Catherine Mede Writes

So many of you are probably wondering who I am.  I am a writer, a mother, a reader, a friend, a reviewer, a wife, a gardener, a creator – there are lots of labels for me.  But I had a new one last year.

Depressed.

I have suffered from it for a while, but during Winter 2011, I really crashed, and could no longer go on.  It affected my writing, my desires, my dreams and my goals.  It affected my relationships with those around me, because a lot of them didn’t know what was going on. I had hidden it so well beneath the smiles and friendly gestures, that no one knew what I was suffering inside.

Now depression isn’t about sitting around and bawling your eyes out.  For me, it was a case of feeling nothing.  I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t.  I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t.  I didn’t find anything interesting anymore.  Life was just grey.

Depression affects many people in many different ways.  This is how it affected me.  My mind went.  I could no longer remember things, I have had to start writing important dates and appointments  on my calendar or else I would forget them.  My enthusiasm took a dive.  I no longer wanted to get tea ready by lunchtime.

I didn’t want to write, I didn’t want to edit, I didn’t want to look at my computer.  And that was the hardest thing, because my computer, my writing, had been my release for so long.  But then I no longer had the motivation to write, nothing inspired me, nothing seemed interesting or colourful anymore.

It has been a slow process which has involved medication and counselling, but I am finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel.  While I still don’t have the desire to write, I am editing, which is something.  And I had a few stories that needed to be worked on, and maybe this year is the year of me getting my arse into gear and facing up to the fact that perhaps I was scared of rejection, that perhaps my stories aren’t good enough to get published… but how will I know unless I get them out there?  I can’t get it rejected without submitting something, right?

So, life is slowly returning to normal – not that I know what normal is, but things are returning to how it used to be.  Writing will come back into my life, and I have been coming up with story ideas, so I won’t let that stop me from writing again.