I can feel the malaise descend upon me once again.
Like most people, I’ve been miserable many times in my life. I have suffered a long period of depression only once. It lasted several months, during which time I couldn’t sleep and completely lost my appetite.
“Pull yourself together”. Like I fucking chose to feel that way. Like anyone chooses to feel that way. It’s not like putting on a sad song and wallowing in misery for a while. That would be a pleasure cruise by comparison.
“Think of something happy”. Like what? If I’d won the jackpot on the lottery and had supermodels fighting over me it wouldn’t have made any difference. There are no happy thoughts to think of.
I remember thinking at that time that I didn’t want to live, but the thought of dying made me feel just as bad.
I eventually went to the doctor, hoping for some happy pills. People mentioned side-effects. I figured being happy, but ill was preferable to the alternative. I was prescribed sleeping tablets.
I consider myself fortunate that I learnt how to distract my mind before the downward spiral begins. I do occasionally feel the insidious dread crawling at the edges of my mind, but now I find it’s usually a prelude to illness or due to lack of sleep.
I can feel the malaise descend upon me once again. I only hope that it presages an illness.
Nicholas Johnston, about 1 month ago
Beautifully written. Clean, spare, unsentimental. Unfortunately, people do misunderstand the nature of depression. This piece certainly will help to shed some light on it. It isn’t the blues. It doesn’t have a colour.
alfie, 21 days ago
Yeah, I agree with Nicholas – beautifully written. Somehow its good to hear it said how it is