Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - Hier 02:35

Go tell them like it is

It’s dark in here. Dark and what one might generously call “scary.” Over the past couple of months I’ve been unsteady company. Column appears, disappears, reappears. I’ve been exactly the same with the people in my life. I’ve been about as reliable as a weather report on a cricket day. This is partly the fault of a terrible-no-good-vile flu that is determined to be my new best friend. But that’s only some of the truth. Most of the truth is that the darkness has been chasing me and, more often than not, catching me. Sometimes it’s useful for me to refer to the all-consuming depression as “the darkness.” “Depression,” “dysthymia,” “panic attacks,” “generalised anxiety” – they all feel sterile. Stark. Words on a page. Definitions. I like a good definition as much as the next person, but for reasons entirely lost on me, there are moments when it’s not enough. I’ve always put myself squarely in the category of person who needs clarity and understanding for survival. Correction: that’s where I belong when I’m not falling down a never-ending well. Once the well, the cloud, the darkness monster – once any of them enter the equation, knowing what all the conditions mean and what’s expected of them is as useful as a punch in the nose. Small segue: the daughter of the house has taken up nose-biting. Specifically, my nose. If there are any cat parents out there who know how to deal with this, please get in touch. Today, after not being able to write so much as a grocery list for ages, I’m reaching out from the abyss. So much has happened since I’ve been gone. I wanted to write about the very first Head Space column, in which I introduced myself to Weltschmerz – the brilliant German word for a sadness that falls upon you when the world at large is responsible for your distress. I’ve been Weltschmerzed to within an inch of my life. Tobago. Radars. US lingering about our space. A friend from another Caribbean country called me this morning and mentioned our new habit of being news all over the world. That’s precisely it, I thought. I am entirely unaccustomed to being an international headline. I take it personally. It hurts. Being alive when we turn away from Caricom hurts. I know I said I take these things personally, but that’s not the worst of it. You know when something is wrong with someone in your family and it impacts/hurts everyone? Maybe the person is sick. Maybe they’ve developed a terrible addiction. The thing is, no matter how much you care, no matter how much you tell them they matter, you’re helpless unless they agree to get help. That’s what this stage of our regional history feels like. And yes, for the record, I do think this can result in actual personal suffering. I don’t feel I need to justify my current misery, but for what it’s worth, the news that these are the last days of this newspaper that has been so good to me has not helped. Thanks for reading. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for being here. Because I have a sort of fetish for bringing things full circle, I’d like to end with this, from the first column. Remember: “We need to better understand how we feel and respond to things in general. From the smallest hurt to the greatest trauma, we need to find the ways and resources to get past the superficial explanations we give ourselves, and the platitudes offered by others. “Head Space is a space in which I’d like to open the closed places that house how we feel when we’re feeling a bit off. When we know something is just not right. Or maybe when we suspect there is a better way to deal with something but we don’t know quite what it is or who to talk to. “I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist and this cannot be a guide to mental wellness. But there can be questions and observations and stories about people who are going through things many of us have endured at some point.” Be good to yourselves. Stay sane. Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition. The post Go tell them like it is appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.