Black Dog Stalking...a real horror story.

I am being stalked by a black dog; sometimes his breath is hot on my neck at other times just a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye but whatever, he is definitely here - haunting me.

How do I know?

Well my thinking is screwy…

My eldest says I am the meanest Mom on earth and as I stare at him nonplussed by his response to my request that he tidies his room and makes his bed, a part of my brain agrees.

I am mean.

I am stupid.

It were better that I was dead. I have nothing to offer my children that cannot be bettered by them being looked after by my parents or indeed anybody else.

I shake the thought off but in my confusion I respond to his obdurance by getting angry at his comment – it’s like I have no control whatsoever over my poisonous tongue and in my hurt I land up shouting and  raging at him and that bit in my brain goes: “See, look at you. Raging and screaming. That cannot be good for your children. Call yourself a mother – dream on.”

I know it is bad.

I know why it is bad and why I am being stalked.

It has been a difficult few months my relationship with my husband has been rocky, my fears that we are drifting apart, and my loneliness without him coming home every night, problems with my eldest at school, money worries, guilt. So much guilt.

When it gets like this I am fair game to the Black Dog and I have to get myself back under control.

It’s hard, so very hard.

I am eating wrong. I get guilty.

I am sleeping and not sleeping all at the wrong times. I get guilty.

I cannot be bothered with anything. I get guilty.

I want it all to stop but there is no let up.

I feel like I am going to explode.

I have to trust that I will get out of this even though I am not trusting.

I have to hope even though I don’t feel hopeful.

And all while this is going on I pray my friends will still be OK with me for I can say nothing because they won’t understand. Life is difficult for them too.

I hate depression.

I hate it with all my heart.

I hate it that it is so disabling.

And there are times that I wish to god that people could see the scars it makes and see that I am a good person underneath that I am deserving of their admiration that I am worth something because in spite of my depression I do manage most times to have a life – one that they frequently take for granted.

Please note: I am going through this now but I promise I am not going to kill myself. I made a promise that I would never, ever, leave my children. The thoughts about killing myself are just thoughts - things I have to mentally fight each and every day at present because I cannot afford for my screwy thinking to get the better of me.

I have promised.

If I said I am confident that I won't do anything silly that doesn't mean that it is a walk in the park and that I can just pull myself together; it takes a HUGE amount of will to get my brain to go blank, to distarct myself from those pernicious thoughts, the nagging that I am not good enough nor ever will be. 

I cant help but look at those who do not have this evil embodiment and I am jealous. But I know that i have to get thought this for there is no way out but thougth my own endeavour.

And sometimes I just don't feel like a hero in a movie, sometiems it feel like I haven't the strength. Sometimes I dont want to have to do it any more.

But in the end I have to fight it.

It's not pretty.

Its blood and gore.

And it is exhausting.

I ony hope that when I get thorough this that there are people I love waiting for me and that they don't think too badly of me and all the shit I put them through.

Depression: Swimming like a Swan – the real me…

Swimming like a swan: serenity above, paddling like fuck below...

There is no one on this God’s earth who would ever describe me as swanlike. I am just not serene. I do not exude calmness. People look at me and I know they become unhinged and cannot cope.

Everything just happens to me and it looks like I’m drowning not waving. I’m the sort of person people rescue because they can, because by merely breathing I offend their sensibilities and the balance of their lives and they need to put me right.

And what must be the most frustrating thing, is that it looks like I get the lot, an easy life without ever doing anything for myself.

I am an invert swan.

Most people look in control and going forward with their lives while paddling like mad beneath the surface to stay afloat. I make a BIG song and dance routine and let it all flow around me because whatever the appearance the truth is in the lie.

I appear to be a pessimist. The world is doomed sort of person, the ohmygodeverythingisdreadful character, the whinger the whiner, the life is hell girl. I am sorry to say this is merely me paying lip service so that no one notices that actually I do know what I am doing, I have got it sussed and there is a plan.

I just don’t want to share it - OK.

I’m not saying that I don’t have my bad patches. I do. Cher-rist! I do have Depression you know and I do have days, weeks and even months when life really is HELL. Times when I have no idea how I’m going to get up in the morning and function like a human being until bedtime.

