I'm fine.

Cards on the table; I've been really up and down for a few weeks.  It's been hard work.

And I need to write it here because sometimes this is my best weapon.

Depression is a clever evolving beast that when strong; dances just out of reach like a whispish, warping, blinding darkness.  Just as I can explain a little of how it can be, it changes just enough to knock me from my self assured perch.  And when I've had to apologise for letting people down, missing things or not being myself; when I'm struggling to control the rapid mood changes and explain them to those in the line of fire; when I'm clutching to my growing armoury ready to pull out the next list and action plan...

...then it takes my words.

Recently someone kindly asked how they would know I needed some help in a low time.  I said that its when I disappear and hide from the world that I'm really struggling.  'So, what do we do then?'  'Well, nothing, because I won't want to see or talk to you...'.

Right at the point I need my hand held I can't seem to find the strength to offer it up.  I fall into neutral mode and honestly, it's like being switched to black and white.  My occasionally coherent thoughts turn to constantly blurry whispers and my voice is so deep inside me I don't know how I ever used it.  My default for these times, when I get out and force myself onto the world, is the 'I'm fine' mantra. The numb smile.  Head down, get home, emotionally curl up and try and find a way to get the distant screams out from beneath this wretched skin.  I'm fine.

Even if I could face it, sitting in strangled silence unable to really express what's going on... well I'd feel guilty.  And at times like this, I have enough of that.

This is a cycle I want to - will - break and the times of feeling OK are regular enough to hold in my memory when the world gets all big and scary.  So I have been sitting at my laptop, or with pen in hand, or phone at the ready.  I've scribbled nonsense, typed incoherence and lost grip of spelling and grammar more than usual.  I have kept some writings, deleted most and lost a few (which were clearly prize winning world changing pieces of poetry and/or prose and I'll believe nothing to the contrary).

And now this.  A slightly public collection of words.

I can't promise I'm going to start answering the door, the phone or any one of the gazillion ways to contact me when I'm feeling lost.  Sometimes I need to find the strength to hold out my hand before anyone can help.  But I hope that
will become easier the more I refuse to bottle up the light I do have to shed within me.

These words are my last line of defence and my greatest source of strength.
They say to my clouds - 'Oi.  I'm still here, actually. Exposing you; diffusing the lies your darkness tells me. So move it along.  I'm still in charge, so pipe down.  We're going outside.'