The elephant on my chest
...and some broken scales
The weight of the pachyderm
I have a few articles planned in my head having just returned from an incredible trip to India, and one of them is about elephants... I did not, however, anticipate this type of elephant to be the one I would write about first. The elephant on my chest. The one that creeps up without me noticing, and shadows my soul.
In my book, Breaking Waves, I explain how:
“Even though I’ve been mentally in a good place now for a while, there are still days where I wake up with the black dog greedily salivating in the corner of the room. For me it’s not really a dog though, it’s actually an elephant, sat on my chest. It’s strange that it’s an elephant, as I adore elephants - they are my favourite animals and have been since I was tiny. I carried an elephant pillow to school every day of my life, cuddling and sniffing it until it disintegrated, and then I made my mum bury the tattered strands ceremonially in the garden. He was called Ellie, just like Fiver’s favourite toys are named ‘Bunny’ and ‘Penguin’, and Taz has ‘Big Fat Panda’ and ‘Piggy’ (although Piggy is actually a lamb).
I love how elephants love their families, I love their gentleness, their loyalty and how ferocious they can be when they need to. I absolutely love that they are matriarchal, and that they love water!! As well as for survival, they use water for fun – they like to swim, dive and play, and apparently the buoyancy helps their aching joints. It’s as if I actually am an elephant. An Emmaphant.
There are little elephant statues and pictures all over my house, and then every now and then, I wake up with one of the buggers taking residence on my chest. So, it is not a snarling black dog for me, it’s the weight of a pachyderm, crushing my soul, immobilising me, and I try my best to breathe through it, to treat it with care and respect and knowing, and I do what I have to do. Sometimes I’m not able to do anything, depression can be utterly paralysing, but if I’m able, I take that weight with me and I head down to the sea or the lake.”
And so it has been this week.
As someone who was diagnosed with clinical depression in the aftermath of traumatic events, I have visited the darkest of places, but I have also been very fortunate to have found my way back. These days the elephant rarely comes this close, but when she does, with her, descends the inescapable and definite feeling that the world would be a better place without me in it.
I pause here, not for dramatic effect, but because this deserves a pause. Firstly to make an assurance that despite feeling this at times, it is not something I will EVER act on, so I am not in danger; and secondly to say to all of you who have felt this, please know it is not just you. ‘You are not alone’ is not a trope, it is truth.
Whenever we articulate such feelings (if indeed we are able to), the response of loved ones is always, obviously, a rush to tell us how important we are in the world, how needed and loved we are, how we are integral to so much, and before we know it we’re starring in our own version of ‘Its a Wonderful Life’. This thing is, for me, that doesn’t touch the sides, because I already emphatically know this to be the case…in my rational mind.
I know that many people depend on me, I know that I am loved, I know I am hugely important to some and I do truly believe that I offer something to those people. I also know with certainty that the feelings I am having will pass…in my rational mind.
Depression is not rational.
I can tell myself all these 'truths’, and believe them, and pop them on one side of the scales, but then the elephant tiptoes off the shelf, carrying with her the certainty that I am irrelevant, and that there is no point to my existence, and pops her mammoth weight on the other side of the scales before bedding down on my chest for a nap. No amount of rationale can make the scales balance. If only it could.
I do what I have to do
When I feel like this my rational self becomes a slightly distant observer - trying to reach the sad girl on the other side of the two-way mirror. ‘Swim!!’, ‘Go for a run!’, she yells; ‘seriously - swim’, ‘reach out’, ‘rest’.
But how can I run or swim with an elephant on my chest? I can’t move.
Somehow though, I make myself manage it, because I know it will begin to help.
On Sunday morning I got up and joined an ‘absolute beginner’s’ run course in the Surrey Hills. (I used to run regularly until injury and illness got the better of it). Had I not booked onto this course earlier in the month, there is no way on earth I would have got out of bed. But, I was driving in a shared car, and was ‘on the list’ so somehow that made me go. I was picked up by a friend that makes me feel safe, and I couldn’t bear to add ‘letting people down’ to the list of reasons to self-loathe; so whilst simultaneously being terrified at the prospect of talking to strangers in that frame of mind, I managed to put the fear to one side and spent the next two hours outdoors.
