CHASING THE NIGHT

Go silent into that long night.

Never has a quote been more profound. A pit, as black as pitch had opened up within me, a maelstrom of salted night. Pulling me in - little old me - into the abyss once again. My hands, slippery spades of tar, my resolve an ancient premise, smothered by years of blemishes, eager to open once more. Spill, spill vitriolic remnants of recent woe and klaxon calls to old demons.

I am now a lifeless ebb.

Sucked dry.

A prune man.

Hiding in shadow.

Deep sea creatures create their own light. Those in the embrace of depression create our own warmth. A cocoon to block out the hurt and the noise, one of sanctuary. This is the indivisible line. Of sleep and the other long night, that fabled place. Limitless sleep. No blemishes to wrap and aid by tincture. I dalliance with the fabled. Flirt with avenues I should have no place of even probing.

Yet the allure remains.

The pills are starting to make me numb. Again. All semblance and recollection of the recent few weeks of mania have started to blur already. My sabbatical into the neurotic gamut cut short. I sit within my mind and the wall is up. A grey lifeless monstrosity of pale brick and vomit strewn anguish. Black vomit, depression isn't here to alter and maim the mind. It wants all of you. Soul and bone.

Within the space of a week I have gone from high to abnormally low. So low it seems I am scraping my knuckles along the floor. I get by, and yet I am not here. A ghost, a deviant who listens only to the demon's whispers. Here in this drab place I make my nest. One of duvet's and sweet tea, chocolate biscuits and a lack of personal hygiene. Yes, it is real. The personal hygiene thing. I never thought it would be a thing. But it is. As real as crocs and books and Nutella. But how? I love a shower. It's refreshing, rejuvenating. Your mind now doesn't care if you smell like a Care Bear's chuff or a tramp's sock. YOU ARE ILL. And sentient darkness has no designs on Lynx Africa shower gel or Paco rabanne.

You are a victim.

I need help. Everything is numb. I can't think. Can't wash, I can't get up in the morning to do the school run. All I want to do, is . . . fade out.

My medication of Sertraline is upped to 150 mg. Apparently my exodus from Big Pharm was an indicator that I needed to 'up my game.' I find this hard to believe and still think my depression is chemical rather than factual. But, one must go with the experts. I am but a thinker. A maker of worlds.

Another week in and I am diminished. This is not how it should be. I force myself up every morning, and study the reflection in the mirror. This stranger in my own house. This alien interloper in my mind. What damage he may wrought. Outward and inwardly. I remain shackled to the id. More black sick stains the walls - Rorschach sigils of inner torment.

This damn shit isn't working. I am the meat of flies. Pale, tempered by the heralds of abyssal temptation. I am just a man on the ledge, one dainty gust of decaying autumn wind and I will falter to eternal tar.

A glimmer in the madness

We must endure, beyond black skies and hallowed places of glistening mud. Man's best friend is here to show me how it works; the screeching engines of the universe. That here, among cow pats and soggy fields there can be beauty out of grime and yellowed leaves.

My Dr Martens have other ideas. Damn I need some wellies.

Rupert is walking me ( my dog). This young, almost benevolent innocence is guiding me, but to where? I see the geometry of madness. And that sometimes we may have to embrace the abyss to see the light within ourselves, even as it wanes and flickers repeatedly.

But the human brain isn't designed to see the abstract. This is only for poets and artists, arseholed on Absinthe and Rum. But perhaps this is my saviour: my desire to write and see the poetry and physics of it all. Maybe this is my strength, maybe, just maybe, a dog can see beyond and teach me how to look at the world. That if the wind can blow this way or that and a dog can feel alive with grass beneath its feet then shifting tides of the mind are the least of my worries. We have forgotten the land and its majesty. Well I have most certainly.

The light shines. This lighthouse of the mind has steered me from the rocks, and yet . . . stagnancy invades my extremities like rot. The dog curls up with me in unannounced intervals throughout the night. Impromptu house calls to see if the master is untarnished in the night-time sojourn.

THEY KNOW DONT THEY.

Time has no meaning anymore. Weeks are like days. I speak to the mental health nurse and I need help. More than help. I need to come off these damn things and look for something else. Be offered a glimpse of sunshine before the abyss takes me. She agrees, hesitantly, to taper me off and start something new. At last a game plan. A fresh page.

But herein lies the paradox. Even as I start my descent from 150mg to 100 and onwards, the tar withdraws. Feelings of laughter echo and it is a country I haven't visited for so long. The wall starts to crumble, the shackles loosen, and yet now I can look out and at least see the topography of where I should be heading, beyond this pale rampart. I welcome the light and the lucid dreams, and again my mind reaches for the stars as it was weeks ago. Small steps.

Come on, Prune man.

Walkies.