Ground zero...

I didn’t know I was depressed until a doctor wrote it on a sick note. Even then, it was a word inserted for the sake of putting something on a form, and ‘stress’ didn’t seem right. So I said, ‘Sure, put what you want,’ thinking it didn’t matter. I wasn’t depressed, I was… lost. For months, I’d been commuting to work (cycle-train-cycle) in the dark, wet months of pre-Christmas, growing more numb by the day. You can be tired and you can need a holiday and sunshine, something to look forward to, but this was ‘I don’t care’ on repeat, getting louder and more dominant by the hour, and I didn’t confine it to work. Sat on the poolside or in the dance studio watching the kids’ lessons; choosing a movie for the family on a Saturday night; heading out for a birthday meal at a restaurant: I was doing what I should, what was on the schedule, whilst staring into space craving something else but not knowing what, leaving blank nothingness to fill the void. I was unplugged from life, and it wasn’t as easy as saying, ‘Get a new job, then; one that makes you happy’, I was unplugged from happiness, from joy. Nothing fulfilled me. Ever. And I coveted anyone who loved, loved and got meaning from events in their life as simple as playing a sport or hiking with a friend.

I remember sitting on the sofa one evening and my partner stomping to my side, angry I’d been upsetting our daughter by ignoring her questions. The evidence was there: my nine-year-old hovering by her mother’s rear, tears streaking her face red and puffy; my partner stating she’d heard the interaction (or lack of) from the upstairs bathroom whilst bathing our other two children – again, I had been oblivious to calls for help with this. But I had tuned out the last hour, not even existing in a daydream. And the emotion I felt when presented with the distress I’d caused? I wish it had been stronger, but it was a meagre, ‘Oh, sorry.’ It was a similar feeling when I spent two hours laid on the bedroom floor after work one night. I have no recollection of why I was on the floor. I just didn’t move until it was time to transfer into the bed.

After several 'zoning out' episodes, I listened to a podcast where professor Dacher Keltner, author and psychologist, said there was an epidemic of people searching for purpose, their reason for being. This was where I was. That he then said the biggest killer of men over forty was themselves, I understood. I wasn’t suicidal; I was apathetic to the idea. Each morning and night I stood by the train tracks, leaned over my bike, ready to annoy suited commuters with my clumsy intrusion on their journey, and considered how insignificant I and everyone at the station was. I would do nothing foolish, but it didn’t matter either way, I thought, as we are specks of dust in the Universe, smaller in fact, and of no consequence. Thankfully, no one tried to strike up a conversation at these times!

So there I was at Christmas: loving family, supportive partner, three healthy, happy children, well-paid job, top of my professional ladder (no promotion left to aim for), not concerned with energy prices – able to dry the washing without re-mortgaging – and depressed (I accepted it after saying it aloud a dozen times). Lost. Forty years old and in danger of adding to a terrible statistic. Having to tell people my feelings - friends, family, colleagues - but unable to articulate them concisely as talking about myself was horrendous – the train tracks looked more appealing. Expecting them to say, ‘What have you got to be depressed about?’. Or thinking I was faking it for time off work. But they didn’t. They supported me and hoped for a speedy recovery. Which made me feel guilty.

It took several more podcasts, google searches, audiobooks and a weekly one-hour phone call with a therapist to conclude I needed to find my meaning for being – not as a species; mine alone was difficult enough to fathom. I found the questions I had to ask: What makes you happy? If money was no object, what would you do? If you were guaranteed success, guaranteed, what would you dedicate your life to? And the answer was obvious. Finding the questions had been arduous. Admitting there was a problem had been overwhelming. But the answer came instantly: writing. I love writing. I wouldn't quit life and lock myself in a room until I’d written a masterpiece; it wasn’t about striving to be famous or the romance of the struggling recluse. Writing was when the world stopped and I was nowhere else. When I was present. When I was happy. And I realised my search for meaning was a search for happiness, which I’d never made a goal. It seems obvious, now, and ridiculous, but I’d never valued and sought being happy rather than promotion and money. Do other people?

I’d left university with the ambition of being a writer, spent two years typing four thousand words a day (my record being nine thousand in twelve hours, which then had to be rewritten as they were utter rubbish), created five books, come close to a life-changing deal (being published), but the pile of rejection letters had worn me down. Fast-forward twenty years and in that time I hadn’t written anything other than emails, letters, reports and shopping lists. Until that sick note…

Now, there’s no ambition. I want to write because it’s my passion, and passions make you happy. That’s the new goal: happiness. I won’t write all day. I'll try and write everyday, but I won't beat myself up if I don't. I want to create a book, a piece of fiction, not to be famous but to feel I’m working on something that matters to me, that I enjoy, like the person coaching the junior football team in an evening. My bit of time from the children and work that’s mine alone; my alternative to wine and Netflix. I challenge myself to see the book through to print, not because it’s important to my happiness, but because I want to experience the entire journey: agents, publishers (or self-publishing), launching, marketing, promoting. I’ve never gone past the thanks-but-not-thanks email, so I’m excited to discover an additional part of an author’s world. I intend to blog each juncture, success and failure, and see where it leads. Because starting this journey already has the fog of depression shifting. If happiness is engaging with your passion, that’s what I propose to do.

It's ground zero and it feels... reinvigorating.