Feb 9 (edited) • Read This First
My Journey Through Depression (or the Duvet of Doom)
From my earliest memories, depression has been my constant companion.
From my earliest childhood memories, depression has been my constant companion. At just four or five years old, standing in my school playground in my blue parka and corrective shoes for my club foot, I first felt that heavy, soggy “duvet of doom” settle over me.
This wasn't mere sadness, but something deeper and physically painful that has followed me throughout my life. I existed on the periphery, never quite belonging to any group. As the eldest child, I lacked the natural advantage of an older sibling who could have eased my entry into social circles, vouching for my character and worth. My parents didn’t have friends with children who might have extended that crucial invitation: “He’s alright, let him join us.”
I felt perpetually seen and judged for my distinctive gait from my club foot, which was fused and shorter than the other one, and this fed my catastrophic levels of clumsiness and social awkwardness.
People's stares and whispers followed me, or at least I believed they did. In desperation for acceptance, I carved out a niche as the group clown, willing to hurt myself, subject myself to humiliation for the entertainment of peers I didn't particularly like or respect. The bargain seemed fair at the time: physical pain or embarrassment in exchange for inclusion. "As long as I'm part of something," I told myself, “The cost doesn't matter."
Reflecting on this now creates a hollow ache in my chest. A recognition of what I was willing to sacrifice simply to avoid being alone.
This struggle unfolded against the bleak backdrop of Ebbw Vale in the mid-1980s through the 1990s, a community drowning in economic devastation.
The systematic dismantling of Welsh industry had hit our town with cruelty. The mine closures came first, followed by the slow death of the steelworks, the beating heart of our community for generations.
With each shuttered facility, hope drained from the valley. Unemployment wasn't merely a statistic; it was the shadow that darkened every household. Men who had defined themselves through hard, honest labour now found themselves purposeless, their identity stripped away with their livelihoods. The pubs became community centres; alcohol was the cause and solution to wounded pride and uncertain futures. The air itself seemed heavy with despair, a communal grief that permeated everything. In this landscape of collective loss, fitting in became both more crucial and more complicated, another system where I found myself on the outside looking.
Alcohol became the centrepiece of my struggle. From the age of 12, I found belonging through rugby, which introduced me to drinking culture. By fourteen, I was drinking four nights a week in local pubs. My identity became wrapped in being a "good drinker", someone who could manage ten pints, who put drinking before relationships, and who ridiculed those who couldn't keep up.
This pattern dominated my university years, early career, and family life. Despite starting a family in my twenties, up to half my wages went to drinking and smoking. Even as my digital marketing career advanced, work environments reinforced these behaviours through client meetings and team celebrations centred around alcohol.
Brief periods of clarity appeared through my involvement in martial arts. First with MMA in 2004, then Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in 2017, I discovered communities where drinking wasn't central. During these periods, my physical and mental health improved dramatically. In 2017, after seeing a humiliating video of myself asleep at my desk after a particularly debauched weekend, I quit drinking for a year.
During this period of sobriety, everything became clearer, like cleaning foggy glasses. I excelled at Jiu-Jitsu competitions, winning gold medals and earning my blue belt.
Yet despite my anti-alcohol rhetoric and newfound values, I returned to drinking in July 2018.
In later years I would believe the lie I told myself and tell others that “I went back drinking when Richie died (that I went back drinking when I lost one of my closest friends to alcoholism). When I checked my diary at the time, I found out I had gone back drinking a week before my friend had died. I was bored on a Saturday afternoon and just tried a pint. It was an act of self-sabotage or a way to say that “it didn’t have a hold on me” I could honestly tell you, but within a few weeks I was back boozing and smoking big time.
My relationships suffered terribly. After 20 years together, my partner and I split in 2019. Career setbacks, a new toxic workplace, housing insecurity, and a troubled new relationship plunged me into the darkest depression I'd ever experienced. From December 2022 to June 2023, I wasn’t living I was existing, waking at noon, watching mind numbing day time television until evening, then drinking at my local pub until late.
The turning point came on June 6, 2023. After hitting rock bottom thinking about the previous day where I sitting dishevelled in a pub, drinking with borrowed money, making small talk to a man I despised, then, I finally found a spark of self-reflection and self-preservation like a lightning bolt from Zeus. My girlfriend confronted me, not shouting, just a cold reflection about how drinking had changed me, something stirred within me. That night, I chose not to go to the pub. This small act of resistance became the foundation for rebuilding my life.
These are the small steps I've learned along my journey, life hacks for finding light in unbearable darkness. While they won't cure depression, they've helped me keep moving forward when that soggy duvet threatens to suffocate me completely. My story continues to unfold, but now with tools to keep depression at bay, I hope to share these with others facing similar struggles.
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My Journey Through Depression (or the Duvet of Doom)
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