My Books

  • John Donne (my best)
  • Shakespeare
  • Anything by Terry Pratchett
  • Lord of the Rings
  • The Little White Horse
  • Wind in the Willows
  • Secret Garden

Tuesday, 29 June 2010

Today it begins

I really don't know where to begin - ``I'm a failed 55 year old teacher - feeling a little on the scrap heap and then I thought - It's time to wear purple - for those of you who know it is a reference to to a poem entitled "When I grow very old I shall wear purple"
Rather like "Broadcast News ; "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.

So to business - I suffer from depression - no, no don't turn off it gets better (not the depression).
I nursed my beloved mother through hideous cancer - lost my job and then tokk in my dad who developed bowel cancer. Nothing you haven't heard before. I had a breakdown - doctor signed me off as too unwell to work. I think he was right - I was sitting in a filthy flat - unabe to choose a tin of soup without crying.

Then with apathy of the drugs and the mindset of that, "grey, emptiness despair" (Emily Dickinson), I managed to get my home repossessed. AsI am sure you can imagine it didn't really help the depression.

Got given an interview with a 'health professional'. Took four Diazepam - threw up thrice but went - guess what? I'm fit to work! Oh Yeah come and take a look on the bad days - the days when I take too many sleeping pills in the hope that I won't wake up. But nobody listens because I am articulate and well spoken and people like me aren't supposed to end up in this situation. BUT WE DO!

Now the good bit - through all of this one thing had shone through - we underestimate the humanity and kindness of people. I have never been so humbled by their unfailing kindness - even a stranger offering a bed for the night

1 comment:

  1. The world is a very dark place, I know that as well as a lot of other people and I know how depression can make that darkness in to an all consuming pitch black. Its a horrible struggle but as you correctly noticed there are bright points of light in the darkness, People who do and say things that make it impossible for the dark to completely consume us.
    You're a special person, you're a light xxx

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