LIKE many others, I've experienced those friendly twins, depression and anxiety, during my life. Although the circumstances may vary for those afflicted, the shared experience, I suspect is broadly similar.
I found myself buried under deep layers of turmoil unable to access what was familiar and safe. The inability to penetrate those layers left me exhausted, removed from the world, in pain and often without hope, in a deep dark hole.
With loving care, support and patience from my partner, good friends, professional help and the company of my dog Robbie, I slowly took small steps through the debris to regain a sense of myself and engage with the world again.
The long journey back also involved help from the natural world, where simple familiar encounters freed up thought processes and kindled emotions which had been dulled but not completely extinguished; a rustling leaf, a budding flower, a calling swan, a soaring buzzard, a singing robin, a seasonal smell.
Often without realising, I was engaging with, connecting to and accessing parts of myself I'd thought were gone. Something about the animal and plant kingdom with its capacity to live in the now, can help our thinking and being, if we allow it.
Singer-songwriter Juliet Turner, who hails from my own parish of Dromore, writes in her song Everything Beautiful is Burning of someone having "a free-fall into the dark" and how his or her "sorrow was secret under the ground".
I'm not sure of the context for her song, but it presents as a story of hope and an ode to someone, who despite feeling like "everything beautiful was burning" at one point in life, was able in time "to rise from the ashes, pale and dignified".
Finding and travelling the path back to wellness is difficult, but with time and the right influences, the body and mind can heal sufficiently to allow full interaction with the world again.
Observing the daily dramas and struggles of common birds, animals and plants helped me begin interacting with the world and those around me, like a balm for a leaking wound.
Birds at a winter table are only concerned with storing up enough fat reserves and calories to survive another night of frost. Blue-tits in spring busy feeding chicks neither seek or require approval, they just concern themselves with the immediate task of rearing young.
The only decision an adult golden eagle makes at its nest is which of the two chicks to feed first. A badger emerging from its sett on a summer's evening raises its snout to sniff the air for danger before plodding carefree into the night.
Autumn leaves of different hues fall uninterrupted, while overhead, calling geese bring winter's chill and shortening days. Flowers unfurl their beauty unforced, in their own time. All the elements of our natural world work alongside each other, not controlling or dominating.
This world and its inhabitants helped point the way for me, giving directions for living in the here and now. Turner, in her song, offers us all good advice on trying to emerge from dark times in our lives: "Don't turn your face away from the first sight of the sunlight. All the signs say it's here to stay".
For me, nature provided some of that sunlight, helping with its encouraging messages that contentment and joy come and go as seasonal cycles do and that its players live in the now with no concerns other than their present tasks.
My two friends still call occasionally. but their visits are less frequent and less enduring.
