Just a few days ago, I finally became convinced this is the case when I learned another great lesson in life – from nothing more than a bag. A small white paper bag, to be more precise.

Although I am still on antidepressants, I’ve not really felt the need to take them for over two years now, apart from a couple of minor manageable bumps along the road.

However, I’ve also learned from the stories of others who have likewise resorted to taking medication to vanquish their black dogs. Many, however, didn’t want to be a slave to the stigma of medication; as soon as they felt better, they considered themselves cured, so they stopped. And yet within a matter of daze, they found themselves pinned down once again by their old nemesis, the growling black dog.

I for one struggled too hard and for too long with my own black dogs in the past. After years of silent suffering, I literally dragged myself out of a very dark cave, one which I do not intend on ever returning to. With the normal pressures of parenthood and profession, I also have enough going on in life to even consider coming off my medication yet.

So if I have to go and see my doctor every six months as well as the pharmacist every month, and then pop a paroxetine a day to keep my black dogs at bay, I can live with that. In fact, I can live with that far better, stronger and wiser than I ever lived before.

And so, with my current supply of paroxetine running low last week, I found myself heading back to the local pharmacy to fill the last of my current repeat prescriptions.

On my way, I stopped in at the newsagent next door to buy a lottery ticket. The lady in front of me was buying a birthday card, which came in a nice protective clear plastic wrapper. Nevertheless, the shop assistant asked if she would like a bag to put it in – the aforementioned small white paper bag, to be more precise.

I take a certain degree of pride nowadays in only asking for a receipt or a carrier bag if I really need one. So I have to admit to a few silent tuts crossing my lips as well as my eyebrows heading north a couple of times when the lady in front of me accepted – only to then place her now double-wrapped  purchase in her near-empty handbag.

I’m well aware that I’m not going to single-handedly save the rainforests of the Amazon just by keeping a few small pieces of paper out of circulation. But I’m also a man of principle. Not five minutes later, I found myself in the pharmacy being made more the same offer of a bag, this time to place my monthly medication supply into.

As a matter of that principle, and admittedly further encouraged by my recent Bag-gate experience in the newsagency, I politely declined. I then headed out of the pharmacy and walked back to my car, with lottery ticket and paroxetine in hand.

It then dawned on me just how things had changed for me. Barely two and a half short years ago, when I first started taking paroxetine, I’d have been waiting outside the pharmacy in a state of near hysteria, until there were no other customers inside, before daring to venture in. Even then I’d probably have had an emergency Plan B larger paper bag in my pocket, to place over my head just in case anyone else did come in after me.

After my recent visit to the pharmacy, I wasn’t exactly walking down the street shoving my naked box of paroxetine in the faces of passers-by, and saying “check out these little beauties!” Nor am I feeling deserving of or expecting a hero’s medal for bravery.

I was, however, pleased to observe that it hadn’t even occurred to me to accept a paper bag for my paroxetine. It was a stark reminder that my own stigma around medication had long since left the neighbourhood, hiding itself in the book of my personal history.

Talking of history and putting a paper bag over one’s head, by sheer coincidence and for the first time in a few years, I had also been watching one of my all-time favourite episodes of Blackadder II just the week before.

This particular episode was called “Head” – the one where Lord Blackadder found himself reluctantly landed with the role of Chief Executioner, by appointment of the Queen. Blackadder had just had Lord Farrow executed two days earlier than planned, to give himself and his team, Baldrick along with Mr and Mrs Ploppy, the middle of the week off.

To cut a long story short, this all happened without the knowledge of Lady Farrow, who had since gained the approval of the Queen to visit her husband in jail so that she could see him just one more time.

Lord Blackadder’s plan to cover up his mistake was to have Lady Farrow meet with Baldrick instead, who would disguise himself as Lord Farrow by covering his own head with a bag.

In the end, they managed to pull the whole stunt off by the skin of their teeth, but not after a few tweaks to the plan, a litany of hilarious errors, and a barrage of belly-ache laughs.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I’ve always enjoyed a good laugh – whether it be watching Blackadder, Billy Connolly or Friends. Or even just hanging out with my own friends and having a laugh, cracking a few jokes together.

I’d like to think people have always seen me as a cheery, fun-loving guy. But if the truth be told, many of those who really knew me also knew how moody I could get at times. Times, that is, when the growling of my black dogs would get the better of, and louder than, all the laughter.

Even still, many people, some of my good friends, are to this day genuinely surprised when they find out that I used to dance with the black dog. They tell me that I’m the last person they would have suspected – because I always seemed so cheery on the outside.

Of course, I now realise in hindsight that cheeriness and laughter also used to act as a defence mechanisms for me; Blackadder, Baldrick and Billy Connolly were some of my own forms of self-medication. So I also had a good laugh to myself as I walked from the pharmacy back to the car, paroxetine in hand for all to see, as I realised just how much the way I now laugh has also changed – in no small part thanks to the bagless contents of my hands.

I do realise that certain medications work for some but not for others, and even then they are no cure-all; my paroxetine is no panacea. Nowadays, however, I choose to be the master of my own medication rather than a slave to it. Nowadays I love to laugh because I love to laugh; I laugh with a sense of sincerity, a sense of freedom that my black dogs deprived me of for so many years.

I also remember that for so many years, if ever I was told that such and such a person was on medication for anxiety or depression, I used to look at such and such a person and think there was something wrong with them. But having seen and experienced the way medication has turned my life around for the better, I now realise there is usually something so very right with them.

And that, at least, is no laughing matter.

Footnote:

If you would like to wear a dancing black dog with pride, help eradicate the stigma of mental illness, and support a worthy charity all at the same time, you can do so by visiting the Dancing With The Black Dog Store

Also please check out my “eradicating the stigma of mental illness competition” here

Many thanks for your support, Part 21 will follow soon!

Years of procrastination, all brought to an end by a single short conversation.

The topic of this conversation was swimming lessons – adult swimming lessons, to be more precise. Growing up in Scotland, swimming wasn’t as actively encouraged as it is here in Australia, so I’d never learned how to swim as a kid. And there I was, now in my early thirties, living on the other side of the world, finally deciding that enough was enough.

OK, so that last paragraph isn’t entirely true. I had learned how to swim before, but I wasn’t very good at it. Apart from a few informal lessons from friends, I was more or less self-taught, and I’d never spent much time in the water.

What I had actually learned to do was painfully move through water fifteen feet at a time, haphazardly splashing my arms and legs up and down. Gasping for air, I’d struggle to stay afloat, before finally putting my feet on the bottom so I could stand up to catch my breath. I’d then be left looking around, wondering why there were only half as many people in the pool as when I had first got in. So not only was I not a very good swimmer, I was an embarrassingly awful swimmer.

By the time I moved to Australia in my late twenties, I started making up a barrage of excuses for not getting proper lessons. As irrational as it may sound, although I was relatively fit, I actually believed my body simply wasn’t designed to swim.

In any case, swimming lessons for adults probably wouldn’t be available in Australia, where everyone seemed to turn half-dolphin as soon as their feet touched the water. What’s more, if there were any adult lessons, they would likely be at inconvenient times, and I’d end up missing half of them anyway because of the unpredictable hours of my job.

Fast forward the clock a few more years, however, and I found myself in those early thirties. I was now a married man, with the talk turning to that of starting a family. My desire to one day play with my kids in the water rather than sitting silently on the sidelines greatly outweighed the shame and embarrassment I had once felt at my previous attempts in the pool.

While discussing the topic with a friend one day, however, I made a promise. I vowed that within the week, I would call the local pool and ask about adult lessons. Just an initial enquiry – nothing else. Lo and behold, surprise surprise, well I never, by the end of that phone call I was booked into lessons starting the following week, and everything else fell perfectly into place from there.

To cut a long story short, what happened over the following months felt like nothing short of a miracle. Firstly, there were other adults in the class – other Australian adults – who could not swim a single foot. I was actually one of the better movers-through-water in the class!

I was also encouraged to practice in my spare time. I set myself a target of getting in the pool by myself for an hour every Sunday morning, and doing so until I could swim a full length non-stop and unaided.

Much to my amazement, within a few short weeks, I touched the far end of the pool with my hand before I touched the bottom with my feet. It might not have been the most elegant length ever swam in a pool, but it certainly felt like the most magical – and it was my first. I was utterly elated!

I was also hooked. I kept going, practising every Sunday morning. Before long, I was churning out two lengths non-stop, then five, then ten. Then one day as I emerged from the pool, I had to pinch myself because I had just swam forty lengths – a whole kilometre – non-stop. My name and a one-kilometre swim in the same sentence for the first time in my life!

All it took in the end was a phone call.

The same can be said about my years-long struggle with the black dogs of irrational worry, anxiety and depression.

I’d endured many years living a secret life of such struggles. At times, I was dragging myself through life one day at a time, frantically waving not only my arms and legs, but also my thoughts in the air, trying my best to stay afloat.

People tell me nowadays that I must have been putting on a brave face on the outside because they’d never have guessed I was fighting a battle with my inner demons. Unbeknownst to them, I was utterly terrified on the inside. And just like when it came to learning to swim, I started making up a barrage of excuses for not getting help.

The fact that I was able to get through each day, regardless of how hard I had to struggle, made me think that perhaps I wasn’t suffering that badly after all. Furthermore, I was also able to hold down a good job, I had my own young family now, as well as a nice home. Surely I’d just be laughed away if I sought help.

Then there were the stigmas. Ah, the stigmas! The shame and embarrassment of the stigmas! If I were ever so much as to open my mouth to a psychologist or have a prescription for antidepressants written in my name, I’d surely be labeled for life. I might even lose my job.

In any case, it would all cost too much for sure, with psychologists charging by the hour, and no doubt expensive medications that might not even work.

But the day eventually came when I’d had enough. I literally found myself that day teetering nervously on the edge of breakdown. I might have been able to play with my kids in the water by now, but my desire to be fully present with them now outweighed my shame, my embarrassment, my excuses for not seeking help.

I literally felt like a broken man. And so, full of regret for having not taken action before, for leaving it till it felt like it might be too late, I vowed that I would call my doctor the following day.

It was just a phone call. But it led to an appointment that quickly led to a pharmacy, as well as a seat on a psychologist’s couch.

While sitting on that couch, what took place was merely a conversation. And it was all about me, with someone who was trained to, and wanted to listen and ask all the right questions. What’s more, after all that previous worry about the cost of counseling, the sessions with my psychologist were heavily subsidized by the Government because I was referred to her by my doctor. And all this time, not a hint of anyone laughing me away.

It was a long, slow journey to recovery from there. But at the end of the road was a light far brighter than I had ever imagined possible.

All it took in the end was a phone call.

And so, as another year draws to a close, if you are going to make a New Year’s Resolution, why not make it nice and simple, one that you can easily keep? Why not just make a resolution to pick up the phone?

You don’t have to wait until it feels like it’s too late.

Footnote: Below are the contact details for a handful of helplines around the world. If you are aware of any other useful helplines in these or any other countries, please feel free to leave their contact details as a comment below. Or, you can send me a direct message via my Dancing With The Black Dog Facebook page www.facebook.com/dancingwiththeblackdog – I can then add the contact details you provide for any other organisations to this list below, without mentioning your name.

The Samaritans sum it up perfectly on their website, where they say: “Talk to us any time you like, in your own way, and off the record – about whatever’s getting to you. You don’t have to be suicidal.”

So why not just pick up the phone and make that first call right now? It may well be the first step in changing your life for the better, and in more ways than you ever imagined possible.

Remember – it’s only a conversation, with someone who both knows how to and wants to listen.

When I first heard these words, I couldn’t help but think how mean, scrooge-like and downright unChristmassy they sounded – all the harder to swallow because they were emanating from my own mouth.

In the fourteen years since, however, I haven’t sent a single Christmas card, and at last count I haven’t lost a single friend as a result.

It seems there are two extremes when it comes to sending Christmas cards. At one end of the scale are those who genuinely want to send a heartfelt message of goodwill to their friends and family, and take time, joy and pride in doing do. At the other end are those who feel a sense of seasonal anxious obligation. A sense of not wanting the potential embarrassment of bumping into someone over the festive season who has sent them a Christmas card, but they themselves have committed the cardinal sin of not reciprocating.

With the torrential river of mail that flows through our letterboxes every December, I finally reasoned that I’d never even have a clue as to who hadn’t sent me a Christmas card – and I’m sure I’m not the only one. What’s more, if anyone I knew was to monitor their incoming festive mail with a checklist, chances are that I wouldn’t want to be on their Christmas card list anyway. For me, that’s not what friendship or Christmas are about – again, I’m sure I’m not the only one.

