Nigel 
November 25th, 2009
I can't even start up the never-ending staircase. What if I fall?
Right now I’m clinically depressed and on the maximum doseage of antidepressant. This means I have little energy, physical or mental, but it also means my brain is conning me about what I’m really capable of doing. This week a bad cold has triggered a chest infection. This weakens me further. I have a number of things to do which normally would be no problem but now feel overwhelming – well, almost overwhelming. I want to hibernate till things ease up but I don’t want to let people down.
Do I push ahead with the important stuff on the basis I’ve got more energy than I think, or do I give in to how I feel?
At a guess you’ll be reading a raw first draft of this article. I’m pushing ahead with writing it (often that helps me feel better), but I’ll not manage to edit it today. I’ll also probably split it in two 
Some seven or eight of the times since 1970 I have kept pushing because I had important work to do and things went badly wrong. In 1970 it was the final year of my Maths degree. Later it was a paid teaching job which I believed mattered.
Sometimes, including 1970 and 1984, I had what used to be called a nervous breakdown. I folded. I became unfit to work for anything from two to eighteen months.
Occasionally I've just kept pushing and ended up like this wall.
Not a great idea.
Not pleasant.
But eight or nine times in thirty nine years is not bad!
And over the years I’ve learned a lot about the signs I’m genuinely overdoing it and need to back off.
Okay, I’m running out of time and I want to add a couple of versions of the same photo so I’ll finish this tomorrow morning.
But for today: an answer. Should I try to keep going? Probably yes. Don’t let depression rule you.
But with care!
Right, I’m off to try and do some stuff. Catch you tomorrow.
