Confession

It’s supposed to be good for the soul – but I haven’t got one of those so where does that leave me? 😉

I suffer from depression and have done for a long time, since in my early twenties in fact. It’s something that comes and goes, like most people I have good days and bad days, only my good days are sometimes amazingly good and I feel free in ways a lot of people probably don’t and my bad days? Well, they’re probably a  lot worse than other peoples. I find it very hard to find the ‘middle ground’ and even harder to stay there.

That doesn’t make me necessarily a depressing person to be around (I don’t think!) and my friends don’t seem to think so. Most of this is internal and very hard to explain to other people who don’t suffer from these kinds of feelings. Most people don’t really want to know and dismiss you as a loonie/attention-seeker/faker or else they think you have some kind of contagious disease and they should stay away (Hey everyone, bad news, it’s been scientifically proven to be highly contagious so you’re all screwed!).

Okay, I was joking about the contagious bit – so you can all relax again 😉

The reaction by most people when confronted with someone like me is that they tell you to ‘pull yourself together” or “get a grip” and other similarly trite sayings. The problem is that when you get down the way I do, you just can’t do that. I have problems just dragging my arse out of bed and basics like eating and drinking – I can’t just pull myself together. If only it were just that simple.

With me it really started just after my Dad died, though I think some of the seeds were there earlier so maybe that was just the final catalyst. I went through a period of several years where doing anything was almost impossible to do. I hit the very lowest of the low.

Coming out of it was strange too. I just woke up one day and realised I was quite literally going nowhere with my life. That really scared me and I started to change things. It was slow progress and very hard to do – like trying to climb out of a bottomless pit filled with endless tentacles trying to pull you back down.

I’ve never gotten quite so bad again, but it’s still with me. Tucked away in dark corners of my mind just waiting to spring out again and, sadly, sometimes it does.

I sometimes think that depression is like Malaria, once ‘infected’ it never really goes away and can flare up again at any time – sometimes without you even knowing what sparked it.

I find it a constant battle that I have to fight. And I do mean fight – so I do, sometimes everyday. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

There you go. My ‘confession’ is complete. Still haven’t found a soul though 😉