But the fact is I do.

I call upon people so that I do.

It is part of the plan.

It may not look very pretty but it works.

In fact it has worked for years.

But one must make compromises to get things done the way you want. I have to accept that people have a tendency to patronise me but I’m not proud. People with depression cannot afford to be proud; children are at stake here, family life is at stake here, friendships are at stake here, you name it - the lot.

If I said no thank you to the help I receive then I really would be in trouble. So I accept it; unsolicited or not. I swallow the pronouncements on how I should be living my life, rearing my children, losing weight, training my dogs, looking after my husband and any other myriad of things that people happily say I must, should or ought to do. I rarely offer my own advice without being asked to though I am sorely tempted.

I do get scared but I admit it and people help.

I do get tired I admit it and people help.

I do get in a muddle and I admit it and people help.

Is that wrong? Does that upset people? Why?

It’s the way I have to live my life, the way things get done around here. A person with depression as long lived as mine can have no pride because by doing so they will be destroyed and the fall out for others would be catastrophic.

I am no swan.

And frankly people who are just make life difficult for themselves. Having the moral highground is all very well but I bet it’s lonely up there!

Depression: I Love Ruby Wax but I'm keeping it secret...

Oh I loved Ruby Wax talking about her depression at BritMumsLive! It was funny, heart-breaking and way too close to the bone.

She said stand-up, be counted, but..oh yes there’s a but; she’s been filming people who do just that, who stand up and say they have a mental health problem in the workplace and guess what she’s having a hard time getting people to say a word.

I know that one so well…

In 1995 I was in a great job, I loved my job then one day I came in crying. I had broken up with my boyfriend and I stupidly let slip that I was on medication for depression. The fact is throughout my employment at that particular firm I had been on Prozac seems to have completely passed my employers by.

I mean only the week previously they had been talking about bonuses for the team which definitely included me. I was the account manager. I did the job standing on my head and still had time to juggle clinical depression, training for a North Pole expedition and balancing my bank account against my prediliction for Bond Street shops.

I’m a multi tasker - what can I say…

But within 24 hours I was asked to leave. Nothing was said as such about the D.E.P.R.E.S.S.I.O.N and I was too shell shocked and emotional to do anything about it at first. It was all done so very, very, nicely. I was given help to find a new job which they paid for and then I was let go. I think they told everyone that I was leaving voluntarily. As far as they were concerned they did everything right and proper. I suppose my problem was that I thought so too, that is until I took a long hard look at the legacy I was left with.

The feeling of tawdriness, uselessness, the feeling that I had done something wrong, that I was bad at my job, that I could never ever say a word about depression and my role in it to anyone. I had been gagged even before I had ever opened my mouth and suddenly it felt so fucking wrong!

And then I fought back.

I fought back like a vicious trapped weasel baring my teeth in a most unladylike manner. I went for them like something possessed but it pretty soon petered out, I am pretty ineffectual and a coward so even though I told my Union all about it we never fought about the dismissal in terms of them chucking me out because they had heard about my mental health issues, it was merely implied. I got £4K to shut up and got another job. The company I worked for have gone onto greater things in that dark and murky world of politcal lobbying. Bish Bosh over and done nobody the wiser and nobody hurt.

I have NEVER made the same mistake again. Paranoid, I was ever after that, about mentioning mental health issues in the workplace. Kept it quiet. That is until I finally started my polar adventures then I spoke up, big piece in The Times, stupid idea… but that’s another story for another day…

Check out Ruby Wax’s Black Dog Tribe….

