What This Blog is About...

Sir Winston Churchill famously suffered from bouts of depression through his lifetime, which he referred to as his 'black dog'. The phrase has since been adopted by many other depressed people as it seems to sum up exactly how living with depression feels. I can relate through personal experience, due to my own battle with depression over the past few years.

One of the things I have come to realise in trying to better understand and therefore enable myself to better manage my depression is that it requires discipline, support and encouragement. Being told to 'think about how lucky you are,' or 'you have a lot to be grateful for,' when you are in the depths of depression can be unhelpful, insensitive and discouraging. If it was that easy to make yourself feel better, then everyone would just think a happy thought and no-one would suffer from depression. However, I do believe that whenever possible, it is useful to try and fill your mind and surroundings with positive things to think about, with encouragement, with hope. I don't mean by saying this that any problems that could be causing or contributing to your state of mind should be ignored or glossed over. You do need to confront your black dog, but there are things that we can do to keep our black dog at bay.

I decided to start this blog as a place to keep the sort of thoughts, stories, pictures, etc. that can help lift my own thoughts out of the negative places in which they sometimes dwell. I hope they might do the same for you.