Tomorrow is the fabled ‘Blue Monday’ where, if the media is to be believed, we are all in it together. The whole nation is allowed to bandy around the term ‘depression’ as if a temporary trough in our finances and thus access denied to our Gadarene consumer stampede equates to an illness that sucks every bit of joy out of our lives.

For those of us with depressive illness, we’d gladly trade a month of Blue Mondays just for a respite from the fog, the black dog, the dragons or whatever flavour our illness takes. Because, trust me, I’m not for one second arrogant enough to imagine that every single page of Night Shift will resonate with everyone’s experience of depression. And for sure, not everyone will go running to save their lives ; that’s my route, I don’t expect it to be yours. And I use the word ‘run’ in its loosest sense. I plod, bouncily.

I’d be the first to agree that January weather can contribute to our feeling a bit miserable, low light levels don’t help, the after-holiday sluggishness is hard to shake off, not to mention the possible weight gain from too much slothery ( I may have made that word up) and that unhelpful feeling of ‘surely there’s more to life than this?‘

So we hear people saying – I hate January, the weather’s crap, I’ve maxed out my credit card , the boiler’s on the fritz, my rent’s going up, I’ve put on four kilos over Christmas, oh aaaargh, I’m so depressed.

Like Jon Snow, they know nothing.

This isn’t even remotely like depression. Sorry, but it doesn’t come close. Perhaps the media’s uptake of the Blue Monday schtick is contributing to the misapprehension that all we need to do is pull ourselves together, dial back on the overspending, get our finances in shape, join a gym, get some exercise and stop whining. Certain media commentators certainly seem to think so. There are small things we can do to try and make ourselves feel better, but in the throes of a full-blown depressive period, the main thing you have to do is hang on.

Hang on, even though there’s little left to hang on to. Hang on and trust that this will NOT last for ever, no matter what lies your own depression is telling you. Three years ago was the last time my personal fog rolled in, and all I could find to hold onto was my own breath. In the middle of the night, when I woke up, I’d roll onto my back,rest my hands flat against the top of my breasts and breathe.

I’d been given a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s ‘Peace is every breath’ subtitled  ‘A practice for our busy lives’. I’m not a Buddhist, but I was so very grateful for that slim little volume and return to its easily understood text whenever the need arises. I am so glad that there are teachers like TNH is our world. Anyhoo -within the book I’d found and liked  two very short gathas (little verses that are designed to return our minds to a state of quiet contemplation) The first one was what I clung to, breathing in the oppressive darkness, trying to quell my panic in the middle of the night.

Following the Breath

Breathing in, I calm my body.

Breathing out, I smile.

Dwelling in the present moment.

I know this is a wonderful moment.

Trying to drag that smile onto my face was almost impossible.  At times, I’m sure it was little more than a rictus, but somewhere I’d read that engaging your facial muscles in a smile caused other muscles to relax, so… And for sure, I knew the night terrors were not ‘a wonderful moment’ but I also knew that if I persevered, I might turn them round. Breath becoming the alchemist’s crucible. Some nights I had to repeat this ‘Following the Breath’ gatha many times before I slipped back into sleep.But it worked every single time.

The other gatha was

Waking Up

Waking up this morning, I smile.

Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.

I vow to live fully in each moment

and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.

Several challenges there. First of all, the smile. ( See above). Then the contemplation of twenty-four hours stretching out ahead. Especially when you’re down there in the abyss. But the hours are brand new. They are all yours. Yours to interpret, yours to live, yours to breathe in. Living fully in each moment means opening yourself out like a flower, even if it’s agony. I could only manage small attempts at full engagement before I sank back into a dull and numb nothingness, but the more I tried, the longer I could feel alive. Difficult as this was, it was nothing like as hard as the last bit ; looking at all beings with eyes of compassion? That means everyone. Pols and mouthy hate-crimers and people-smugglers and world leaders? Yikes.

However, the hardest bit is looking at yourself with eyes of compassion. You. You are worthy of love. At which point my brain would explode.

And back I’d go to the first gatha. Breathe.

Today’s little thing to help : Let’s help each other? First of all, if you’re out among people today, try smiling at a stranger, even if you’ve never felt less like doing so. With your eyes as well as your mouth. We can never know what goes on in another human heart and the people who look least like they’ve ever gone through a depressive period might just be in the throes of one right now. The people who don’t smile back might be having the worst time ever. Sometimes we have no idea if our little signals of human kindness are picked up, but I’m sure nothing good is ever wasted.

