Black Dog

Truthfully I don’t know why I share my constant battle with the Black Dog. It’s a forever war with me, and while there are times it helps to sit at a table and share war stories with other combatants, ultimately each of us have to go it alone, and that’s all there is to it.

Not that news of other people’s victories isn’t helpful, and sometimes the advice works: “Talking about it with the doctor helps.” “Prayer is my lifeline.” “I couldn’t make it without my meds.” “I sweat the depression out with cardio.” All of that is good advice, and it helps. But there are those other times when words aren’t enough, Heaven is empty, the meds taste like poison to your self-esteem and respect, and you can’t outrun the Black Dog who lopes alongside you, its ember eyes focused on its prey. In those times your victories are all hollow and your defeats always crushing, and how you get out of bed in the morning is a tribute to sheer stubbornness.

Don’t know what to tell you about that, other than to mutter inanely something about how nothing lasts forever, not even the Black Dog, and eventually if you hang on, it will find other easier prey for a time. That’s what I do. Just survive until it lifts, take a deep breath of the morning air, and give thanks for the ceasefire.

I try to stay busy. Fill my mind up with other things. Ignore the dark beast in the corner with its gaping mouth. Listen to upbeat music. Watch funny movies. Read books that end happily. Write, write, write, my personal ritual against the unrelenting bleakness.

Black Dog. That’s what Winston Churchill called it. But long before I had ever heard of Churchill, I knew what it was. I knew what it looked like from the time I was ten. A large beast, skin like the void between stars, gaping jaws to catch the scent of its prey, large paws to carry it swiftly across the plains of my soul, a howl that could tear the heart out of the sky. When I was older, I knew its name was Ananias.

When I was a teenager, Ananias was even my friend. See, I experienced the Black Dog because I was so creative, it was a sign of genius, it was the burden that I bore with some pride because it made me special. All lies, of course, but I didn’t know better. It wasn’t until I got into college and got some counseling that I finally learned the truth: Ananias wasn’t my friend. It wasn’t a mark of honor. All it ever wanted to do was to kill me, and what’s more, it was just a metaphor for my damaged self-esteem, for my broken faith, for the damning self-judgment that I had called down upon myself. That, ultimately, it was just a disease. A chemical imbalance in my brain. No great monster, no gaping fury. Just me battling depression like so many before me and so many behind me.

There is comfort in that. When it stops being special, when you finally realize that other people’s battles –- while not your particular battle –- are still the same, when you can give up the burden of attempting to redeem your life, well, then you can heal. It’s not so dramatic anymore. You talk to doctors, you pray, you take your meds, you exercise, you get better, you heal.

Of course, you’re never cured. But you get better. You learn the situations to avoid, and the people to avoid. You try to stay away from people who feed the bleakness with their negativity. You don’t listen to the nuts who tell you that you just need to pray, give money to, or serve their particular gods and all will be fine. You learn to stop blaming yourself for being different because no one really knows what causes clinical depression. It’s not your fault. Don’t be so full of yourself.

You survive. And I survive. And it’s a good life for all its problems. It’s what we have, and it’s real. We do our best. I can live with it. It's not like we have a choice.

But listen, there are times late at night when in my mind’s eye I can see a darkening horizon and in the gathering silence a lone beast waits.

Waits for me.


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