I take Skinny down through the fields on our usual walk completely oblivious to my surroundings only aware that despite the cold, it is a beautiful sunny morning.  My mind is occupied with a million thoughts, tumbling over themselves, spinning round and round coming full circle only to go round and round again.  I think about how useless I’ve been all my life at earning money and keeping jobs and tell myself I should never have had children since I can’t look after myself never mind them.  Tears well up behind my eye lids and my chest gets tighter and tighter, I struggle to breathe.  After a few minutes I begin to panic, the struggle to get my breath is worsening, I feel a tight band strangling my lungs.  My mind tells me I am feeling acute stress, I have felt this way before.  I need to release it somehow and I stop walking, turn towards the hedge and cry.  I pray I don’t bump into anyone and glance around me.  There is a tractor spraying something that I hadn’t noticed before but with relief I note he is too far away to see my tears.  I stand there alone, Skinny unaware of my turmoil is happily visiting her usual haunts and I am grateful to let the strain wash out of me on my own.  The tight band relaxes a little and I can breathe easier. 

I’d taken the boys to the bus stop earlier to catch a bus into town.  On the way, the younger Teen had made comments which, over sensitive as I feel, I had taken to heart.  I had my sun glasses on and neither Teen noticed my despair; I never let them see my tears.  I left them and realised I had to get some shopping from the supermarket.  I hoped I wouldn’t see anyone I knew.  I always hope I won’t.  I hope I won’t because I know they will ask me how I am, how the Teens are and how The Other is and I can’t bear to be asked this because I am not ok, the Teens are not ok and The Other is never ok.  I am just picking out a tin of cat food when someone taps me on the shoulder.  It is an old friend, a friend I haven’t seen in a while as I no longer see many people nowadays.  All my old friends catch me at the supermarket.  It’s where we all shop at one time or another.  She asks the usual questions, apologises for not being in touch for so long, as they all do and I say it’s fine, we’re all busy aren’t we and yes, where does the time go, not to worry.  The platitudes roll off my tongue, the smile is fixed on my face and my emotions are under control.  I move away intact, no embarassing scenes or breakdowns but a cloud of strain is building and when I finally get out into the sunny cold air, it escapes.

I was told by a doctor years ago that I was suffering from depression.  I didn’t need her to tell me that, I already knew.  I do not have clinical depression or bi-polar depression as some people do.  I have depression from a life time of low pay, no pay financial difficulties.  I have depression because my life hasn’t turned out very well, because I had a child who was more than difficult to raise diagnosed with ADHD and because I recognised some of his troubles in myself.  I was depressed when The Other became ill and everything fell on me when I felt least able to cope.  I feel depressed that I haven’t done a good job with my children, that my elder Teen is struggling and not making a good life for himself.  I’m depressed that I have been a bad tempered person for so long that my younger Teen doesn’t much like me.  I feel depressed that I haven’t been able to create a normal family life for the Teens in recent years.  I feel depressed that despite my willingness to work hard for anyone, I never really succeed and find myself in situations where I am taken advantage of.  I feel depressed that I feel depressed when I see that compared to other people in other parts of the world, I am not so badly off.

But…there is light at the end of the tunnel.  The cards I put up begging looking for work have produced a tiny, weeny response.  Someone out there wants my help, an old man that can’t manage his house wants a housekeeper/cleaner.  It is a tiny branch held out to me, a branch that could start me on the road to better things.  A few more branches offered to fill up a few more days for other people or local businesses is all I ask for now.  I am too fragile to take on any serious work but a gradual increase that will help to bring back my ’self’, in time will enable me to climb back up out of the darkness.