It's very personal - why I write about my own life in public

Why do I expose such personal material in such a public way? Do I really want people who read it to know I had a mammogram the other day? (Not that that's a bad thing!) That I tried to kill myself once, that I have bad days sometimes, and other incredibly personal things? Apparently I do, or I wouldn't write about them! It's not like anyone's got a gun to my head, threatening to shoot me if I don't blog about my personal life. So why do I do it?

I was reminded of the reason I do this when I read a recent post on the very good blog (here on blogger) happinesspursuing (I've posted the link in the list to the left of this post.). It was in answer to a young man who asked 1/ why go on in the face of chronic depression? and 2/ will the depression ever go away? The very thoughtful and constructive response from the guy who does the blog (sorry, didn't get anything as specific as his name!) and people who commented on his post reconnected me with my own purpose in writing about depression and happiness. I do it so that people who are currently suffering from this miserable illness and stumble across my blog can be reassured that it is possible to transform depression into happiness, albeit imperfect and prone to relapse. That is the nature of the beast - relapse is a given, not a possibility. But the more important news is that recovery and happiness are possible.

I know that when I had my first experience of major, suicidal depression in 1982, so bad that I stopped working and spent most of my time hanging out in my pj's, doing my best impression of wallpaper, that I was desperate to hear about people who had recovered. I had a good friend who worked with someone who'd had a very severe depression, so bad she'd voluntarily gone into a private psychiatric hospital, some years before. She'd got well enough to go back to work and function fairly normally, something that had seemed beyond me then. I used to ask my friend about what her workmate had done, and hung on every word I got about her.

So it's a privilege and a pleasure to be able to be that role model I once craved, and give some if the information on what works which I was so desperate to learn. Depression is a worldwide epidemic according to the World Health Organisation, surpassed only by heart disease and predicted to exceed it. Recovery rates are fairly low despite the slew of effective therapies around. (Recovery in this context means going some years without a relapse and reoccurence of symptoms.) So every person who can give a message of hope and recovery to those who suffer has a story worth telling as publicly as possible.

Things I'm looking forward to

There have been times in my life when I’ve felt that there was nothing to look forward to, that the future held only suffering and disaster. I’ve always been proved wrong. Now I know that the future always holds good things, however bleak my view of it may be. I reinforce this knowledge by keeping a list of things I’m looking forward to. I add to it every few days. Hope, I’ve found, is the antidote to despair. Here is my list for today.

• Making the recipe I found for savoury pinwheel scones – yum!
• Finding pictures for my posts – yay!
• Seeing Barney barndog when he comes home from his OM (original mother’s) place and seeing how excited he is to be home and see me (of course)
• Talking to my niece on the phone
• A nap today
• Sitting in the sun
• My feet warming up
• Making some more of the delicious Macau soup with potato, garlic, chorizo sausage and winter greens
• Getting the gate fixed so it’s easy to open and close
• Going for a drive with a friend and the dog this weekend to a nature reserve I’ve wanted to visit for ages if I feel well enough
  
• Bubble bath tonight
• Sinking into sleep

Resilience - picking yourself up when life knocks you down

Not every day is easy even when you’re habitually happy. Today did not have a good start. While I was practising being a good alpha bitch and ignoring the dog he proceeded to tear the stuffing out of one of my good cushions. When I saw it I pulled him off the couch onto the floor, screaming ‘I don’t have many nice things and you’re not gonna destroy them’. Then I sat down and burst into tears. Not the procedure recommended by The Dog Listener, although it did have the positive effect of stopping the dog in his tracks.

The truth is some days it all seems too much. While I am truly grateful to my brother for providing a home I can (almost) afford to live in, I miss my lovely house and my sea views. I miss my friends. I’m excited about the possibility of a new career but it’s a huge effort to try and write regularly when I’m often lacking energy for even simple household tasks. And I miss the perks of working – not only the income, but the status, the socialising, the feeling of being a useful member of society.

Which leads me to ask – how do we cope when life knocks us down, whether through illness, bereavement or recession? For myself it’s always been a matter of picking myself up and looking for the next opportunity. In my experience even when all doors seem closed, there will be one that is open. I say to myself ‘phoenix from the ashes’, which reminds me that that’s my nature. No matter how low life has taken me, I’ve always risen again, bigger and better than ever. And I look for role models, in my case people with ME who have developed successful careers as writers. All of this gives me hope, and motivates me to keep trying. I can’t completely stop bad things from happening but I can control how I react to them – to at least some extent – so that’s what I focus on doing.