And secondly – help me out here – what little things do you do to lift your mood? All suggestions welcome.

Yesterday, eldest daughter and I headed up into hills and high moorland for a much-needed walk. It was cold enough to require full winter hillwalking kit, plus ( on my partner’s insistence) I carried a bivvy-bag, just in case one of us fell down and broke something and the other one had to go for help. Plus spare food, more layers, a balaclava and snow goggles.

You can’t be too careful. Hills kill.

I’d been somewhat dismissive of all this caution until we got up on the plateau ( I use this word loosely, it’s just the high moorland, but still, the views are amazing) and the wind buffeted us. Actually, it knocked us sideways and we stopped to put on more layers. At which point I realised that I was very cold indeed, despite Goretex, down, merino and everything I’d wrapped myself in in the hope of staying toasty. I’d forgotten to bring a proper hat. I was only wearing a fleece headband. I had packed a balaclava, and they’re all very well when you don’t have to bail out your streaming nose every five seconds, but otherwise they’re useless. My head was freezing, and despite gloves, my hands were so cold they were almost unable to work zips or fastenings.

On we marched, through a patch of spindrift ( you can just about see it in the photo above)  looking forward to the halfway point where we planned to stop for sandwiches and a cup of tea before heading back.

It was so cold, that even down off the moorland, tucked in a river valley, we only paused for five minutes before the temperature drove us back onto our feet again. And if anything, after lunch, I was even colder than before.

But oh how beautiful it was. To be outside, in winter, to simply be walking and breathing – it felt like a gift. Despite the bits of me that weren’t feeling quite so appreciative of all this beauty. To my frozen hands and head, I added the grinding of hips and wailing and gnashing of knees. And after we stopped again for a cup of tea and a slab of leftover Christmas cake with a dentist-dismaying layer of icing so thick it looked like the snowdrifts around us…well, that kicked off the siren-song of a distant migraine.

But we were on the way home, supper had been discussed and decided upon ( eldest daughter and I talk about food a lot) and we were both beginning to feel that glow inside that comes after a grand day out on a hill. Any physical effort that pushes me beyond my comfort zone seems to do the trick ; running, walking, sobbing my way up mountains – they all have the same net result. Contentment.

And sometimes if you’re  winter walking on clear days yore given the extra reward of twilight skies. Like this –

Then we headed home to the agony/bliss of a hot shower and a well-earned bowl of pasta.

Small thing to do to make yourself feel a bit better – If you’re able to, take yourself out for a long walk. It needn’t be with anyone ; in truth, most of the time my eldest daughter and I spent up in the hills was in companionable silence broken only by the swish swoosh of her weird gaiters, but just letting our feet carry us while the landscape unspooled around us was quite enough. It most certainly doesn’t have to be up into high moorland either – it just has to be longer and further than you would ever go on a normal day. I’m certainly not advocating that you undertake anything that would put you in any danger. Plan it in advance, look up your route on a map and see how far you intend to go. Don’t attempt anything heroic – this is meant to be restorative, not draining. Pack a picnic and suitable clothing and anything you feel you might want or need on a mini-expedition including a calorific reward to get you through the last few kilometres before home. Leave a note saying where you’re going and when you hope to return or let someone know that’s what you’re doing.

It’s your journey. It begins when you shut your door and step out into the world. You can see a small part of the path ahead of you, but despite your planning, you cannot see further than that. ( I tell children about this when I visit schools ; I liken the photograph below to the process of allowing yourself to write a story. You can see the first part, but the remainder winds off enticingly into the forest.) Trust your feet to carry you forwards, and open your senses to all the winter world has to give you.

 This is one of the pictures that didn’t make it into the final book. in fact, I don’t even think I offered it to my publishers, preferring to keep it to myself. You can see the rough pencil marks and un-rubbed out bits, but there’s something very child-like about the dragon – his pelican bib and expectant claws are, dare I say, endearing? However, the little human is wearing a welder’s mask, tongs and gloves- she’s not taking any risks with accidental snorts of flame.

She’s offering the giant beast a madeleine. This is a Proustian moment (if that doesn’t make me sound like a complete tosser… ) This is a precious memory she’s handing over in the hopes that – I have no idea what she’s hoping will happen to that memory. It’ll be cleansed by fire? Turned into ash? Alchemised into gold? I drew it because I have a quote from Proust pinned to the wall above my drawing board and I wanted to illustrate it.

