This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine.

After a longer than usual break from blogging, I thought I might return with a little update on my turbulent, once troubled, mind. It seems that I somewhat lost my motivation to blog over the closing months of the last year, even missing my usual Christmas message. I don't know what this was really down to, but suffice it to say that some of the wind seemed to have left my sails. I seem to have tried to find my way in the 3-D world, with some success in the voluntary sector of work, but none in the paid variety, so perhaps it was that that was causing my little flutter of anxiety. Add to that that the mental health charity I'd worked for closed its doors back in late 2012, and also that I'd had to come to terms with being discharged from secondary mental health services after 16 years under their care, and perhaps you have a recipe for, if not a slough of despond, then certainly a little glimpse into the darkness.
Indeed, I don't know what it is, but I do seem to have a certain fondness for existential despair. I tend to have thoughts that many would describe as very depressing. I think about Albert Camus, who said that the fact of death makes life absurd. I think about stories that my mum and dad tell me about their friends who have died, and indeed, met their end in such seemingly undignified ways that one begins to wonder what the point of it all is. For instance, I think about the story my mum told me of one friend of hers who had gone into hospital to be treated for swelling of the legs, only to be ushered to the toilet one day by only one nurse because there was a lack of staff on the ward, and because of this fell off the toilet only to get a blood clot on the brain from which he later died. Such things, to my mind anyway, show the absurdity of our existence, and perhaps even give us the opportunity for a little black, gallows humour.
So, having such thoughts, I begin to wonder about myself. Am I really a little depressed? Some of my experience would seem to point to this - the lack of motivation, the morbid thinking. But then again, I look back at my life and perhaps think that this aspect has always been there. Of course it's alleviated by the looks, the sounds, the smells of life, but maybe there's always that counterbalance, an inter-related and persistent knowledge - we may be alive, but one day we won't be.
So for now, I suppose, I'll just have to get used to such thoughts. Through my mental illness, I certainly took a step towards the darkness. I thought, and as no doubt I've related in this blog, that I'd taken a step towards the light. But now, as in the pure light of day I begin to examine my soul once again and as if anew, I find that perhaps the darkness was always there. Perhaps this thing of darkness I have to acknowledge mine.