Did it help? Well it certainly didn’t hinder, and perhaps it just added some more weight to the other side of the scales. The woman who leads the group is amazing, intuitive and empathetic, and just being surrounded by her energy and that of my lovely friend running alongside me whilst also giving me space was quite beautiful. Little by little it made me know I will overcome, and even though the elephant didn’t move straight away, I know that she will. I think I saw her eyelid flicker.
Go me.
When I got home however, I cried, argued with Himself whilst he was tidying the house and cooking a roast dinner and trying to work out what the hell to do with me, and then I told Fiver I wanted to kill myself. Proud parenting moments. (I did immediately retract it and she hadn’t taken me seriously anyway, but still…) I add that all to the list.
I then proceeded to drink an entire bottle of wine.
Go me.
So I don’t always get it right. I am no ‘poster-girl’ for overcoming mental health difficulties. I try to help myself, but sometimes the self-destruct wins the battle in the moment. Depression is not pretty, and it is selfish and isolating. I know it is a difficult condition to care for, I have been on both sides.
What right have I got to be depressed anyway?
And then there’s that old chestnut. I live comfortably, my loved ones are ostensibly healthy, life is ‘good’ - how dare I be depressed when I see what else is happening in the world? But we know it doesn’t work like that. When I was first diagnosed about 11 years ago I remember saying to the psychologist ‘but I have (x) and (y), how can I be depressed’, and he replied that I was a ‘text book case’ considering life events at that time, and that is was a wonder I was still standing. I sobbed and sobbed in the car afterwards - with some kind of relief that I was being believed, validated and finally feeling some hope. Now I am a long way away from those traumatic happenings, so many others have lives that are infinitely more difficult than mine - my life is really pretty great - but depression does not set selection criteria. This club is open to anyone.
This morning I read a post by Matt Haig on Instagram. I’m sure, like many aspiring authors, we look to people like Matt Haig as the embodiment of ‘success’ as an author. He is a truly wonderful writer, with work spanning fiction and non-fiction, both adult and children’s books, he has film options on his work, has sold millions and topped the ‘best’ of the ‘best-seller’ lists. When he is well enough to be on social media, he also writes extensively about his depression, anxiety and autism. He posts things such as ‘Four years ago, after finishing the Midnight Library, I thought I would never write another novel again’, and talks about turning down literary awards, suffering burn-out, severe depressive episodes, the constant conundrum of being a private public figure, social media, and how ‘maybe happiness is not a butterfly we can catch with a net’.
The brain is a complex machine indeed, and the elephant doesn’t know that you’ve sold a million books or won the lottery. None of that prevents her coming if she is wont to come.
Shoot the damn dog (don’t shoot the elephant)
One of the books I read when I first recognised I had depression was ‘Shoot the Damn Dog’ by Sally Brampton. It is an extraordinary and searing account of the experience of severe depression - within a (at times) happy family and with a highly successful career. I have thankfully never experienced anything like Sally describes, yet that book brought such great comfort at my own lowest ebb. Another successful author, journalist and founder of ‘Elle’ magazine, she speaks with eye-opening honesty, humour and candour about her hospitalisations, medication, drinking, working and so much more. She describes how when reaching out for someone in a particular desperate moment, her friend came to her side and asked gently, “has something happened?” Her response (quote pg 39): ‘“Nothing.” I shake my head, “nothing has happened.” And it’s true. Nothing at all has happened in my world that day. Just me. I have happened.’
I have happened.
Genius.
The book ends on a positive note and is therefore comforting in and of itself, however eight years after the book was published, Sally walked into the sea, and never came out which is just so desperately sad. It is not a linear condition.
