back to ARTICLES & BLOGS
The Trigger I've been asked on several occasions lately to re-publish this piece. When it was originally posted it seemed to strike a cord with a lot of people, my sentiment remains the same, if it helps even one person, I'm happy with it. Anyway here it is again. There’s a bridge over the river. It’s not used anymore; hasn’t been for many, many years. It’s a metal bridge with a cross beam structure x’ing and o’ing its way along its length. The bridge is rotting away with all the colours of rust; brown, red, orange, yellow. There’s a rope under the bridge and at the end of the rope is a young man. A good looking young man, a little too thin maybe but if I remember correctly, a guy who could turn many a girls head. The November wind is blowing and the rain is beating down on his cold blue face. These are difficult words to write because this is a description of my worst dream. Its not a dream I have often, thank G-d, but sometimes it comes in bursts, then goes away for six, nine or twelve months. The young man was the closet thing I ever had to a brother, he bought me my first pint in a pub and he thought me how to chat up girls. He was my cousin and he died when I was 16. The reason I’m writing this down is because I want to tell you about a realisation I had about a year and a half ago. This dream is a trigger. What I mean, is that when I have this dream, I know I am heading for a period of the darkness which is depression. Looking back over the years, anytime I have ever battled with this particular dragon, it has been initiated by this dream. I route to this realisation started while walking back home from having a hair cut, it started to rain and that seemed like a perfect backdrop to my mood at the time. As I walked on head down, I started to cry, I cried like a baby, more than I have since I was a kid. All I could think about was the unfairness of life. All that I had lost, friends, family, job. Nothing could get me back, all was blackness. I couldn’t give thanks for all I have, my health, my family, time with my kids, nothing could lighten my world. I knew that this had been building up for a while, probably months, since I had lost my job or the build up to that probably. While the kids were on summer holidays, I hadn’t had time to let it come to the surface, but now, the kids were gone back to school, I had nothing to occupy me and it all came rushing out. So, I went to see the doctor and spent half an hour basically just crying, the poor man just kept handing me tissues but at the end of it I felt better. He prescribed anti-depressants and agreed to go back to see him again in a few weeks. I have to say I didn’t like taking the tablets but the one good thing about them was that it gave me a chance to think without the clouds lying around my shoulders. It was at that time that I started to write this blog, I always loved writing but because of various things going on and the hectic schedule of the past 15 years, kids work, life, I had stopped. Writing the blog was therapeutic, it’s not always serious but it gives me a chance to vent. It also provides through the comments I get back, reassurance that there are other people out there that sometimes feel like I do, and even if they don’t that’s ok too. During the time I had to think about why I get depressed, I made a lot of realisations. Number one was to talk and not bottle stuff up, number two was that I’m not alone, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland suffer to one degree or another from depression. We in Ireland don’t like to talk about it, we’re getting better but there is still a stigma attached. We need to fight that, we need to admit not only to each other but to ourselves, that just like any other ailment, depression will not go away by ignoring it. Like any wound, and I consider it to be a wound, it needs attention and it needs to be aired. If you suffer, get some help, talk to your doctor, ring Aware, if things are really bad, ring the Samaritans. What will happen is it will give you both perspective and time to think. To weigh up all the good things in life, it may enable you to think about why you suffer, is there a reason, did something happen? It may enable you to determine if you have a trigger, just like my dream. Maybe nobody else has this, maybe everybody else has it, I don’t know, but think about it. The realisation that this was the trigger for me, has helped me to prepare, to get the tools and weapons ready to battle the dragon, to recognise the signs and to make life just that little bit easier. Manus AWARE Ireland Contact Details Samaritans Dublin: |
 |
 |
 |