This Christmas will be my third since I finally rid myself of the black dogs of anxiety and depression. Previously, I’d endured many years and many festive seasons living a secret life of needless irrational worry which, amongst other things, resulted in me burning through a box of biros every December.

When I stopped sending Christmas cards, apart from saving me a fortune on ink, the added benefit was that it also removed a massive anxiety-inducing task from my to-do list at what is already an anxiety-inducing and busy enough time of year.

With so much focus on perfect presents and a plethora of parties, Christmas can be an especially challenging time for anyone doing battle with the black dog. There seems to be such an expectation for everyone to be sporting smiles the size of Santa sacks and proclaiming endless joy to the world.

Speaking from experience, those who don’t feel so joyful within their own inner world do feel added pressure to not put a dampener on the festivities for those around them. Christmas also shines a spotlight on the fact that they think something is “wrong” with them if they can’t find it within themselves to be cheery for Christmas. Which is why even those surrounded by friends and family at Christmas often use a single word to describe how they feel – lonely.

I’m pleased to say, however, that my Christmas from fourteen years ago also has a positive, dare I say unscroogelike spin. Every day that December, I walked past a small charity Christmas tree in the foyer at work. It was decorated with brightly-coloured labels, and written on each label was the name of a child, their age, and their wish list of presents.

All these children came from poorer families in town, unlikely to receive what they wanted for Christmas. Unless, that is, someone picked their label off the tree, bought the presents on their list, and left them under the tree for the charity to deliver.

I picked off one of the labels as I headed out for lunch one day. On it was written the name David. He was twelve years old, and his wish list included a football, a cricket bat and some t-shirts. By the time I was watered, fed and back at my desk, I had also bought and wrapped David’s presents, and left them under the tree. It was only a few days later that someone at work happened to mention that we were only expected to buy one of the presents on the list. Fortunately, not even a former tight-fisted Scot like me could bring himself to chance a refund.

And I’m glad he didn’t. A few days later on Christmas morning, once the ceremonious opening of the presents was over, I sat in a sea of discarded wrapping paper. My thoughts then turned to David, and I smiled as I imagined the look of delight on his face as he opened his own presents.

And so, my best present that Christmas was realising the full extent of the saying that the greatest and most rewarding gifts are always the ones you give. All the more so if they are given anonymously, without even the possibility of a thank-you in return.

I’m not suggesting that random acts of anonymous kindness are a one-stop cure for mental illness. But they are a start; their healing power should never be underestimated.

On that note, I have a dream this Christmas. My dream is that one day in the near future, the stigma of mental illness will be completely eradicated. That way, nobody need ever feel alone again on Christmas Day; everyone’s Christmases may indeed one day be white.

I have one other dream this Christmas. My other dream is that sometime in the not too distant future, we will all be able to live every day like it’s Christmas.

Footnote:

Similar to my “All I Want For Christmas Is A Million-Plus Tweet” campaign last year, I’ve been on a campaign this December to have this post published in as many other media as possible around the world.

So far I’ve been very fortunate to have it published in:

If you know of anyone who might need a little encouragement to seek help this Christmas, why not share this story with them too? Think of it as a Christmas card…

Thank you for all your support for “Dancing With The Black Dog” over the past eighteen months, the story will continue to unfold into 2013 and beyond.

In the meantime, I wish you a fun-filled festive season, and may all your Christmas Dogs be white.

Mark

There was once a time when I used to think anything over thirty was pure downright ancient. That was long before I actually turned thirty of course. But even when I did turn thirty, I still didn’t know whether I was supposed to laugh, cry or check myself in for my first prostate inspection.

It’s only nowadays that I finally feel the world is my oyster; it’s only nowadays that I finally feel the way I could’ve and should’ve felt the first time I turned twenty-one back in 1991. In fact, having won my years-long dance-off with the black dog, the older I get and the more I learn to appreciate my lot in life, the more I really do feel like I am a whoppingly wonderful twenty-one-again.

I don’t normally broadcast the fact that it’s my birthday, because I used to fear it sounds so look-at-me, so fishing for attention, so selfish. After all, I used to reason with myself, everyone has a birthday – so what’s so special about me on mine?

But this year was different. This year, I recalled an enlightening gem on the topic of selfishness that I first stumbled across not 21, but 12 years ago. Musing over it again encouraged me to “go public” on both Facebook and Twitter about my forty-second big day – though there was a reason for me doing so other than shouting out “Hey, how about a wee Happy Birthday To Me?!”

Funnily enough, it was a few weeks before my thirtieth birthday that I first unearthed this particular gem. It literally glistened away at me as I turned to the page where it sat in my all-time favourite book, Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch. I read and reread that page several times, and I’ve been exploring the concept of selfishness in my mind on and off ever since.

Strictly speaking, I should refer to said author as “Walsch” for the rest of this post. But I’ve never liked the aggressive tone of that particular form of writers’ etiquette. In my past experiences, anyone who called me “Pacitti” usually wanted to bash me at the same time. So I’m going to be selfish from the start here, and simply refer to the author as “Neale”.

In a nutshell, Neale suggests that in order to get the most out of life – not only for ourselves, but also for everyone else who touches our lives – we should be completely selfish. According to Neale, in order for us all to reach our fullest potential, every person in a relationship, whether it be personal or professional, should worry only about themselves.

Having finally recovered from nearly four decades of irrational black dog induced worrying, I don’t necessarily agree with Neale’s use of the word “worry” in that proposition. In my humble opinion, “be concerned with” would better fit the bill.

I do, however, agree with his supporting argument that it is our focus on – and often obsession with – the other individual in any relationship that stops the relationship from reaching its’ full potential. In many cases, as Neale points out, that obsession can even cause a relationship to fail altogether.

I mean, how often in any relationship do we constantly ask ourselves – and act on – what the other is being, doing and having, what we believe the other is thinking, saying and expecting? All this at the expense of ourselves, and what we truly want out of life.

On that very note, I’ve often felt that one of the contributors towards any individual’s state of anxiety and depression can be attributed to this dilemma – to constantly acting on what we believe are the expectations of others.

How often, for example, do we not do or say something because we fear it might make us look selfish? How often do we not do or say something because we fear what another might think or how another might react if we did?

Looking at it another way, how often do we actually do or say the opposite of what we really want to – the opposite of who we really are – because we feel it is what another expects of us?

In other words, how often are we not being true to ourselves; how often are we not being our true selves? Worse, how often do we do all the above without even realising it, and what is that ultimately doing to further rile the vicious black dog within?

I also used to question whether there might be a vicious black circle at play here. I wondered whether in reality we are driven by an innate sense of selfishness in everything that we do.

Consider as an example any one of those situations where we say what we think is expected of us because we fear the reaction of saying what we really think. Perhaps, I wondered, does our selfish desire to avoid that feared reaction simply outweigh our selfish desire to say what we really want to say?

I’m not suggesting there is anything wrong in acting this way. Sometimes it is better all round, even selfish, to not do or say what we really want to. What I am suggesting, however, is that as long as we catch ourselves before the act and make it a conscious choice not to, as long as we can remain masters of our own mouths, then perhaps we can still be true to ourselves. And in doing so, perhaps we can repair the proverbial garden fence so that the black dog can no longer attack us through this particular gap.

One of the problems with being selfish, so it seems, is that by implication it is such a bad thing. How often, for example, are we left feeling that only those who strive to carry out acts of conventional selflessness are such worthy people? Far better people, that is, than the mere materialistic selfish ones amongst us (tongue; cheek).

Well, after more than a decade of self-reflection on the topic, I have finally come to the conclusion that there is no vicious circle at play here. Rather, it is my humble opinion that there are two parallel lines running together, side by side, hand in hand. In other words, it is my belief that selfishness and selflessness are in fact one and the same thing, if you follow my rather rambling meaning.

Several people also recently pointed out to me that forty-two is the answer to The Ultimate Question Of Life, The Universe And Everything. At least that’s how author Douglas Adams portrayed it in his book The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

The scenario “Douglas” set is that a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings (his words, not mine) built a supercomputer called Deep Thought, specifically designed to figure out the answer. It took Deep Thought 7.5 million years to compute his answer, which turns out to be simply – and disappointingly – forty-two.

Even more disappointingly, The Ultimate Question itself remained unknown, and Deep Thought said that even he lacked the processing power to produce it.

Well, even though Neale’s book is a complex, tough read at times, he still manages to come up with 1) his own answer to the ultimate question 2) with a far less disappointing explanation than that of Douglas and 3) he even comes up with elusive Ultimate Question – What Is The Meaning Of Life?

Neale puts forward the simplistic yet powerful view that the meaning, the purpose of life is to continually discover and rediscover who we are. We can do so through all our life’s experiences and acquaintances – both the good and the bad.

We can also discover who we are – and more importantly, who we are not – in relation to the others we encounter in our lives; in relation to anyone we have any form of relationship with.

Looking at the theory in practice here, if we encounter a rude or arrogant or loud or greedy person, for example, rather than think badly of them, we could consider being thankful to them. Because if we just let them be, what they will do is shine a bright spotlight on the fact that those undesirable qualities are not present in ourselves.

Or if they really get under our skin, perhaps it is because they are highlighting an undesired presence of one of those qualities in ourselves. And all we need to do to get some meaning out of the encounter is to use the opportunity to rise above, to reflect and to admit our shortcomings to ourselves.

The beauty I’ve discovered is that every person we encounter will have different degrees of rudeness or arrogance or loudness or greed – perhaps even some desirable qualities thrown in for good measure. What we can therefore learn about ourselves in relation will differ from person to person, situation to situation. So on a practical level, the sense of pride, the buzz, the pay-off we can get by rising above in every encounter also differs every time. In other words, we needn’t ever get bored.

And surely then it stands to reason that by choosing to be selfish in any relationship ourselves, we allow others to see and experience us for who we truly are, and therefore define themselves in return.

You may recall that I touched on all this back in Part Six when I talked about the greatest yet simplest secret to living a more happy and meaningful life. You may also recall that I literally stumbled across this other gem on what was my darkest hour in my deepest cave.

The first step towards recovery, towards finding a purpose in life, as I discovered back then, was to first focus on removing all the purposelessness. Only then, as I began to see, can the canvas be cleared. And only then can colourful strokes of purposefulness begin to emerge from even the most everyday conversations and experiences.

So what on earth has all this selfish business got to do with me turning forty-two, you may be asking?

Well, in my previous black dog dancing days, as well as stashing away as much money as possible for a rainy day, I also used to stash as much annual leave as possible – again, just in case I ever needed it.

Since I painted my own black dog white, however, I’ve made the point of taking a day off work for my birthday each year, and being purposefully selfish for the day.

My birthday fell on a Sunday this year, so I took the following Monday off. My day started with dropping Freddie and Jack off at daycare and school respectively. I had pre-arranged to then meet up with Ivan, one of the other school dads. We went to a café a short distance from the school, where we also met up with Ivan’s wife Kate and a couple of the other mums, Danielle and Justine. We just sat soaking up the sun and chatting about children for an hour or so. I hadn’t a care in the world.

I then took off for a relaxing massage. Nowadays, I usually treat myself to a half hour massage every three or four weeks, but today was my day of self-indulgence so the hour-glass was full from the start. I’d also been deliberately banking up a bit of body stress over the previous few days by squeezing in as many runs as I could. It was all worthwhile as I just lay on my front for the entire hour, losing myself in my thoughts, and feeling the physical tension literally rise away from me.

Next, I met up with Tess for lunch, before heading back home to just hang out and enjoy doing nothing for a bit. After I picked the boys up at the end of their day, I then started cooking the following night’s dinner – on the slow cooker of course.

I’m no masterchef, but I am proud of my recipe repertoire, and I do love cooking. I think it might have something to do with my line of work. After all, I don’t exactly get the chance to otherwise satisfy my the man-the-hunter instinct by coming home after a day in the forest and slapping the kill of the day onto the kitchen table.

I also find cooking incredibly rewarding and therapeutic. It is one of my simple selfish pleasures in life – all the more so when I can smell the bolognaise or baltis of my own labour wafting through the house as it slowly cooks away in the corner. I’ve even learned how to not burn a burger on the barbie since coming to live Down Under.

So while some may think that cooking regularly for one’s family is a selfless act, anyone who watches me in action would disagree. Whenever I find myself chopping, mixing and simmering away in the kitchen, or scraping and flipping at the barbie, it usually means that I am avoiding the vying for my attention of my children, who would much rather I build some Lego or race some toy cars on the floor with them.

