The things we cannot change

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Admitting you have depression is a scary thing, and for some reason I'm doing it in blog form. Why scary? Because there is always the chance people will hear this and think you are weak. They may think you cannot handle things. They may think you are pretending, or trying to get out of doing things.

The annoying thing about having a disease that no one can see is that human beings are hardwired to believe in only the things they can see. Sometimes this is sensible (e.g. ghosts). Sometimes it sucks ass (e.g. calories, climate change etc.).

Depression is a heartless bitch. It can strike hard, and for no good reason, so that you find yourself curled in a foetal position because you just heard about the white rhino population. Or because you worked your ass off today and no one said thank you. Or because you stopped to take stock of your life and the chasm between what you wanted to achieve and what you have achieved horrified you. Or because you are stuck, and can see no way out. And yes, sometimes that means you find yourself toying with playing a fast-and-loose game of pedestrian chicken with the traffic.

Believe it or not, the way you're reacting is not a sign of weakness. It is just the way you are reacting. You cannot always "Just get over it". Sometimes you have to ride it out, wait for a break in the rip and swim as hard as you can for the shore. Sometimes you might make it. On good days you might feel like you've got this thing licked for a moment. But you're always trying. And the fact that you have to try at all means you are not like other people. They do not necessarily know what you're going through. Your brain is different, and your way out will be different too.

I don't mean to separate Us and Them. Just to highlight that even trying makes you stronger than you think. I also don't mean to make anyone more depressed. You can get help. You can. You can find some way to make it through the dark patch and tackle things once you're out the other side. You, too, can mix metaphors and similes like a chimp with a blender.

I am not a doctor. I am not an expert in neurology, or psychology, or any other ology. I simply have depression. And I thought I'd write about it.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

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