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: What if my children have it?

I got asked to write an essay once on “All about You”. It was for my new form teacher she wanted to know a little more about us. Mine was the only one where instead of saying what my favourite things were and what I looked like I actually answered with what I thought about myself.

It wasn’t pretty reading.

I was 15 years old.

If I had such negative feelings about myself then is it any wonder that I struggle with putting a positive spin on myself now; some 30 year later?

And it has got me thinking about my boys, in particular my eldest.

He lacks confidence. He says to me, on a more regular basis than I like how useless he is and how he wishes sometimes that he was dead (I don’t react well to that particular commentary).

And I worry.

What if he grows up to have depression like me?

What can I do to prevent it?

Could I be the problem?

And what should I do?

The Boy has been dealt a mean hand: Absence Seizures and Dyslexia. It’s a cracking little combo and we took a while to work out exactly what was going on.

For both though my main aim is to get him more confident. Get him to feel good about himself. But boy is it exhausting. Sometimes I want to shake him out of it, make him know what a fabulous boy he is in an instant because then it would be brilliant for him, life would be easy and he would quite literally fly!

Instead though, I try to get him interested in things that he could be good at and bolster him like mad, much to the detriment of my youngest who has to shout for my attention from the side-lines.

I feel so utterly useless as a parent sometimes and I dread the thought that he may develop depression because of me.

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.

Things I did when I was depressed: The Society wedding

There can be nothing worse than being in single in London and depressed. It’s bad enough being single, or at least that’s what I thought at the ripe old age of 28, but being depressed as well – no wonder all my friends thought I was a lesbian.

Not that I have anything against lesbians, I’m just not. Not that any Lesbian would have given me the come on anyway so even if I was a lesbian I would have still been single.

That’s the problem with being depressed you tend to be blind to opportunities. Perhaps I was given the come on but I wasn’t in the emotional place to notice interested boys let alone girls.

I desperately wanted to be “in lurve”, with a man you know in a meaningful relationship, marriage on the horizon, house in Fulham, bolt hole in the country, all mellow stone and wisteria, you get the picture.

That’s how I thought it should be, even though I never fitted that particular mould. For that I needed to be “sophisticated”, together, on the planet, normal. For that I needed to be in PR in Belgravia where all the “nice gels” go not as a lowly hack on a commercial property magazine stuck out in Woolwich. It’s no wonder by parents despaired of me ever getting a suitable boyfriend, let alone married.

There were times they tried to help me along. Some help was useful like getting the local Yorkshire builders down to renovate the flat I bought; I found out that they cost three times as much as my local Battersea builders would have done and on top of that I had to feed and water them as well as give up my bedroom. I slept on two chairs in the sitting room for a week. It was such a relief when they left!

Much of the help revolved round boys and trying to find me one. As the years passed I fear they got more and more desperate. And the lengths they went to more and more convoluted. I think they thought me far too independent and maybe felt that their help was not as appreciated as it should have been – I hate to say it but even if they had handed me one on a plate I wouldn’t have taken the bait.

Anyway there was one time they took me to a Society Wedding. He, the Groom, was in the Guards so frightfully, frightfully, glam and there were bound to be lot and lots of “rilly soopah” blokes for me to meet up with. They were so excited about it, especially my Mum, being that her own daughter had so far failed to provide the much needed glamour she craved despite living in London. How could I possibly tell my parents that this really wasn’t the best scenario for me?

I was excited by the prospect, don’t get me wrong. I mean all those fit young men in tight breeches, as I said I am not a lesbian.

But with depression you don’t think straight and you can be your own worst enemy. You are not exactly brimming with confidence either. So I get dolled up in my clumsy gawky way, which is difficult thing to do I can tell you for a plump person. I wore a, what was once,  very chic navy blue woollen shift dress (from Marks & Spencer) an enormous navy blue straw hat, and extremely high black court shoes trying to be so very Holly Golightly. So very muich Breakfast at Tiffany's. And off we went.

The service was fine; I sat at the back.

But the reception, in a grand and exclusive London Club, well, let’s say my depression took over and I landed up being very peculiar indeed.

