Lying on the floor and you’re trying to stop your brain from whirring at a million miles a second, making the inevitable fall off the cliff. You’ve tapped out three 9’s on your mobile and your finger is poised over the ‘call’ button in a pathetic mania thought process that it will help. It doesn’t. Because they can’t help anyway. You’re in the eye of the storm and the irrationality whipping round your world.
As still as you can, staring ahead, all you can hear is the blood pumping inside your eardrums as your heart appears to kick in syncopated rhythm. Fingers tingle, palms itch as adrenaline seeks to release. Some people run around to dissipate the nervous energy at this point but inertia is my only safe place and I’m holding on with all my might.
The other day you wrote a couple of letters to your friends and family. The depths you’re in might not be any deeper than you’ve been before but the fall has been further due to the highness of the highs. People are sick of your nonsense, they’re not interested, they think a “like” on Facebook counts as caring or making contact. People are too busy, too self interested but not as bad as you are with your inability to see past your own eyelids. The self talk and self pity bubbles away nicely, always simmering but never boiling over to give you some release.
“You are walking round with your head on fire and no-one can see the flames” – ‘Reasons To Stay Alive’ by Matt Haig.
They’ll never know how close they came to never seeing you again and you think that it won’t bother them. Sometimes even when in the midst of friends you have an inability to be in the moment and enjoy. The feelings let you down, you let yourself down and you feed that self hatred for a week on a look or word that you take the wrong way.
‘Why didn’t/ couldn’t they call me?’ – because its a weakness
“But I don’t see it that way” – the world does. Its stigmatised, it’s sneered at, just cope, Man Up
“I don’t know what help I can be really” – you probably can’t but making an effort might be enough.
“It make me uncomfortable” – can you hug your friend? Properly. Like you mean it? Do that if they let you in and they trust you. They might not but it’s not your fault but if it helps them feel less isolated then what’s it to you?
Hold their hand. You don’t have to reach for the clichéd words, just an arm round the shoulder and silence can speak volumes.
This is never going to disappear for me and my fellow depressives but it’s got to lose the power to shock. Go with it and take comfort in your friends. New shoes, new shirt, new outlook, leaving the rut behind. You don’t have to take this crap. You can actually try changing it
My little brother is in the same place. He’s coping, of a fashion, but I know how hard it is for him. All I can do, for him or for you, is to extend a metaphorical hand and say that I understand, and to say that I have had similar struggles, from time to time. I’m not struggling now, so you can get past it, you can change it, it can be done. Keep on trying.
Great piece of writing, Dave. Hold on tight.
“Life is waiting for you. You might be stuck here for a while, but the world isn’t going anywhere. Hang on in there if you can. Life is always worth it.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive
Hang on in there. x
@RubyBlue Matt Haig just commended me for this piece on Twitter and was v touched.
@dogfacedboy Oh, that’s nice. It’s a very good book; thanks again for the tip-off.
You really can get through, Dave, and you have. I know how exhausting it can be, but hang on in there.
Terrific incisive writing that helps ignoramuses like me appreciate what another human being is having to endure.
We don’t know each other, but I feel a connection especially since the superb Fall podcast ( as I type this, I’m ripping ’50, 000 Fall Fans’ to my iPod entirely prompted by your good self). What you do matters, as do you – as does everyone obvs.
Dig in (if that’s not an insulting suggestion) & I hope the storm passes asap.
If I could, DFB, I’d come round and give you a big womanly hug, but I can only send you a virtual one. You describe your feelings very clearly; it must help a bit to understand them so well.
‘…holding on with all my might’
You’re as strong as an ox in all I’ve listened to of yours and all you’ve written here. I wish I had an iota of your articulacy and spirit.
Hang on.
I was thinking about you earlier when I posted the Eels thing. Keep passing the open windows.
Keep on telling people, that’s all.
And the rest of us – listen. And keep listening.
Merely pressing the thumbs up button doesn’t seem enough (and goes against what is written in the original text).
“New shoes, new shirt, new outlook” – a similar mantra is what goes on in my head many times.
Keep on keeping on geezer.
Thank you for all the kind words.
A couple of people on Twitter have said that it helped them understand depression and anxiety a bit more which made me very happy.