Forgive me while I mangle Proust. I think the quote goes something like ‘Griefs, at the moment when they change into ideas, lose some of their power to injure the heart.’ Sorry, Marcel. But it illustrates what I was doing when I was drawing the pictures for Night Shift. It wasn’t self-therapy. It was trying to take the dross, the base metal of the experience of depression and turn it into something valuable, something that might help other injured hearts find their way.

Of course, the experience of actually drawing what it felt like to hit rock bottom was beyond weird. I’d open up my studio in the morning, and there, on the easel, waiting for me, would be one of the humungous illustrations in progress.

Nostrils flaring, wings outspread, there was my monster in black and white. I could only take a few days of this and I’d have to cover my illustration over and go do something else. A fluffy bunny perhaps? A dear little penguin. Ahhhhhh, that’s better. Then the monster called, and I carried on. When I finished an illustration, I added it to the growing pile, but without any idea of what the growing pile was for. From time to time, I’d show friends and family what I was doing and we’d all suck air through our teeth in a fashion beloved of car mechanics or school nurses. As in – ffffffff that’s going to cost you.  Or – yikes, that’s a bit of an owie.

Being a writer though means that you spend rather too many of your waking hours trying to make sense of things through the medium of story. And the pile of drawings were no different. Obviously they were charting a journey of sorts, but what route map was that journey taking? Reminded of my inability to read maps ( I am a legend in that respect) I decided to dispense with an order, a map or anything like a framework and simply drew how I felt.

Simply.If anyone wonders what the little squiggly bits on the cover of Night Shift are, they’re spent matches. Beating back the darkness, one Swan Vesta at a time.

One small thing to lighten the load – Spring is already on its way. Bulbs are pushing through the black earth, tree branches are slowly swelling, prior to bud break. The Earth turns towards the sun again, and although we don’t sense it yet, the nights are getting shorter. Go outside  just before twilight, maybe hunting for crocuses poking through the soil and while you do, have a listen to the birdsong. They’re not in full  and glorious chorus yet, but here in Scotland, they’re certainly tuning up. Who knew that robins could sing so sweetly? They know the light is returning. Birds are a reminder that nothing stays the same, light follows darkness and seasons turn. They’re seizing this day.

Today is what is sometimes referred to as a book birthday. Being the mother of five children, I prefer to imagine it as the day a book is born. Being the book’s mumma, today I should be sitting up in bed or perching carefully on a bag of frozen peas ( too much information?) or reclining on something comfortable with my newborn either cradled in my arms or in someone else’s. There might even be flowers and chocolate within reach. And probably some prunes, she said, darkly.

There have been so many book birthdays over the years. Some have passed with nothing so much as a pause in the onward flow of  book deadlines ; others we’ve celebrated by taking a bottle of something fizzy up a hill and finding a secret river or a sheltered hollow to consume it along with a picnic. On other book birthdays, I’ve been out on The Road, living out of a suitcase and visiting small children in a variety of schools, libraries and lit festivals round the UK. Every one different in its own way.

Today’s book birthday is an altogether different beast. Before, my books were fiction. Well..inasmuch as any writer is capable of teasing out the threads of their own life from the yarn  they’re spinning. Sometimes I can only see why I wrote what I did many years after the event. Sometimes it takes a dedicated PhD student to pick apart my texts and offer them, dissected, back to me before the penny drops. Ah, I’ll think, that’s why I wrote that bit. And at times, that same penny drops as I’m standing up there, babbling in front of a group of small children.

For instance, I offer you the menopausal Mr Wolf, a self-portrait if ever there was one. Needless to say, as soon as I spotted the likeness, I blurted out my findings in front of a class of bemused five-year-olds. Thankfully, they hadn’t a clue what I was on about, but their teachers did.

However, I know that ‘Night Shift’, published today, isn’t fiction. It may have dragons, but it’s as near as dammit an illustrated version of what happened to me when I first encountered depressive illness.

