8. Who is Gary?

So at this point, after 7 chapters of the blog, you’re probably asking yourself, “who is Gary?”. Well, I think it’s about time I told you.

Years ago, my family and I went on a trip to the Highlands, Scotland. I have a distinct memory of my brother calling out generic dad names from the window in an attempt to make people laugh. He shouted out “ALAN!!! GARY!!! STEVE!!!” over and over again. That memory stayed in my mind for a really long time, specifically the name Gary.

Later on in my life, when I was struggling with depression, my family helped me to realise that I had an illness but the illness wasn’t me. We decided to give it a name to re-enforce that it was a separate entity – and Gary was born. “Hello Gary”, we would say as the darkness would envelop me and looking back, I guess I used humour as a coping mechanism to help me in my darkest moments. I always found the name funny and when I was around my family or closest friends I’d consistently say that name as a joke. It’s now all a massive blur for me, but one thing I knew for certain is that I wouldn’t say that name if I was in a balanced or calm state of mind. In other words, I slowly developed a tool to help me deal with my depression. Thank you Gary.

It was quite late on in my journey that I realised giving my depression a name was a really valuable technique. My family always used to say to me and still do when I’m having bad days, “that’s not you speaking, it’s Gary.”. To this day the legacy of that joke still stands tall; we even named my anxiety Gerald.

What does Gary look like? Well, if anyone has ever seen the film Venom, the swirling black moving bacteria (before it enters the brain of Tom Hardy) depicts this perfectly for me. A lot of people picture depression as a person who has to drag massive heavy boulders wherever they go – symbolising the baggage they have to carry all the time. However for me, it felt like I had been possessed by an evil force; it felt like something was telling me that I was a worthless burden, who no one wanted to be around. I suppose the humour of the name, and the memory that it carries, helped greatly to counter-balance this and lighten the load of such a horrible nasty disease.

Separating depression from oneself is, I believe, the most important thing you can do. It’s the first step of recovery – to realising that all the pain, the tiredness, the suicidal thoughts are in actuality a chemical imbalance in the brain. But this doesn’t counteract what you are going through; don’t let others invalidate it because behind all the science and the chemical imbalances lies your pain, which will always be real to you.

Right now, there are so many people who feel they are worthless burdens and wastes of space. If any one of you is reading this, I want you to know that it’s not true. There will always be someone in this big wide world who will love you for YOU. Your family may not understand what or how you are feeling and that is so, so hard to live with but the honest truth is that they never will. All they can do is empathise. Be brave and strong enough to teach them that – otherwise they will never learn. When you look in the mirror and all you see is ugliness and hatred, don’t listen to your depression. Give it a name and tell it to fuck off.