The first time depression
descended I didn't know what had happened. 'Descended' is
right because I descended with it. Deep down to the depths of
a dark disturbed abyss. Or that's it how felt at the time.
Looking back now I realise it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Just
bewildering and blunt-edged but not so intense as to topple me
over the edge - not so bleak that I had to resort to
medication.
I was just seventeen and a bit
and I woke on a morning in March to a grey, grey world.
Overnight things had changed and I didn't know how or why. My
limbs were like lead and I couldn't get out of bed. I covered
my head with the blankets and thought if I lay quite still I'd
sink away.
My mother came up and I told
her I was sick. She said she'd ring in to my boss and explain
I was suffering from 'flu - It couldn't be anything else as I
hadn't had any symptoms. I knew I just wanted to die.
I was ill for a fortnight and
during that time I could not see a reason for living. We just
lived to die in the end and we strove towards that last
blessed moment with every breath we took. Why prolong it I
thought? Why not die and be done with it now and miss out on
the pain of the next fifty years or so.
I knew what I felt but I knew I
could not say the words. It would bring on my mother's
hysteria and make her scream. She would scream I was mad. I'd
inherited it from my aunt - she should never have married my
father - his family was bad and of course it would all be his
fault that I was ill - and mine by default because I was his
natural daughter. It was useless to try and explain so I
stared into space.
My mother got worried and
called out the doctor one day. My stomach was bloated he said.
I was full of wind. Nothing much wrong, he said, talking over
the top of the bed. She must make me eat food and the wind
would go away.
I tried to eat food but it
tasted like stodge and I had to force it down. I still wanted
to die and then panic set in and my mind started playing funny
tricks. I was pregnant, I thought - that was why I was bloated
up. There was no wind at all. There was something alive
inside. I imagined faint flutterings. I thought that my
breasts had swelled - all the signs in the book and a
certainty set in. For days I was sure and I thought of nothing
else. She would find out, I knew, and I knew she'd scream and
shout and I knew something else too - I knew she'd ask me
"Who?" And I didn't know who and I didn't know how or why. I
just knew that the books said there had to be someone else,
that it couldn't be just by yourself - that logic decreed that
you had to be impregnated. I knew all the words and I knew all
the facts but logic had flown and I knew that part didn't
count, that part could be bypassed.
I knew I was right but I knew
that she wouldn't understand. So I just didn't say and the
panic receded in time and the bleakness with it.
I started to eat and I got up
one day and decided to change my life.
