Omaira Gill :
Today I’m going to talk about a taboo subject. If you’re expecting a scintillating exposé about what I do with a bagful of courgettes on the weekend, look away now (or just email me for my courgette fritter recipe, what did you think I was talking about?)
Today I’m going to tell you about Gary, because he’s back in my life again. I’ve known him since I was around 12, and he has come in and out of my life at various times. The thing about Gary is that he creeps up on me when I am least expecting it, when I think things are going to plan, and rugby tackles me to the ground, rubbing my face in the dirt while he sits on my back and shouts ‘How do you like THAT!’. Not nice behaviour for a friend, is it?
Here’s the thing. Gary is no friend of mine. Gary is the name I have given to my depression. That might sound like a really strange idea, to give a name to your depression, but for me it seems perfectly logical. How else can I explain a force that pops up from time to time and absolutely cripples me, other than giving it a name?
Depression as an illness is not as concrete as a verifiable, broken limb, or a dietary condition. Going gluten-free won’t make Gary go away.
It’s not that simple, though. Depression is an epidemic in the modern world and has become an absolutely taboo subject in modern society. In fact, I thought long and hard about even writing this column. Considering that potential employers might be reading it, it’s absolute career suicide to so openly admit that even the shadow of something as shape-shifting as depression might brush against you. In the long caste system of illnesses a person could have, depression sits at the very bottom. No one wants to talk about it, and no one wants to admit they have it.
It has taken me this long myself to finally decide that it was time to come out, purely in the hope that it would help someone else to come forward and do something about the Gary in their own lives. The trigger point for me, the moment to stop pretending everything was fine, came recently. I’m not a control freak, but I like to operate on a plan. I like to know in which general direction things are going.
A few weeks ago, my carefully laid plan was shot to pieces. Instead of launching an alternative strategy, I sat staring at the pieces of my broken plan, when Gary lumbered into the room saying ‘Surprise! I’m back. Did you miss me?’
And there he has stayed, at the breakfast table in the morning, trailing a few steps behind me when I go shopping, shaving his legs alongside me in the shower, sitting next to me as I channel surf, clapping his hands in glee when my children have simultaneous tantrums, and whispering to me all the while about what a bad mother I am, how useless I am, how I can’t get anything to go right.
Depression is one of those things that people sometimes claim to have when they have been a bit down in the dumps. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the absolute crippling sensation that fogs up your mind, and makes you completely useless to everyone, even yourself. You can’t think straight, and it doesn’t matter how sunny the day, all you can cope with is lying in bed, wishing you could just disappear.
Kind of hard to indulge in when you have two little people to care for, which only makes it worse because when you can barely take care of yourself, how are you supposed to care for anyone else? Two little moon faces looked up at me, bewildered, as I repeatedly lost my temper until I have finally come to the point where I’m ready to admit I need to talk about Gary.
Like an alcoholic, I have to accept that Gary will always be there, a few steps behind me, waiting for me to forget a door or window open and there he will be again, back in my life. I can’t ever make him go away, but I can get some help to figure out how to keep a few steps ahead of him. I guess it’s no coincidence that when I feel truly terrible, I go running.
So, yes, my name is Omaira, and I have depression. I’m going to do something about it, and I hope you will too.
(Omaira Gill is a freelance journalist based in Athens)