Depression: Struggling

I am struggling.
It's my fault I know. It's me, trying to do too much. Then getting tired, exhausted and falling into a dangerous place.
A place where the Black Dog can get at me.
It is relentless this beast and sometimes it seems just so much easier to let it devour me, to suck me dry.
But I don't like who I am when it happens. I hate myself when I become too weak to fight it off. I am vile in my own sight.
Somewhere I must find the strength to keep going to keep fighting.
God I wish it were that easy.
For those of you who have no idea imagine your worst despair then imagine you are trying to out run it. Sometimes you can ignore it, pretend it is not there but you know that really  it is forever on the periphery of your vision.
I say I wish it were cancer and my family give me sour looks. Yes, I know one of them has fought cancer and won. I know how terrrified they were and how brave to keep going. I am not belittling their battle, their fortitude. I try to right myself and explain that this is: "a cancer fo the soul" but they think I am overly dramatic and too full of sensibility.
We talk like aliens and I pity them their lack of understanding. I must understand them all. See things from their perspective, see how draining I am; how boring more like. Yep, my illness is boring because you cannot fight it with the wonders of modern science, it will not go away and I will not give in and die. So it is there day after day, month after month, year after year. Some would say I revel in my depression, that it makes me "interesting" that I only go on about it because without it I wouldn't be anything at all.
But that is untrue.
Without it I could have been so many things.
We all of us have a propensity for depression. Luckily mnay of us will not be triggered into it early.
My trigger was a severe bout of Glandular Fever coupled with a host of outside stresses which if I had had them but a few years earlier or later would not have made me intolerant to stress and caused me to develop a clincal depression.
I believe you don't just get drepression you develop it (unless of course it is Post Natal Depression which is entirely different). A series of triggeres/stresses brings it on, for many it is fought off but for a few  the combination is too great and a full blown clinical depression ensues. You never get rid of it. It underlies the rest of your life.
It can be managed and it can be held at bay but  we don't yet know enough to work out exactly what to do. So sometimes I am too tired and I fall and I hate myself for failing to manage it properly, for opening my mouth and saying stupid things, for shouting at my children, for not struggling hard enough, well, for not being normal....

It's been a hard couple of weeks, I am tired and struggling, but I will be OK. The safety nets are holding. I wish I didn't get so tired. I just wish I didn't have depression.

Is it depression or is it just me?

Is it depression or is it just me? I don’t know anymore. I am not sure if I ever knew. For with depression you are never quite sure what is reality and what is not. I am not saying that people with depression are all hallucinating or living in a different dimension to everyone else (though of course it helps) I am trying to work out where the one ends and where normal life resumes.

It’s not like a cold which is pretty obvious when it ends; I mean suddenly you can breathe again and you no longer  have a dripping nose or sore throat. With depression it arrives with a bang, or so it seems, even though actually it arrives by stealth in exactly the same way it leaves. A silent mental ghost, though of course you are never sure if it will come back again to haunt you.

I get tired. Very tired. I don’t seem to have the stamina I once did or even the stamina of my peers. And when I get tired, I get impatient, my fuse gets shorter and I have to get away from it all, or else put those I love from me until I am less tired and able to cope. Now is that a legacy of depression? Is it depression? Or am I teetering on the brink of a depressive episode though I don’t know it? Or is it in fact all psychosomatic and merely a reaction to something that normal people have – called tiredness and the way I handle it is in fact normal.

Problem is I don’t know so I blame it on my depression.

Because this I do know I can be pushed into a depressive episode when I am tired. It is something I realise I will live with for the entirety of my life. I try not to think of it as a life sentence but I fear that it is.

It pisses me off not knowing.

Maybe I am behaving normally. I mean loads of people who have traumatic illnesses push themselves harder than those who have not had the experience. Testing themselves, their stamina, and their very existence to prove that they still do have a life.

I don’t know if I do the same, I am not sure for you see I don’t know what “normal” is, I have been “abnormal” for more than half my life now.

Depression: Lifelines

Where do you start when you really don't want to? I don't want to write about my depression and I avoid it if I can. Last week was hell. It constantly amazes me that I am still here and I know that if it weren't for my boys I probably wouldn't be. Sounds terribly dramatic doesn't it?

Let’s get it straight when I think, talk and write about my depression I sound like an introverted, self-centred, attention seeking moron and that is why I try very hard not to do it. But just because I isolate myself doesn't make it better, so maybe taking another tack and becoming more open might just get the opposite affect - yeh right!

