Sunday, August 24, 2008

The black dog

'The Black Dog' is what Winston Churchill called. It is dark, hollow, tragic, mysterious, crippling but worst of all its soulless.

Depression can affect most of us. It strikes when you least expected it. You probably don't even realise that you are going through it for a while. For some of us the only time we get any attention is when people finally hear our cry for help.

The cry may be a cut, a wound, a jump or drowning your sorrows in a handful of medication. But worst of all its how Middle Eastern society treats you. How you become stigmatised and branded for the rest of your life. How society judges you to be a danger to your self and every one around you. As if once you go crazy, you will never go back.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You can penetrate the over enveloping darkness and reach for the flickering light in the distance until eventually radiates and douses you with a warm glow that brushes away all the pain and sorrow. The hardest part reaching out for it.