We can’t all spring into a new start...
DEPRESSION DOESN’T CARE WHEN THE SEASONS CHANGE
’TIS the season of rebirth, of fresh starts, of hope buzzing in from all directions. It’s bears and bumblebees emerging from hibernation to stretch and try to work out who’s presenting This Morning nowadays.
At least that’s what others with a rosier disposition than yours truly like to say about Now.
If you’re me, it’s just spring – aka a few months after Strictly ended and loads of months before it’s back.
Up on allotments and roundabouts there are signs of April’s showy promises. There may even be (forgive me) a spring in your step as big coats are put away and sensitive souls start popping antihistamines.
But not everything springs eternal (oops, there I go again!) and life ain’t all chocolate bunnies and tiptoeing through the tulips just because Other People say it is.
And you know what? That’s totally fine, because change doesn’t always mean coming back to life. Let me explain. I’ve got a bookcase in the house I call The Help.
In descending size order (the only way), it’s filled with books promising a better life, or at least a more rounded version of yourself. And there’s a whole section on using spring as your, er, springpad for change (FOUR TIMES NOW!).
It’s all there: Tomes on selfacceptance, mood management and positive affirmation poetry in bite-sized chunks when you need sustenance on the go.
None have really helped me. But for years it didn’t stop me looking for The One Which Could.
Of course these big reads have given me moments of hope, of clarity to realise that a life-changing journey begins with one single step, la di dah di blah. Then before you know it, it’s summer, you’ve read it cover to cover but you’re still yourself. With yourself.
I’m talking the big D here – Depression. I’ve lived with my very own babbling head for more than 52 springs. It’s been decades since I went to the doctor about a pervading sadness nothing could shake, not even one of Mam Jones’ roasts or pictures of prancing lambs in buttercup fields or the love and adoration I’ve never been short of in this thing called My Life. So I’ve medicated – including with familysized Fruit and Nut bars – had therapy, even went to see a fancy hypnotist in Harley Street that could have cost me my mortgage. Depression makes you do things, you see.
Try stuff out in the hope it will work. Make you feel that you SHOULD spring (number five right there!) into an improved version of You.
Because as every blue moodie will tell you, when they’re not laughing and coping and loving and working and trying, even feverish languor counts as something to do.
To describe what it is would be impossible. It’s more than feeling down, more hateful than boredom.
It’s not situational sadness, a corollary of heartache, loss or disappointment. It’s way sneakier.
It doesn’t give a stuff about who you are, where you live, how full your cupboards are, or what season we’re in.
My big D can be colourless, joyless, vicious and confusing. It’s numbing, complex, naughty and so, so odd. It’s sometimes purple and loud then quiet then funny. Sometimes silent and dormant then slaps you around the head. It can also keep me honest.
I think it takes courage to talk about stuff like this, especially when things are going OK and Instagrammers start posting on perennial hope. Today may be a good day. Tomorrow? Perhaps not.
What I do know is this, though: A magnificent magnolia tree finally blossoming in the background doesn’t automatically make things better.
Sometimes a tree is just a tree. And sometimes there’s a love letter to yourself waiting amongst the weeds.