Depression often comes with swings between superiority and inferiority. Sometimes both, moving back and forth. One day you feel like you know better than everyone else. The next you feel useless, ignorant, or like a fraud. Neither state is accurate. Neither helps. During lockdown I worked for a major medical supplies company managing digital marketing through their website. It was not the same as working in an ICU or emergency setting, but it was still intense. Demand was constant. The pressure was real. I worked long hours and was praised for being responsive and pulling my weight. My 17 or 18 years of experience mattered during that period. After lockdown the company hired a digital director on a six figure salary and everything changed. To be fair to him, he was doing his job. But at the time I saw him as the villain of the story. He was direct, serious, and difficult to read. I had just come out of a breakup after a 20 year relationship. I had debt. My current relationship was going through a difficult period. I was already struggling with depression. My perspective was not at its best. I told him I was struggling with depression and bipolar disorder. HR became involved. Everything was handled formally and correctly on paper, but it felt cold and distant. The experience left me feeling that the company did not really care what happened to me as long as procedures were followed. It sent me into a spiral that lasted two years. During that time I planned to take my life six different times. Thankfully I did not. What I learned from that period is simple. Your workplace cannot be your safety net. Even organisations that talk openly about mental health are still organisations first. Protect yourself accordingly. Your job may be advertised before your obituary is ever published. The Illusion of Mastery No matter how much you know, there is always more to learn. And no matter how little someone else seems to know, they will understand something you do not. Psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger described a pattern now known as the Dunning Kruger effect. In their 1999 research they found that people with lower performance in areas like logic and grammar often overestimated their ability, while higher performers sometimes underestimated theirs.

I loved social media. I didn’t grow up with it. I was already an adult with two young children when I created my first account. What captivated me was how everything was connected. It was easy to satisfy curiosity instantly. Information moved quickly. And there was the chance to express myself and share my views with people I thought cared. I liked the idea of sharing my life with people I believed were interested in it. I can’t blame social media entirely for the affair I had, but it certainly amplified it and made it easier. One of my biggest regrets. Eventually I came off social media because debating with people who behaved like Tommy Robinson impersonators and shared false information left me exhausted. The pressure to reveal personal details also became too much. Since stepping away, my mental health improved in ways I didn’t expect. I no longer felt the constant pressure to perform, respond, or get pulled into pointless arguments. Even though I said I would never go back, at the end of July 2025 I returned. I realised I missed people I don’t see every day. Old colleagues. Friends. Family who live far away. This time I set some rules for myself. My Rules for Using Social Media Remove people who would walk past you in the street without speaking. Block or remove people whose views clash strongly with your values. I have no interest in engaging with racism, misogyny, homophobia, or transphobia. Some people are not looking for conversation. They are looking for conflict. Avoid posting controversial or argument-inducing material on other people’s pages. Don’t feed the trolls. And yes, I know the irony here. I’m sharing this through social media as well. The difference now is that I try to use it deliberately instead of letting it use me. The Mental Health Benefits of Reducing Social Media Use Research suggests there can be real benefits to limiting time on social media. A study from the University of Pennsylvania found that limiting social media use to about 30 minutes per day led to measurable reductions in loneliness and symptoms of depression.

In my family, if someone became too boastful or arrogant, they were often called out for having a “big head.” Certain people relished cutting you down. I’ve often struggled with self-confidence. Feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth became as familiar to me as the blue parka coat I wore everywhere. And like someone starving, I grabbed any fuel for my ego when it appeared. If someone said I played well at rugby, I started imagining a Welsh cap. If a girl talked to me, I thought we might get married. People say things like “think big” or “aim for the stars.” That is not a criticism of confidence. But confidence works best when it is grounded. Listen to yourself and try to stay realistic. Remember you are one of many people chasing the same goals. Discipline and hard work matter. One of the most powerful and underrated acts of self-preservation is learning to let go of your ego. In Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday draws on Stoic philosophy to make a simple point. Your ego is often one of the biggest obstacles between you and a better life. Not other people. Not circumstances. Often your ego. But what exactly is ego? It is the voice that craves praise, hates criticism, and constantly compares itself to everyone else in the room. It is the part of you that says: “I should be further along by now.” “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” “Why am I not getting the recognition I deserve?” It can sound like ambition. Often it is fear in disguise. Holiday argues that ego leads to arrogance, insecurity, and a fragile sense of entitlement. You can start believing you are too good for feedback, or too broken to try. Either way, it keeps you stuck. Letting go of ego does not mean erasing your personality. It means stepping back from the constant need to prove yourself. It makes it easier to listen, learn, and grow without shame. Ego vs Self-Esteem It helps to separate ego from self-esteem. Ego depends on external validation. Titles. Praise. Status. Comparisons. It makes you feel like you are only as good as your last achievement.

