A Journey Through My Mind And Heart: life through the eyes of depression

Over the past ten years I have suffered from enduring mental health problems. One of my coping methods has been to write my thoughts and feelings down in the form of poetry. I find that it helps me to push some of the often extremely painful emotions out of my mind and body. People have often said to me that they can’t imagine how it feels to be really depressed. With this question in mind I decided to write “The leaden blanket” which attempts to describe to the reader my own personal experience of being depressed. I have attempted to inject a little humour into my observations as in “Leggings” as the depression journey is not just feeling totally invaded by the negative. I have personally found that my condition has heightened my sensitivity to the world around me. I’ve learned to see beauty in simple things and I have learned to recall more happy days. “I remember feeling happy” is one of these poems. Writing these poems has brought me through many dark times. Reading them has highlighted the better days. I hope that your reading them will give you some insight into the dark places of the mind. But I also hope you will find the work entertaining and even amusing at times. John x