Looking for the Silver Lining: Thoughts on Depression

I honestly don’t think I’ve written something of substance in years.

Sure, I’ve done the odd blog here or there, added some warily insightful commentary on this subject or that, added my own tuppence-worth to ongoing Facebook debates. But it’s all been from my head. Not a word from my heart.

I used to duet with a friend, writing poems together; I actually remember sitting in a beer garden in Stevenage in 2003, randomly texting a verse to her out of the blue, and spending the next hour or two building a poem one stanza at a time.  She had a “perzine” that she used to put together, containing her thoughts, musings, poems, art and such; I was given the honour of having some of my own work published in it. It stimulated me into writing more myself.  Sometimes it was bleak, sometimes it was amorous, sometimes it was downright nuts (as anyone who’s read my poem “Leprechauns” will no doubt attest), and yes, sometimes it was dreadful.  But always it flowed from me, often from the heart.

To this day people often remark that I have a gift with the English language.  Sometimes they applaud my prowess and poetic flourish, both in written and aural form. Sometimes, and to my irritation, I am asked if I would be ever so kind as to ‘speak more plainly’ (read: dumb it down).  The reason for my irritation is very simple: I can conceive of no rational reason as to why we should not seek to elevate our knowledge.  And if one can speak fluently, why in the merriest of blue hells should one not also be permitted the pleasure of decorating one’s language?  And why am I saying “one” so much?

So if, as I am repeatedly told, I am so damned good with the English language, why do I not take the obvious step and make a career out of it? Why not take these words with which I play, and instead employ them in some more productive and rewarding manner?  Well, the answer is brutally simply: I have very little confidence or faith in myself or my abilities.

Depression is, as urban slang often chooses to describe such things, a bitch.  Some days seem to pass

by uneventfully, others even seem like fun. But too many days feel like a dead weight on your whole being, one which has been your burden for what seems like an eternity. It’s an oft-touted expression that those who assert that people with depression should just “get over it” or “cheer up” have no idea what depression really is, and there is some truth to that. But how does one explain how depression feels to someone who has never suffered from it to such a degree that they require medication?

Theories abound, of course, as to the roots or causes of depression. Is it a chemical imbalance? Bullying at school? Some other factor? The trouble with a social illness such as this is in expressing how we feel. Some simply aren’t articulate enough to get their point across, and for all my supposed proficiency with language, it is nonetheless a toil to fully express the struggles I have, living in a world with which I constantly find myself at odds.

Not long after the New Year, I was compelled to go into town to register as an official job seeker. Moreover, I was compelled to walk into town and back, with knee, back and sciatic pain that bordered on incandescent. While there, I was called by my A4E liaison; upon concluding my business with the DWP, I visited her office out of some sense of obligation or courtesy.  And I was not in a happy place; my physical pain had left me drained and exhausted, resulting in a state of mind that was already tense and uncomfortable plunging further into a melancholic abyss. It was possibly me at my bleak, misanthropic, nihilistic worst.  I loathed that office, I loathed her, and I continued to loathe myself.

Depression is self-destructive. It can cause you to withdraw from people, shut yourself off from society, render you isolated, drive you to tortures upon yourself both physical and mental.  In many ways it can be every bit as deadly as a heroin addiction or overdosing on ecstasy, except instead of bliss you get misery. Except depression isn’t simply about feeling depressed and miserable.  For some, depression is a condition that leaves you devoid of emotion, unable to feel as others feel. Others may develop an inability to communicate properly. Some may develop anxiety issues, some may struggle to cope with things like bills or housework. Some may struggle to so much as answer the door.  Depression does not follow any particular pattern of which I am aware.

It’s also hard for other people to appreciate that you have a mental illness when you exhibit no real physical signs or symptoms to tip them off.  While other conditions such as Down’s syndrome or motor neurone disease exhibit clear outward physical signs, depression is entirely internal. It cannot be observed visually, which brings to mind the old adage “how do you fight something you can’t see?”

If there is one silver lining in this black cloud that hangs over our collective heads, it is that more people are being diagnosed with depression daily.  That may not seem like a ray of light at first, but the more people are diagnosed, the more science and medicine can learn about the condition.  Better treatments, better counselling, and perhaps most importantly better recognition.  Depression is still seen by some as a pariah of medical conditions, even within certain circles of the medical profession.  And yet there are numerous confirmed cases of people being hospitalised due in no small part to stress, another aspect of depression and a significant part of mental health research in general.

I was diagnosed with depression around 5 years ago, though I suspect I’ve been suffering from it at least for most of my adult life. I’ve exhibited many of the common symptoms – isolation, misery, thoughts of worthlessness, and yes, thoughts of suicide. Despite evidence to the contrary, the reason I have so little confidence in myself or my abilities isn’t so much that I’m nervous that people won’t see or appreciate my abilities, but more that I don’t consider myself to have any real abilities.  Knowing I have skills is not the same as believing, just as knowing depression can be treated is not the same as believing in said treatments.

That is why depression is a constant uphill struggle on an ever-shifting mountain face. The hardest part about depression is to keep going. Often it seems futile; just as you overcome one problem, two more take its place. It sometimes feels as though life itself is against you, twisting and turning and reshaping to make your world that little bit less bearable, chipping away at you and reducing you all the time.  Why bother going on when it seems as though nobody even cares or notices you, when life just seems ridiculously unfair and pointless?

The simple answer is that there is no simple answer. We have to learn to look harder, to see the reasons that might be right in front of us in neon lights.  I have to remind myself that my children need their father, even as the nihilist in me recognises the futility of existence. I am reminded often that I do have people who care, and though it may appear sometimes as though I don’t appreciate them, in many ways I’m still alive because of them.

I began 2015 in a flat, on my own, with no money, no heating and little food, and pretty much at my lowest, most bitter ebb. I survived. And I have to believe that 2015 will end on a higher note than 2014. Because when you find yourself at your lowest, there is really only one way to go.