Black Dog

We recently visited Edinburgh for a long weekend. I might have even posted a few pictures of the most famous man in Scotland (not Alex Salmond - but SIr Walter Scott it appears - surely you mean Sir Walter Raleigh - not-the-literary-or-Scottish-history ed).

Sliding off topic here, but I shall plunge onward...

Whilst waiting for the plane, at the "Cute and Cuddly (™)" Southampton Airport, I picked up a book (OK, OK, when the security guard pointed out that I should also pay for the book I did, just give me a break why don’t cha).

The book, by Matt Haig,  was entitled, “Reasons for staying alive”.

Is there a link between the title of the book and what lay ahead of me in Edinburgh in February? Well, the expectations of the Edinburgh weather were more than met, bitingly cold, windy and wet at times - but apart from that what a lovely city. (We will go again as we did not see anything like enough - but next time when it is a bit warmer. Have to say that the Mediterranean food on offer on Rose Street was superb.)

The point of all this? Well, apart from the trepidation about the weather, Bridget had sinusitis - and my expectation was that our exploration of the city might be curtailed by her ill health (She did recover from this, but only after we had returned); so having some reading matter to hand seemed sensible, as there is only so much daytime TV that I can watch (about 30 seconds in general, unless it contains houses - ed)

(Wandering again, Mr Collins - keeping to the point ed) . 

Ok, so I shall focus now, we were talking about the book.

Well I recognised the name of the author and thought (mistakenly as it turned out) that it was the author of, “I Had  a Black Dog” and “Living WIth a Black Dog”, both in fact written by Matthew Johnstone, that I had bought and read a couple of years ago.

Wrong again it appears Mr Collins (not for the first or even last time - ed)

[Note: Black Dog is an expression referring to Depression - I need to be explicit for my Alaskan reader as there is a great cultural divide between the UK and the US - as Winston Churchill said, “Two great countries divided by a common language”, and it was also Winston Churchill who coined the phrase “Black Dog” (oh neatly done Mr Collins - literary reference abound - ed)]

However, whilst reading the book (yes I did get time to read it in Edinburgh - ed) I came across a passage that struck a deep chord with me. So much so that I welled up with tears. (You can’t put that in your blog - it might show that you are human - ed; strangely there is a book called “Humans”, that is written by Matt Haig - literary ed)

However, the reason that this passage struck a chord was that I had struggled in exactly the same way on a number of occasions over recent years (recent meaning the last decade I suppose - clarity ed). 

If we are going for clarity I would say that I wrestled with and had bouts of Depression my entire life but that is a much longer blog post.

For me it was not the mental dialogue of whether to throw or not throw myself off a cliff (safe to say that had been many a thought from time to time but never got too close to a reality - ed), but to throw or not throw myself in front of a train.

This was a daily occurrence for a number of months (you might think this understandable given that I was working in Slough - just the facts ed).

The station, Burnham (Bucks), one slow stop west of Slough, is on the Paddington to Reading line;  so had (and probably still has - train ed)  a mix of fast and slow trains. The fast trains are a couple of tracks away from the platform, so given their speed and their stopping distance, it would be relatively straightforward to get the timing right and pop down off the platform, walk a few steps across the intervening tracks and into its path.

The driver would have no chance to stop in time, and my reasoning was that being hit by a train at 100+ mph would be instantly fatal and effectively painless (if you look into the maths of our biology, the sensation of being hit would not reach my brain in time to cause pain - Doctor Ed). One of the more interesting (more interesting - are you off your rocker - sanity ed) conundrums was whether where the body would end up, but we shall come to that shortly.

The struggle wasn’t whether I should do this to myself, as that was the logical conclusion to stopping the consistent mental torture of simply being alive; but rather the consequences of this action on the driver, the passengers on the train, the people on the platform, the ambulance staff, the disruption to thousands of other people simply going about their lives; this was above and beyond the terrible upset I would cause to those close to me.

Eventually this daily battle stopped (when I stopped working at Slough, so the daily struggle moved elsewhere - ed).  

You have to realise that this was fought over and over, again and again, day after day whilst waiting for the train; I am not sure I can clearly explain just how mentally and physically debilitating (do you mean wearing, distressing - literary allusion ed) this is.

The conclusion that was reached each and every tiresome day was  that I thought that it would be wrong of me, and that I had no right  to cause distress and upset to so many other people. If the conclusion had been different you wouldn't be reading this now....

Possibly the strangest thought was about where the body would end up. 

There is a row of houses whose gardens back on to the track and one of them had what was probably a big dog (well it had a deep and loud bark, probably an Alsatian - crufts ed) that seemed to be continually barking. It was barking in the morning when I got off the train, and when I arrived back at the station in the evening it would still be barking.

Now maybe I am being unfair on the dog here, maybe it barked in the morning due to the noise of all the people getting on and off trains, and was then quiet for the rest of the day, then started barking again as everyone came in to the station in the evening. 

If there is no-one there to here it - does the dog barking make a sound? (Note this can be proved by use of a recording device - science ed)

So my major concern about the body, was that it might end up in the garden with the dog and that the dog would then attack and eat the body (whoa there cowboy - you are talking about ending your life and one of your major concerns is whether your dead body might be gnawed at by a dog - there ain’t no sanity clause ed). 

The reason, I recall, that I was so concerned about this was that the body (wouldn’t be my body - as “I” wouldn’t be in it anymore - clarity ed) would have to be identified - and having a dog gnawed body (but what about the damage done by being hit by a fast moving train?  - science ed) would be upsetting to the identifier. This would more than likely be my wife, Bridget. This would be totally unacceptable behaviour on my part, so I could not end my life that way.

The struggle at the station ended (given I am writing this the dog never got a chance to gnaw - maybe I should go back to Burnham and throw the dog a bone - as you could argue the barking dog helped save my life?), with me stopping working in Slough.

Sadly, the struggle with depression continued. 

There were more crises and in time I shall write about them. There is so much more I could write about (do it do it do it - James T Kirk ed).

But this flow has stopped.

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There are questions about why was I suffering from depression (in my mind, it never goes away, just gets less pressing shall we say, perhaps a term for it might be recovering depressive?). 

If there were a Depressives Anonymous organisation, then I would be standing up at the meeting, giving my name and stating, “I have depression but I have not attempted to end my life for X years”, and receive a round of applause…

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but then it is all in my head, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t real (thanks to Dumbledore for that one)

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There is help to be had when you are suffering from depression. The hardest part is allowing yourself to access it.

You do deserve to be better, you can be better.

You are not alone in this.

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A single helpful link:  The Samaritans

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Naturally the Samaritans are not the only people that can help. But having a choice of many would be a reason to call none. Picking up the phone and dialling the number is incredibly hard, so hard that I never managed it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give it ago.