The other book that held my hand so tightly at that time in my life was ‘Underneath the Lemon Tree’ by
- I am inordinately excited as I write this to see that he is on Substack! Mark is a hugely talented editor and columnist for the Guardian newspaper (far and away the best newspaper in the UK, in my humble opinion, for those reading from outside the UK), and his book remains the closest thing I have ever read to somebody articulating my own experience. Someone in their forties who was ‘successful’ in the traditional career definition, with a supportive family, and who got steam-rollered by depression. Someone who didn’t see it coming, and himself wondered ‘what did I have to be depressed about?’, this book was an absolute lifeline for me. I gave my copy to someone and then had to buy myself another one. It is a friend, and it is utterly brilliant.I bought a lemon tree after reading it, and lemons have represented something very soulful for me ever since then - Lemon Soul ring a bell?!? My lemon tree died but I refused to attach undue significance to that and bought a fake one that stands by my front door to this day. Thank you Mark for putting this book into the world at a time when few others did. It is my number one.
[Incidentally, if you are struggling with even understanding your brain, whether you may have depression, and what that means physiologically - the book ‘Depressive Illness: The Curse of the Strong, by Dr Tim Cantopher, is absolute gold. I could not recommend it more for the facts and explanations. If you do not suffer from depression but others around you do, this gives so much invaluable insight. It’s a life-changer.]
I look back into my Amazon history and realise I bought these books back in 2013. So much has changed since then in the way we talk about mental illness societally, and to an extent our understanding of it, but these will remain the books that got me through, and ones that I can revisit if I need. I pop them on the scales opposite the elephant.
Lean on me
I’ve chucked a few things onto this side of the scales since the elephant came this week.
Yesterday morning I went for another run - this time I arrived in tears. Fiver was feeling vulnerable and I just wanted to be home with her - the feeling was overwhelming, but I had been driven by another brilliant friend (who readily offered to take me back home again), and leaving would have meant her missing her run, and I didn’t want to add that to my list of why I’m such a burden to the world, so I stayed. And I ran (well shuffled), and I cried, and I talked. Fiver sent me a video whilst I was running, of her at home making chocolate-dipped bananas with melted chocolate buttons. She was managing her own way of being with her own survival mechanisms whilst I was managing mine. That made me smile deep within.
I ran alongside a wonderful woman who has experienced some heartbreaking tragedies in recent times, and the power of our conversation wasn’t because of the shot of ‘perspective’ it gave me - the elephant doesn’t really respond to perspective sadly - but because whatever lay beneath our mental health vulnerabilities, she understood what it was like to have those feelings. I articulated to her what I hadn’t managed to articulate at home, and she felt it, she breathed it, she knew it. We leant on each other, and we understood each other in a deeply connecting way. The scales began to tip.
You need a new pair of scales
This morning began as it often does in the girl proportion of our house - with some tears and anxiety, last minute homework and the plethora of lost or misplaced items. Assuaged with hugs and tea (always) and an emergency filo pastry run (rare). Once the teenage glitter dust had settled, leaving just the memory of body spray in the air, I had a writing hour with the
Club - where I began to silently articulate this piece through my fingers and transfer it from my head to the page. That group is such a safe space, and a place that feeds my soul. I was quiet on the group today, but a writing friend reached out to check I was ok. A small action with an enormous impact.Afterwards I went to my absolute well-being and survival ‘go-to’ - the place where my book was born - the lake. I’m extremely lucky to have this available and I could not be more grateful. The weather was vile this morning - grey skies, wind, and really icy cold, miserable, penetrating rain - not heavy rain, but the type of rain where each droplet defies its size and appearance with its power to emanate cold and misery. A pathetic fallacy epitomised.
As I headed down to the water, I chatted to one of the lifeguards who I see regularly. We both have teenage daughters and both experience the impact of mental health vulnerabilities within the family as well as within ourselves. Sometimes it’s ok, and sometimes it really isn’t. I told him about this piece of writing that I was part way through and my scales analogy. He smiled knowingly and said ‘you need a new pair of scales’, and then followed it with ‘my scales are fucking broken!!’, and we both howled. There, in the wind and rain, me in a swimsuit with my feet in the water, him wrapped up against the elements with lifeguarding gear - we both just knew. ‘I’m gonna quote you!!’ I yelled, as I entered the water.