So if the truth be told, cooking is my selfish escape from the demands and pressures of parenthood, as well as my proverbial selfish slapping of the carcass onto the kitchen table.

I’m not for one minute suggesting that simply taking up cooking or taking a day off work on your birthday are cures for mental illness. Heck, some people detest cooking; doing it more often would only make them more depressed.

What I am suggesting, however, is that if the black dog constantly growls at you, constantly reminds you that you lack meaning in your life, and if Neale’s suggestion for a more meaningful life doesn’t resonate with you, then consider that maybe, just maybe, Douglas was actually onto something too.

Douglas was often asked why he chose the number forty-two as the answer to the ultimate question. Many theories were proposed, from the logical to the outright bizarre. These theories included the fact that that light refracts off water at forty-two degrees to create a rainbow, the fact that Dr Johnson’s dictionary contained 42,777 words, and the fact that the game of cricket has forty-two rules. Douglas dismissed them all.

One day, he finally explained:

“The answer to this is very simple”, said Douglas. “It was a joke. I felt it had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, one that made no sense whatsoever, and I chose forty-two.”

In case you blinked and missed it, the important point here is that Douglas chose his own answer to the meaning of life. And perhaps it is the same for us all. Perhaps we all have the ability to choose the black-dog-defying meaning in our own lives.

I didn’t just read a book and come up with my own answer, my own meaning. It took me over a decade of self-reflection, a lot of mental anguish, being reduced to a whole new level of meaninglessness, and far too many visits to some very dark places first.

But after this decade of reflection, the answer that I choose, the answer that still sings so sweetly to me, is the one that Neale wrote.

Bright moonlight on a foggy night, you may ask? Well, the fog, like all my other black dog encounters, was inside my head. If you’ve never experienced such a black dog fog before, you might argue that it’s not a real fog. On the other hand, if you have encountered this blinding beast, you might argue that it is far more real, far more engulfing than even the thickest of the harmless grey stuff that lingers over the street.

Either way, this fog had already been gathering in my head for several months; I was on a slow but steady downward spiral. Unbeknownst to me, only three months later I would find myself teetering nervously on the edge of breakdown.

I don’t usually watch much television, but the fog was so thick on that April night that I just wanted to have my mind distracted. Tess had taken to watching the documentary show Australian Story on Monday nights so I decided to tune out by tuning in with her.

As we rugged up on the couch, little did we know that we were about to watch a poignant, compelling story that would one day send us on a journey outside in the real world – a journey that would provide us with many eye-opening experiences, as well as one of life’s simple yet dazzling light bulb moments. Little did I also know that this journey would ultimately help cement my recovery from my long, slow dance with the black dog.

The Australian Story being televised that Monday night was called Children Of A Lesser God. I was stunned into mental silence for the next thirty minutes as the story of young Sydneysider Tara Winkler unfolded before our eyes.

At the age of just twenty-two, Tara had established an orphanage in the town of Battambang in north-west Cambodia. Tara had previously worked as a volunteer at another orphanage in Battambang, where she had witnessed appalling conditions. She had seen children sleeping like sardines on floors in tiny rooms, drinking dirty water, and relying on leftover scraps from a nearby monastery for food. Her complaints to the cruel orphanage director had been met with deaf ears.

Not long after returning to Sydney at the end of her volunteership, Tara received a cryptic worrying message from one of the orphans. She boarded the next flight to Cambodia, returned to Battambang, and discovered that things had gone from bad to worse.

The orphanage director, as Tara suspected, had been begun embezzling money from overseas sponsors – money that had been intended to buy food and clothes, as well as badly needed medicine for the sick children. The children were now so desperate that they were catching mice to eat. And if that wasn’t bad enough, this evil man was even abusing many of the helpless, terrified children.

Tara felt that she had no option other than to bravely (ie terrified, and literally endangering herself!) rescue the 14 young children from this life of destitution. In doing so, she established her own orphanage, and committed herself to staying in Cambodia to support them. And so the Cambodian Children’s Trust – CCT – came to be.

By the time the Australian Story camera crew turned up in Battambang, the population of CCT had expanded from the original 14 to 33 orphans. These children, as new CCT director Jedtha Pon explained to the cameras, could now go to school, and have good food, good medical care, good care in general.

As the closing credits rolled, Tess and I looked at each other in near disbelief, and I went to sleep that night with a sense of both shame and calm.

Shame, because I realised I constantly let myself worry about the most trivial, materialistic matters. Yet the Children Of A Lesser God anywhere in the world would no doubt give anything – anything – for the opportunities I’ve been gifted with, and the life I am fortunate to lead – even with the irrational worries that came as part of my package.

And calm, because watching the story of their plight had been the trigger to my daily albeit brief window of relief. All my anxiety just crumbled away, my head cleared, and once again I just knew that everything was going to be alright. The worse possible irrational scenarios that my black dogs constantly dreamed up for me simply were not going to transpire.

When I woke up the next morning, however, those beastly black dogs were already growling. I went back to my usual mental state – incessant, irrational worrying about those trivial mistakes that would lead to me losing my job, my health, my mind and all of our money. But at the same time, neither Tess nor I could stop thinking all day about the Children Of A Lesser God. Tess was straight on the case, emailing CCT to find out if we could start to sponsor one of the children.

Although CCT were inundated with offers of support after Australian Story, Tess heard back from Tara a couple of days later. We were delighted within a few weeks to then become sponsor aunt and uncle to Bisay, one of the newer teenage orphans. And so, as the months passed, we began paying $50 a month – the standard amount for a sponsor aunt/uncle – into the CCT coffers to help support Bisay.

Tess also sent off some photos of Jack and Freddie from time to time, and we got the occasional personal letter or drawing from Bisay. In the meantime, we got an immense amount of satisfaction out of knowing that even such a small (and tax deductible!) sum of money was helping to make a difference to someone somewhere in the world.

During those same months, the fog in my head continued to get thicker; the black dogs growled louder and frothed more furiously, and I found myself hiding in deeper caves as I nudged myself closer towards the dark abyss of breakdown.

Before I skip ahead to August 2011 and that real-world journey, I feel the need to take a brief scene-setting time-out.

One recurring fear that I continually refer to, one that used to literally riddle my head with panic, was the irrational fear of running out of money – a fear that is of particular relevance to this post.

Vivid thoughts and visions of going bankrupt, losing my job, our home, all our possessions and everything we had worked so hard for would run riot in my mind. In fact, most of my worries over the years ultimately originated from money – or more to the point, the fear of running out of the stuff.

When I used to find myself constantly tied up in knots over making mistakes at work, for example, I was only ever worried about how those mistakes would ultimately result in our bank balance being obliterated. No matter how small, how human, how innocent and justifiable any of my mistakes were, I would then start to worry about how bleak our lives would inevitably become without any money. Significantly, I never worried about any sense of shame I might get in losing my job, only because I always knew I had done no wrong.

With the benefit of hindsight, I now realise that all my irrational worries were caused by the black dog instilling in me a sense of “You’re not worthy of this life and all these nice things in it. One day, someone somehow somewhere is going to take it all away from you. And then you’ll be nothing.”

It was a case of the cart before the horse, or rather the act of worrying before the reason for worrying. I was already in a state of worry, and my black dog was simply finding things to justify making me worry. My black dog would go on the hunt for things for me to worry about, It would latch onto them and fester on them. It had no choice in fact – manifesting worries was the only way the black dog could keep itself in existence.

My money worries weren’t just limited to work. I’ve also ruined countless holidays for myself in the past by obsessing over the cost of everything, constantly adding it all up in my head. Rather than being enjoyable, relaxing experiences, all of the holidays in my adult years felt like deep, dark bottomless money pits for much of the time.

Holidays were always perfect conditions for Tommy Tightarse here to be at his most anxiously active. Having already forked out what always felt like a small fortune on flights and accommodation, I’d then find myself excitedly jetting off to destinations I’d often dreamed of seeing.

Yet at the same time I would have the excitement and experience ruined by the anxiety of literally feeling like I was gushing money every minute until I was safely back home. Things like eating out every night, paying inflated prices for excursions, shopping and so on – rather than being enjoyable experiences, they all felt like small gnarling black dogs.

On one particularly memorable holiday, the year before Jack was born, Tess and I spent a week on the Greek Island of Santorini. Every night, we would eat out at restaurants overlooking the volcanic island that the mainland of Santorini surrounds. We enjoyed amazing traditional Greek dishes, while gazing over views of the most spectacular seas and sunsets. Prices in the Santorini restaurants were quite reasonable too, considering the location and view. I couldn’t help but notice that they were comparable to our average Melbourne restaurant prices at around $50-60 all-up.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a great time at all during holidays such as this. I do have lots of happy holiday memories. But true to form, my black dogs hijacked these experiences time after time by reminding me that back home in Melbourne, eating out would be a once, maybe twice a month extravagance. Back home, we would never ever dine out seven nights in a row. Now where was the cheapest meal on the menu?

But after watching the sobering plight of the Children Of A Lesser God, donating $50 a month to CCT never once raised the eyebrow of Tommy Tightarse. I don’t mean that to sound like a “look at us, how good are we, we helped out the poor orphans” comment. I just can’t think of another way to say it.

On that note, I would like to stress that the same holds true for everything I’m about to narrate below. I hope it will become clear that we had all the good done to us by each and every one of the brave souls we met in Cambodia, and never the other way around. We were utterly privileged to have encountered them. We truly had our lives enriched by them in more ways that I can possibly fit into even one of my lengthy blog posts.

For the first time in my life, I was actually looking forward to a long-haul economy class flight. I don’t mean I just wasn’t too bothered at the idea of being strapped into a cramped seat for eight hours. No, I really was very much looking forward to it.

After all, Tess and I were going on holiday by ourselves for the first time in six years. We were going to spend five days in Battambang, and then seven days in Siem Reap, leaving Jack and Freddie and all the responsibilities of parenthood safely at home under the watchful eyes of my in-laws, Margaret and Denis. Our first leg was a daytime flight to Singapore, meaning that for an entire eight hours, we were literally unable to do anything except eat, drink, sleep, read or watch movies. What’s not to look forward to there?

After an overnight stopover in Singapore, we finally found ourselves descending into Siem Reap airport. As I gazed over the endless flat paddy fields, it dawned on me that not only was this my first overseas trip with just Tess in six years, it was also my first overseas holiday since shaking off that years-long fear of running out of money.

I’d had other one-off social events and the like since my victory over the black dog, where I’d finally been able to enjoy the experience without obsessing over the cost. However, all preliminary tests of my new-found attitude towards the mighty dollar had until this point been on home soil.

Of course it helped that we were about to land in a Third World country where the average daily wage is $2 – about half the amount I might spend on a single cup of coffee at work. In other words, everything was going to be ridiculously cheap in Cambodia.

Before long, we had collected our suitcases, we were safely through customs and, rather ironically I thought, we had become millionaires by converting $500 into more than 2 million Cambodian Riel. So, we were off to a good start on the financial front, we got in a taxi, and headed south west. Final destination – Battambang.

We spent the next three hours whizzing through the Cambodian countryside. We passed by many of those sodden paddy fields we had spotted from the air, and we passed through a few small, grubby market towns.

When we finally arrived in Battambang, the first thing I noticed was that there was nothing particularly noticeable about the place, except for a food and clothing market in the centre of town. The market looked dirty and rundown by Western standards, but it was swarming with locals.

There was nothing in any way modern about Battambang, but the main roads and many of the buildings were solid, albeit ageing.

There was also the unmistakable cacophony of moped engine-humming and horn-tooting – the signature sound of any South-East Asian town or city. To the Western ear, it always sounds like disorganised chaos, and to the Western eye it always amazingly takes place without even the slightest hint of road rage. Battambang was no different.

We were staying in the best room at one of the top hotels in town, yet it was still only costing $50 per night. The staff who greeted us were friendly, our room was small but clean, there was even a pool and a bar. It was nothing to be sniffed at, but then neither was the mildly unpleasant odour that emanated from our bathroom. But we were in a Third World country; we hadn’t come to Battambang for indulgence and comfort.

Tess had been exchanging emails over the previous months with Tara Winkler’s personal assistant, young New Zealander Marnie Walters, to finalise the dates for our visit. We briefly unpacked, and then a tired-looking but eternally cheery Marnie arrived in her small red well-worn Daewoo to pick us up. As we squeezed into Marnie’s car and started chatting, we all instantly connected. It felt like we had known Marnie for years, like we were old friends catching up, rather than meeting for the first time.

