It
is an early summer evening. The weather is musty; the parching weather of last
year hasn’t arrived yet, a coal tit bleeps proudly near the window meaning that
both cats must be indoors. I’m in the rocking chair in front of the lit fire,
with the dog at my feet, like an image from a 1930s children story. And I am
reading.
I’m
not reading social media. I’m not reading beer blogs. I’m not casually looking
up the name of The Housemartins song I’ve had stuck in my head all day (though
it was almost certainly Happy Hour.) I’m reading a book.
I
haven’t read a book for a long time.
Something
that isn’t stressed enough about the effects of depression is the way it removes
all the enjoyment in your personality. The characteristics that defined your character
previously are taken from you one by one. Some are more obvious to friends and
peers, usually because they involve socialising. They involve your lack of
attendance at family gatherings or team sports. You are reminded of these
throughout. You are made aware that there is something unusual pertaining to
your behaviour. You are made to feel personally guilty about your change in
habits.
These
constant reminders secure your memory of them. You remember that they used to
be parts of you. Yet it is the solo tasks that one could only notice personally
that become forgotten yet could be considered the most worrying. Reading is a
solitary task undertaken in private quarters. People question your lack of
attendance at Saturday beer festivals or Monday night 6-a-side but nobody
notices the little solitary moments of pleasure.
Those
proclivities become the forgotten personality traits – they become so
irrelevant that you accept them as part of your past or even lose your memory
of them. I used to read, I used to read a lot. Just like I used to enjoy video
games. Just like I used to love model railways. And those elements are just as
important as the fact that I used to enjoy Saturday pub crawls. Just like I
used to enjoy playing football. Just like I used to enjoy Sunday family time.
Trait
by trait your own personal Islands of Personality, that your foundation was
based on, crumble into the void. As the sufferer you tend not to notice, not
until the inevitable criticism comes – “He doesn’t help himself; he’s
stopped doing the things he enjoyed. He says he's depressed but that’s because he
doesn't do anything anymore. If he just started playing football again…”
Of
course, these commentators are naïve; some are even well meaning. Mostly, they
are blissfully unaware of the damage those comments cause. Losing yourself to
this illness is one thing but having that criticised is quite the other.
To
recover from the bottom the focus has to be on the most important parts of
life. At the pinnacle that is life itself. Getting from one day to the next
without taking your own life puts little importance on the unread books in the
corner. Every treatment, every useless piece of self care hedonism, every blog
I have written focuses on the survival techniques that will make you see light
at the end and encourage positive thought.
Nothing,
however, prepares you for the emptiness that depression brings. Nothing makes
big enough reference to the loneliness that comes from having no awareness of
self; to be the same being externally but to have nothing left inside. Nothing
helps with the fear on the days you realise that nothing you do gives you
enjoyment anymore. Occasionally a book may be picked up, the prologue read,
before being replaced and forgotten. There is nothing.
There
are no milestones and timescales with depression. With one step comes the next.
Eventually simple pleasures come back to the fore. Some involve new
discoveries, whether it be rambling or history chasing or keeping chickens
But
some of them were always there, just lying dormant whilst the blackness clouded
them. It took a long time. It wasn't planned or placed as a goal to reach. It
just so happened that on an evening in May 2019 I picked up a book, one that
had been lying around the home waiting for me to read, as recommended years
previously by somebody for being my sort of yarn. The television show my friend
had been recommending to me for 6 years was being, as the kids say, binge
watched. The games console was powered up again. Finally there was some
enjoyment in leisure.
The
advice is often poor, talking of positive thinking, meditation and keeping
active, as if those seemingly simple tasks are an option when you struggle to
get out of bed at all. There isn’t the understanding of the mindset that takes
over. There is too much talk of quick fixes and easy solutions. It doesn’t work
like that.
There
are still many days when the mind returns to the darkest place it was; where it
was in that period where there only seemed to be one option. Years of trying to
find your way out of that place seem futile at times. You wonder whether you’ll
ever return to the person that you once were. Truthfully you can never be the
same. You can only keep going in the hope that some light comes back, that one
day you pick up the book and enjoy it once more. Progression isn’t easy but
every little victory is worth something.
If
you do need somebody to talk to then my e-mails and DMs are always available.
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