"When I Surrender, The Dawn Arrives"

Despair is depression gone too far.

With depression the mind can wander to places. Places to unload blame. It can think. Not good thoughts, but thoughts. Thoughts can be guided. It can wander to a place of tears and a certain kind of release. Depression can be like a season that comes for a while and then goes. It isn't a pleasant experience but if held lightly, and with a guarded familiarity, it can be observed, like a bad storm from under a little bit of cover.

Despair isn't like that. Despair is being buried alive in a coffin. Every thought is a cul-de-sac without any room for a road. A dead end that snaps towards any tiny sense of a way out. If tears come they are dry. Searching for something, anything, to cry for. Despair is to a human being what desolation is to a landscape. And coming back from it, if you do, feels like a kind of miracle. Like playing Russian Roulette when all but one of the bullets is live. It's the success of not killing yourself. I wouldn't wish Despair on my worst enemy. I've been there once, and on the edge on several occasions.

This is useful stuff to know if you suffer from depression. Seriously. It makes it so important to not embrace the sorrow and sadness as though they are a part of yourself. They are not. They are sometimes the sirens of despair trying to lure you to a very dangerous place.

The good news is that we do have control of our thoughts. We can change the way we think. When we are in our right minds, we can learn to watch for the little signs that send us into depression. We can learn to watch the way our minds think and we can learn to mentally argue with the words of negativity and the resigned, listless attitude. We can talk to someone, not for pity, or to have our sorrow fed and nurtured. But to to receive support in the fight. We can simply distract ourselves with whatever it is that is capable of distracting us.

But sometimes, especially on the road to building new ways of thinking, we will still slip into depression. And sometimes that depression will  simply be a gentle sadness  reminding us that the world isn't always, or even often, right. And it can encourage us to make change for the better, not just in ourselves, but for the people and communities we are a part of. Which is good.

But don't let it hang around. Find ways of keeping yourself away from the edge. Please.



The line "When I surrender the dawn arrives" is from my song Sometimes I Cry - November 4th, 2013.

“Sometimes I’m a Dragon, I Breathe Fire”

Yeah. It’s true. And there is a place for fire breathing. Especially when it comes to bringing down the bad guys.

But it’s not really the thing for domestic situations. However, anyone who has spent any amount of time living with me knows that, despite being a peace loving bloke, it is not unknown for me to have outbursts of fairly intense shouting. Otherwise known as losing my temper. It is not an attractive feature.

I’m the kind of person who feels things very deeply and passionately. And I think a lot about right and wrong. I came into adult life with a lot of insecurity and a tendency towards depression, which at times in my life has bordered on the suicidal. In the past all my frustrations and emotional turmoil was directed inwards. It was very self destructive, and it didn’t make living with myself very easy. Or easy for those around me.

There was a point, and I’m not quite sure when that was, when I perhaps started to get a sense that I wasn’t the cause of everything that was wrong in the world. I became more balanced, and started blaming persons and situations outside of myself. Which was a kind of step in the right direction. But depression got replaced at times by anger. And that isn’t easy to live with either.

But I’m at a time in my life where I’m doing something about some of the bad habits that I’ve developed over the years. In the widest sense this is simply about taking responsibility for my world, my actions and my speech. I do of course have some good characteristics, and I learnt a long time ago that a guilt complex does nothing to change behaviour. But putting a name to the bad ways is an important part of change.

Which is what I am doing right now.

ps. I asked my wife to pick the song line for today’s blog.

The line “Sometimes I’m a Dragon, I breathe fire” comes from my song A Human Being which is on my album of the same name.