My ever-Changing cloud

​Before I had ever experienced depression I wondered what the term black dog meant, to me it made no sense to describe something so terrible with a creature so wonderful. I had my own real life black dog that followed me everywhere and was a cuddling machine, it always seemed degrading to her to refer her to something so horrendous.
 

My depression is my cloud. It floats above my head wherever I go. Some days it’s raging, angry and thundering, other days it downpours. Sometimes it’s just a nice white fluffy cloud and for the most part, it drizzles sporadically throughout the day. For those of you that suffer, you won’t need to ask why I don’t have an umbrella. Everyone who doesn’t suffer with depression (or any mental illness) has their umbrella, it protects them on the days it gets a little rainy and fits nicely in their pocket whilst the sun is shining. But, with depression, your umbrella is taken away. Destroyed by one huge, shattering storm and unlike breaking a real umbrella you can’t just nip into Tesco’s to buy a new shiny one that will hold up against the heavy winds. So you endure the ever-changing weather up there and hope you don’t get soaked, until it isn’t so powerful and your good ol’ trusty umbrella will withstand the winds once again.  

It’s odd really, because you never quite see the storm coming. One day you’re going about your life, with a small cloud floating above you in the far distance and suddenly it floods. It’s like the weather here in the UK, it’s perfectly sunny then all of a sudden a crap ton of rain floods down on you as you’re walking to work ruining your hair and any patience you had for the rest of the day. My depression changes like the clouds you see up above you. Sometimes they seem nearer, as if you could touch them and sometimes they seem a million miles away. Often times they look fluffy and white as snow but occasionally they look angry and filled with rage. My depression is not always a constant cloud of rage, despite what people may think but rather it changes every day. There isn’t a weather forecast to predict today’s mood unlike the weather so you can plan accordingly, with depression you take it how it comes. One rainy day at a time waiting for the day you awaken to a bright fluffy cloud. ​​