This can be a very useful revelation. I began the chapter with an example of a sentence that was not true, yet contained a truth. It illustrates an important principle, namely that most people are not demons yet they contain demons. In this case there is enormous pressure of temptation to identify with one’s black despair and see it as ‘me’ rather than something that visits me and departs again. Instead I encourage the depressed person to detach from the condition – and remembering that the condition has come and gone in the past is a very great help towards achieving such detachment.
If depression is a recurring problem, it deserves also to be addressed in those times of relative joy between visitations. When feeling good, it is tempting to turn one’s back on the depression of yesterday and throw oneself into life again ‘making up for lost time’ in a frenzy of fun. Instead I suggest you invite depression to join you at times of hope: when feeling confident and optimistic, think back to the arguments you used to convince yourself that there was no future, that you were a loser and there was no hope. Don’t work yourself back into that state of depression, simply converse with your memory of that state, take its arguments seriously and give them the respect of a serious refutation. Take those arguments apart gently. And next time you are depressed, think back to that inner conversation and invite it in turn to participate in your depression.
Note my wording: when I say that the depression “deserves also to be addressed” I am beginning to anthropomorphise the state. Then I invite it to join a conversation. What I am in effect doing is seeing the condition as a demon that visits rather than simply a change that comes over one.
But how much respect should one allow for such an unwelcome visitor as this?
The answer came to me when visiting a friend in a nearby parish. As we chatted over tea he looked out of the open door and said “Oh God, no. Not Jules.” A moment later a small, fussily dressed old man entered and proceeded to bore us with his conversation until my friend invented a dinner date as reason to flee his presence. In truth, I did not find Jules boring at first—he had some interesting views on literature and a passion for first editions—but it became clear that my friend had heard them all before many times and the boredom soon rubbed off on me.
I’ve met this in several communities: the presence of an idiot, bore or nuisance that everyone dreads and groans as they approach. Linda Snell, the interfering busybody dramatised in The Archers – BBC radio’s favourite soap opera—fits the bill, though she is far from being a bore and much more of an irritant. But I’ve also noted that such people play a definite role in the community. Everyone laments their existence but, if the character dies or goes away, they would equally be missed. After all, if Linda Snell really was of no value to The Archers, she could have been written out of the script long ago. Sometimes we need someone to complain about, or to blame: “Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday. I was intending to come over but ruddy Jules turned up – you know he goes on – and that was the end of my afternoon.”
Depression can play that sort of role: an unwelcome guest yet a part of your life ecology; a time to slow down, turn inward, tend your wounds... even an excuse for time off work.
Winston Churchill named his depression as his “black dog” and I like to believe that his very phrasing gave him enough detachment to help cope with the state. For that is indeed the approach that has helped myself and other melancholics to handle our periods of gloom.
First: grant it the status of a living being, a demon. Second afford it the modicum of respect that goes with such a status: treat it as a visitor—even though unwelcome—and talk to it. In many cultures a guest always has status once allowed past the door. Even if you then discover that he is your worst enemy, you are bound to preserve hospitality until he leaves —ok, then you kill him.
As a youth I was the sort of person folks turned to when feeling blue. I had a number of such ‘foul weather friends’ who would turn up to be comforted when things were bad, but who had no time for me when they were feeling good, and would rush off to enjoy more extraverted and with-it company. I sometimes resented that. So don’t treat depression in that way, but remember it sometimes when things are good and invite it to debate the pleasures of life as I suggested above. See how well its negative arguments work when you are on a roller – and remember and remind it of your discussion next time you are again feeling low.
Am I trying to give you a ‘cure’ for depression? No, rather more a solution: a solvent to dissolve that sharp boundary between times of gloom and times of joy and thus discover a spectrum of possibilities instead of a binary discontinuity.
I, for one, have learnt to enjoy somewhat my times of gloom and low energy. I liken them to a sort of “soul sauna” in which I can wallow on my own and sweat out life’s surplus. These dark days seldom last beyond the next sunny morning.
Admittedly there are others I know who began from the same position as myself but went down the path of medication. With the force of medical opinion behind them they can argue that depression is a clinical condition subject to understood and ever-improving remedies. I would never try to deny their approach, and I am sure there are levels of depression so severe that the full comforts of professional expertise should be available to address them.
My plea to those who started from the same position as myself is simply to recognise that there are other approaches worth exploring.
SICKNESS
What has been said about depression could apply to a number of minor illnesses.
I recall my days as a computer programmer in the mid 1970s when one had to spend boring ages at a typewriter terminal. I had already conceived the idea of a VDU, so it was all the more tedious having to type commands and wait for the computer to type out a response.
One day I had flu, and realised that I was actually better at the job in that state because my energy was so low that I did not get bored and fidgety. The experience transmuted my experience of flu from one where the condition was simply an illness—i.e. a defect to be corrected as soon as possible—to an understanding that flu could be seen as a condition where I was less well fitted to everyday life but actually better fitted for certain specific activities.
I am writing about the sort of flu where you lie still in bed and actually feel quite good. It is only when you try some frantic activity like raising a finger or turning over in bed that the illness is felt. That sort of flu can be brilliant for meditating upon Life and taking stock. I have learnt to thank it for visiting me and, to some extent, even negotiated less inconvenient times for its visits.
And as for my memories of my prep-school: being sick was the only time one could get away from all that frantic timetable of bells and lessons and actually read a few detective stories.
In terms of demonology then, it becomes reasonable to address minor ailments—from sneezes, through head and back aches to bouts of flu—as tiresome guests who might actually have something to teach us. So you can lie there and ask the ailment why it has come, whether it has a purpose, and whether it appreciates that it is not altogether welcome in your life. Note especially that last point: one of the excuses people have for not addressing demons is that they believe it means moving from total condemnation of the condition to fawning acceptance. Not at all: you can be quite straight with a demon in explaining why it is unwelcome, as long as you are prepared to listen to its reply.
I have learnt quite a bit about myself and how to regulate my own health by talking to my illnesses as pesky demons with a point to make. There are also times when I’m simply ill like anyone else—and if you think that funny, or a blot upon my thesis, I would reply that even the best inter-human relationships have been known to break down or go through bad patches, but that is no reason to give up on them.
NOSTALGIA
Here’s an example where the personification process is clearer and easier to visualise, so I’ll weave a little more fiction into it to make the story more vivid.
He was the product of the sixties: a star who had rocketed to fame while still a teenage hippy. His manager had called him back from a Caribbean island idyll,