As we drove through the gates of the main CCT house, a dozen delightful children who had been happily playing in the grounds stopped in their tracks. As soon as we got out of Marnie’s car, they gathered around us and began saying hello and telling us their names. As we walked into the house, the crowd that was following us grew…and grew…and grew. We were surrounded!

We were then introduced to a somewhat shy Bisay, who understandably didn’t quite know how to react. She was pleasant however, and she was grateful for the gifts we had brought with us. Having come to CCT at an older age than many of the other children, she had an air of quiet wisdom and caution about her. This seemed to be substituted in the younger children by an air of almost boisterous, carefree innocence – on the surface at least.

Marnie then gave us a tour of the house, accompanied by Bisay. She explained that we were in one of three local CCT houses. It was spread across three floors, mostly bedrooms, with several beds occupying each.

The house wasn’t modern, and its furniture wasn’t sparkling and new. But it was solid, and its entire contents were clean, tidy and organised. This was also a home that exuded a sense of pride and care; this was a home full of soul. CCT clearly had to make the most of every cent, and they had done just that.

When the tour of the house was over, the main living room was filled with laughter once again as we sat on the tiled floor and became the centre of attention. It was hard to remember that each and every one of these children had come from an unimaginably horrific past of some sort. They had every reason in the world to be down in the dumps, depressed and miserable, and yet they all seemed quite the opposite.

I would be lying if I said there wasn’t at least some disappointment when Marnie then told us that Tara had only just gone back to Australia for a while, so we were not going to get to meet her. But much as we had in part been looking forward to meeting Tara from the tv, her absence was a strong reminder of the real reason we were there – as if being surrounded by those happy, laughing real reasons wasn’t enough of a reminder.

Compared to the bright and tidy modern-furnished houses we are accustomed to in the West, the CCT house would have been in some ways a dull, depressing place to visit had it not been for those warm-hearted bright-faced children. But as we would discover over the next few days through exploring more of the area, the Children Of A Lesser God were in many ways – and quite unbelievably – the lucky ones.

Our first stop the next day was at the Drop-In Centre that CCT established in the middle of town. We ended up visiting the centre several times during our brief stay in Battambang. The principle behind the centre was that if the slum children came along and participated in an English, Numeracy, Khmer Literacy or Art lesson, they also got a free meal at the end. The children could also organise their work in clear plastic sleeves in ring binder folders, and safely leave them on shelves in the centre.

On our first full day in Battambang, we joined in an Art class. I sat next to a delightfully quiet, shy young boy whom I would estimate was about ten years old. Like nearly all the other kids in the class, his hair was tidy and he was neatly dressed, albeit in slightly worn clothing. His parents, although slum dwellers, had clearly taken great pride in their son’s appearance at such a public and social gathering.

The little boy was drawing a farm, and I started (rather badly) drawing a Qantas A380. Much to my surprise, he liked my drawing, so I asked for one of his plastic sleeves to put it in so he could keep it. Having misunderstood me, however, he ran over to his spot on the shelves, and came back with his own blue ring binder folder full of his drawings in their plastic sleeves. He then emptied the entire contents, and offered me the empty folder and all the plastic sleeves within.

There I had been, back in Melbourne barely a year earlier, constantly worrying about money, about losing my job and having to move to a smaller house with all our worldly possessions. And here I was now, in the centre of the little town of Battambang, with a poor child who barely even had a house. Yet this child was willingly offering me one of his few worldly possessions without a second’s thought, no strings attached.

Having been terrible at drawing for so many years, I can finally say I’ve learned something important in an art class – and it was through the most generous offer I have ever been made.

After our day at the Drop-In Centre, Marnie dropped us off at our hotel, and joined us for a couple of drinks by the pool. The three of us chatted away for hours, sharing our own stories; Tess and I also sharing our awe at the sheer happiness of the CCT children as well as the concept behind the Drop-In Centre. We also asked her if there was anything we could do while we were there to help out further with the centre, or anything we could buy.

Marnie explained that the Drop-In Centre also provided the slum children with free clean second hand clothes. CCT bought them from the market we had passed on our way through Battambang on our first day. So the next morning, the three of us were off shopping.

Based on how the market had looked from the outside, we were not surprised by what we saw on the inside – a clothing area that sold all kinds of clothes of all shapes and sizes, and a food area that sold all kinds – and all parts – of animals. Nothing went to waste.

The second-hand clothes stall that we stopped at was tidy and organised. All the clothes had been carefully cleaned, proudly pressed, and built into neat bundles. Knowing it was not going to cost much at all, we picked out so many that we ended up with a bundle that went halfway up my thigh. The stall owner then started to write out a receipt – something that Marnie explained all the marketeers did, again as a matter of pride.

Our bill came to the equivalent of $90. It was a bit more than I had anticipated, but then so was the height of pile of clothes we had just picked out. As I began to count out a wad of Cambodian banknotes as thick as my thumb, the stall owner looked horrified. “Way too much, way too much!” he exclaimed in basic broken English.

He checked his handwritten receipt again, and realised he had gotten his sums wrong – he had meant to charge us just $9! Here he was, a family man as he had explained earlier when I’d asked him, struggling to make ends meet. He had just been in a position where he could have made six weeks worth of the average wage in a single sale. We would have walked away none the wiser, yet he pointed out his mistake as a matter of pride.

We paid him the $9 – and gave him a further $9 as a tip for what I told him was his honesty. But in reality, the tip was really for teaching me that there are some things far more important than money.

Later that afternoon, Marnie drove us down in her Daewoo to visit the CCT Drop-In Centre kids in the local slum. On our way, we stopped off at a grocery store and bought a supply of small packets of cracker biscuits to give out.

We were unsure what to expect as we turned off a broken bitumen road onto a dirt track that was the main road through the slum. The road was lined with rundown huts made out of wood and corrugated iron. About twenty adults and children stopped in their tracks to smile and wave as Marnie pulled her car to a stop more or less halfway along the road. We then opened the windows to start giving out the packets of crackers – and about fifty more children appeared from nowhere and surrounded the car like a swarm of bees.

The next few minutes were absolute chaos as all the children reached in through the open windows, literally begging for one of the small packets of cracker biscuits.

There were little hands and arms everywhere. Initially it was warming to see the beaming smile on the faces of the kids as they stuffed their bounty into their mouths. It was also humbling to notice that not a single child grabbed a packet of crackers – each and every one of waited until packet was placed in their hand. I also couldn’t help but notice that my camera was sitting on the dashboard within easy reach of all the hands – yet not a single child even tried to grab it, and at no point did I ever believe any of them would.

It all happened so fast, and our supplies of crackers quickly dwindled to nothing. Screams of delight from the lucky children who managed to collect some crackers were replaced by tears of disappointment, tears of hunger even, from the not so lucky ones.

There were also tears of overwhelmedness from Tess in the back seat, as she spotted the look of sheer devastation on the face of one small child in particular.

Although we felt completely safe the whole time, we were both moved and shaken by the experience. As we drove out of the slum, we shouted out to the crying children that we would be back soon with more.

We returned to the grocery store, and this time emptied the shelves of as many boxes of crackers as we could fit into Marnie’s car. The total cost of this particular shopping spree came to around $50 – no more than a pub meal for two back in Melbourne, so again it was no great pedestal-positioning act of generosity on our part.

As I handed over the money to the shopkeeper and walked out to the car containing Tess, Marnie and a mountain of crackers, I turned around to look back into the shop.

And then the light bulb went off.

Our small shopping expedition had left a beaming smile on the face of the shopkeeper; it had also left a noticeable gap on one of his shelves. I also couldn’t help but notice that there was still so much other food left on the shelves – it was there, right there before our very eyes – and yet just a few blocks away there was a slum full of starving children.

Every money-related irrational worry I’d ever had flashed before me. It fully dawned on me, right there and then, that the purpose of money is to make things happens. Money, I realised, creates the experiences we desire – whether for ourselves or for others. In this case, it was money that could move badly needed food off the shelves in the shop and into the bellies of starving children. It was money that could create gaps in all the right places, and fill gaps in others.

Money, it was now clear, is not a banknote or a coin or a number in a computer somewhere – these are just some things that represent what money really is.. Money is, however, a form of universally transferable agreement, no matter what the currency.

All those years I’d spent needlessly hoarding the mighty dollar and pound in case I might make a costly mistake and need as much money as I could get my hands on. All those years I had been saving up for a rainy day -when the very act of anxiously over-saving was what caused it to be a foggy day anyway. All those years of unnecessary weight on my shoulders just lifted as I turned and walked towards a small red Daewoo that was packed to the rafters with boxes of crackers.

When we returned to the slum with our cracker mountain, the car was once again surrounded but this time all the slum folk seemed less frantic, so this time I also got out of the car to give the crackers to some of the kids and take a few photos. Even now, one of the mothers proudly tidied up her tiny son’s hair for the camera!

Tess and I would never have even dreamed of visiting the slum if we hadn’t been accompanied by Marnie, who was well known to many of the slum dwellers. If we hadn’t been with her, we might have made just one wrong turn and it could have all gone wrong. Call it a disclaimer if you like, it is not always safe for a Westerner to walk through a slum handing out food or gifts. Having said that, it is an experience that we will always be grateful for, both to the slum dwellers and to Marnie.

As we drove off for the second and final time, Marnie pointed out that all those kids might otherwise have been hungry but were now going to sleep with something in their belly that night thanks to us. But they would likely be hungry again tomorrow, I thought, whereas they had just given me a gift that would last a lifetime.

On our last night in Battambang, during the last of our memorable poolside conversations with Marnie, we spoke at length about our life-changing experiences over the previous few days.

With my newly-cemented view on money in mind, I explained to Marnie that I felt we could have done so much more if we had taken the completely selfless approach. If, for example, we had calculated in advance what the cost of our entire trip would have been – airfares, accommodation, the lot – we could have sent CCT a cheque for the entire amount and just stayed at home in Melbourne.

But Marnie pointed out that it was so important for the children to know and to see that there are others out there who care. Money can go a long way for sure, money can at the same time be the root of many evils, but money is the complete opposite of evil and is put to its best use when it is dished out with a dose of love.

Nowadays, my view towards money has completely changed. I do like to sensibly plan for the future, but I also like to plan rationally for the future. As well as now living more fully in the moment, I also like to spend a bit more in the moment.

Of course it is possible that I could indeed run out of money one day for reasons beyond my control. But having witnessed poor people living so proudly in scenarios far worse than anything my black dog ever managed to dream up for me, I no longer fear that future.

I’m sure there would also be a lesson for me to learn if I ever found myself in that predicament. And just like I did after dancing with the black dog for so many years, I know I would bounce back better, stronger and wiser.

I may have travelled a long way, but I learn many priceless lessons in a short space of time in the little town of Battambang. None was more important, however, than realising that wherever there is a gap, whether it be on a shelf in a shop, or in a head somewhere between anxiety and reality, it is usually surrounded by an abundance. And sometimes, to fill that gap, all you need is love.

Photo Gallery

Tess And Bisay

Drop-In Centre Art Lesson

Drop-In Centre Art Lesson

Badly Designed Qantas A380

The Most Generous Offer I’ve Ever Been Made

Market Square

Pick An Animal Part, Any Animal Part

A Different Sort Of Drive-Thru

Crackers

Munchies

A Matter Of Pride

Marnie And The Daewoo Dream Machine

For more information on the relief work being carried out by the Cambodian Children’s Trust, and to see more photos showing how they have transformed the lives of the Children Of A Lesser God, please click on:  www.cambodianchildrenstrust.org

To watch Children Of A Lesser God on YouTube please click on: Part One, Part Two and Part Three

Beaches, boomerangs, barbecues.

Sydney, shark, snake.

These are just a handful of the words that best sum up what I used to imagine life in Australia would be like.

Throw a bonza reef, a beaut roo and a cute koala or two into the picture, and you’ve more or less got the complete outsider’s view of a typical Day In The Life Down Under.

Not long after I first set foot on Terra Australis, however, I became convinced that I’d stumbled across a previously unknown part of antipodean culture. To cut a long story short, I couldn’t get over how passionately the Aussies cared for their pet fish – in particular, the really good tanks they kept them in.

Assimilating myself with The Great Aussie Tank Fascination was a bit like waking up on the set of the movie John Malkovich. Everywhere I went, people would repeatedly greet each other with a reminder about their wonderful tanks. Yet much to my utter confusion, no matter how many new maytes’ houses I visited, I did not once see a single fish tank.

