I have always used my blog as a form of therapy, I try to keep it light, because, as the old saying goes "Laughter is the best form of medicine". But is it? Is it really? Or is it just a facade that we use to mask how we truly feel?
Take my world, aside from the whole 'episode' of depression I went through late last year (2016) I seem perfectly back to normal right? Well that, if I am perfectly honest, couldn't be further from the truth.
I am broken, I am lost, I am scared, I am struggling, drowning in a sea of self doubt and anticipated failure in my future. I struggle to see a day where I will have a successful life, in fact, if I am perfectly honest I am sure I will NEVER have a financially successful or emotionally stable world that I can be proud of.
Let me first separate family from emotion.... I love my wife and kids more than anything in the world, they are my reason for battling through a week of crushing loneliness fought inside my own head. They don't know the struggles I face internally unless I allow them to, and I am unwilling to do so because I don't need them feeling a fraction of the torment I do. I get emotional because of my family, I feel love and pride, I feel angry when somebody upsets them and I feel sad when they are sick or in pain. But the emotions that course through my veins on a daily basis are all to do with them and yet nothing at the same time.
A few weeks ago I was talking to somebody with whom I share a mutual friend, and I was informed that this mutual friend had turned around and said that "Dave can't be depressed or struggling, he's got a missus and children" now this really took the wind out of my sails. This comment was made by somebody that I have invested a lot of time, emotion and energy into to try and keep their head above water as they dealt with their own struggles, and it made me so fucking angry.
So, just because I have a wife and kids I don't know what depression is eh? I don't know what it is to struggle? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU! Did you ever stop to think that a huge part of my instability, self doubt and brokenness is BECAUSE of my worries about the future of my family? I worry about putting food on the table, I worry about providing financial stability for my children and wife, something that you are utterly clueless about because you live at home, have 3 meals a day cooked for you, and haven't got a fucking clue how the world works once you step up of your mum and dad's basement.
You think that it is easy running a family? You think it is a divine right of marriage to be happy, in control and always on the front foot. You've got a fucking rude awakening coming your way if that is truly what you think.
The battle in your head and your heart is not won the day you say 'I do' or when you hear the first cry of your newborn child, the battle never ends, the darkness keeps pushing away, eating into what happiness you manage to hold.
For the last 5 months I have tried to hold myself together, tried to put on the front of 'big, fat jovial Dave' the guy who has a sense of humour, never lets things get him down for long, but I am losing that fight. I spend hours each night trying to work out why I can't keep on top of myself, trying to find that well paid career that will enable me to spend more money on the kids, taking them places, doing fun things at the weekends, and never worrying about whether we can afford to do it.
All of my life I have been told 'You couldn't do that David, that's not the right job for you' and you know what? I heard it that often I subscribed to it, I felt sure that the advice I was being given was correct, and that I will never amount to anything. That shit is hard to shake off, and it is even harder to deal with when you don't have the drive and direction to correct that thought process.
But the older I get, the more I realise how much time I have thrown away just surviving, I have no career to speak of, I am on the bottom pay scale in a job that if I am honest I now dread going to every day. I appreciate that people at work will read this and might even think I am ungrateful in my attitude, but I need to be honest with myself as well as other people if I am to ever overcome this huge hurdle that is before me.
The crushing weight of depression briefly left me back in January/February, but it came back soon after, and it is eating away at my very soul. I don't want to be a failure, I am not wallowing in self pity, I am simply lost, and I have no idea how to find myself. I have tried medication, I have tried meditation, I have tried fresh air, I have tried so many different things, but still that cloud follows me. I write this as another wave crashes over my thoughts, smashing my fragile self onto the rocks of self doubt and even self loathing.
As I said above, I love my family dearly, but as odd as it sounds I hate my life. Kelly and the kids are a bright spot in an endless horizon of darkness, I cling onto that light, but it gets harder every single day. I'm so tired of the internal struggles on a daily basis, I don't talk to Kelly about things because that's not fair. She'll read this and most likely be angry because I am spilling my guts in public so to speak, but talking to those you love most is also the hardest because you want to protect them from what you feel, what you see when you close your eyes.
Some people will read this and possibly think I write for attention, and in the past I have, but I promise you that this post and the previous one about the same subject is far from that, it is just a way of getting some of what I feel down in words, and hopefully allowing others to see what they are feeling isn;'t something they are going through alone. If what I write offends you, or makes you think less of me as a person then I get that, if it makes me less of a man then so be it.
The fog is getting thicker, it is getting more and more oppressive and it is all around me. I will keep looking for a guiding light, a direction and a purpose, but right now it feels as if it is completely and utterly out of my hands and my reach.
Much love,
Dave.
