This is now my second blog post on my recent experience of depression. Blogging can end up feeling thoroughly self indulgent and narcissistic, “Look at me!” I shriek. “Listen to what I have to say. I’m important!” But I do hope people will read my words and be interested in and by them.

There’s a quote by one of Freud’s followers, Lou Andreas Salome, that runs “Should we not be moved rather than chilled by the knowledge that he might have attained his greatness only through his frailties?”. That’s a little counterintuitive in our current society where maximising “greatness” seems to hold sway. I’m always irritated when I go to my gym and look at the pictures on the walls. They inevitably seem to be images of fit, trim 20 year olds all working out with huge enthusiasm. As a less than trim 70 year old, these images annoy me. I’m much more impressed by the wheelchair users I see around me who, despite multiple issues, still put in an hour’s training.

To follow on from my piece about depression last week , it does seem that whilst darkness can be painful, we can grow there. My depression has now lifted and I can finally see a technicolour world again. I’m left with an appreciation of Life. Each day I wake up without depression is a blessing. And I try not to take Life for granted. (It feels wearingly easy to sound naively optimistic when talking about pain. “Everything is for the best in this the best of all possible worlds.” Fortunately nobody has risked making that comment to me. I fear my response would be short and sharp! ) 

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But we can learn from and in suffering. During my spell of depression my wife was brilliant with me. She managed to convey a sense of how loved I was along with a confidence that I would get better. Others managed to do something similar. Thanks! I hope you get enough love and care in your turn when the lights go out.

When doing my preparation for this blog, I found this quote by Barbara Brown Taylor, an American priest - “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.”

That resonates with me! It’s my friend Salome again telling us that, somehow, suffering can be a gift. ( Although that’s sometimes difficult to hear.) To end I can only quote from the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus is recorded as saying “ Let him who has ears to hear, hear” Matt. 11:16

(thanks for the Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash)