Winter Blues

I hope you have a moment for my little Christmas speech.  Let's call it a ghost story, as is the festive tradition.  I most certainly shall be talking about unseen terrors, and, let's say, I'm the ghost at your celebration.  Let's say I'm behind you, in that empty armchair that nobody wanted to sit on for some reason.  Don't look around, just know that I'm there.  The day is upon us now and we're half way out of the bitterest season.  But, for those of us with mental health problems, particularly the kind that are inflamed during the chill season, the worst is still to come.

My fear of the winter is, thankfully, suppressed and blanketed by my love for Christmas.  I am eased in to the colder, greyer turn of year by the joyful approach of the festive day and all the celebration that comes along for the ride.  And I've had a good ride.  I've climbed a castle while dressed as a Victorian gent, I've sang and danced and drank and I've even had a little Christmas day of my own with my two best friends.  December has been as good as ever (I try to recall how wonderful last year's was but with the hindsight of what happened to me shortly after, and how that was clearly already an idea in the mind of the person who dealt that blow by then, I can't feel fondness for December 2013.  Anyone who has read Children's Hospice will know how I am capable of illustrating a less-than-stellar Christmas).  But Christmas day will be over soon.  We'll have a long, lovely day with the people we love, we'll squeeze every moment and drink every drop and make it count, but it will be over.  Boxing day does good by its name to the depressed as it is the vanguard of a series of thuds and blows thumping us through the close of the year and the dreaded January.  Pain returns in the month of my birth - a pain more complex than the December head-kicking I got a few years back, and far less curable by a wad of titanium in the skull.

Feelings of constant sadness are notoriously difficult to express.  With the threat of embarrassment, ridicule or a change in how your nearest and dearest appreciate you, we feel they must remain inside.  So we suffer through the winter in silence, not ever letting on and, thus, never being asked how we are feeling.  It is at the fault of nobody that we are not reached out to - when the assumption is that somebody is absolutely fine, why bother asking if that is indeed the case?  So I implore you all, on this day of good will to all, to hold the good will tightly and not let it loose when the day is over.  Ask a friend if they're okay whenever possible, even if they seem so.  You can't know what they're going through this time of year, but you can count on the likelihood that they might want to talk about it if the invitation were to arise.  Winter has brought terror to my doorstep every year.  Whether it's in almost losing an eye or clutching a banister tightly and thinking with utter certainty that I am experiencing my very last seconds on Earth, the darkest season delights on doing the darkest things.  I wish I could locate a reason for this connection; maybe it's a lack of vitamin D, or years of poetic, pathetic fallacy feeding my subconscious.  Either way, all I can do right now is try to fight it.

I can reflect on the year that's been and that is a comforting thing to do.  I spent a hefty part of it assuming it to be a year of loss but (although I can say with confidence that this year I've turned getting dumped into a hobby), it really was a year of gain.  I leave with more than I had when I went in - I've finally become the person I've wanted to be all my life.  I've discovered powerful sides to myself that have been suppressed for years and I've made friends that I know will be with me until the very end.  Furthermore I've taken long-overdue steps into doing the sort of work I want to do; perhaps I'm not doomed to repeat the phrase "do you want a glass of ice with that?" over and over again until I collapse into ancient dust.  I had a triumphant mess of a Summer and I've been on some remarkable adventures.  A scroll back through my facebook photos paints 2014 as a year of constant fun, and that is no distortion of the truth; it really was.  When the midnight bell chimes, though, and January rears its head, I must begin to look forward, to an oblique, unknowable year ahead.  And doing that whilst cold and alone can, and always will, exacerbate my low feelings.  I won't ask my friends to be there for me, because I know that I never have to ask that.  Substitute currency for loved ones and I am the richest man on the planet.  I hope you can all compete.

So Merry Christmas to everyone.  I hope your various Christmas days are as fun as mine always are and I hope there are plenty of people near to you who you can legitimately be there for in the coming months, however happy or sad they are feeling.  My ramble is almost over now and if you've read to the end then I thank you.  Go and pour yourself a brandy and play Wizzard at full volume.

And lastly, to wrap this up, I'm talking to you now.  Yes, YOU.  Don't look around, there's no one else there (I was just joking about being a ghost in the armchair).  I don't know if you even read my blog but, if you're reading this, I hope you realise that it's you I'm referring to.  I think you will.  I shan't embarrass you by naming you but I just want you to know that I hope you're okay, and that, as I've promised before, I'll always be there for you in whatever capacity you need me.  If, when the bad winter withers, the year to come makes good on its promise, our friendship will be strong again.  I know how you do in the cold and the dark, and that you've got far worse to return to than most of us, and if things were perfect you'd only ever exist in the sunshine, like you so deserve.  Life won't allow that, but if it's anywhere near a decent compromise, I'm here.  I'm always here.  Merry Christmas.