I then took myself and my laptop to a warm cozy pub with a fireplace to defrost my toes, and have tea and honeycomb crumpets (trust me - they are sublime).
This piece from Breaking Waves seems a good place to sum it up…
“Whilst there is much joy and companionship at the lake, there is also a tacit understanding that often people need to have a solitary experience. No one takes offence when I say I’m not feeling great, or I don’t want to talk. I feel innately understood. I can stand there with the weight on me feeling utterly insurmountable, the vestiges of grief thickening my tongue and other social muscles so as to render them inoperable. Sometimes that means I can’t get in the water at all, but that’s ok. Sometimes I can. When I can, I again feel held by it, and something lifts. It doesn’t disappear, but the grip on my soul is loosened, and my heart beats more freely.
The shore going into the lake is sandy and has a gentle slope, so it’s possible to make the decision one step at a time. It doesn’t have to be a plunge, or a ‘sink or swim’ experience, it can just be a walk, with the water around my feet and legs, breathing the air, hearing the birds, and feeling the whispers of the trees. It is forgiving and kind, and that is what makes it so special. Sometimes in the water the elephant peels herself away from me altogether and swims away, smiling back at me, hosing me with water like a fond farewell, until next time. Sometimes she just shrinks a little, then comes back and nestles on my chest for a while more, but she is smaller and doesn’t weigh quite so much. I am able to carry her.”
Today the elephant hasn’t quite waved me goodbye, but thanks to the soft actions of others - the ones who ran with me, drove me, laughed with me, swam with me, looked out for me, allowed me not to speak, to lean on them, to not have to pretend to be ok - and thanks to getting myself outside, the elephant is smaller. I think I can carry her now. Soon enough she’ll go back on the shelf. ..until next time.
In the meantime I’m off to buy a new pair of scales. J - I’ll get you one whilst I’m there ❤️
If this resonates with you, today I just want to send you much love. I am with you.
Love & lemons 💕🍋
Em xx
This is such a powerful post, and I'm so honoured that you come to our writing hour and feel safe with us. You are a beautiful writer, and by articulating the darkness as well as the light, you bring great comfort to us all. Elephants are my 'power' animal. When I'm lost, I look for elephants; when I see one, I take it as a sign that I'm going in the right direction. To have an elephant come to visit, however heavy, may be a gift. I know it doesn't feel like it. But for me, life is about feeling it all - we don't escape any of it. For years, I've chased happiness, labelling sadness, grief, depression, and anger as bad. And it's only fairly recently that I'm learning to just be with the misery and accept it's not bad - but just part of the rollercoaster, part of the whole. I tried for many years to outrun grief but sometimes it just won't be outrun. Or maybe I'm just slower and fatter. So I have no choice but to sit with the misery. I always feel the panic at first that it will destroy me, that I won't survive the darkest of feelings. But at first I just try to hang on, to a person, an idea, a quotation, a dog. So I don't feel so alone. Because I don't think it's the darkness that scares me most but rather being alone in the darkness. But I'm slowly, slowly learning to be alone in the darkness and just to sit with the elephant versus trying to constantly scrabble for the light, thinking I am going to suffocate under his big grey weight. And then as my eyes slowly adjust and I start to see pinpricks of light and I realise I am sitting under a night sky and there are hundreds of people out there in the darkness too - sitting beneath these stars. And I am not alone. It can get really cold but eventually the sun does come up. Not just once but every day. The dawn always comes eventually. But that does not mean the night is not beautiful too, once I stop being scared of the dark. Much love, Emma. I will see you under the stars. xxx
Depression tells us such stupid lies. Thank you for sharing your truth about how hard it is sometimes not to believe these lies even when we have the tools. Thank you for sharing your elephant.