Let's Talk - Part 2

The sound of 'This Means War' by Nickelback fills the room. How I've grown to loathe that song. I pull the pillow over my head and press down in the hope that it’ll drown out Chad Kroeger's voice. Don’t get me wrong, I love Nickelback, but having them wake me up every damn morning I don’t like so much. I don’t like it at all in fact.

I’ve given up trying to drown out the music. I reach down onto the floor and pick up my iPhone. I slide my finger from left to right. The music stops. I breathe a sigh of relief and lay my head back onto the pillow. I know I have ten more minutes until the electric guitar of the introduction to ‘This Means War’ starts again, telling me that I really do need to get up or I will be late.

The sun is streaming in through the windows. I don't close the curtains. Although I prefer it, being in the dark too long plays havoc with my migraines.

I sigh again and pull my covers over my head, closing my eyes. I begin to slowly drift off into a world that contains all of my dreams and nightmares. I wonder which one I'll have today… a dream or a nightmare.

I question myself why I’m bothering to wonder that when I already know the answer. Sure, with the pills I have I have a better chance of having plain weird dreams than anything else. But I’d say around 90-95% of the dreams I have are nightmares.

As I slip deeper and deeper into unconsciousness I am relaxed. The dream seems to have started off pleasantly. I’m walking through a field. Grass all around me as far as the eye can see. No trees or flowers. Just lush green grass. I look up and the sky is bright blue. I close my eyes and smile. Maybe I was wrong after all.

A series of loud bangs prove me wrong. Gunfire. I open my eyes and look down to the floor to see the lush green grass melt away into hot dry sand. I slowly raise my head to see there's no grass anymore. Just sand. Sand and bodies. Gunshots and screams fill the air.

I look back to see I’m wearing boots and camo pants. I look at my chest to see I’m in full combat uniform with my weapon in my hands. I raise my head and look dead ahead of me. My eyes lock onto a child’s. Shit. Not this again.

I find myself wishing I could hear Nickelback again. In this moment I don’t believe I've appreciated them anywhere near enough. The guitar riff is nowhere to be heard.

Fuck! Eyes still on the boy, I see him edge forward towards me. I know exactly where this is going and what is going to happen. I’ve had this dream way too many times before for me to think I can change the outcome. But, for some reason, it never stops me from trying. The boy is bleeding. He begins to fall forward…

Just as I find my feet I take off running towards him. I pass bodies strewn over the sand, pools of red surrounding them. I hear my comrades covering me with suppressive fire. Dropping my weapon as I fall onto my knees I check his heart rate. It’s slow and weak. His t-shirt is soaked in blood at the front in a long line. He must have been shot. He’s just a kid.

I rip his t-shirt open to see if I can use it to compress the wound in the hope to stop the blood but what I see stops me in my tracks. Small horizontal metal lines untidily placed from the top of his sternum to his belly button. Industrial staples. My hand comes up to the back of my head and grips my hair. Grab. Pull. Release. Grab. Pull. Release. Grab. Pull. Release.

My other hand is trying to stop the blood flow. I shake myself out of my shock and put both my hands to work on stopping the blood flow. I hear him desperately mumbling but I don't understand the language too well. The only words I manage to make out are ‘Please’ and ‘Help’.

I nod to him and reply “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. We’ll have you up and about in no time”. I smile, even though I know I’m lying through my teeth. I could have told him I was David Beckham and it wouldn’t have mattered. He has no idea what I was saying but I keep my tone soft, and I try to smile and reassure him. Part of me realises that I’m more telling him it’ll be okay to reassure myself rather than him. I know he’s going to die. I know I can’t stop it. There’s too much blood. But have to try.

He’s starting to go really pale, almost grey in colour. He’s bleeding out, and he’s not doing it slowly either. “No, no, stay with me” I look into his deep brown eyes and realise he’s no longer looking back at me. He’s gone.

“Shit!” I close my eyes and look down at my hands covered in blood. I open my eyes again and see that his hand on top of mine and he’s holding something. It’s a small fabric Union Jack patch and an American Cent.

I take one last look in the boy’s eyes and shake my head as I place my hand over his forehead. Bringing it down to the bottom of his nose, closing his eyelids at the same time. “I hope you find Peace buddy”. The words come as barely a whisper.

There is a rip of Velcro as I open my pocket and take out a small pair of wire cutters. I start to cut each stable from top to bottom. As I part the skin I am met by a truly horrific sight. A device. A bomb.

Who could do this to a child?

Just as both my hands reach my hair and grab, the guitar riff to ‘This Means War’ meets my ears. How fitting. I wake up with a start and sit up in bed. “Thank God” I say between breaths, wiping my brow of sweat. I swipe my finger from left to right on my iPhone. As soon as I see the time, I know I'm already running late. Somehow find the energy to get up and walk into the bathroom, start the shower, strip off and climb in.

Ironically, this happens most days. Some people believe I’m lazy. Trust me, I’m not. My depression makes it incredibly difficult for me to function on a day to day basis like other people do. I find it hard to wake up and find the energy to get out of bed. I have almost no motivation to do absolutely anything.

When I manage to get to sleep I never want to wake up. Even though I love it, sometimes I don’t even have the motivation to pick up a pen and put it to paper. But when inspiration hits? That’s when nothing is stopping me. With anything else? I’m screwed.

