Dealing with Christmas

'Did you have a good Christmas Dave?'
Yes, I did. I always enjoy the holiday, but, as ever, it comes at a cost in terms of different emotions and responses to cope with and accustom myself to. So much so that I thought it appropriate to write a piece today about what it is like to enjoy Christmas whilst combatting the twin dangers of my OCD and the ever present threat of depression.

I spent Christmas with my parents, and the day itself we all went to my Aunts for dinner and to celebrate the day (a direct follow on from my childhood when it was my maternal grandparents who always hosted the actual day). Of course being around those you love the best is in the main beneficial, but there is the thorny issue of how much strain I am under to hold things together and, if so, how much I can let myself show them of this without thinking I am spoiling Christmas for everyone (which in and of itself provides a feedback loop of depression and negativity).

Christmas Eve I actually went out for a few drinks, the first time in a few years I have done so (since we all grew up and the annual mash up and hangover mix became a Christmas tradition that had lapsed). My father and I ventured over the road to the hotel, expecting to find the bar packed full of those who were 'getting away from it all' and letting the professionals handle their celebration. In truth, aside from a young couple who nursed a couple of pints of cider for the evening, it was just the two of us. Strangely, it was quite a comforting evening, if somewhat removed from the reality of the busy party season.

That being said, I didn't drink enough to be suffering on Christmas morning and found myself downstairs at a reasonable hour and pleased to find Santa was aware to forward my haul to the parental home. It was OCD that took the first bite. I have an occasionally strong aversion to odd numbers, and a particular fear of doing things only once in my life. As foolish as it sounds to write it down and express it in words, the feelings that go with it are very real, and very strong. I found myself opening the presents and making sure I touched them all at least twice, and an even number of times. Naturally, I know there is no reason to suppose anything terrible would happen should I not, but that is the rub - the compulsion to follow the directive and to do this was then, and will be again, insurmountable. I feel bad when I am acting on a compulsion, partly because it chalks up a win for OCD and partly because I do not want anyone to be aware that I am doing it. It feeds right into the heart of worry that I will spoil Christmas if my parents became aware that during the joyous activity of exchanging and opening gifts, I am wracked by, and a prisoner of, compulsion.

The other attack by OCD came during Christmas dinner. Another aspect of the illness is that when I say I am going to do something it becomes an imperative that I do so. As a result, I oftern overeat. I might say when someone asks if I have enough, or want some more vegetables, meat etc that 'I might have some more once I have cleared the plate' - this becomes a direct instruction to the part of my brain that acts on compulsion to compel me to follow through on the suggested action. Strangely this doesn't always happen, but when it does I am in its thrall. And so it was during dinner. Does it hurt anyone? No. I just eat more than I might otherwise do so, but it adds to the rumblings of discontent within that I am struggling along and am riddled with imperfection which at any moment will bring the seasonal joy crashing to the ground in smouldering ruin. I am somewhat fortunate that my metabolism is not punishing me severely for it.

Depression is a much more difficult beast to predict, and, in many ways, deal with. I used to 'deal' with depression via drink (and yes the quotation marks whould tell you I know that is not dealing at all) - as a younger man, a fitter man, the punishment that heavy drinking does can be contained. Not that we were without close runs with disaster. Mudpuddlers of a longstanding vintage will remember the end of term that I returned home (actually for Christmas) yellow as my liver stuttered along at stall speed trying to cope with the abuse I was giving it. I report it now merely as a fact of what once was, fortunately for the here and now I had at that time the love of both a great family and a good woman who got me, at length and strain, onto a less destructive path. However, that was then, for now I always fear at times of holiday that depression will strike and leave me incapable of enjoying myself and denying enjoyment to those around me.

I had a bad run in to the holiday - despite a great start to December and a lovely trip up to London, I started struggling around mid month. I was still carrying this bleakness (albeit reduced somewhat) into the time at my parents. Christmas is an awful time to have depression because it comes with a seasonal overdose of guilt - I have no right to be down when so much love and kindness if being shown. My depression will bring down the glee of those I love the best - and so on and so forth in ever increasing strangulation. The flipside is that there are enough distractions around to keep the mind from dwelling too long on its 'state'.