One of the hardest, most important jobs you’ll ever do doesn’t come with a manual, a salary, or much sleep. Parenting is brutal, beautiful, boring, and relentless. It’s also one of the clearest mirrors you’ll ever hold up to your own life. When you struggle with depression, parenting can become one of the biggest triggers. I once heard a line I’ve never forgotten, though I can’t remember who said it: “If you screw up bringing up your children, you can forget being good at anything else.” It felt true to me. But it can also hang over your head like a sword of Damocles. Self-loathing gets louder when you start thinking of yourself as a bad parent. There’s no such thing as a perfect parent, but there is such a thing as a consistent one. Turn up. That’s most of it. Not every moment. Just enough of them. Studies suggest that children with at least one consistently supportive adult in their life are significantly more resilient in the face of stress, trauma, and mental health struggles. You don’t have to be brilliant. Just be there. When you feel low, try to explain to your children that you are not just sad, you are ill. If they are too young to understand, explain it simply. Say your brain has a cold. Don’t hide it. Explain that it is an illness and that treatment helps. Get to them before the prejudice does. Prejudice is mostly learned. It does not start fully formed. And never hit. No matter how angry, how overwhelmed, or how out of your depth you feel. Violence creates fear, not respect. Fear shuts down trust. You cannot build anything solid from that. They Are Not You It’s tempting to project your own path onto your children. To steer them away from the mistakes you made, to relive the moments you missed. But they are not you. They will not want what you wanted. They will fall in love with things you don’t understand, and struggle in ways you never did. The best you can do is recognise the patterns, the pitfalls you know all too well, and offer them the tools to climb out when they fall in.

I’ve always loved Greek mythology. It was a natural progression from my first love: comic books. I spent a lot of time in hospital as a child because of a club foot. It was the 1980s. There were no tablets or streaming services. There were books. I devoured comics. Heroes who were big, strong, brave. Everything I felt I wasn’t. From there, I moved into Greek mythology and consumed it obsessively. At 10 years old, we were given a personal project at school: write to someone connected to your interest. Some the boys wrote to Manchester United or Liverpool. Others wrote to the Welsh Rugby Union. I wrote to “Professor of Greek Mythology, Oxford University.” Somehow, a real professor replied. He praised my knowledge, wrote to my school and parents, and I was given a special assembly and mam had never been prouder. They presented me with a book: Children of the Gods by Kenneth McLeish. It was the most graphic book I had ever read. The opening pages detailed Cronos castrating his father Ouranos. For anyone, never mind a 10 year old it was intense. Crazy stories of fighting, sex, murder, politics, deception and the celebration of wit, cunning and intelligence to go with strength. But it stayed with me. To me, mythology is a glimpse into the raw psyche of ancient people. Unfiltered. Honest about violence, chaos, love, and fate. Which brings us to Sisyphus. In Greek myth, Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill for eternity. Each time he nears the top, it rolls back down. Endless effort. No completion. No reward. It’s hard not to see depression in that image; You try, you improve, you relapse but you must start again. Never from the sample place as you have the experience. You never step in the same river twice. But in his book "The Myth of Sisyphus" , Albert Camus offers a radical reinterpretation. Sisyphus is only defeated if he despairs. If he accepts the task, if he owns it, then the gods lose their power over him. Camus ends the essay with a line that has echoed through existential philosophy ever since: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”