On the Big D and Its Relentless Hum.

All my life (at least that which I remember) I’ve been prey to a depressive tendency which might be described in audible terms. Much of the time – for hours or days or weeks or months – it would remain silent, hidden away in a closed off space until some circumstance brought it to a rumble or a banging or a crashing cacophony. When the source giving rise to the din passed, as all things do, it would return to silence for a while.

Not so any more. I realised recently that the incessant hum of depression never stops now, but rises and falls in tune to the diurnal round or the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

And so I often ask myself whether this is something to be tolerated with fortitude or addressed with positive intent. The answer should be obvious, shouldn’t it? But it isn’t because I have no faith in either of the standard remedies prescribed by the professional cognoscenti, they being the twin treatments of therapy and medication. I’ve seen both fail almost without exception in others, you see, and I’m too self-aware and singular to consign the nature of my being to the interference of others, however expert they might be or claim to be.

And so I do what I do with everything – observe the process in hope of learning something about the human condition. I reason that it might prove useful one day when someone needs an ear that understands them, because most people don’t. Real depression is largely misunderstood by that great majority which knows only the universal lowness accompanying ill fortune like the death of a pet or receipt of a bill too big to pay – circumstances which hurt at the time but pass as the time does. Real depression is a hum which drones continuously away in the background. And much of the time – when the sun shines and the wind is set fair – it gets ignored. But it never actually stops. So when the sky grows dark and a chill wind invades the depressive’s precious and private world, the hum rises again until it becomes maddening. And the madness comes armed with a sense of hopelessness, helplessness, and a dearth of belief that anything matters. I know this from personal experience and the pronouncements of practitioners in the field.

And so I continue to observe for the sake of gaining experience which might or might not be useful one day. But I also stir in a large ladle of existential enquiry to add a measure of richness to the soup of self-knowledge. I like to think that the hum is the base and the rest the body, and therein lies the growth of wisdom or worthless, abject resignation depending on your point of view.

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Having got that off my chest, I can report that my little abode might be graced with a visitation from a lady of Chinese ethnicity one of these fine days. It’s five years since a lady of Chinese ethnicity stepped over my threshold, so I’m hoping that, if it does happen, the genius loci of the place will be on it’s best behaviour. I also hope that I won’t find myself playing Quasimodo to an almond-eyed Esmeralda of the East. Depressives might be congenitally inclined to anticipate rejection, but it still hurts.