In this article

Day one: getting a diagnosis Day two: mania Day three: depression

Day four: psychosis Day five: treatment

Day six: support Day seven: recovery

In recent years, I have spent much of my time depressed.

Depression can be such a very difficult thing to describe. We all have our ups and our downs, our good days and our bad days, but severe, chronic depression is something different.

It's often easier to explain in terms of what it isn't. It's not seeing the colours and sounds in the world around you, it's not feeling the breeze on your face or the spattering of rain on your hair. It's not finding pleasure or interest in things. It's not finding the motive or the meaning to do anything, even to get out of bed.

There's the urge not to keep going. At it's most benign, there's no more than an apathy and weariness that makes it difficult to go about life's daily business; and at its worst, a feeling of meaningless, of futility, of pain. Your view is that to stay on this earth is not just a waste of time but a burden on others and a degree of suffering that you wouldn't let your pet endure.

It is all too easy to try to do something about it. Surviving the attempt can seem like yet another failure, leading to more despair.

Thinking becomes distorted. Negative thoughts keep popping up, and simply deciding to think positively isn't enough - you have to fight each negative thought one by one until you become completely exhausted in the endeavour.

There's the pain that goes with it. It's worse than any physical pain I have experienced. Imagine toothache or a broken bone or a migraine spread throughout your body. You know it's in your head, but it's still very real, and you can't get away from it.

I also find myself either agitated or slowed down. When agitated, I can pace around my flat or around the streets for hours; when slowed down, I can grind to a complete halt, just sitting or standing wherever I happen to be, be it for minutes or hours.

I find depression can be very lonely and the pain of it almost unbearable. I pour out my distress to my family, to my friends, to the mental health team.

If there is no one else there to talk to, I go online and pour it all out on a bulletin board, or call a telephone help line such as the Samaritans or Saneline.

I try to do something, however little, try to make the effort to wash and dress and go for a walk every day, which helps me to feel in control of my life.

In my bleakest moments, I often look at flowers, at the fragile poppies that grow through the cracks in the unfriendly concrete, surviving in a seemingly impossible environment. Each depressed day, I hope to survive like them and see the sunshine again.

But to survive this, I also have to deal with the psychosis I get with the depression. I’ll tell you more about that next time.