Winston Churchill, according the the memoirs of his doctor, Lord Moran, suffered from depression which he referred to as his 'Black Dog'. There are those who doubt the veracity of Lord Moran's assertion; not only in respect of the raven-hued canine anthropomorphism but also whether Winston actually suffered from what we know today as clinical depression.
We know from readily available empirical evidence that the British Bulldog was certainly a moody bugger - a trait shared by the Grumbler. If, in fact, he did have clinical depression then that's something else which, it will come as no surprise to those who know him, the Grumbler shares.
This collection of musings is about depression. Mostly I'll write about things from my own personal experience but, where it suits, I might add thoughts that others have contributed. I have many motives for inflicting my views on the subject on my largely unknown audience but my primary one is to help, via my own peculiar perspective, to do away with the stigma surrounding matters of mental health.
We all know people with mental health issues. Frequently though, we don't know that these people have them. Now, just as if one of our friends has diabetes, there's no reason why we need to know but the difference is that very few people would be ashamed to tell you that they have a problem producing insulin - while many folk will shy away from admitting they have a mental health issue. And that's odd since clinical depression is essentially a chemical imbalance in the brain. You can think of it as 'diabetes in the head' if that helps.
Ive been happy to talk about mine to anyone (just ask Mrs Grumbler) but Ive always avoided writing about it, because I was afraid that people might judge me, or my career prospects might be limited - despite the thin and easily pierced layer of anonymity between the Grumbler and the real person behind the keyboard.
So why the change of heart? Well, I'm no spring chicken, so I'd be fooling myself if I thought I was still on the upward slope to promotion at work, depression or no. So what is there to be limited by my spilling of beans? Then there's the faint but growing whiff of hypocrisy I have noticed when people ask my why I talk about it, but don't write. And finally, I know that I am fairly adept at conveying a feeling in words and so, just maybe, someone else might read a paragraph and think "oh, so it's not just me..." and take a crumb of comfort.
So, back to that word, depression. For me, it conjours up a mental image of Disney's portrayal of Eeyore, almost comically sad and filling the watcher's heart with compassion. Or maybe Douglas Adams' Marvin, the Paranoid Android - annoyingly pessimistic and almost screaming to be shaken out of his gloom.
In reality, certainly in my case, that's not even close.
Many of you will have had a dream in which you're falling, helpless and terrified, from a great height, and most of you will have woken up with a start. Think about that first half second when you wake. Disorientation; an almost electric shock; nerves stretched like piano wire; raw, animal fear that you can taste, like tin... and then the world floods back in like a tsunami of relief as your mind takes charge and sorts things out. Your heart stops pounding, the bedclothes embrace you in soft warmth, and you realise that you were dreaming and all is well.
Try to imagine, if you can, that one day your mind simply can't sort things out. The world doesn't flood back in, and there is no relief. Instead, the terror; the tension; the not quite knowing where, or who, or even what you are; that exhausting rush of fight-or-flight adrenaline all just keep on coming. Stretch that half-second feeling you remember into an hour; a morning; or a whole day from waking to sleep. Its not an easy thing to imagine. In my case, its not an easy thing to remember because I have been there. I can tell you that it's not sadness I was feeling and if shaken I would most likely have simply shattered, Humpty-Dumpty style into a million pieces never to be put back together - not by all the king's horses and all the king's men.
I tell you this not for sympathy, but for the sake of understanding. That's how the worst days (and they are mercifully few and far between) are for me. For the next person it will, probably, be different.
Back in the days when I owned only short trousers and lived happily on a shilling a week pocket-money from my sainted grandmother these afflictions, if they were talked about at all by the grown-ups, were called (in hushed tones) a nervous breakdown. I don't know whether its political correctness or the mere evolution of language but 'nervous breakdown' fits the bill so much better and I feel that to call what we have 'depression' does a bit of a disservice to those who suffer from it.
You can tell I don't like to call what I have 'depression'. But I'm none too sold on calling it a 'nervous breakdown' either - not because I have anything against the term but because this is my depression and Ill put it in its place and call I what I want. I like the idea of giving it a personality of its own. So, instead, just as the feelings arrive, stay a while and then go back to wherever they came from I'll say, when the mood has taken me, that I've been dogsitting for Winston.
No comments:
Post a Comment