For some reason, discussion this morning on Twitter revolved around experiences of depression, prompted by my mention of medication. Blog posts were swapped and questions asked of each other as we shared our experiences with the black dog. I took the decision a while ago that I would not treat my depression as a personal secret. Hiding this illness is why it is still largely misunderstood in the community. Therefore, I continue to talk candidly and openly about my experiences, unashamed and certainly unafraid.
Last year I posted my experiences in detail in an entry titled A Blue Day.
Asking a 'normal' person to understand what is going through the mind of someone suffering mental illness is like asking a cow to understand the point of view of a budgerigar. The two sides are so completely different to make mutual understanding very difficult indeed.
Just as a one-legged man can't get up and walk, a depressed person can't perceive the world and emotions in the same way as a healthy person. Depression completely changes a person's world-view. Their logic is completely different from yours and therefore reasoning with them is difficult.
@Warwraith (Warwick Rendell) sent me an exceptional post from earlier this year - Depression in my own words.
But occasionally, there are those days. Days where the mask is tissue-paper thin. Surviving the day is an act of will that leaves a lingering exhaustion that seeps into your bones. Like a drowning man in a flash flood, you wrap yourself around the hope that the waters will recede soon, and you'll be safe and dry again.
At least until the next deluge.
Warwick concisely sums up how each day can seem like a marathon, expending energy to maintain the facade of normality. He accurately describes the exhaustion that infects every cell, despite having done nothing to merit it. We cling on. And we keep clinging on, because we know what will happen if we let go.
Andrew Barnett forwarded me a link to a quote he had salvaged from a friend's now defunct blog. Antonio, according to Andrew, "suffered epilepsy, severe depression, narcissistic disorder and yet was such a generous, if sharp, presence online." The black dog does not discriminate - the best among us can encounter the blackness. Antonio's description opens up the pain and torment experienced by all who have encountered the black dog.
Depression, probably the most obvious condition leading to suicide, is a prison filled with repeat offenders, and the crime of melancholia has a startling recidivism rate. But it is not a prison in which rights are respected, nor is humane treatment the standard fare. Rather, the jailer is a fickle torturer who punishes his charges without mercy. The depressed person inhabits a cell with a tiny window and iron bars, is beaten, burned, electrocuted, and flayed by the guards, left shivering and in pain, while relatives and friends may visit, blind to both the unbearable wounds he suffers and to the bars which hold him. Bewildered, they cannot understand why he doesn't rise and walk through the empty doorway; they do not understand his pain; and they may inflict guilt or further torture by sneering at his condition or offering pointless advice ("What's the matter with you? Just leave!") which only exacerbates his suffering. Because they do not see the bars, the walls, the jailer, the prison grounds, they cannot take his pain seriously. It is an enigma to them. They can give him little, if any, comfort.
Antonio Savoradin
Those of us who recognise Antonio's prison know that we are only on parole, probably for the rest of our lives, with the threat of a return to that barred cell always hanging over us. It is a tough reality to know that we stand that much closer to the edge of the precipice than our friends and family who can't even see the cliff.
Yet there is a positive to all these meetings with the black dog. When we leave behind the jail cell and piece together reality in a way that makes sense, we appreciate the good things all the more. Depression gives a scale to happiness.The love I feel for my wife is more powerful than I can describe because I have experienced the other, darker extremes of emotion. The lows place the highs in perspective, the difference so great that happiness seems like riding a massive wave. The world is a wonderful place. There are great things in every single day.
The black dog gave me that.
