"Black Dog" was Churchill's name for his depression, and as is true with all metaphors, it speaks volumes. The nickname implies both familiarity and an attempt at mastery, because while that dog may sink his fangs into one's person every now and then, he's still, after all, only a dog, and he can be persuaded sometimes and locked up other times.
People tend to forget that an individual who has depression or any other disorder is actually a person underneath the chaos and despair. On my worst days, it feels as if the depression consumes me and takes over my entire body. I am filled with negative thoughts and pessimistic views. I am irritable, impulsive, anxious, and sometimes I am sarcastic even to those I love. I can even become narcissistic, wonder why people don’t see me as this wonderful person, and become aggravated when they want nothing to do with me.
I can hear myself when I’m angry and depressed, and I can hear the words, tone, and pitch of what I’m saying and on a subconscious level, I cringe at what I’m doing. I know that I’m wrong and I know that I’m being hurtful, but at the same time, I cannot stop. It’s like having an out of body experience where you are floating above and watching every movement and hearing every word, but are powerless to stop. It’s the worst feeling in the world, when you know that you are being unreasonable and could be hurting someone’s feelings. That is why I have learned to keep my mouth shut until I can calm down and have an adult conversation with someone. However, even that can get me into trouble because I am seen as being disrespectful and defiant and as someone who doesn’t seem to have the patience to deal with a situation tactfully.
The list of names reads like an honor roll of the past two centuries, names like Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill and Vincent Van Gogh, Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen Hawking, and Buzz Aldrin, just to name a few.
All suffered from either depression or bipolar disorder (manic-depression). The list goes on: Virginia Woolf, Judy Garland, Jack London, Marylin Monroe, Sylvia Plath, Mike Wallace, Kurt Cobain ...
Perhaps depression and manic-depression has a way of coaxing out the most noble and creative and visionary in some. If so, God must have a very twisted sense of humor. I think of the brilliant works produced under this muse, and I also think of the promising lives cut tragically short: Virginia Woolf's body fished out of the water, weighted down by stones, Van Gogh cradled in the arms of his brother at age 37, a thousand Starry Nights never to be painted, Sylvia Plath with the gas on and her kids in the next room, Marilyn Monroe found in a state of partial rigor mortis, forever young.
Sure, it's nice to know that depressives and manic depressives can accomplish great things, but then I consider the terrible tolls they all had to pay, and realize we are guilty of glamorizing the horrific, and in the process we diminish the tragedy this disorder has left in its wake.
I have learned to live with this thing inside me, even with the knowledge that it could very well bring me down at a moment's notice and show me no mercy. It has brought me closer to God and myself and my fellow human beings. But it has also reduced me to nothing and taken away everything I had. It has left me for dead, powerless to fight, feeling abandoned by both God and man.
And so, I must accept what I am, the bad, as well as the good, the ridiculous as well as the sublime. Maybe then, in my own way that is unique to me, I can feel as though I fit in. Maybe then, after nearly a lifetime of feeling different, I can say for the first time - and say it like I really mean it - that I am truly normal.
Peace...
