Beyond Blue and The Black Dog with Winston Churchill
Without Prejudice
My Mum, Natalie and younger brother David
There has always been depression in my family for as long as I can remember. It's hereditary, it's endemic and it's something we now watch out for. Beyond Blue with a red flag.
Winston Churchill called it his Black Dog. No doubt when he had it he would take to the whiskey, the famous cure all in the old days, but seeing as alcohol is in itself a depressant, it's not a good idea to take it. I'm nit a drinker anyway. I have been, in the past, but am so allergic to it end up with my head over a toilet bowl.
All my family are the same, our Mother and Father were tee totallers, and Mum had clinical depression. We didn't know it as children, we just thought it was Mum. Such things were never spoken of in those days. After my brother Jamie died when I was five his death was not to be spoken of in case it upset Mum. She was "Highly Strung " .
We knew the term, Nervous Breakdown as she had one when Jamie died and we were sent away for three months while she recovered. But for ever after that we didn't speak of him. Sometimes George would wake screaming in the middle of the night and my parents would rush to him, soothing him and getting him back to sleep. I had little sympathy for him as to me he was a loud boisterous bully most of the time.
I would stand in the hall, shivering in my chenille dressing gown, bare feet on bare boards, waiting for the noise to stop. To me at eight, he was just " Putting it On" and that come the sweet light of day, all would be forgotten. Often times it would take a long time to calm him down. Once before my parents could get up to him I confronted him and we ended up thrashing around on the hall floor.
He was two years older than me and twice my size and as I couldn't thump him back scratched his back with my nails until it drew blood. Ian my older brother came out and separated us two Kilkenny cats, still frothing at the mouth in rage. He ticked me off a beauty and escorted George back to bed. By then My parents had woken and ticked me off even more.
I lay in my bed and cried silently, tears running in to my ears and determined I would never confront him again. Even now he hates to be woken up and threw a punch at my Brother In Law once when startled out of sleep.
Crying came easily to me. I would often lie in bed crying silently, not wanting to disturb my sister who could sleep though a tornado. The open wardrobe door shrieked to me of monsters there in, it's gaping maw a portal to hell. Under the bed too, there were slimy creatures ready to grab me by the ankles and drag me away, laughing maniacally.
I worried fretfully about everything, my parents dying and leaving us alone. I cried many a night over that. I bit my nails till they bled after scratching George, I ritualised. If I avoided all the cracks in the pavement no one would die. I began to turn every sentence around in my head and spell it backwards over and over relentlessly. Looking back now I see anxiety, and I see it grow and grow.Anxiety being the precursor to depression.
We moved a lot and each time we started a new school, (17 times) I would be sick with worry. I would cry if I was late to school and my older sister would have to take me to the classroom door, weeping and wailing. She would try and shake me out of it, but I could never be consoled.
To be continued.
There has always been depression in my family for as long as I can remember. It's hereditary, it's endemic and it's something we now watch out for. Beyond Blue with a red flag.
Winston Churchill called it his Black Dog. No doubt when he had it he would take to the whiskey, the famous cure all in the old days, but seeing as alcohol is in itself a depressant, it's not a good idea to take it. I'm nit a drinker anyway. I have been, in the past, but am so allergic to it end up with my head over a toilet bowl.
All my family are the same, our Mother and Father were tee totallers, and Mum had clinical depression. We didn't know it as children, we just thought it was Mum. Such things were never spoken of in those days. After my brother Jamie died when I was five his death was not to be spoken of in case it upset Mum. She was "Highly Strung " .
We knew the term, Nervous Breakdown as she had one when Jamie died and we were sent away for three months while she recovered. But for ever after that we didn't speak of him. Sometimes George would wake screaming in the middle of the night and my parents would rush to him, soothing him and getting him back to sleep. I had little sympathy for him as to me he was a loud boisterous bully most of the time.
I would stand in the hall, shivering in my chenille dressing gown, bare feet on bare boards, waiting for the noise to stop. To me at eight, he was just " Putting it On" and that come the sweet light of day, all would be forgotten. Often times it would take a long time to calm him down. Once before my parents could get up to him I confronted him and we ended up thrashing around on the hall floor.
He was two years older than me and twice my size and as I couldn't thump him back scratched his back with my nails until it drew blood. Ian my older brother came out and separated us two Kilkenny cats, still frothing at the mouth in rage. He ticked me off a beauty and escorted George back to bed. By then My parents had woken and ticked me off even more.
I lay in my bed and cried silently, tears running in to my ears and determined I would never confront him again. Even now he hates to be woken up and threw a punch at my Brother In Law once when startled out of sleep.
Crying came easily to me. I would often lie in bed crying silently, not wanting to disturb my sister who could sleep though a tornado. The open wardrobe door shrieked to me of monsters there in, it's gaping maw a portal to hell. Under the bed too, there were slimy creatures ready to grab me by the ankles and drag me away, laughing maniacally.
I worried fretfully about everything, my parents dying and leaving us alone. I cried many a night over that. I bit my nails till they bled after scratching George, I ritualised. If I avoided all the cracks in the pavement no one would die. I began to turn every sentence around in my head and spell it backwards over and over relentlessly. Looking back now I see anxiety, and I see it grow and grow.Anxiety being the precursor to depression.
We moved a lot and each time we started a new school, (17 times) I would be sick with worry. I would cry if I was late to school and my older sister would have to take me to the classroom door, weeping and wailing. She would try and shake me out of it, but I could never be consoled.
To be continued.