Other people, those without depression dogging their heels, just don't get it and to be honest why should they? Because guess what folks you could be next! However, nothing is worse than listening to someone ramble on about how sad they are, how hopeless things are and complaining about their lives especially when they won't listen to your great solutions. Please bear in mind that your solutions probably are not great but what is great is your time and your ability to listen without judging. A hug and emphatic pat on the shoulder are sometimes the difference between a day near unbearable and one that ends with the sun shining.

At the end of this week my sun is shining because I had the friend who knows how to just listen, who gives me a hug, sits me down to a cup of tea and helps me unburden myself without making me feel like a total selfish monster. He makes no comment about the fact that I shout at the children, he doesn't raise an eyebrow while I rage against the world, and he calmly sets me to rights then checks up on me throughout the day and then the next. I am incredibly lucky. 

But even though I know I have this lifeline it doesn't mean that the battle to exist isn't hard. I steel myself as soon as I wake up silently pleading to God to help me get through the routine of getting the boys up and fed and ready for school without me imploding, going ballistic and screaming like a banshee that we are all going to be late.

I feel I am on a permanent treadmill from the moment I open my eyes to the second I close them and then it is a tick tock, tick tock, until I start all over again. I watch the clock throughout the night one o'clock, two thirty, three fifteen, four thirty, five, five fifteen, six. Time to get up! This can last for weeks on end. Is it any wonder I feel I go mad?

Then it is the drive to school and the thoughts that go through my sleep deprived mind about how easy it would be to swerve in front of that beet lorry or to lose control down the hill; the fact my children are with me seems to be the only thing that stops me.

I curse myself for my dreadful behaviour towards them knowing I am marring their childhoods and knowing that they will hate me for it and I feel so very very bad and I truly believe, when I am in an episode, that they would be so much better off without me. Then I stop myself, I call on something within me to get a grip, to stop it and get on with it. I try to calm myself and set myself small steps. Goals. Very small goals such as: Get the boys to school. Get out of the car. Say good morning to every fifth person. Get back into the car. Remember I have dogs at home that need feeding.

On the drive back I talk to myself in the car almost as if I were two people one ranting and crying longing for it to all end. For it to stop, to rest. To just get off for a while, a little bit while the other me, the stronger one  calls upon that elemental spark that clings to life like something possessed and I make it home I know not how. And I watch the hands on the kitcen clock sweep by, longing for my lifeline to get into work so I can grab on and hold tight. Just till he gets in, just hang on until he gets in then I'll be OK. I should be able to call on my family shouldn't I? But I think I frighten them too much, I frighten so many people and I need them all so much. Little do any of them realise that one call, one shoulder to cry on and I'll be strong enough to get through the day and each day I get through means one less in the episode and then it will all disappear until the next time and that may not be for months and months and months maybe even years....

Bringing up boys: how quickly we can turn on those we hold dear...

This post first appreared on my Cage without a key blog but I felt it was part of an answer to a question posed on British Mummy Bloggers by Deer Baby about how  depression can affect children. In my next post I'll write about what fears I have for my family because of my depression ...

Both my boys are in bed. There’s nothing unusual in that as the clock strikes a quarter to the hour this evening. What is different is that there is an eerie silence. This follows an almighty outburst by me and the breaking of Bog Boy’s melamine Elmer Plate. I am as usual not proud.

Today has been a particularly stressful day but there is still no excuse - rather an explanation of events and how easily things can go very, very, pear-shaped and how easily you can lash out at those most dear.

Everything should have been fine today even though Charlie was back at work but right from the outset it was just going to be one of those days. Firstly his car would not start and that meant he had to get me up to take him to the station at 5.45am. No worries I used the time on my return to have a lovely quiet breakfast as I let the boys sleep in a little.

I asked them both what they wanted and let them watch TV until breakfast was ready. Bad move. Never, ever let your kids watch telly until they have had breakfast as you’ll not get them to the table without a fight even if only moments before they were telling you how hungry they were.

Trying to get cereal, toast and bacon and eggs eaten in the few ad breaks before Dinosaur King is bound to be a hiding to nothing.

Suffice to say Bog Boy got the short straw as once he ate his cereal he was off only to return a moment later asking for bacon. Problem was as he’d told me he did not want to eat a cooked breakfast; I ate the last piece of bacon in the house moments before. There was a lot of sulking and stamping of feet and how much he hated me.

