Depression

Again and again people say (or imply)  that depression is the same as sadness.  It isn't.  It isn't the same as grief, either.  Or loss.  Or unhappiness.  Of course all those things can lead to depression, and you can feel them at the same time as you are depressed, but they are not depression.  Believe me, I know.
 
Depression is the absence of 'colour'.  It is 'greyness'.  Everything seems too much trouble.  There's no point in doing things.  There's no purpose to life, no meaning in life.  There's no joy, no ecstasy, no bliss.  There's just grey.

Sadness and grief and loss and unhappiness are not grey.  They are 'coloured'.  You feel them.  And how!  They hurt, sometimes terribly, and deeply, and for a long time.  There is pain.  Depression is not the same as pain.

What is true though, is that you cannot 'snap out' of any of them.  That offensive exhortation by the happy (and cretinous) is useless and only shows the speaker's ignorance and lack of insight.  With luck and time and relentless hard work they may in the end go away.  In my case, my grief and loss have diminished.  But low grade depression remains.  In effect, the joy has gone out of life.  It's not a lethal thing, I think.  But it makes it hard to care about so many things.  And it leaves you with so little energy!  When I think of how much energy and get-up-and-go I had when I was younger!

So tonight,  to ward off the blahs, I will watch an episode of Poirot and drink a glass or two of wine.

Bugger!  I feel better already!  :-)

Relaxant

I've just watched another Poirot.  This one was Sad Cypress, nicely done, with perfect period style, and David Suchet consummate as ever as Poirot.

But I wanted to draw your attention to Rupert Penry-Jones who plays one of the leads.  Handsome bloke, straight of course, but still.

I couldn't get a pic from the film, in which he is rather dishy, so this will have to do.

Saturday Night Thoughts

It's late at night here.  Late-ish, anyway.  And I've just watched a Hercule Poirot and imbibed several glasses of champagne which has left me a little,  well maudlin is the best word.

Alcohol hasn't always affected me like that.  Once it made me happy, and sometimes, when I forget, it still does.  But there are so many wounds, so many scars.  It becomes harder to be joyful.

One mustn't grumble and complain, since it's unseemly, as well as offensive (I have so much: a roof over my head, food and drink in my belly, a wife who loves me, children, and enough money to buy books and records).  Yet once it was easier to bounce back from the stumbling blocks life throws up.  Now I know that the world is far from perfect and in fact never will be perfect.  I used to believe it could be made better, that things could be improved.  Now I don't.   I miss those whom I loved who have died or gone away.  I miss my youth, my good health, my joie de vivre.

All this makes hope harder to hold on to.  And without hope, what point is there?