When the storm clouds gather

I can feel when a depression is coming. I get restless like a cat who can sense a brewing storm.
The world loses its colour. Everything is starting to fade to grey.
My sleep is filled with nightmares. My concentration is shot to hell.
I can’t focus. Tears are gathering behind my eyes, ready to spill at the slightest provocation.
I can’t read. Dear God, I can’t read, which is my greatest pleasure and favourite way to escape, my (usually) most reliable tool to add comfort and joy and pleasure to my day. When books lose their magic then I know I’m in for a big storm.

I get stuck in the past and anxious about the future. I go over and over words I’ve said and didn’t say, but should have; things I’ve done and didn’t do; about all the people whom I’ve wronged and who have wronged me. I look back at a life that looks like a waste of time from where I’m standing. What’s the point of my existence?

Fortunately, the non-depressed side of me has prepared an emergency bag for times like these. It has made videos and taken photos, written stories and made diary entries, all for an occasion just like this one. It has created a library of happy memories, because it knows that the storm clouds obscure the happy memories first. My brain temporarily erases everything that’s good and only presents everything that’s bad: all my mistakes, all the missed opportunities, all the remorse and fear and ugliness inside me. It shines a strong spotlight on my dark side, casting the good side into impenetrable shadow.

I look at the photos and videos and try to remember how I felt at the time. Was I really happy or did I fake it? Was that the real me, the one that’s laughing and looking joyful, or is this the real me now: the one that’s cynical and dead inside?

My thoughts then turn to the future. And the future is looking bleak. All I can see is death, boredom and a never-ending slog through days that stretch endless and grim. What’s the point of all this effort? We’re all gonna die. And before death, there’s a whole lot of worry, terrible people, disappointment and exhausting, mind-numbing work. What for?

When the storm clouds gather it feels like sitting in a waiting room, where you know you’ll receive bad news when you get called. A part of you wants to delay hearing your name for as long as possible, but because the waiting is unbearable agony you also want it to be over. You can’t decide what’s worse: the waiting or finally getting the bad news?

All you can do when the storm clouds gather is to seek shelter. You grab your emergency kit of supplies that help you survive: the dogs, walking, therapy, antidepressants, warm tea, chocolate, comfort TV. You hunker down, hug the dogs close to you, and you keep repeating the phrase: “Every storm passes. Every storm passes. Every storm passes.”

You remember last time, how you thought you wouldn’t survive, but you did. You remember how the darkness seemed to go on forever, but it didn’t. You remember how it was darkest before the dawn — and how you waited just a bit longer to see that first glorious, welcome, brilliant light.

You remember that you’ve been here before. That you’ve survived every single storm in your life. You remember the sun breaking through the clouds, the rainbow after the storm, the blue sky peeking through the black one.

“Just hold on,” you whisper to yourself.

“Just hold on a little bit longer.”