If you are confused and wondering what I am going on about here, well you’ll have a rough idea as to how I was feeling. It was only after several weeks that the penny finally dropped. Those wonderful tanks were just part of the local custom greeting, which simply went like this: Q: How aaare ya’? A: Good tenks!

Now you might think this should have been bleeding obvious to me from day one Down Under. But my confusion had originally arisen because there was another part of this custom I had yet to grasp. I guess this extra part of the custom is as a testament to just how friendly the Aussies really are.

It turns out that in Australia, if ever you don’t understand the first thing that comes out of someone’s mouth, you just assume they are asking “how aaare ya’?” – no matter what they might be saying. How good is that?!

For me, however, the ‘not being understood’ part was more often than not the case. Take the following scenarios, each in which I received the standard wonderful tank of a response: • At the supermarket: “Hullo! Can you tell me where I might find the milk please?” • At the bar in the pub (desperately): “Hullo! Can you tell me where the toilet is please?” • In the Tourist Information Centre: “Hullo! I’m not from around here. Can you tell me how long it would take me to drive to Ayers Rock, and if there any hotels you might recommend for me to stay in while I’m there? Also what’s the weather like there at this time of year?”

Fair enough, I should have added that all the above scenarios were meant to be read in less than two seconds each, and in a gruff Glaswegian voice that resembled a rabid bulldog. But I’m sure it will still come as no surprise when I tell you that I spent a lot of time during my early days in Melbourne shaking my head and saying to myself “but I didn’t ask how you were.”

There is, however, one date on the calendar Down Under where the whole intent of the day is about asking people how they are.

R U OK?Day was launched in 2009, and falls on the second Thursday of September. It is a national day dedicated to inspiring all Australians to ask family, friends and colleagues “are you ok?”

R U OK?Day was started by Sydney Advertising Executive and father of three, Gavin Larkin. Gavin’s father Barry took his own life in 1995 at the age of 55, and RU OK?Day was Gavin’s way of keeping the memory of his father alive. He wanted to inspire Australians to ask the right question, to stay connected and to support those who are struggling with their own inner demons

Ultimately, Gavin wanted to help reduce the unnecessary suicide rate in Australia. Or put another way, Barry Larkin didn’t have to live in torment; Barry Larkin didn’t have to die.

Sadly, on September 21st 2011, after a 19-month battle with cancer, and only a week after the third annual R U OK?Day, Gavin Larkin himself passed away. He was 42.

R U OK?Day lives on, however – not only in memory of Barry Larkin, but also now in memory of Gavin.

The intent of R U OK?Day also remains to encourage everyone to regularly reach out to one another and have open and honest conversations about how they really feel.

On that note, various statistics show that around one in four suffer from some form of mental illness. You don’t have to be Einstein to work out that many of those Aussies who are constantly referring to their wonderful tanks are not being given the space to reach out and tell the truth.

It is my own personal hope that the children of today, including my own two young sons, can grow up in a world where it’s perfectly acceptable to say you are not ok. A world in which, when you are asked the question “how are you?” it will not be unAustralian to reply truthfully, along the lines of “not so good tenks, but tenks for asking.” R U OK?Day goes a long way to lighting up the path towards that new world, and for that we have people like Gavin Larkin to thank.

Part of the problem with anxiety and depression, however, is that many people don’t even realise they are sufferers. Occasionally, many might think they are, but either they don’t want to admit it to themselves, or they put it all down to just having a bad day, and they keep pressing onwards.

Even when the bad days start to last longer and occur more and more frequently, they still they never look themselves in the mirror and ask the all-important question “am I ok?”

I know that scenario all too well myself. It took me way too long to finally ask myself the right question. After my own years-long dance with the black dog, it was only when I had reached my wits end that I decided enough was enough. I looked myself straight in the eye in the mirror and I asked myself “am I ok?” And for once I was honest with myself and replied “no I’m bloody well not ok.”

I then took the action I’ve been blogging about for a year now. I put my hand on the shoulder of the black dog and said STOP! It was my turn to take the lead in the dance.

Talking of the past year, R U OK?Day is also of particular significance to me. Dancing With The Black Dog was first unleashed, tweeted, blogged, emailed and Facebooked onto the unsuspecting world on R U OK?Day 2011. Yes, my black dog blog is one year old this week!

If I could have one black dog blog birthday wish, it would be this: I would wish that whoever reads this, whether on R U OK?Day or not, whether in Australia or not, commits to asking at least one person before the day is out: “are you ok?”

Perhaps you are reading this and you think you know someone who needs to be asked if they are ok, someone you suspect might be living in secret torment. Perhaps you fear offending them, or just don’t know where to start.

Or perhaps you are the one who is living in that secret torment. Perhaps you feel it is you who needs to be asked if you are ok. If that’s the case, perhaps you could still consider asking someone else if they are ok first. After all, the best part of The Great Aussie Tank Fascination is that it usually involves reciprocation.

Either way, the conversation starts with just four letters and a question mark:

R U OK?

R U OK?Day 2012 is Thursday September 13th. For more information, please see www.ruokday.com

After nearly two years living free of the black dog, and twelve months of regular blogging about my experiences, opinions and dodgy dancing techniques, I recently found myself back at my local doctor’s surgery. My mission: to obtain an increase in my daily dosage of Paroxetine.

The Growler I described so colourfully in my last post had more of a fight in her than I’d given her credit for. She started to lose that underlying look of timid friendliness, the colour slowly drained from her, and she continued to wrestle with my unguarded thoughts.

She didn’t even come close to turning into a black dog like the vicious, rabid hounds I’ve fought with in the past. She was, however, a shifty little bitch who turned several different shades of grey – and I’m not, of course, referring to the saucy variety.

As I sat waiting for the doctor to call out my name, I couldn’t help but wonder where I had gone wrong. What had happened to that life more normal, more enjoyable than I had ever dreamed possible, the one I had been living and so proudly professing about to whomever would care to read?

As well as feeling like a failure, I also began to feel like a fraud. How could anyone ever again take my story seriously, or take any comfort from reading it?

I’d done all the right things to bring the bitch back to heel in the previous weeks – getting back into regular exercise, maintaining a healthy diet, getting to bed early, making sure I had some decent downtime every day, and so on.

I’d even resorted to writing down all the things that were causing me to worry, whether at work, at home or at play. But instead of writing down what their worst possible outcomes were, I listed what the desired outcomes were. I also listed all the things I needed to do in each case to realise those desired outcomes.

The mere act of compiling this list lifted my mood significantly. Before I had written it, I felt as though I had a large collection of beach balls that I had to frantically juggle to keep in the air. But now I could see that it was nothing more than a small collection of marbles, one I could more or less hold in my hands. Yet still I could not completely shake off those occasional mildly anxious, irrational thoughts.

As before, they continued to surface in various shades of grey whenever I woke up in the middle of the night. They usually dissipated by the time I had my morning coffee, but now they were starting to appear at occasional random intervals throughout the day. I was becoming concerned about when – or if – I would ever get back to that state of feeling 100% normal again.

For sure, I had taken on more of late, life had been busier and more stressful for a couple of months. But for nearly two years I’d felt bulletproof when it came to maintaining a positive state of mind. Here I was now feeling like I had lost my invincible superpower advantage over my arch nemesis. Now I knew how Superman felt when he was exposed to kryptonite, and then found himself defenceless against the three black-clad criminals with similar superpowers.

Fortunately, my feelings of failure and fraudulence were brought to an abrupt end when the familiar smiling face of my doctor called out my name. I took a seat in his room, explained my situation, and reasoned that I saw this as just another tango in my overall dance-off with the black dog.

My situation, I explained, was not by any means unbearable. But over the previous several weeks, the hairline cracks had started to spread further, and life was not as enjoyable as it had once been.

My predicament was helped a great deal as my doctor nodded in agreement, smiled knowingly, and then out of the blue he added “I’ve read some of your blog by the way. I think it’s a great thing you are doing.”

Uplifted and reassured, I pointed out that as we sat there, we were actually playing out what would become part of a future blog post. “What do you want me to call you in it?” I asked him. “After all, I’ll need to protect your real identity!”

He paused for a moment, before simply replying “Stella”, with a further nod of his head.

And so, Doctor Stella wrote me out a prescription for the next six months, increasing my daily dose of Paroxetine from 20mg to 30mg.

Mission accomplished, I asked Doctor Stella if I was going to experience the same massive mood slump that I had when I first started taking Paroxetine two years earlier. He explained that it was unlikely, but I might experience some mild side effects over the following week or two, including stomach upsets, dizziness or headaches.

The next morning, I calmly downed my cornflakes and artificially-sweetened coffee, followed by one and a half tablets of my other daily sweetener. As it was a Saturday, I then took Jack to his weekly AusKick footy training. It was a Dads ‘n’ Lads Special event, and I was feeling carefree and content as the session kicked off and I chatted to a few of the other fathers.

About halfway through the session, however, I started feeling glum and negative. As the day progressed, I would feel upbeat and positive for half an hour or so, and then glum and negative again the next.

By the time Sunday afternoon came around, I was feeling mildly but emphatically depressed for no reason whatsoever, in a way I had never felt before. I wasn’t actually worrying about anything, and my thoughts weren’t anxiously racing. I was just feeling negative, pessimistic, down in the dumps. I had to reason with myself that this was just my brain trying to find a way to deal with the increase in my medication – but it was a struggle.

I didn’t experience any of the stomach upsets, dizziness or headaches that Doctor Stella had described, but I did experience some temporary mild head throbbing. Plus, if I were to be honest, I also felt quite teary at times.

I did, however, make the mistake of turning to Doctor Google on the Sunday night, search parameters: “increased paroxetine dosage”.

Whatever was I thinking?!

I went on to read about one young woman who had been getting tremendous results for over fifteen years on a lower dosage. She had recently struggled through a particularly stressful event, so had been prescribed a similar increase to mine. She had now been experiencing the same symptoms as me for four weeks, with no sign of her mood leveling off.

I also read about another person who found he just could not tolerate more than 20mg per day, and there was another who found no change whatsoever after an increase dosage. Well, whatever I was thinking now, it wasn’t exactly what had been hoping for.

When it comes to consulting Doctor Google, I usually reach for the nearest and biggest soapbox, and preach profusely against it. However, this particular search did reaffirm my view that each of us are different; each of us has to find the right balance of the right ingredients to beat the black dog, and what works for one will not necessarily work for another.

With all this in mind, and knowing how much better I function after a good night’s sleep, it was sensibly off to bed early for me, praying that I would wake up in a more positive mood. The thought of facing four or more weeks in the same negative frame of mind was not exactly a prospect I relished.

The next morning I woke up early, still feeling fairly low and anxious. Fortunately, I still felt confident that I would be able to cope with the week ahead, as I kept reminding myself that I had managed to work through far worse for far longer in the distant past.

Much to my delight, by the time I got to work, my confidence levels lifted and the feelings of standalone depression completely disappeared. And that was the last I saw of them.

As the week went on, I continued to chip away at the actions on my list of concerns and desired outcomes that I’d written out the week before. I still found myself waking up in the middle of the night to find my unguarded mind being provoked by a dog of some unpleasant anxiety-inducing variety. But with each passing day, the colour slowly returned to her grey coat. I gained more and more confidence that I would feel infinitely better once I was out of bed and fed – even when that was the last thing I felt like doing.

I also continued to remind myself that while those racing what-if worrying thoughts can feel so real, they can also dissipate in an instant, leaving you wondering what the hell you were so worried about. Knowing from experience that I could feel fine again at any moment did give me strength, but it was bloody frustrating at times because I would never quite know when it would happen.

By the time the weekend came around again, I was feeling good – I wasn’t feeling great, but then I wasn’t feeling bad either. I wasn’t quite back to the point of being Mondayitis-free yet. Rather ironically, it was only when I actually woke up in the early hours of Monday morning that I felt the best I’d been in over two months.

I lay awake in the dark at precisely 3.25am, calmly and confidently pondering all the challenges I had to face in the week ahead. Despite my lack of sleep that night, the calmness and confidence followed me into the working day. I was back!

I continue to feel better with each day that passes. As I write this, I’m about 95% of my way back to my best. This is in comparison to the roughly 80% I was feeling just before I paid a visit to Doctor Stella, and a further comparison to the all-time low 2% I slumped to two years ago.