Unless I force myself to eat, I go days without eating. Even when I’m thirsty, I don’t drink anything. To the point where I had bad headaches due to dehydration. Eventually,I force myself to eat and drink. I force myself to eat or drink. I force myself to do other regular things that ‘regular’ people do.

Unless you suffer from depression, you can never understand just how difficult it is for me to do normal things like hold down a job or maintain any kind of relationship, whether it be with family, friends, or more.

Twenty-four minutes or so after getting into the shower, and I’m already dried off and dressed. I grab my stuff and start the journey through the snow to my appointment.

A few doors down the sound of a car door slamming is mistaken by my brain to be a gunshot. I crouch down and look around me to see a familiar face. She smiles a broad smile and lifts her hand to wave at me. I wave back, pretend for a second that I’m tying my shoelaces, then stand up and begin my journey again.

Let's Talk - Part 1 (In support of Mind's 'Time to Change' campaign)

People describe it differently. Most people say it's like a mist or a fog that descends all around them. Some even describe it as being a darkness. Sure, at first, for me it was just like that. Then it changed. For the worse. I suppose the easiest way to describe it would be to say that where there is light, for those who are unaffected, there is darkness for the others. Sure, it would be far-fetched to assume that darkness is all there is, but sometimes, sometimes, it is all there is.

Sure, there are times when things are 'normal'. As normal as normal can be anyway. 'Glimmers of Hope' I guess you could call them. But, I believe, a perfect comparison could be made between the reaction I have to the Glimmers of Hope and something quite morbid. A lot of people reading this will be familiar with the notion of losing somebody close to them.

If it's not too painful, try to cast your mind back to a time you were grieving. A time where it was just too painful to think about or talk about, and especially too painful to allow yourself to be happy. Only, sometimes we can't help but let something make us happy. That's what we all yearn for after all.

Imagine a moment where you've been happy after that loss happened. Then you catch yourself smiling like you've never smiled before, reality hits you like a sledgehammer round the head. You remember what you lost. A pain hits you right in your chest. Lump in your throat. Stomach churning. You feel sick with guilt that you could have let yourself forget.

That's what it feels like when 'the darkness descends'. Only, with me, it's not a mist or a fog. It's like a thick dark grey plume of smoke. As if I'm in a room and there's a fire right outside the door. I can't see. I can't breathe. I'm literally choking. The walls are closing in to quick for me to try make them stop. There's nowhere to go either.

However, it's not all 'doom-and-gloom'. There are moments of inexplicable anger. Undisputed rage. Judging by my past, it would be easy to say where it all comes from, but the truth is... This much rage? The way it bubbles away inside of me, festers, in fact... That's another symptom of depression.

I guess it effects everyone in a different way.

Depression destroys people. Not only that, but it destroys families, marriages and relationships. It completely destroys lives. In fact, it ends them.

I know exactly when I'm starting to get stressed out to the point of breaking down and the room starts to fill up with smoke. My breathing increases along with my heart rate. My complexion lightens. My skin becomes pale and clammy. My palms become hot and sweaty. Every little sound is amplified until I am unable to distinguish anyone's voice.

An amount of un-required energy makes my body tremble. Adrenaline coursing through my veins, carried by around 8 pints of blood that my heart is frantically pumping around my body. I look down at my hands and it's only then that I realise they're clenched tight into fists, as well as my jaw. My lungs fill with air. The same air that I force out of my nose ten seconds later, all the while keeping my jaw clenched. Before I know it, my hand comes up.

Not to wrap my fist around someone's chin, but to wrap it around my hair and pull. Grab. Pull. Release. Grab. Pull. Release. Grab. Pull. Release. I've done it so much since my depression got this bad that I'm surprised I'm not bald in some spots by now. Sometimes when I've pulled and opened up my hand, a few hairs are left clinging to the skin around my fingers.

I know I should stop doing it before it's too late, but I can't. I don't even know I'm doing it until I see the strands of hair on my fingers. I suppose it's my very own personal comfort blanket.

People see me as being a miserable bastard, probably because I always seem to be in a mood. What they don't realise is, I don't mean to be. I can't help how I'm feeling. Ever since I can remember I've had this internal struggle going on. I try and fight it but to be quite honest, I don't even know what I'm fighting against! All I know is I've always felt like there was a part of me missing.

I don't trust people easily. In fact, I'm very sceptical of the intentions of anyone who approaches me. I've always been that way so I doubt it's anything to do with depression, though I bet it doesn't help the situation. I suppose the most appropriate word I could use to describe it would be 'paranoia'.

This paranoia effects my behaviour in more ways than I have the time or energy to express to you on paper right now. So I'll mention just two. It determines what seat I take on a bus, or in a room (if I choose to even get on a bus let alone sit down on it in the first place). It also inhibits my social skills. I mean, if I put my mind to it, I guess I could make friends easily. I just prefer not to. I don't let people in close enough to hurt me (of course, there have been exceptions, but just as my theory predicts, they've ended up hurting me - or I've beat them to it and hurt them before they could hurt me).

My therapist tells me that this kind of behaviour has been learned (I'm assuming as part of my primal survival instinct) and put to use as a defence mechanism to protect me from the things in my past. She's made me realise that these behaviours might not be needed as much as they used to be and that maybe I should find a way to tone them down a little. But it's just not that simple. Once the darkness descends, and the room has filled with smoke... Nothing. Nothing is simple.