A friend of mine posted this as his Facebook status:

DEPRESSION is not a sign of weakness it is a sign that you have been trying to be strong for too long. Put this as your status if you know someone who has or has had depression. Will you do it and leave it on your status for at least an hour? Most people won't, but it's mental health week and 1 in 3 of us will suffer at some point in our lives. Show your support good people :)


Now, I'm not one for bandwagons, no matter how painfully relevant they are. But this one plucks the ol' heart strings. As someone who struggles with depression, anxiety, and panic disorder, you might assume I have something to add to the public discourse on mental health. Or you might assume I'm just batshit crazy.

(You're both right.)

I have been getting better and better at dealing with my own depression. The first thing I had to do was to really own it. I went to a psychiatrist, I poured my wee heart out, and then I promptly rejected her recommendation that I take Prozac for a year to see how that goes. I think I know how that goes. I think that goes badly.

Anyway, now I can walk around telling people that I'm depressed and I have panic disorder. Well I'm not depressed, at the moment. But I could be. At any second. Just leave me home alone too long. Give me the flu, or a bad report card, or a death in the family. Throw shit at me and I will fall backwards into the abysmal emptiness that we call Depression and the world will say, "Oh, she's just sad."

When I am depressed, I am not sad. I am much, much less than sad.

And panic attacks! Please. Friends sometimes ask me to describe panic attacks, in fact a friend asked me just last night. And there were two of us there to answer, and one girl said "Well I feel like I'm going to vomit, and I start sweating and shaking." And I said, "I think I'm either losing my mind or having a heart attack, and my blood runs cold, and I start shaking." And then I tried to change the subject because I was feeling a chill coming on. That's all it is. A shiver, up your spine or down, hot or cold, head or heart. That's all.

It's just you, screaming, inside.

But like I said I am learning new ways to cope every single day, and I am stronger every single day, and you are no small part of that, my blogoritos. You help me too, just being there, wherever you are. There is strange comfort in your imaginary presence. Thank you for almost being there. It means a lot.

Now, when I start to feel the abyss opening beneath my feet, I go for a walk so I can't fall in. Or if it's raining, I will cook. Cooking makes me very happy. There is no Hellmouth in my kitchen, only healthy happy foods to chop, and probably a chocolate bar in the freezer. And if I have no food to cook and no will to walk, I will do yoga until things get quiet again, and the threat has passed. I will drift on the sea of my Chakra until I find some land to love.

That is how I get through the moments I wish would never come. They do come, but then they go. And in the meantime I have a lovely meal or a peaceful walk, and I wake and I am me again. And I am so grateful for that small wonder.


So here's to depression. It is not our enemy, our fear, or our tragedy. It is a gift. The death from which we are allowed to return, and we do, and we are all the happier to be alive.

I am one of the happiest people I know.

Aren't you?