I now realise that I did make myself bulletproof two years ago. But as is the case for every Superman, Ironman or Batman, a nemesis can always come back stronger, shiftier and wiser. The past several weeks have shown me that I too needed to up the ante; I needed to learn more about myself and my own weaknesses. I needed to wise up, to tweak the defences and make myself better-than-bulletproof. And that is exactly what I did.

I’m not saying that simply taking a larger dose of a drug is the only answer. I still strongly believe that taking action is always the answer when tackling the dogs of anxiety and depression, whatever colours or shades of grey they may be – and I did try taking several other actions first.

And while increasing my medication was very much a last resort for me, it was not a resort I was in any way ashamed of or unwilling to take. In recognising the early signs, I simply wanted to nip the bitch in the bud early on, before she stopped growling and started biting.

I’m sure the dog will try to bite back at me again some day. Whether it be in a month, a year or a decade, I’ll be waiting, I’ll be ready, and I’ll get stronger and wiser each and every time she tries.

I’m sure there will also be times in the future when I will again feel like a failure – but I now recognise that does not necessarily mean I will be failing. Failure could only occur should I ever neglect to take the necessary action to keep the black dog at bay, The Growler from turning grey. Failure, therefore, will never be an option.

No matter what it takes.

In amongst all the usual year-end madness, I found myself having to produce a mountain of other unrelated reports and deliverables for my customers. Many of these deliverables even relied on me further relying on the input of others. Others, that is, who were equally crazy-busy staring down the barrel of June 30^th themselves. Some of them were even relying back on me to complete their own work too! I felt like a bit of a dog myself – though unsure whether to chase my own tail or that of another.

Even though I started working longer hours than normal, things still piled up. I began to slip behind, and I found more than your average number of albeit minor mistakes and oversights creeping into my work.

I also started waking up regularly at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. I would lay in bed, restless, with my thoughts always turning towards my to-do list for the imminent working day, as well as any mistakes I’d made the day before. I daren’t get out of bed for fear of a creaky floorboard stirring the kids, or worse, our two wee yappy white dogs.

Fortunately, I’d learned enough from the black dog battles of my past that getting enough sleep is as crucial as exercise when it comes to keeping her muffled and chained in the corner. So even though we would never have the kids in bed before 8 o’clock, I would often be off to bed myself by as early as 9 o’clock – workload permitting of course. This meant that even if I did wake up in the middle of the night, I’d still have had a decent enough sleep.

On several occasions as I lay there, with my thoughts racing through all my minor mistakes, there was a degree of proverbial dog-like growling going on for sure. There were a few mountains being made out of molehills, exercise balls out of golf balls. My worries certainly weren’t pleasant, they were at times even slightly overwhelming, and I did experience a degree of anxiety. But unlike in my previous dance-offs with the black dog, on these recent run-ins, I now had that all-important good sleep in the bank.

No doubt with the hindsight and experience of a seasoned dog handler, I could also now hear the voice of rationality calling out in the background, making sure she continued to be heard alongside the growling. This meant I did not have my old nemesis, that all-consuming bitch of a black dog, sitting on my chest, pinning me to the bed, growling loudly right in my face and playing uncontrollable, irrational havoc with my thoughts.

As day would break in these recent weeks, and once I did finally get out of bed, my mind would start to get distracted by the realities of life – kids, wee white dogs, getting ready for work and the like – and my worries would dissipate. I was almost always able to regain my mental composure and confidence by the time I was munching on my cornflakes, and most importantly, before I had even popped my daily paroxetine.

On one or two occasions, it did take me a bit longer to snap out of it. Just like a computer, my mind would feel like it was hung, with some dodgy programming stuck in my memory. But after what literally felt like a self-reboot, my outlook for the day would suddenly be so much brighter. I would wonder what all the worrying had been about – even though none of the circumstances of my day ahead had changed. Sometimes even just a cup of coffee or a big glass of water would be all it took to force the reboot. I just had to find it in myself to have the faith that I would indeed come good.

On a related side-note, when it comes to exercise, I don’t normally like to have more than a two-day gap at most between runs. Regular running, as you may recall from some of my earlier posts, is one of the ways I manage to this day to keep the black dog well and truly at bay.

But in order to do my utmost to keep on top of the recent build-up of work, I even felt the need to temporarily stretch out the number of days between runs. To make matters worse, a recurring neck strain I’ve experienced on and off for over a year now began to resurface after a hiatus of several months. So even when I did have an opening to go for a run, my niggling neck pain often prevented me from doing so.

On more than one occasion over roughly a four-week period, I found myself with a four, even five day gap in between runs; the word “tetchy” leaps most clearly to mind. Naturally, this did not exactly help my year-end-induced morning mental predicaments.

Since my victory over the black dog, I have, as you may also recall, lived by the motto that all you can do in a day is the best you can do in a day, and that the best you can do in a day is all you can do in a day. On my usually busy-looking daily to-do list, I like to highlight no more than three top things that must be done on any given day, and all else is bonus.

On one particularly busy day about two weeks ago, however, it seemed that there was so much more that had to be done than I could feasibly fit into a single albeit elongated working day. My thoughts were racing faster than normal from task to task, made all the harder to accomplish because I was relying on those equally-busy others. I was initially concerned when my anxiety levels heightened and those long-lost niggling fears of losing my job for dropping one of those medicine balls that were really golf balls started to creep back into my racing thoughts for the first time in nearly two years.

More mild growling continued to linger throughout the entire day as I pushed ahead with my work – though even on this particularly busy day I never experienced anything even close to the levels of anxiety I have experienced in my past darker days.

As the evening drew to a close, however, I looked back over the day and lo and behold, I had accomplished more or less everything I absolutely had to. It was more clear to me than ever before that those heightened levels of anxiety had simply served their natural purpose. They had driven me to work as hard as I had to, stretching me right up to but not past my limits. I learned the hard way two years ago what happens when you do fly past your limits, so I was pleased to see that even when I was on auto-pilot, deep down I now knew my limits.

As always, I made sure that I had at least some brief down time before heading off to bed. Even though I hadn’t gone for a run that night as I had hoped, I still managed to ask myself what I had been so worried about. And unlike in the days of my previous battles with the black dog, I even managed now to reason that if I were ever for some irrational reason to lose my job, it would not be the End Of Days, but merely the end of another day.

And at the end of that day, oddly enough, I looked up from the table I had been sitting at all day and found myself literally face to face with The Growler. The cunning beast had been watching over me all day from just a few feet away, but I had been too consumed with work and worrying to notice her. Or rather, I didn’t realise what she actually looked like.

The Growler I am talking about here really is called Growler! A few weeks earlier, Tess and I had a long-overdue child-free and dog-free night. We treated ourselves to dinner and stayed overnight in The Cullen, one of Melbourne’s Art Series hotels. I know diddly-squat about art, but Tess has a keen eye for both art and interior design, and had been keen to stay at The Cullen for some time.

Each of the Art Series hotels takes its design inspiration from one of a handful of great Australian artists, with the walls of each room, indeed the whole hotel, adorned with both prints and original artwork by each of the artists. In the case of The Cullen, we were sleeping under the inspirational art of the controversial Adam Cullen. On the wall of our room was a print of Cullen’s literally larger than life painting, Growler. As a memento of our stay, we bought an equally larger than life copy.

To see a picture of Growler, click here – ours is a copy of the orange one.

I’m sure you will agree that Growler is not exactly the prettiest-looking canine in the world. She even looks quite menacing at first glance. But once you square up against her and look her directly in her solitary eye, you start to see a different story. She is in fact quite comical and cheery-looking under that scary exterior. She even looks like she is more scared than she is scary, perhaps even timid and friendly under that initially savage-looking facade.

I also noted with no less than a hint of irony that Growler is not a black dog, nor is she a white dog like our own little real-life yappers. She is, as my psychologist once described when we analysed my irrational thoughts of extreme doom and gloom, more somewhere in the middle. She is a shade of grey – and a colourful shade of grey at that.

My overall recent glower with The Growler is perhaps best summed up in a message I received from one of the more avid supporters of my blog, a Sydneysider by the name of Adam Wells. I’ve never actually spoken to or met Adam before, but we stumbled across each other on Twitter as we share a common aim – the eradication of the stigma of mental ailments.

When I put a post on my Black Dog Facebook page at the time, describing my experience that day as a brief low-level fly-past from my long-time-no-see friend Mr. Anxiety, Adam sent me a note telling me that “the dog always revisits. The trick is to know this, and view it almost externally as if you’re looking from the outside in. I think the term here is ‘awareness’“

Well said, and thank you Adam – these past few weeks have indeed not been a relapse, but rather a reminder. And in putting a face to this curiously colourful new beast, I realise of course that the stress I put myself under that particularly arduous day had nothing to do with a copy of a painting of a big dog.

She did, however, remind me that fear often festers when you neither understand your nemesis nor know what they look like. In fully facing up to and staring out this particular nemesis, in seeing what she really looked like, I was not at all surprised to learn that the facts are never as scary as the feelings of fear.

As a constant reminder of this, I now have a third furry friend waiting to greet me as I arrive home each day. I made a conscious decision that I’m not going to wander around always looking over my shoulder, wondering if or when The Growler might surface again, and to what extent.  On the contrary, I want to know exactly where she is at all times. I now have her proverbially sitting obediently against the wall under my watchful eye.

And so, each and every day I can comfortably acknowledge that The Growler exists. I can look at her in the eye and smile, almost feel sorry for her, remind myself that the scary is often the most scared of all.

After all, I made a choice two years ago that when it comes to dancing with the black dog, I am the one who is going to take the lead. And anyone who has ever seen me dancing will vouch that The Growler truly is the one who should be scared.

——————————————————————————-

Footnote:

The above post is really more like Part 12.5 of my story. I started working on the original Part 13 well over a month ago, and I’ve nearly finished it. But for the reasons I’ve outlined above, I’ve nearly had it finished for about three weeks now. In other words, I haven’t written a single further word of it in about three weeks! It was only two days ago that I realised to what extent The Growler experience had been a blockage to me pushing ahead with it; when I sat down to write this post, it took me less than a day to complete, and as a result, to clear the blockage. I will be pushing ahead to complete what is now Part 14 over the next couple of weeks, but The Growler did also make me wonder how many other blockages we face in life that can so easily be cleared by just facing up to them.

I’m also pleased to say that I’ve had some more great media exposure in the past few weeks, with a few more to follow still. You can read the latest articles via the following links:

• The Herald Sun newspaper (Melbourne) – http://on.fb.me/MHclAv
• Melbourne Weekly Bayside magazine – http://bit.ly/LidYpX
• The Hong Kong Standard newspaper – http://bit.ly/N4sJ0s
• The Daily Record newspaper (Scotland) – http://bit.ly/LNXJ0D

“Oh, about two years”, replied Tim, towering over me, in his booming ex-army English gentlemanly manner. “And which part of Scotland might you be from?” he added with interest.

Tim’s account of that first conversation, however, was quite different to mine, one that I can only describe as my first mistake on my first day at my new job in London. A mistake, if I may add, that I would keep making – time and time and time again.

Tim’s version of our conversation went something like this:

“Ochaye-alreetbigmanhuvyebeenwurkinhereawhileorwhit?” I blurted out in a garbled, seemingly foreign, completely incomprehensible tongue.

“Sorry?” replied Tim, staring back at me in a confused, bemused and, dare I say it, slightly shell-shocked manner. “Did you say something?” he continued, wiping my phlegm from his brow.

My mistake had nothing to do with the fact that I had inadvertedly spat on my new boss. No, my mistake was that it took several months living in London, several similar such “conversations”, before I finally realised people weren’t just poking fun at my accent. No, they really didn’t understand me.

As I slowly settled into life in London, I also used to recall the story of Dick Whittington, who once set off to seek his fortune there, because he had heard that the streets of London were paved with gold.

The long and short of the story is that Little Dickie ended up hungry, cold and tired, falling asleep on a London street that was paved in something alright, but it certainly wasn’t gold.

Our disillusioned adventurer managed to scrape together a meager living by scraping dirt from and shining shoes. The room he slept in at night was rat-infested, so he eventually saved up enough to buy a cat to keep those pesky rats at bay. So skilled was his cat at catching the rats, in fact, that he ended up selling his feline friend for a princely sum to a rich man in a far away land. In doing so, he realised that fortune he had originally set out to seek.

Just for good measure, and to make the story all the more convincing, Not-So-Little-Any-More Dickie ended up becoming Lord Mayor of London not once, not twice, but thrice, as predicted by the bow bells of a big ship. I’m not sure what drugs the author of this story was on, but they sure weren’t the same ones I’m on today.

