. I was certain that they finally saw the flaw in me, that I still couldn’t identify, and ran from me.

I asked friends for what was wrong with me, and they told me that there was nothing wrong with me that wasn’t wrong with a lot of people. But I “knew” that I wasn’t right. That I needed to change something fundamental about my nature. And I could never figure out what it was, so I could never fix it. So what to do?

Once I found myself on the edge of a roof terrace recalling every single step that brought me there, but having no idea why I would do so. It took a great exertion of will to pull myself back. It took medication and the enormous help of my now wife to get me to the point where I could function properly.

The only fundamental problem I had was in accepting that this is an illness.

If any of this seems familiar to you, please seek help. I have a life now I would never believe living before my illness was treated. I still have depression, but it’s managed. Speak to your doctor and try find something that works for you.