How I would love to write life has made a turn for the better and I can feel this depression beginning to ease. Sadly this is not the case and I am firmly in the grip of this tawdry malaise. However, I shall begin this blog entry with the positives because these are far more important than the negatives.

I am being incredibly cared for by my local Community Mental Health Team (CMHT), especially my Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN). In the past when I have reached the depths of depressive despair as I have, I have ended up in hospital. This time round I have requested not to be admitted and to remain at home. I have been heard and acknowledged which is incredibly important for me. Going back into hospital, while being a place of complete safety for me, would this time feel to me to be an utter failure on my part and most certainly be a catalyst in me acting irrationally to prevent admission. I’m determined to fight this depression on my terms and while this may be risky, I do feel empowered to make meaningfully healthy choices. For example, I decided on two occasions not to meet with good friends who were visiting the Isle of Mull and who I hadn’t seen for ages because I simply wasn’t well enough. Being the good friends they are, they understood. Despite inevitably feeling shitty for ‘letting them down’, I realised I had made healthy choices.

The form the wonderful support I’m receiving from the CMHT and my CPN is regular telephone and Zoom contact, checking in with me and being a non-judgemental ear for my depressive unloading. I am fortunate to have a really good relationship with my CPN and I trust her implicitly, so much so, I speak candidly about my strong suicidal ideations and the plan I have in place to see them through. Simply put, being able to do this is for me, one of the reasons why I ultimately choose not to follow my plan through. By speaking of my darkest and most dreadful desires with her, I find myself lancing this infected wound so to speak and releasing the building pressure. Nevertheless, she is concerned for my safety and arranged further contact from the health services while she was off duty, this being in the form of a phone call from our local GP and over the last weekend, phone calls from the Out of Hours mental Health Team. Knowing I was receiving this support and had these calls lined up helped me make an easy decision not to act on my suicidal ideation. In a way, I felt honour bound to meet the agreement that I would be available to speak with them. Additionally I deeply appreciated this level of professional care and did not want to reject it by acting out. Throughout my mental health journey I have strongly believed in meeting my care full on, and while maybe not always being totally compliant, certainly being respectful of and grateful for the care being offered.

It has been my experience that our NHS professionals have our interests at heart and work their utmost to ensure this is upheld, despite the many constraints they face.

So, I’m grateful for the professional mental health care I am receiving. Hand in hand with this of course is the unconditional love and support I receive hourly and every day from Karen, my wife. She understands me and she knows how to live with me when I am depressed like this. I appreciate how difficult I can be at times, but increasingly, the sense I am a burden on her is diminishing. Of course there are many times when I feel utterly miserable about being poorly motivated and listless when it comes to enjoying shared time in the outdoors be this going for walks and possibly camping nights away. However, having Karen’s unconditional, no strings attached, support helps me live openly with my depression rather than bury it and hide it away. As with my CPN, I am able to speak with Karen about my suicidal ideations without fear of being judged or ‘shut down’. Simply being able to state where I am with this thinking, by expressing it out loud, is enough for me to make a decision not to act on my desires or the plan I have in place. I cannot stress enough how important Karen’s love and understanding is for me.

Then there is the unconditional support I receive from my wide Social Media diaspora in the form of private messages letting me know I’m in their thoughts, to more public utterances of concern and good wishes for my welfare. Despite having not been active on my main Social Media outlets, I do not feel forgotten and therefore the pressure to contribute. It is good for me to know that people understand I’m taking care of myself and I will return to my online visibility when I am stronger.

My shed has possibly been one of my greatest saviours. In here, with the accoutrements of creativity around my, I lose myself in hours of absorbing making and creating. Just as I found Occupational Health activity incredibly helpful for me in hospital, I find my shed has become my place of safety. It is a pace of purpose and intent and this is vital for me right now. It is in my shed where I make wearable art to sell and subsequently receive hugely important recognition for my creativity. During this period of my depression I have been reluctant to market myself but despite this I still make sales and this is helpfully rewarding for me. I feel I have purpose and I’m contributing.

Finally, I dug a pond in our garden and it is already filled with water, planted with plants and artistically fringed with rocks. The birds like to drink from it and it’s already an oasis of calm for me to sit beside.

Having written about the positives, I now find I’m unable to write about the negatives. I’ll rephrase this - I do not want to write about the negatives, suffice to say I am so very tired, exhausted in fact, fighting with what seems all my might to remain in this world. I long so much for the peace I experienced when I was in the sea after leaping from the ferry in 2019. Expending my energy on fighting my depressing seems to me to be such a sad waste because I have none left to enjoy what I want to enjoy, this being my kayaking, wilderness immersion and all the joys the summer months have to offer. Having just written this, I realise the possibility of reversing this energy flow from sustaining my depression to sustaining my recovery from it. If only this were so easy. I can see the possibility for this but right now, it’s frustratingly beyond my grasp.

Writing like this is hugely helpful for me and I’m grateful to those of you who read my ramblings. As I type these words now, I sense a positive shift within me and recognise the glimmers of change ahead. I know this tide of depression will turn and I will once more be moving ahead with the flow of life. My head tells me this truth constantly but my depression is a wily opponent and manages to sow the seeds of doubt and manipulates my frailty with so very powerful beliefs of my inadequacy and a strong sense of self-loathing. I’m longing for the strength to begin to turn these beliefs around. Until then, I trust in all the positives I have outlined here in this blog entry and hold close to me heart the words Karen so often tells me - “I think you’re amazing for your strength”

Thank you to all of you from the bottom of my heart,