Short Tales; Including the Good, the Bad and the Ugly ...by Simon

The good, the bad and the ugly
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Notes from my underground

My journey with depression has been a long one and I have come to realise that there is no overnight ‘fix’, but I am learning, more and more, that it is only me who is in control of how I continue to take on the darkness inside.

One of the things which really puts it in perspective is when you get help but then must go it alone after the specified sessions you have been allocated. You get used to having that safety net of speaking with somebody once a week, in a safe space with no judgement, but then you find yourself trying to implement what they suggest and find other ways to get out how you feel.

During, and after, the sessions ended I was on a wave of feeling good, as anyone who goes through good periods will understand. I was attacking life and throwing myself into different things. That was the good part for me, it was showing me that I was improving and pushing on forward and encouraged me to put into place the different strategies and try hard not to be so negative on myself and believe I could do anything, especially by just taking each day as it comes instead of putting too much pressure on myself.

However, the bad started to creep back in. In those moments of being left alone to ponder my thoughts, the darkness wavered its way back in and old habits returned. I had people to talk to and I tried, but it wasn’t the same. I got the feeling that people were judging me and thinking I was crazy after a period of feeling good. They obviously weren’t, that was the darkness feeding me the lies and trying to get back to destroy everything I had been working for.

The bad turned ugly on two occasions; when I was led in bed and just felt the awfulness and couldn’t sleep. In the dark, all the negativity just descended on me. I’ve experienced worse times, in particular a week in early 2019 when I was holding onto my covers tightly, feeling like I was in agony because I just didn’t want to be here and I felt if I let go, I would do something stuff. This time it was more of all the thoughts I had bottled up just released all at once; like a dam breaking they poured into my mind out of nowhere and I went from feeling okay to downright horrible. The thoughts of not being good enough for anyone, of being that full-on weirdo, the idiot who would never be successful, who people just “put up” with and laugh at when I’m not around. The idea that death would be the easy way out; no one would miss me, and I wouldn’t need to feel in pain and have all the thoughts swimming round and plaguing me.

How did I deal with, and release, the pain within? I took to self-harming myself. For some reason in those moments, the release of blood made me feel like I was in control. I was choosing to do this to myself, it was my decision, and gave me a short bit of relief before I could drift off to sleep. It’s obviously never the right thing to do, but I’m learning not to let the past define me and I must find ways to avoid doing it to myself and dispel the thoughts as they appear.

I have started doing this by making up an oracle type deck of cards, called “Notes from my underground”. I had never really felt that I could connect with tarot cards or generic oracle cards which have messages from angels or something completely random. Luckily for me I read something which resonated with me on a website called ‘Lonerwolf’:

“Our minds are like deep lakes. We tend to live on the surface of this lake in everyday life, but tarot and oracle cards are like fishing lines that we throw into the deep to draw up the wisdom we need”.

I can’t fully explain what it was about this that really struck me, but it got me thinking about how I always connect with song lyrics and how they get me thinking about things and allows me to look at, and think, about the different things I am facing or going through.

Thus, my notes from the underground was born. I thought of all the lyrics which mean the most to me and can inspire me, printed them off, making myself around 50 different cards, and each week I randomly draw one out, read the lyric, write a blog post about it and try to let the message sink in.

I never thought it would work; I was sure that I would just read the lyric and move on, but they do really speak to me. It allows me to access my ‘underground’ and think more about the experiences I’ve been through in the past and use that to push myself to focus more on beating my demons, instead of letting them control me. I suppose you could that the Notes are the keys to my underground and by accessing them, I am letting myself know that everyone faces challenges and difficulties and I can find a way out of any situation I find myself in.

An example of a note from my underground, which I have been thinking about for a week or so, comes from a band called Whitechapel and their song ‘When a demon defiles a witch’. A random song title I know but stick with me as the lyric really is a special one:

“The demons dance by the fireside
But tonight they migrate to my bedside”

From a depression stand point, this is one of the clearest ways I have seen of describing the battle I go through each day. I know that my darkness is there, hiding away, or dancing by the fireside. When it is by the fire, I am not worried, I am only noticing brief instances of it being there; I am battling away and ignoring it. However, it will sometimes leave that fireside and be with right with me at the bedside and taking control of me.

I have always found it hard to really describe what depression feels like, but this lyric has changed that for me, it tells a quick story of how you can go from feeling happy to sad in an instant. It isn’t just for people who suffer from depression; this can be anybody who has problems in their life. It can feel like work creeps up on you, or an argument with a friend; it can be avoided for a while but eventually (if you ignore it) it will be right there with you and trying to anger or break you.

What it shows me, and has made me think about, is that we are in control of how we react to the different situations in our lives. Even if the problems creep up on us, and we don’t expect it, we still have the choice to fight them. It’s easy when they are far away and dancing in the distance, but when it’s in front of us we must be able to fight.

As Derren Brown says, in his book happy, we can only control our thoughts and actions; nothing else is in our power. So, when the demons come full pace at me, I have the choice whether to let them get inside and really drag me down or stand up to them and fight.

It surprises me how one lyric can get me thinking but it shows that if I can, anybody else out there can find the answers to defeating things deep down inside. We have fought bigger problems before and are still here, so now when we are faced with even more, we can prepare ourselves to do it all again and know we are stronger than we think.

I think the way my notes work is that it allows me to start writing and think about the lyric which I have picked. It allows me to take a step back from the thoughts I am constantly thinking and consider it from a rational point of view. It allows me to realise that it is only a temporary feeling and my story is mine to write.

While I would love to have access to counselling or coaching every single day, as professional help allows you to really deal with your problems, it has led me to this point of starting to fight it all myself. The help has taken me to the water, but it is up to me to drink it and the only way to do that is to take on board what has been said and find my own solutions to the demons which creep up on me.

It’s a day to day challenge for me, but I’m having more positives than negatives and have come to realise that I am in a better position than the past few years and that the darkness hasn’t dragged me down, it’s taken me to a better place.

As A Day to Remember so beautifully sing:

 “It’s in the hardest times we grow the most”.

Thanks for reading 😊