Depression - it's not just feeling bleak

 I've been depressed twice.  By that, I mean diagnosed as clinically depressed, no simply 'feeling bleak'

There's something wrong with the diagnosis of 'depression', because it is so very easy to think that it is the same as 'being depressed' - It is not

The first time I was clinically depressed was back in the 1990's. I was not coping with life, and used the company mental health option to uget an interview with as 'counsellor'. He listened to me for about half an hour, then showed me a picture of the signs of depression, and explained that I fell into all of these, from what I'd said.

So, I went to my GP, and got a prescription for Prozac. The odd thing was that it worked at once, within a week, I was feeling better. SSRIs are not supposed to work that quickly, but the did. It might have been the   placebo effect, but, within three days, I felt better, and started to engage with life.

 I was lucky. I got better, and started to understand the reasons for my depression. Mainly, it was because I'd broken up a relationship

So, I'm an analytical sort  of person. I score quite high on the autism scale, meaning that I analyse things, before feeling them.

Twenty years later, I suffered a few set-backs. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I spent time with her during her treatment. Her brother dies. My father died. I was stabbed seven times by a burglar. I was suffering severe financial difficulties, and I couldn't see a way out.

What's really peculiar is that, from all of the above, I didn't realise that depression was a likely outcome.

I found that I couldn't do anything. I spent my time in bed.

I started to think about suicide. I looked at sites that sold inert gassed, such a nitrogen, that I knew would establish an easy death. I worked our ways to kill myself - but, at the same time, tried to make a distance, so that the means to kill myself were not immediately to hand. I had to be that, if I killed myself, I was not just on the spur of the moment.

I told GP about these suicidal thoughts, and he referred me to a psychiatrist, who, after a chat, said, a if it was obvious that I was depressed.

I understood, then, what the problem was. I'd managed, over several years, to keep mysense of self under control by going to Amsterdam and having huge doses of psilocybin, in the form of truffles, from magic mushrooms. These helped me centre myself, and resolved the depression completely.

It has still been a struggle. I'm coping today, but I look out for the signs - I mainly sleep around 11 hours a day, which is more than it should be, but, I'm coping, despite that.

What's amazing to me now, that I'm better, is that I still sleep far more than most people. The great thing is that I've not had any thoughts of killing myself for over a year.

It's odd, really, that it should be such a defining thing, but, if you are reading this, please accept that it is. The practical working out of how you are going to take your own life isn't what you think it is - it's not a conclusion, it's a symptom.

Understand that, and you're on the way back to happiness.