Go away, I don't like you.

I know myself well enough to know when I'm in a mood. I used to get seriously depressed, and at one point contemplated suicide. I say contemplated because I don't think that it was in me, really - but that's the crazy thing about depression. It makes me think what would otherwise be unthinkable to me, because depression is made up of all those things that really aren't me. Do you know what I mean? It feels like going to a party with the wrong dress on - something that really isn't my style. Well, depression really isn't my style either, but it's not like a dress I could just slip off. (God, the thought of having to wear the wrong dress to a party is itself pretty depressing).

Rather than a dress, my depression and negativity always manifests itself as a person in my head - the person I emphatically don't want to be - my non-self. This person has the ability to interpret everything in a negative light. If I text a friend and they don't get back to me, it's not because my friend is in a meeting or cycling down the street, but because my friend actually hates me. If I have just finished having coffee with someone, and am cycling away, this person in my head begins to analyse everything that was said (and more importantly, unsaid) - and tries to make me believe that the entire event was a disaster, that I have fucked everything up in a fundamental way (and that my friend hates me). The theme which begins to emerge is: everyone hates me.

I could go into speculations about why such is the case, i.e. why I sometimes get depressed, and why my depression chooses to manifest itself in this form - but to be honest I'm not actually very interested in that at this particular moment.

Thing is, tonight I had dinner with two of my very good friends. We cooked together, ate a hearty meal, drank wine, and laughed a lot. But when I left them this person came on stage and tried to ruin it all. I then met up with another friend and enjoyed myself just fine. But, by the time that I was half way home my non-self was once again carrying on and on in her own negative downward-spiral, and I was sick of it.

So I decided to acknowledge her existence. Hello, my non-self. Let's get something straight here: my friends don't hate me. You hate me. Go away. I don't like you. I am not the person you want me to be, and I will never be the person you want me to be. So you can fuck right off.

Taking a step back I realize that the situation is the same whether I choose to read it positively or negatively. Stray to far in either direction and there is a problem. However, if I were to err, I would rather be unfailingly positive rather than unfailingly negative - and really, the choice is mine.

This reminds me of my first year of undergraduate studies in Edinburgh, when I hit the lowest point that I have ever been in my life. I remember being unhappy, and getting drunk, and therefore becoming even more unhappy. I remember waking up in bed one night, in that uncomfortable stage between drunk and hung-over, and stumbling into my kitchen to find my flatmate speaking to an upstairs neighbour, in the middle of the night. I remember them asking me if I was ok. I remember breaking down in front of them, standing in front of the kitchen sink trying to fill my glass of water. I remember them taking me and putting me back into bed. I remember lying there crying uncontrollably as they tried to comfort me.

I remember listening to my non-self, and believing the nasty things she says. I remember being so frustrated at all the bad things in my head that I fantasized about taking a drill to my temple and finally having the satisfaction of spilling it all out. I remember deciding that I won't commit suicide because it can only have 3 possible outcomes (I die and there is an afterlife, in which case I'd probably be fucked because most religions don't condone suicide; I die and there is no afterlife, which I'd be ok with; and, I don't manage to kill myself and end up being a nuisance to everyone who has to find me, take me to the hospital, and look after me etc.), 2 of which are undesirable (options 1 and 3), thus making it a bad investment in time and energy. I remember staring out at the street lights in the night, in the rain, with my forehead against the cold glass of the window, and feeling despair well up inside me and tears pouring down my cheeks.

I don't want to go back there.

Do you know Walt Whitman's Song of Myself? In some of my lowest moments I used to read a passage of it over and over because it seemed to speak to me.

Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

It made me want to be that distanced, calm observer of my own life, amused, complacent, compassionate, idle, unitary, who could listen to the voice of my non-self and know that the theme 'everyone hates me' is merely the real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love. I wanted to believe that these things - my depression, my past, the world around me, are not the Me myself. I wanted to believe that there is someone inside me who is inalienably Me - who has the integrity to stand unaffected by uncontrollable external factors, feelings of guilt, bouts of doubt, and even moments of elation. I know that you will have read Song of Myself differently - and I confess that I know next to nothing about Walt Whitman - but this is how it made sense to me at the time (and now).

So it seems that things will be ok.