As a kid, I used to re-enact part of the adventure by packing a small bag of toys, walking down our garden path, biding Mum and Dad and my sister Claire a fond farewell and telling them that I was off to London.

I am pleased to say that when I did eventually leave home for London for real, I didn’t end up hungry, cold or tired during my own brief stint there. But rather than finding streets paved with gold, to me the streets of London – in fact everywhere in London – seemed to be paved with mistakes.

Take the famous London Underground – or The Tube as it is more commonly known – as a classic example. My daily routine would begin every morning around eight o’clock, when I would leave the small share flat where I lived in the suburb of Clapham, walk along the top edge of Clapham Common, and them make my way hesitantly down the stairs into Clapham Common tube station.

And every morning, without fail, she was there to greet me – the cloud of fumes and dust stirred up by each passing train, left lingering over the platform like an indoor morning smog. Smelling sharp, bitter and chalky, she clung to my hair and my clothes, and followed me around for the rest of the day.

Prolonging my exposure to the cloud was the fact that the trains – probably fifteen carriages long, and stretching the entire length of the platform – were always crammed full of people no doubt going through a similar routine to mine. The seemingly endless trains arrived at two minute intervals during peak times on the busy Northern Line. They were often so crammed full by the time they reached Clapham Common that I would have to let several of them leave without me before I would finally spot a glimmer of space on one, and literally squeeze myself on.

Once aboard, and with body in strange contorted position, I was then subject to the ironic unwritten condition of entry to the carriage, whereby eye contact with fellow commuters was strictly off-limits. Contact with all other body parts, however, was inevitable. Indeed, one’s very survival often depended on it.

There was a second cloud that engulfed many of my fellow morning commuters. This particular cloud didn’t linger in the air around them, but rather could be seen in the weariness in their eyes – on the occasion, that is, when you might actually dare to look them in the eye. Furthermore, this cloud didn’t have a lingering bitter odour, but they could all be forgiven for feeling bitter inside because of it.

I had seen this cloud on a smaller scale elsewhere many times before, including in the mirror. But now that I was so deeply immersed in this dense sea of people, it became more apparent than ever before. Quite simply, many of these people would rather be elsewhere, or at least on their way to be doing something else.

I’m sure many of them were just grateful to have a job – any job really – so that they could scrape together desperately needed money, in much the same way Dick Whittington had done a long time before but not quite so far, far away. Perhaps they too had come to London to seek their own fortune; perhaps some of them had escaped a life of unimaginable circumstances elsewhere, and at least now felt safe, albeit unfulfilled.

Possibly the most tragic of all, however, were those who simply didn’t realise – those who were making one of the biggest mistakes of all in convincing themselves that they already were where they wanted to be, doing what they wanted to do. Those, that is, who pretended even to themselves that they were happy with their high-powered career because of how it made them look, when deep down beneath all the denial, they knew differently.

I’m sure that many also fell into a similar category to my own. I had a relatively lucky upbringing in the grander scheme of things. We were neither rich nor poor – I was never really left wanting for much as long as my wants were not extravagant.  Sure, all my hopes and expectations about life in London were quickly quashed – but I found myself there out of choice rather than out of necessity.

I hadn’t come to seek a safe haven or to escape from the unimaginable. I had come to seek an experience, a sense of independence. I didn’t have to be there. Indeed, there were many times when I felt I had made the biggest mistake of my own life by leaving behind the relatively comfortable one I had in Glasgow, to come to this vast impersonal metropolis out of choice and begin again from scratch.

As time went by and the responsibilities in my own life grew, my fear of making mistakes grew with it. You may recall from an earlier post, for example, that I lived for many years with a fear of being fired from my jobs, and then going on to lose everything else in my life. Every time I made a mistake, no matter how small, I feared the time had finally come to prematurely lower the curtains on my career.

I’d heard all the clichés about making mistakes – such as “you aren’t judged by the mistakes you make, but how you recover from them” or “making mistakes is good – we learn from our mistakes”. And possibly the most insightful view on making mistakes that I ever heard was from a successful Melburnian entrepreneur called Ryan Trainor, whom I was interviewing for a magazine article. Ryan’s view was that if we are not out there making mistakes and learning from them, we are not truly giving life a go.

So maybe London’s streets were paved with gold after all, albeit in the form of mistakes and the priceless lessons we can learn from them. But much as I recognised the wisdom and truth in all these insights and clichés, they still weren’t enough to comfort me every time I made a mistake. It was only in recent years that I figured out why.

I came to realise that all the good things in life do not provide any form of immunity from anxiety and depression. Quite the contrary – I realise now that it was my former underlying lack of self worth, together with a fear of losing all the good things I didn’t feel worthy of having in my life, that actually fed my irrationally anxious, depressed mind. It was a truly vicious growling bitch of a black dog of a circle.

My own troubled mind, as I’ve described in earlier posts, used to seek out from every nook and cranny of my very existence any reason it could find — any reason – as to why all the good things in my life be stripped away from me. While these reasons were always plausible, they were also highly unlikely, extreme outcomes – and not a single one of them ever transpired.

Yet after finding them, dreaming them up, my irrational mind used to bring them to life, blow them out of all proportion and turn the extremely unlikely into the inevitably impending within the infinite confines of my own head. This was a major theme of the story of my life for the best part of four decades. It only survived for so long by craftily hiding itself under an exterior persona of someone who was always cracking a joke, game for a laugh.

You might even go as far as to argue that one of the greatest mistakes anyone can make is to unquestionably believe even for themselves that they are their external persona. They might be completely unaware of their own lack of self-worth, whether it be through arrogance, ego, denial or something else.

I also can’t help but think that the problem with a lack of self worth is the way in which we tend to go searching for a missing sense of self worth by focusing on – even wallowing in – the mistakes, flaws or shortcomings of others. In doing so, are we only ever finding that false sense of self worth by taking our focus away from our own shortcomings, mistakes, flaws in character?

And when we are doing so in retaliation – because someone else is doing or saying something about us or is at conflict with us – is this just because we are too scared to take responsibility for what that someone else is saying about or doing to us?

Put another way, how often do we ask ourselves the crucial question “is there an element of truth in what they are saying about me?” Or put another way: “how am I contributing to this scenario?” Or to be more straight to the point: “am I so damn perfect?!”

Heck, I’m as guilty as the next person of focusing on the flaws of others in times of crisis or conflict – and it does indeed help me feel better about myself. Thoughts go through my head, and are often verbalised to others like “would you believe he said this?” and “I cannot understand why she does it that way” and “for God saaaake, will you put your foot on the damn accelerator, that light is about to turn red” and so on and so on. And for sure, it works. Self worth is born – albeit temporarily and facetiously.

Of course this is all a part of what makes most of us human, a way of releasing frustration. But I also wonder in hindsight whether left unquestioned, this false sense of self worth effectively creates a false version of ourselves that is at conflict with our true inner self. I wonder whether this could be a perfect breeding ground, a central core, a firm foundation for anxiety, depression, a longer term lack of self-worth, and a whole raft more of unpleasant internalised conditions.

Another way of looking at this is to consider that if the anxious mind will always seek out and find things to be anxious and worried about, an angry mind will always look for and find things to be angry about and to justify its anger; the same can be said for the hateful mind, the vengeful mind, the negative mind, the frustrated mind and so on.

So what can we do about it? Quite simple really – perhaps we can start by being brave enough after a bout of anxiety, anger or frustration to ask ourselves those tough questions: is there an element of truth in what they are saying about me? How am I contributing to this scenario? Am I so damn perfect?!

Or again, put another way, perhaps we can start by always trying to the good as well as the bad in others – in all others – and they just might start to do the same in return.

Talking of the shortcomings of others, it was Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin, who once said “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Well if there’s one mistake of others that I’ve learned from on my black dog demolition journey, it’s that just when you feel you don’t need to take medication any longer doesn’t mean you should stop taking them. This may just be a sign that the medication is working properly.

I know of several people who, often uncomfortable with the stigma of being on medication, have done just that – stopped taking their medication at the first sign they are working, only to find themselves right back where they started. Right back in the cave with their black dogs growling at the entrance.

In an earlier post, I likened the experience of when antidepressants start to take effect and the clouds of anxiety and depression finally lift to that of putting on a pair of reading glasses for the first time and seeing everything so clearly. Conversely, poor eyesight does not repair itself. Of course you can undergo highly successful corrective eye laser surgery nowadays, meaning people no longer need to wear their glasses. But the closest that medicine seems to have come to laser surgery for the mind is the lobotomy.

And it was Rosemary Kennedy, sister of President John F, as a classic example, who underwent a lobotomy at the tender age of 23. Rosemary did go on to live to the grand old age of 86, but in a state that was at best described as “permanently incapacitated” – ‘nuff said.

And so I can hand on heart (and on intact prefrontal cortex) say that I have not felt the need to take medication for at least eighteen months now – and yet to this day I still pop my daily paroxetine. I may well choose to try to come off them one day. But I am not going to beat myself up for continuing to take them, nor if I never decide to try to stop. For now, the time just does not feel right to even consider it.

When I think back to when I first moved to London and how misunderstood I used to be when my accent was so much thicker and my speed of speech so much faster, I can’t help but also think how misunderstood medication, depression and anxiety are.

I firmly believe that depression and anxiety are different for everyone, and everyone is different as a person. Some may well be able to stop taking their medication without their symptoms returning; they may finally feel they are “cured”. Others exhibiting the same original symptoms and reaction to medication, however, often do find they revert to suffering from the same symptoms when stopping their medication. In other words, some are never really “cured”.

So if I am again honest with myself, although I no longer feel the need to take medication nowadays, I still have to ask myself another tough question: do I still have depression and anxiety? It’s just not a mistake I am even prepared to make, a question I am ready to answer quite yet.

And when it comes to making mistakes in general nowadays, I have a new-found confidence that no matter what I do, and no matter what mistakes I make, as long as I can truly say to myself that I am acting with responsible intent, there is never any need to fear the outcome. I can only hope that same fear will not be prevalent if or when I do eventually decide to try going paroxetine-free.

I would like to close this post by taking you back down to the grimy, dusty, smoky tunnels of the London Underground. It was there that I also discovered that fortunately, even the thickest of clouds has a silver lining.

One of the more contented people whom I noticed regularly on my morning commute was none other than the guard at Victoria station, where my morning journey would end. Always laughing and joking, he appeared genuinely happy to be at his post on the busy platform every day. Over the years, he had obviously come to know several of the regular passengers who passed through his patch, greeting them with a nod and a smile, some even by name. Best of all, he was also known to provide some occasional entertainment over the PA system.

“Attention, all passengers on the platform”, he would formally announce as the door slid open. “Please allow passengers off the train first.”

“Errr, special announcement for the gentleman in blue jacket pushing onto the train”, he would continue jovially. “Yes, I’m talking to you, sir. My previous announcement was intended for everyone on the platform except yourself. Attention all passengers exiting the train: please ignore my previous announcement, and make way for the gentleman in the blue jacket.”

“Please stand clear of the doors and move right down inside the train”, he announced on another occasion. “OK then, if you insist. The paying customer is always right, after all. Please obstruct the doors, cause delay and endanger other passengers, thank you.”

Strangely enough, after making announcements like these, impatient men in blue jackets would indeed let other passengers off the train first, and the passengers on the train would smile obligingly at each other, and shuffle further into the train to make more room. In other words, they would listen.

A man who obviously looked forward to coming to work every morning, this particular station guard appeared more than happy to stand right in the middle of the dark cloud and just do what he had to do. Not only did he know how to get his job done properly, he also brightened up the mornings of the many people around him in the process. And when faced with the prospect of doing a job that not many people would want, he made minor adjustments in order to make it more enjoyable – and in order to do it more effectively.

I can’t help but wonder how much better a place the world would be, what the energy and vibe of it would be like, if it were full of people who were even just a little bit happier, less anxious, more positive, less angry, more confident, less sensitive, more understanding and tolerant of the mistakes of others, more full of self worth and more self aware. People who, if they weren’t doing what they truly wanted to do in life, were at least doing what they had to do in a way they chose to do it.

And perhaps the biggest mistake we can all make in dreaming of a world like this is that it starts with the beliefs, mindsets and actions of others.

So what’s this fascinating fib all about then? Well, when people ask me what I like to do in my spare time, I tell them that I like to write. As well as writing my Black Dog Blog, I’ve also been writing life experience short stories and articles on and off for several years now. Some even got published in newspapers and magazines from time to time, and some didn’t. But that didn’t matter to me – I just loved to write them regardless.

