I am ill with depression again.

If you’ve seen me around over the last few weeks, or some of the things I’ve been posting on social media, this won’t be news to you. But this is something that I think you all need to be aware that I have acknowledged: It appears that I am ill with depression once again.

I haven’t been officially diagnosed, nor was I when it happened seven years ago, though I was treated for it. But the symptoms are as familiar to me as the school bully. The one that I would have to see every day whether I wanted to or not as I walked through the school, glancing nervously around, praying to a God I didn’t believe in that they wouldn’t decide to mess with me today. It’s been a while since I’ve had it this badly but depression is definitely with me again.

It is different from last time in one respect – this time there is a very clear reason for it, rather than a scattering of different reasons that built up to my poor mental health in 2009. Unfortunately, the reason I am upset this time is not a reason I am at liberty to discuss publicly at this point. Hopefully there will come a time in the future when I am able to say what the situation is, and why it is causing me so much grief. All I can say right now is that over the last few weeks, some of the stress and depressive behaviours started to come out in anticipation of a very bad piece of news. When I finally received it last Monday evening on the 30th November, it broke me, and I’ve been in a terrible state ever since.

It is not different from last time in the sense of my feelings towards my own problems. While they are significant enough for me to be upset about it, I do not believe that other people will feel the same way, nor do I necessarily feel like I deserve to be upset given the hardships some other people are going through. Some people have, in the last year, lost friends and loved ones. As I write this, all of Facebook is talking about how we are on our way to bomb Syria. My problems pale in significance to these things, and acknowledging this doesn’t help my state of mind at all.

What am I doing about it? Well, for now, I am taking things one day at a time. There is no mid-long term plan for me at this point. All I’ve got right now is the following day. I am trying to develop some coping strategies, and if it helps me to do so, I’ll continue to post updates on how I’m getting on with that. However, I do believe some thanks are in order:

First, from the bottom of what remains of my heart, a massive, massive thank you to everybody who has commented on the posts I have been making, sent me messages of support, or even just sat down and talked to me. There are absolutely no words for how much that means to me. Even if I haven’t replied, please know that I have seen your support and I am more than grateful for it. This has come from people who I know and am quite close with, to people I knew from the past who I never really expected to hear from again, and some people who I have never even met. That so many people offer their support is a huge source of comfort and is gratefully received.

There are some people who, whether by accident or design, have enough stake in my personal affairs to already know what is happening and why. This is not an issue I can talk about publicly yet, as I have explained. But the conversations I have had with those people have been a very important part of me getting through the last few days. So a very special thank you to them.

Thank you to my family: Mom, Dad, Mark and Beth. You’re the reason I still have a home to go to in my darkest hour, and I could not have managed without your help and support over the last few days. It helps enormously that I know I can continue to count on you to do so. It wasn’t my plan to still be living at home at the age of 30, but by all the Gods I was grateful for it this week.

And finally, a heartfelt “You’re welcome,” to anybody who in the past has thanked me for supporting them. It is now that I profoundly appreciate what that would have meant to you.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this.