Top tip: No use trying to reason with a three/nearly four year old…

So feeling I was not exactly heading for the Mother of the Year Award, next on my agenda was to let the chickens out or not as the case maybe.

It’s a long story but suffice to say neighbourly disputes especially when they get nasty are hardly pleasant and it’s not very nice when you are the one in the middle. Before 9am this morning apart from being told what a horrid mummy I was I was also accused of being a thief, a liar, an hysterical woman and that I was pitied because I was married to Charlie – who basically was the devil incarnate.

Joy.

I always find it edifying knowing that I am some sort of buffer zone between warring factions. A bit like Poland during WWII and like that poor beleaguered country I got well and truly invaded.

I don’t like it when I am shouted at and intimidated or when someone is overtly aggressive. (Yeah I know I did it to my kids this evening – add hypocrite to my list of crimes…)

Anyway, I did not let my chickens out; I arranged for the builders, to turn their hands to building a massive hen pen so that my chooks would not be able to trespass onto my neighbours land – but hey that didn’t work. Well it did, in that I now have an amazing all singing, all dancing, hen pen, but my neighbour was still not pacified.

I have a feeling he did not want to be and he went ahead with his threat to take his goats across my land because my chickens invaded his even though they had not. The chickens he was referring to were chicken that had adopted his wife and were on his land all the time anyway but in the middle of a dispute you're not going to be interested in semantics especially if you have a point to prove.

I spent all day in a state of heightened anxiety sometimes fine, sometimes crying, mostly agitated and worrying. Not looking forward to telling Charlie then not looking forward to the inevitable showdown that would follow.

I made the boys supper and as they were eating it I went to call Charlie to find out when he was coming home. That was when the boys decided to have a fight. I could not hear clearly and just when I thought I had got through the line switched to ansamachine. I called again, the noise the boys were making made it difficult for me to hear. I told them to shut up.

Having failed to ascertain when my husband would return I watched as the sun started to go down, any minute now and the second part of my neighbours threat would start, he bringing his goats back across the garden from the field where they had been grazing all day. Added to that I was not too sure how much attention would be spent on preventing the goats from having the inevitable nibble here, and quick bite there, of hubbies precious Populus nigra.

I brusquely told the boys to pipe down and didn’t pay them attention much but the whining was increasing and the calls on my attention were getting more persistent.

The Boy: Mum, Mum, MUM! I have to tell you something.....

Me: Not now Boy

The Boy: But I have to tell you!

Me: No I do not want to hear! Not now...

The Boy: But I have too...

Me: NO!!!!!!!

The Boy, carrying on regardless: Bog Boy put a bit of sausage on my plate, it’s not fair…!

I grabbed his plate, deftly scooped all the sausages, potatoes and peas and deposited them on Bog Boy’s plate them slammed down The Boy’s plate on the table. Unfortunately I was a little harder than I expected and the plate shot across the table and spun like a frizz bee across the kitchen smashing against a metal vegetable rack and splintering into four pieces before landing on the floor.

There was a deathly hush.

Then Bog Boy started to wail: ELMER!!!!! MY Elmer plate, you broke my Elmer plate!!!!

I’d like to say my response was one of a contrite mother but my brain was a little behind my actions and I snarled out: "Bugger your plate!" At the same time as my brain focussed on the fact that it really was Bog Boy’s favourite plate that I had broken. I was a little taken aback to realise it was in pieces and thought: "Blimey! I had no idea plastic could break."

By the time my brain registered that fact; I had already told the boys to get thee hence to bed and supper was over. They shot up the stairs, sniffling and sobbing and quickly got undressed ready for bed. I sat on the stairs staring out the window aware and not aware of what was going on, reflecting on the fact that I had thought myself so under control , so calm but patently I was not and once again it was my boys that bore the brunt.

As usual I apologised and explained that it was not them but that sometimes they needed to listen to Mummy and to do as they were told, not to interrupt when she is on the phone, to wait until she is ready to listen, to hear when she says she is tired and is grumpy. Hard lessons for little boys, hard lessons for any child, whatever age.