Hope less or ful, or just hanging on in there....

So to HOPE, then...

As I said, Mr Miracle caused me to think about hope. It should be a matter that I've thought about properly before; Jan Wallcraft (sp?) introduced me to the 'herth hope index' when I did a course on research methods and I even followed up the reference at the time. But for some reason it's only when I'm afflicted that I take things seriously.

I have been, when it comes to motivation and energy and inspiration, like a schoober diver (sp?) caught 30 feet down under water with a foot tangled up in ocean weeds pulling him down and an oxygen short fall. Slightly different actually - the man (or woman) in question I imagine would be struggling visibly to get to the surface for a lung full of air. My action is to stop struggling almost immediately, indeed, the very symptom of the problem is my lack of movement, my lack of effort, my lack of apparent CAUSE for the dying....

Of course, this dying, this airlessness, is not permanent. It feels permanent. It feels as if nothing will -- or can -- save me. It's not a bad day, hair or otherwise. Nothing in particular needs to create this state of affairs. That is - nothing, in particular, really has everything to do with these affairs.. Affairs, that is, with death, or dying, or what we tend to assume is involved in that state, that nothing of it all..

Oh yes, the truly depressed individual can actually feel jealous of the person fighting for their life under the sea. It isn't empathy of course. It's identifying that struggle, that connection with life in the threat of losing it. Oh joy! To feel pressed against the world in such a vivid way!  There are better more enjoyable ways to be alive, but few so ecstatic to survive.

All speculation of course, of the diver, almost obscene the way I make so light of his plight. Well, it's no worse than to make light of mine, you know, because without hope there is no life worth mentioning.

Please notice that I brought hope back into the equation. You see that the diver doesn't have time to ask herself if there is time for hope, she just struggles for life. Were she depressed she would probably be relieved of the ailment temporarily to save her life for more depression., or an unusual kick out of it. Were she thoroughly depressed she would probably fail to 'kick in' with her survival instinct. Not because she wanted to die, just because she wasn't properly alive in the first place.

And hope is what I think fades from view for the depressed person. Hope gives the air its lift, the sky it's heavenly aspect, the grass its lush feel beneath our feet, and the whole world its vibrant colour and kaleidoscopic patterns of business. It fills us with the energy to make the best of ourselves, to feel as if we are worthy of that best and to see others as possible friends, who aren't already.

Chances are that most of us aren't so giddy on high hopes that we feel this dizzy about life most of the time, but nonetheless, hope hides behind our unforced smiles, moreover, it lurks in all our thoughtlessly committed actions and efforts, and indeed our thoughtful ones. Without realising it, our lives depend on hope all along the way.

This at least, is what I believe Mr Miracle was trying to tell me.  He noticed that had no 'spring in my step', no 'flush on my cheeks', no urgency in my gait or rush to tell him about my interests and pursuits. But in the end it was not any of these things that really did it. It was the absence in my eyes, even as I looked at him he saw that I was trapped and caught behind some barrier to connection. Within a few minutes he'd diagnosed a lack of hope.

You can go without food, he said, when you assume that there's food ahead, you can go without company when you look forward to friends, you can go without almost everything in the world and be happy when you assume that your needs are all being met in the abstract, then the immediate circumstances are merely irritations or indicators for action. Because in the definitions of hope I refer  we assume that we incorporate the ability to meet our needs.

When depression descends all this hope departs. Rich or poor we don't want to spend because poverty  lingers in the air. We don't want to wash because we feel cold and dirty and ugly. We don't want to see anyone because we feel worthless and pointless and we have nothing to give to anyone or anything. We don't want to think because our thoughts are so black and ugly and barren. We don't want to move because our bodies feel like sacks of lead. We can't think straight because any thought has to break through a wall of self-accusation and disgust.

Mr Miracle's suggestion was two-fold. One, proceed as if you are heading into a facing wind, keep your head down and keep going; don't think about where you're going just go... the wind will pass eventually. Secondly, bear in mind that this is rooted in a loss of hope. Work on hope, build hope, make a leap of faith because that way the inevitable passing of depression will arrive the sooner for it.

Oh, and have some cold showers. Stay in for 5 minutes, 7 if you can. Get plenty of water on your head.

That's what I'm doing. I had a card yesterday from Anita, that was warming, encouraging, empathic. She hasn't been feeling on top of the world herself but she copes with it from my perspective, much better than I do. And then there are the others who are in a fairly active positive mode at  the moment. I beg your pardon dear reader, if you got this far, but writing is my first port of call by way of pulling myself out of the mire and recently I've been sharing the writing, even if as in this case, it seems wildly inappropriate to do it. I should be writing about R2R show, I should be writing, parading, a spirit of health, wealth and wonder, a spirit of exemplary recoveredness. Instead I offer a trawl through one person's experience of depression, how it descends, how it lifts (Oh I hope!!!) and somehow hope, one more hope, that anyone who reads this will excuse me for lack of reportage and enjoy the meander instead..