Negative feelings have been the mainstay of my mind all of my life. Negative thoughts crept in through the back door when I was a child, locked all the doors, raided the fridge and made themselves at home. They aren’t so much as guests anymore, they are interlopers, invaders, squatters claiming their unequivocal right to a home. I’ve got them at bay, for the moment. I’ve trapped them in the guest room. I can hear them banging on the door sometimes, but I turn the TV up to drown out the noise. I know why they come here. They cling to my creativity like blood clings to a knife. They feed on my sensitivity, gorge on my caring side, get off on my emotions. Sadistic tourists. Pathological prisoners shivving my soul.

I’ve had several breakdowns. Sometimes the stress gets too much. I am driven. Passionate. When I want to achieve something I get hyper-focussed, I work relentlessly to achieve my goals, to the point where my sensibilities snap. The gatekeepers of my sanity get overwhelmed and so my insidious interlopers take over and get a party going. They bring their friends round and turn their manic menagerie of mayhem to the max. Whatever I try – meditation, mindfulness or music, don’t work. It’s like trying to listen to a lullaby at an Anthrax gig.  

My therapist said they aren’t real, these thoughts. You’re in a horror movie, being attacked by phantoms that aren’t really there. He tells me you have got to stop listening to them. Snap out of it. Pull yourself together. He wants to sign me off work permanently. I’m only 33 then. I don’t want to do this, so I pretend. Tell them what they want to hear. Yes, the voices have stopped. I’ve got them under control. I go back to work drugged up to the eyeballs, and cry in the toilet. I don’t know how I manage to keep going, but I do. In my therapy group, there’s a guy who walks around with rocks in his backpack. He’s terrified he will float off into space. Another guy, a postman, is frightened the sky will fall on his head. Rationality doesn’t work. The science fails. I don’t tell them my phobias and I won’t tell you. They are too awful, too dreadful for me to share. My therapist says they are nothing to be ashamed of, that I’m making them seem worse than they are, but what does he know? They are better locked away than dealt with. I know them best. They are mine.

Eventually, I venture out to the pub to meet friends. I hear people casually talking about ADHD. That it’s all a scam. People just milking the state for money. They say depression is all in the mind. Really Pal? Is that your big insight? Well, walk a mile in my footsteps, then tell me it’s a fake. I finish my drink and fuck off. I’ve had enough of barstool prophets. I go home, tell my wife what a great time I had, then curl up in bed. I feed some Mendelssohn into my headphones and retreat into Terry Pratchett and James Herriot. 

I hate all those glib quotes and sentimental phrases they say at times like this, because they sound like they’ve been spoken by someone who hasn’t suffered. I’m still here. I got through it, but it’s been hard. I’m here because I’m a stubborn bastard. And, because I don’t abuse drugs and alcohol. If I had, they would have tipped me over the final edge into oblivion. Maybe the fact that I quit booze is why I got through the dark times. Maybe it’s a sign of my strength. I don’t know about that. I prefer to think that it’s because I still want to keep on creating. That I still have some art left in me, and that the thing that brought the demons in, is the thing that keeps me alive.