Strictly speaking, however, that last paragraph isn’t completely true. I mean, apart from signing a credit card slip, filling in an application form or writing a birthday card from time to time, the last time I remember actually putting pen to paper in a creative manner was when I had to write an account of a school trip to a zoo when I was twelve.

If the truth be told, I’m a terrible writer. When I do put pen to paper, even I need an Enigma machine to decipher my own handwriting. It’s something I’ve had to deal with all my life – like when I wrote about that school trip to the zoo when I was twelve. When I had finished scrawling on my jotter, my teacher picked it up from my desk, held it at arms length, and gazed at it over the rim of her glasses. She looked confused and intrigued as she stared harder and harder – and from many angles – at my precious, carefully-chosen words. She drew my jotter closer to her eyes and then backwards and forwards as she tried to figure it all out.

Finally, she smiled. Her face lit up with a look of recognition and understanding, even empathy. But much to my disappointment, my hopes of getting a gold star for elegant handwriting were dashed when she then pointed out that she had in fact asked me to write about the trip to the zoo, and not to draw it.

And so, if I were to be completely honest, whenever anyone asks me what I like to do in my spare time, I should really tell them that I like to type. But have you ever met a freelance typist? Have you ever heard of a course in creative typing? Have you ever seen an email that starts off “I am typing to you because…”? I certainly haven’t, so like many fellow producers of words, I have adopted the pseudo hobbyist title of ‘writer’.

Sometimes I get on a roll when I type, my mind is buzzing and I am on a high. I feel like I am in the zone. The thoughts and ideas flow freely off the ends of my fingers and tap their way straight onto my laptop screen. I can then manually mould them, passionately play with them and rigorously re-order them before I am happy with the energy of the end result. That is the part of typing I love. That is when it truly feels like a passion.

But sometimes, I hit a brick wall. The words just stop flowing and dry up. I can be stuck at the wall for hours, days, even weeks waiting for the words to flow freely again.

Sometimes the words are there, but I just feel too tired to type; all too often, I become a downright lazy procrastinator. Having spent much of my working day with my nose stuck in my work laptop, the last thing I often feel like doing is giving the same body part a close encounter with my personal laptop at home. And with the kids finally in bed by eight o’clock on a good night, all I often want to do is just chill out on the couch – and hopefully not nod off by nine.

Sometimes I wonder – how can this typing lark possibly be my passion if I don’t find myself leaping eagerly for my laptop at each and every opportunity? I used to get quite depressed at the thought of this. Especially at how much time I’d waste lazily procrastinating – putting off, and thinking about not typing, as opposed to just typing. At one stage, during one of the worst and longest black dog-dominated periods in my life, I was utterly aghast, I felt devoid of any form of passion, and I was so angry at myself when I realised I hadn’t typed a single word of personal prose in over two years.

It took the best part of four decades for me to realise that I used to be so hard on myself, and to understand the impact that it was having on me. And because I’ve now seen the dark places where being too hard on oneself can take you, I’ve simply stopped being so. There really is only so much you can squeeze into a 24-hour day, after all. Kids, careers and mental catastrophes also tend to consume much more of that time than one can care to anticipate. Even when I am in the zone, at times it feels like five minutes of passion a week is all there is time for anyway.

And who’s to say that you can’t have a passion even if you just feel and feed the passion for a few hours a week or even a month? Surely that’s better than never. I now type more or less when I am in the mood – and as a result, I am in the mood more often. Nowadays I am proud to say – my name is Mark, and I am a passionately lazy procrastinating typist.

When people ask what I like to do in my spare time, I also tell them that I love to run. But even that is a lie. Again, if the truth be told, I don’t mind running. I do love the feeling of having run. I also love the fact that I run. But I simply cannot put my hand on my heart and say that I love the act of running.

And again, if I am to be completely honest, I also love to run because it will allow me to fulfil my other dream of still being able to see my toes over my belly when I’m sixty. Though one of the benefits of my size thirteen feet is that I won’t have to run as far as others in order to fulfil this particular dream.

Sometimes, just like with typing, going for a run is also the very last thing I feel like doing. But I usually force myself to go anyway, because I know how I’ll feel afterwards – I‘ll have a clear head, I’ll feel refreshed and uplifted, the happy endorphins will be racing around my body, and I’ll be able to justify a family-sized pizza for dinner rather than just a large. Furthermore, I often get my best ideas for writing when I am out for a run and my head is clear – the ideas can just come to me, though hopefully not too many or I forget half of them. I am only human, however, and there are occasions where I should, but plain and simply can’t be arsed going for a run – and don’t.

In the black dog days of the past, I’d often come home from work so utterly anxious and depressed about work, or money, or whatever my what-if worry of the day was, that it would feel like nothing could lift my mood, my negative thoughts of impending doom and gloom. But all it would take, without fail, was half an hour or so of the simple act putting one foot in front of the other at higher speed than normal walking and breaking into a sweat. I’d gradually start to feel better about ten minutes into a run. I’d then find that the distraction of the ensuing discomfort would take my mind off my black dogs, and all I’d want to do was be finished.

The feeling I’d get when I arrived home at the end of my run and could put an end to my mild physical discomfort was nothing short of sheer relief. It was similar to the relief I’d feel when I would sometimes have instantaneously brief flashes of realisation – completely out of the blue – that my worries were never going to transpire. In fact they were one and the same senses of relief, because right there and then, at the end of each run, my worries would also vanish – albeit briefly.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I also used to get a more elongated (albeit still brief!) window of freedom from my black dogs on most but not all days. It was during these windows that my mind would temporarily stand still. I wouldn’t be blocking out all the things I had been worrying about. Quite the opposite – I was always well aware of them, but I could ponder over my thoughts without the irrational worrying, without my mind racing. It was like I was able to hold my worries in my hand one at a time, look at them, prod them, and say to myself – is this all I was worried about?

I realised during these periods of stillness of my mind that all the worst case what-if scenarios I had been worrying about were also highly unlikely to ever happen; even if they did, the outcome would never be as bad as I had been imagining.

My black dogs would have no hold over me for a short while. But I also knew I’d be sucked back into Movie World after an hour, maybe more, maybe less. The return to Movie World would happen slowly – one minute, I wouldn’t have a worry in the world, I’d just be relieved to realise that everything was going to be alright. Then I would start to worry about worrying again! I’d know that the wave of worry and anxiety was on the horizon, rolling forwards in my direction. And then, some of those worries I had just been holding harmlessly in my hand would turn into black dogs who had just woken from their restful slumber. Fully recharged, they would start growling again. Welcome back to Movie World!

But at least I knew that running gave me back some level of control over when I’d get that window of stillness and freedom. Running would also influence how long the stillness would last, and how intense the feeling of relief would be throughout. The harder I pushed myself during my runs, the more discomfort I felt when pounding the pavements, the better and more free I’d feel afterwards, and the longer I’d feel that way for.

There is one way I can think of to best sum up the impact of running on my state of mental health – and I hope Bono doesn’t try to sue me for borrowing one of his lines here. Going for a run would make all the difference between me enjoying an hour or at best an evening of sheer relief on the couch, or of me enduring an evening of torturing myself on the couch, wanting to cry without weeping, wanting to talk without speaking, wanting to scream without raising my voice. As tongue in cheek as that may sound, it also rang oh so true, oh so often.

I can’t say for sure what state of mind I’d be in today, whether I’d still be rid of my black dogs, whether I’d have even managed to keep pushing through the darkest days, if I hadn’t been able to give myself a regular break from the black dogs. But I can say for sure that the mental benefits of running were a huge help to me when my black dogs began to have an increasingly vice-like grip over my life, as I slowly approached frog-boiling point.

Now that I have beaten my black dogs into submission once and for all, I still like to run regularly. I still don’t love running, but I still love that I run, I still experience a great mental boost at the end of each run. The difference is that running used to be my medication; nowadays, it is my top-up. I did start to wonder whether the practically uninterrupted positive state of mind that I’ve had for nearly two years now was purely down to taking medication. Well, on the odd occasion when I’ve been unable to run for several days for whatever reason, I have actually been quite relieved to notice my mood dip slightly – though never even remotely close to the lows I used to experience. I like to think this is a sign that the continued discomfort I willingly endure when I go running does therefore contribute to my ongoing overall positive state of mind. In other words, the way I feel today it is at least partially Mark-made.

In closing on the topic of running, the point of this post is not to encourage anyone who may read these words to just get out running on the streets. No, the point of this post is to try to highlight the benefits that finding a way – any way – to give yourself a break from the black dogs can have. Taking back some level of control over when and how that window of relief takes place may not be a cure, but it certainly has its benefits.

Of course, as well as not being a medical professional, I am also not a fitness professional. So if you do decide that you want to take back some control through exercise, whether it be running, walking, swimming, or even just doing the garden, whatever it is that toots your horn, it would be a wise move to seek professional advice first. Just like medication, after all, overdoing on exercise, or doing exercise wrongly, also has its pitfalls. I used to run early in the morning, for example. I’d get up at 5am so I could get out for a run and back before the kids would wake up at 6am. But I’d hinge my entire state of mind for the next day on getting up for that run. Knowing I had to get up at the crack of dawn meant I’d often have a terrible sleep the night before. When I explained all this to my doctor, she pointed out the utmost importance of getting as much sleep as possible when dealing with a mental condition, even if it is poor sleep. And so I started to run instead in the evenings and continue to do so to this day.

And in closing on the topic of lying, I’ve spoken to many people who have expressed concern about starting to take medication to tackle their black dogs. They think they might lose control over their thoughts and senses, and indeed I have heard stories of some medications having that very effect on some people – yet the same medications working miracles for others. In finding the right medication, with the right level of exercise for myself, I’ve found quite the opposite regarding control over my thoughts. I can confidently say that it was before I tackled my black dogs, when I wasn’t taking medication, that I was not in control of my thoughts. I wasn’t being true to myself, I was lying to myself even, kidding myself that I could put up with all the anguish, that it was an acceptable way to live.

Perhaps lying isn’t the best word to describe what I’ve been talking about here. Perhaps the term “being economical with the truth” is more appropriate. Either way, if we can’t be untightfistedly and uneconomically truthful first and foremost with ourselves, who can we be so with, and what is the ultimate impact?

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Footnote:

I can hardly believe it has been over two months since I posted Part Ten of my story. Fortunately, this long delay was not all down to my propensity to being a passionately lazy procrastinating typist, and I am now aiming to get back on the track of putting up a new post every 3-4 weeks. The reason for the delay between Parts Ten and Eleven is that I’ve spent a fair bit of time over the past several weeks working more on raising awareness of my story, with, I am pleased to say, a degree of success. Some reading this may already know that my blog was recently tweeted about by one of the Titans of Twitter, none other than Stephen Fry, to his 4.2 million Twitterati followers. Some may even be reading this because of said tweet. You can see Mr Fry’s tweet by clicking here

I was also recently interviewed on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio, as well as having my story mentioned in another Australian newspaper article. As I write this, there are also a few more potential newspaper mentions on the horizon, both within and outside of Australia.

But as I’ve said on Twitter, Facebook (and on the radio!) while all this publicity is all well and good, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying it, I am also constantly reminding myself why I am doing all this. Two years ago, when I found myself cowering away in my darkest cave, with the black dogs growling at the entrance, I made a vow to myself. I vowed that if I should ever get out of there, I would write openly, candidly and honestly about my experiences to make as many people as possible feel not ashamed of their depression or anxiety. I also vowed to encourage people to take action to beat their black dogs – and to not be ashamed of whatever action it takes to beat them. In doing so, I also hope to give hope to sufferers of mental conditions that they can go on to enjoy life to the full – in the very same way as I now feel free to do.

What I am trying to say is – although my story is about me, I realise it’s not all about me. Should that ever appear to change, you have my permission to let me know. Please do in fact!

I also realise of course that the fight against the black dogs is a long, pothole-riddled, twisty, dark road, one where at times you can’t even see the light at the end of it. You just have to trust that the light is there because it is so incredibly worth it when you get there. Several people have left comments or tweeted to me saying how they do not feel at all brave while walking (or even running!) along this road. And so, I’d like to close with a very important distinction that I mentioned in Part Two, one I feel so strongly about that I recently posted it on Twitter and on my Dancing With The Black Dog Facebook page, and it is this:

Taking bold action in the absence of fear isn’t bravery, that’s fearlessness. Taking bold action, pressing onwards in the face of fear – that’s bravery.

Thank you for reading, and for your continued support and comments. Stay brave!

Mark