Somewhere I had read or heard that if you close your eyes people won’t notice you. I know, silly. It’s the kind of thing really little kids do when playing hide and seek. They close their eyes and believe that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them. It’s cute, for them, not quite so cute for a 28-year old…

So there I was going up the grand oak staircase, heaving with hats, navy blue and cream in dots being “de rigeur” when I decided that in order to be not noticed it would be a good idea if on the half landing I turned my back on the crowd and stared at the panelling; shutting my eyes if you will.

Quite why I wished to be ignored is beyond my understanding now but then I am sure it was perfectly logical to my depressed little brain. I suspect it had a lot to do with oh-my-god-look-at-me-now-i-look-hideous-and-i-don’t-want-anyone-to-notice-me-because-if-they-do-I-will-just-die-of-shame.

There were a lot of people clambering up the staircase and I think I became mesmerised by the oak grain in the panelling because it was quite some time before I realised that I was alone save for the polite waiter in white gloves who had just brought me out of my reverie with a very discrete cough.

I turned flame red and noted that there were a number of concerned faces peering at me from the doorway to the grand ballroom where the reception was being held. I have no idea how long they had been staring at me but it was obvious that my presence was required.

I shot forward forgetting I was on a half landing and tripped up the stairs sending my hat flying and painfully scraping my shin bones. I was mercifully picked up by the waiter and brushed down, given my hat and asked my name. At first I thought he was trying to chat me up and seeing that he was really quite dishy I obliged and was just starting to be flirtatious and ask his name when I was thrust in the ballroom with him bellowing my name to all and sundry. He wasn’t a waiter, he was the master of ceremonies and I was obviously the last guest for whom everyone was waiting.

There are times as I said when depression makes you your own worst enemy.

Laughing too loudly I made some excuse about my make-up and thrust out my hand hoping that my faux pas would go unnoticed but you know how it is suddenly everything is silent for a moment and you feel everyone’s attention is on you. I was very loud, very loud at getting the Bride’s name wrong and equally loud in trying to laugh it off.

I stood there like a lemon while the bridegroom said he must get off with his bride to sit down. I muttered yes of course wanting to die there and then but he just looked at me exasperated. I shuffled uneasily not knowing what to do. And then he lent forward.

“Get off the dress.”

“What?”

“You are standing on my bride’s dress…”

I looked aghast at my feet and yes there they were on the Brides beautiful and clearly quite costly train.

I jumped off and was about to bend down to see if everything was alright when I was forcibly lifted up by the arm.

“Really it is quite all right why don’t you go and sit down now.”

I would have loved to I thought but I had no idea where I was meant to be! Luckily the Bride and Groom decided to get on with it and glided effortlessly to their table and everyone started to talk at once and I was able to scamper to the table chart to surreptitiously check where I was to be seated.

It was a good table. I was sat next to another depressive and contrary to expectation I really enjoyed myself especially after a few glasses of wine too many. It is quite scary how animated and loud two depressives can get as we shared symptoms and feelings. As we rattled on about Prozac and how awful it was to read the scare stories in the newspapers. We skirted round the bad stuff, but acknowledged to each other how difficult each other’s lives must be with no one to understand. And we got steadily more and more drunk forgetting in our nervousness that mixing alcohol with any medication is NOT a good thing at all. Especially with Prozac.

It acts like an accelerant, at least it did with me, and I was getting drunk really, really, quickly. Normally I would have had very little to drink but with the embarrassing standing-on-the-bride’s-dress episode and feeling completely at odds, I forgot. I wasn’t so drunk as to make a complete spectacle of myself but I did fall down and had to be helped into a taxi

That was the last time I remember my parents ever “helping” me to find a boyfriend…

Depression: Doing something about it....

I hate having depression. It is pants. It is worse than pants, it is a bugger. I get tired and I never seem to be able to catch up with myself. I can last a long while but then I collapse and can do nothing. And I feel weak, and silly and stupid and I hate myself for it.
So during May over a period of 31 days I am going to do something about it.  So as not to bore everyone I will blog daily on my other blog "Cage without a key" and update you on my progress. I cannot guaranteee any of it will work but I am going togive it a try.
If anyone has any top tips on how to deal with the perennial blues then I am up for it as long as it does not involve eating fish, which I hate. Especially mackerel. Unless it is smoked then I am OK with it.

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.