The Sun is shining but the Day is Grey!

There is no other way to say this so, I am severely depressed!
This is not a 'spratt to catch a mackerel' approach to any unfortunate reader, simply, a statement of fact.

Once upon a time, I'd have been ashamed and embarrassed to admit to any such 'self-indulgent' state of affairs, not so now.  If I have learned nothing else (and it sometimes seems that way), in my long life it is certain that confessing to the awful crime of being wretched and miserable is not so very heinous after all.

No-one I believer, gets all the way through life without at least a fleeting brush with the 'black-dog' syndrome.  Sometimes it is such a short acquaintance as to be mostly beneficial, since it makes people stop, take stock  and try to establish where they have gone wrong.  On other occasions, it is rather more serious and can be extremely destructive and debilitating.

A lot depends on the cause.  This can be a temporary misfortune, a particularly unhappy experience or more seriously can be the result of days, weeks, sometimes months of negative thinking and can lead to many
potentially harmful behaviours.

There is of course, help to be had, which can take many forms:  a trip to your GP, a short course of medication, psychiatric treatment, cognitive therapy, counselling, or even something as simple as a few weeks of taking some herbal remedy such as St John's Wort, without recourse to any of the former.

But, and it is a big but.  One of the typical attitudes of the sufferer of depression is to try to hide how they feel.  The condition then grows - like Topsy - to giant proportions and eventually can become all-consuming.

If you know the cause of your depression theoretically you should be able to counteract negativity, but if the reason is one you recognise and about which you can do nothing, neither change how you feel, nor effectively do anything to change the basic problem - often one you cannot, will not admit to anyone -, then all you can do, which is what I am doing, is to wait and hope you will outgrow the particular obsession.

Try as you may, there is no way you can intellectualise depression away.  The reverse is true.  The more you think about the problem, the worse the obsession becomes.

When I started blogging, I had no idea what form my posts would take, they occur to me and end up in print. Not perhaps the wisest approach, but one which I find quite therapeutic. (with a small t).
This one however, is I am aware, a very different kettle of fish, not published with any other thought in mind than to offload some of the cloud, and, amazingly it has  had at least a temporary lightening of mood affect.

If anyone reads this and thinks I ought not to have published it please feel free to say so.  I believe in honesty whereever possible but am also aware that some things (at least for the reader), are better kept under wraps!