When the Black Dog Comes Home

As the morning sun finds the bedroom blinds, I awake with a sense of dread. The feeling of foreboding is slowly washed away by the first cup of coffee, as I lay in bed embracing the new day.

 When I was a child, an aunt tipped me to the melancholy, her word, that runs in our family. As she had, I learned to live with this low-grade sadness. We didn’t call it depression, and we wouldn’t talk about free-floating anxiety for another twenty years.

Winston Churchill called depression his black dog. That’s a good name for what millions of us feel on lovely fall days and at holiday time. Black dog conveys a sense of brooding that follows at our heels. But phantom dogs—even big, black ones—can be friendly and protective.

 We called our family’s passing affliction “the bots,” a case of mental flu.

 Over time, I’ve learned to recognize the cycle. If I am feeling flat, I rely on the comfort of routine to get me through the day. If I am feeling more than flat, I attack work at hand or make up work to distract myself. The bots are best managed out of doors. 

I’ve come to see my black dog as a companion—sometimes lying in a puddle of sunlight in an otherwise dark room. Other times, the big, woolly creature wants to shake off the doldrums and play. In this part of the cycle, I write, seek out people, and find hope in new things.

 These thoughts are offered as an observation, not a cure. The bots are one thing. Depression that lasts months or years is a serious illness. It requires more. 

 Often, we feel down for a reason. These last years have been cause for debilitating anxiety. With COVID, we wait for the other shoe to drop. A Russian madman kills civilians in their homes, schools, churches, hospitals, and supermarkets. What an unwanted bonus of evil he is in a world beset with homelessness, persecution, and starvation.

 Awaking with the bots, I know I need to get outside. The constellation Orion hangs high in the dark sky as I walk to the end of the driveway. The newspaper in its dew-wet, plastic bag assures me that death-tipped missiles slept in their silos as I slept in my bed.

I awake to dread. A little after sunrise, I am sowing lettuce seed. 

Read more of Ed Cullen's essays, here.