This year was a definite tightrope. I have been having difficulty lately accepting where I am living, I am feeling increasingly isolated and exposed and this was bubbling along in the back of my mind all throughout the holiday. The major problem with the Christmas run in was a feeling of loneliness, even when in a crowded room or general company. This was again a problem over the last few days. It took a very big effort not to succomb to gloominess as I once again found myself surrounded by loved ones and yet at the same time distant and alone, cocooned in misery that I could neither show nor express. The tightrope is not these feelings in and of themselves as I have suffered with depression long enough to know you cannot think your way out of it. No, the tightrope is allowing yourself to experience this without letting it define your moverall mood, or the day. It would be very easy to allow that, but then would come the constant waves of grief and guilt for everyone elses Christmas that you have taken from them with your self-absorbtion. It is not easy to walk the line as it were, because if it is taking too much effort to do so, the mental exhaustion weakens you against renewed assault. It will lift, it is lifting, but nothing I can do will force it to be so.

As it was, I made it to Boxing Day evening without major drama and set off back home. It was in the car on the way home I realised what a struggle it had all actually been and that I should write about it, as I found myself crying or sobbing for much of the journey without really knowing why. It was because I was in a safe place to let go. A place noone else would know, or see. A place where I could cry.

I had a good Christmas. The fight with mental illness is however perennial, and this piece is meant to convey a part of that to those that would read it, or would know me better.

Rejig of The Thirty Second Smile

Written a while back, an ode to the trickery of memory and the odd things it presents us with

From nowhere leaps a memory
Of she that went before,
With gentle hands I haven't held
For countless years, and more!

So now she comes and dances here
Heralding forgotten charms?
Ah yes! Look, here comes yester-me
And sweeps her in his arms.

Such an oddly perfect pair they make;
Her grace, his mystery.
Fated, though they did not know,
To Love's sad history.

Now I must be content to pause,
And for the duration of their show,
I'll wear the smile of yesterday,
For my love of long ago!

Down down deeper on down

Last night I got to talk to someone about my illness. It brought home to me how I tend to shy away from discussing it, as if to voice it were to give it life. That being said, I do find it useful to write about it on here, and today I want to talk about depression. Not feeling a little blue, but the will-sapping wickedness that is depression, by whatever name I give it - be that The Black Dog, The Shadow or The Rot.

In truth, there are several different states of depression I find myself in. Different ways for different days I suppose, as if the fact of it itself were not enough. The most pervasive type of depression is when it leaves me feeling utterly bleak. When I say bleak, I should explain myself - it feels as if all the joy has been sucked out of the world. Laughter becomes hollow, tastes dissipate, nothing satisfies. It is as if I am cocooned in a thick mesh of bleakness that nothing good can penetrate. All thoughts, feelings and emotional responses get tangled in the bleakness and distorted by it and love, kindness and compassion from outside, from others cannot reach me, cannot get through the bleakness. The world pulls away and even a warm summers day to me seems grey and hopeless. It can last hours, days and once or twice has dragged on for weeks. And yet there comes a point at which it dissolves and sight, sound, taste and emotions are startlingly clear for a time. Like a man who has lived in a cave blinking at the dawn outside.

Then there is fear depression. I can become convinced that there is no solution to any problem, that whatever path I decide to tread will be the wrong one, will bring about the worst possible result. It makes me feel as if I am incapable of making a decision correctly, that each decision is the wrong one - and I drift from fear of outcomes to the conclusion that events will go against me regardless of what I choose merely by dint of it being the choice I made - my own defective choice making is the root cause of failure.

Talking of failure, another form of fear centres around failure. I become transfixed by all the things I have not done, convincing myself that because I have not done it yet, I will forever fail in the endeavour. Because I have not done X, I will never achieve X, I have failed at X, X has beaten me. It gets very easy to become maudlin and things soon escalate into anger at myself because I could have, or I should have, or I never did. All those might have beens play the fiddle whilst my depression burns on. And oh how it hurts - this borderline self-loathing, the utterly harsh and untenable line I take with myself. Self-reinforcing depression.

All of this is a feedback loop, and I can find myself in a deep depression over my own percevied shortcomings. At its worst, I am utterly convinced that my feelings are inferior, are not worthy of this world. Take as an example love. Love is a beautiful, natural and amazing feeling and yet I will not let myself express it. Is it fear of failure? Yes, partly, but it is also that I feel my love is not worthy, my love is not enough, that I could never give enough love of enough quality to deserve the happiness that comes with its reciprocation. I would not want to burden anyone with my love. And yet there is the counterpoint, the discord in the back of my mind at the howling loneliness, the emptiness of life without love. And now I have made myself cry.

Its a tough old journey, time will tell how far I have come.