Depression

I awoke in a place where I never had been, where all my life’s years seemed no help to me. I felt that the stem of my mind had been sheared as I sunk way down deep into that murky sea. The darkness, the burden, the weight, the despair, what ever the reason, out shadowed the light. My soul screamed within me, how did I get there? but I knew in my heart that no help was in sight. When gloom was upon me and doubts all around, and my mind was in anguish and terrible pain. When I should have gone mad, and give up life’s long fight, I knew I was losing, and may not ‘live’ again. When desolate and torn, down a bottomless pit, and there’s nobody there that can help you to see. You have but two choices, give up and remain, or conquer your feelings and try to get free. A small voice, a whisper, then spoke in my mind, and struggled to reason and bring back my will. Then slowly, so slowly it showed me the way to find a frail path, through the mire up the hill. This way was so fraught it was hard to stay true, there seemed no release from my nightmarish plight. But stirring within me, the part that meant life, raised up from my innards and took up the fight. When struggling upwards I often felt, ‘why’, had I really the reason, or strength to succeed? It would be far more simple to fade out and die, but pride and esteem were the tools that did lead. I have several friends who fell down there before, who’ve trod where I suffered in hell and in vain. Alas, none of them have returned from their trap, have ever got back on ‘their’ pathway again. Pure logic and sense, both knocked hard at my door, my family who loved me, my friends were still there. This gave me the strength to see out from my night, and helped heal my soul, then I started to care. The process of healing was painful and slow, no medicines or drugs, but the essence of life. The hard choice of living to see my tomorrows, and share in the love of my children and wife. I again live my life, and enjoy it to the full, though our bodies are weak and our minds can be ill. But the ‘meaning of life’ and the part that is you must never be compromised; say what you will. Live every day and enjoy all that you meet, but be ready for ‘heartache and pain’. And pray that you’ll be able to use all that is ‘you’, to rise from the ashes and live life again. Ivor G Davies