First time round, I was prescribed the anti-depressant amitriptyline. I have no idea in what dosage, but it was sufficient to stop my panic attacks ( see previous post, Night Shift : 2), stem the feelings of dread and put me into a merciful sleep. Deep, sticky, dreamless sleep. Sleep from which I awoke into a grey fog. Soon, I was so far from the ‘me’ I once was that I was convinced I’d never be her again. That girl/woman had turned into a shambling, sexless thing ; a thing with no ability to create any more, no interest in anything at all, a thing that merely existed to eat and sleep. Every day for months, I took my little boy to school and crawled back to bed with a large packet of digestive biscuits. I tried to read, but the words slipped off the inside of my head and got lost somewhere in the biscuit crumbs. I tried to cry, but nothing came out. I hid from everyone, didn’t answer the phone and sank deeper into something that nobody seemed to understand. Counselling wasn’t on offer, so I didn’t know that it might have helped. There weren’t any self-help books around, so I didn’t realise that the simplest things might have made a difference.

My mother, determined that I shouldn’t give in to depression and throw away all the hard work I’d done to get a degree and a post-grad, bludgeoned me into accepting a post as lecturer at the same Art College I’d recently graduated from. To her, this was the highest accolade imaginable ; a safe job in academia ranking far  above the riskier strategy of becoming an artist. I lasted four weeks. The tears did come. It was utter torture not only to pretend to be normal, but to try and prepare and deliver classes to twenty gorgeous, all-of-life-before-them first year students. I felt like the worst fraud imaginable. I wasn’t an artist ; I was a thing of no use whatsoever. Even resigning my post didn’t make me feel better.

Back I went to the digestive biscuits. I ballooned in weight. When I’d first been diagnosed with depression, I’d been hovering around a worrying six and a half stones. Now, I weighed  fourteen. My partner, a primary school teacher who’d been holding the household together in the absence of the-me-I-once-was decided it was time to bail. He’d had enough. I was sad, but not as sad as I could have been ; the depression made the whole break-up feel as if it was taking place underwater. I was drowning anyway, what difference did it make if the water was just over my head or fathoms deep?

The day he left, that night, making tea for my little boy and I, the full weight of what had happened hit me. I had no money. The rent was due, I had no job, my partner was gone, I was ugly inside and out and there was nothing whatsoever to look forward to. I went through the motions of supper, bath time, book and bed for my little boy. Alone at last, I shook out every single pill I had onto a bit of paper, reckoning there was more than enough to do the job. But the prospect of what would happen to my child stopped me. I was all he had.

I flushed every pill I had down the toilet, including my anti-depressants. This wasn’t because I was feeling particularly heroic, but was because in the leaflet that came with them, I was sure I’d seen something about not taking too many and if so, seeking immediate  medical advice – i.e. they were toxic in high dosages. So they had to go. The next day I pitched up at the nearest Social Security office and made an appointment to see someone. Within a week, I was in the benefits system as a single parent with no visible means of support. I went to see my landlady and stammered out apologies for being late with the rent. She kindly offered to wait. I looked through the vast number of vinyl albums left behind ( temporarily) by my ex and pulled out Simply Red’s debut ( don’t judge me) and dropped the stylus down on ‘Money’s too tight to mention’ and turned the volume up and danced like nobody was looking.

They weren’t. Then I played the whole of Prefab Sprout’s debut album and cried my eyes out. For everything that had gone. For the loss of a good man. For I had no idea what, but just every single thing. The music touched some frozen part of me and allowed something to thaw. I didn’t know then, but I know now that at that point, the light was about to come back in.

A little something to lighten the day – Sometimes, just doing something different can help. Dreary routines performed without really being aware we’re doing them can contribute to that feeling of being stuck in a rut. So – with this in mind, can I suggest that you listen to something different on your daily commute or when you get home or when you’re doing the school run or whenever you have twenty minutes to yourself to fill your ears with newness? Getting up and dancing is not mandatory, you’ll be glad to know. So – if you normally go running to dance highlights from the 80’s ( don’t judge me, again) then try some Wagner. If you’re on the train listening to reggae on your earbuds, try some Nordic Fiddlers Bloc ( yup, that was a plug for something extraordinary) and if you’re listening to local radio with all its incessant adverts for stuff you don’t need ( more sofas, anyone?) on your car radio, then head over to Radio 3 and stick it out through the quivering violins and swelling opera. This is contrast. Black and white. Even if you listen to enough to decide that you loathe it, you’ll have done something you didn’t do yesterday. Off with the grey blahs and on with the new. With this in mind, I’m going to go listen to ‘The Lark Ascending’ on youtube. Some of my family rate it very highly, but to my horror, I cannot remember what it sounds like.