Scratched Vinyl

This morning is just about being unwell. It is dull, not worth blogging about and certainly nothing to waste your time with reading. I've said everything there is to say about these feelings. I've started days like this a thousand times. This is the bit I endure and the bit you won't understand unless, sadly, you too have experienced clinical depression.

Sometimes writing is a way of scraping that ancient hole into my skull and letting the demons escape. Cutting out the stone of madness. Right now it is out of reach.

I'm taking one day at a time, actually I'm just getting by from one moment to the next. This is tricky. Every day has its minor triumphs, the things we take for granted when in good health  ... but the goal is more than to just make it to the other side of the day... it has to be.

I haven't been well enough to work and this is a source of real concern. Working for myself means I can go back at any moment ... and that keeps me hopeful. But in the mean time I am shut up in this house, trying to think what it is I can say to my customers.

It is a risk writing here so openly using my real identity. Customers are easily able to progress from my business web site to Googling me and finding out a little more. This is common sense when you are inviting a stranger to work in your house. I would certainly do it and my unusual name means it is incredibly easy to connect me with the business. However, given the ignorance that surrounds depression and other mental illness, I don't imagine it would be a selling point for me. At this point I should launch into some rationale about why I don't blog anonymously, how I'm trying to challenge stigma and discrimination. But the truth is I blog honestly and openly, without censorship, because that is what I vowed to do from the very beginning - those words are still there at the foot of the blog from the first day I published. There is no other reason. It makes decisions about what and how to write easy because I'm not looking over my shoulder, second guessing my readers.

I've only met one customer that admitted to seeing both websites and connecting them. I know at the time it terrified me... and I felt very exposed, despite her kindness and willingness to employ me. But I can't on the one hand campaign for an equality alongside those with physical illnesses, whilst at the same time taking advantage of the fact that depression can be concealed from others. That is surely to have it both ways isn't it?

I sometimes wonder if I should go further and link the two sites myself. Be totally upfront about being in business and living with depression. Is that a good idea? In my home town there is a wonderful place called The Café des Arts, a Social Enterprise that provides people with autism with an opportunity to work,  learn and show their art work. It seems to work.

But I suppose depression has its own baggage doesn't it. Not everything that is laid at our door is prejudice and misconception. Having depression makes answering the phone difficult at times, talking to people is hard, being reliable from one day to the next is impossible during depressive episodes. I'm not even sure I would employ me. And yet I'm a good person, my work is of a high standard and I'll always do my best for my customers. There should be room enough for people like that in this world shouldn't there?

What do you think, continue with my double life or be upfront about depression?