deepest gloom

Depression has a powerful narcissistic aspect. (No wonder it is the territory of creatives; all artists are egoists.) Its effect is to draw the self into the self: I am so miserable, my misery is greater than anyone else's around me, they cannot understand, my misery is special, my very own personal sump. It's horrible to admit it but there is a perverse pleasure in giving in to this lure of thoughts. They are insidious, compelling, and they drown out generative thought. That is what I fear most: the disappearance of thoughts. The nothingness. It's the most horrible state of mind, and it has an almost physical attribute; because of the inability to escape the sheer internalness of the experience, sanity begins to drift apart and floating in the void of unthinking becomes present reality. The inner vision is more compelling than real surroundings and colours everything with darkness. So lame then to realise that there is nothing special about the experience but that it is common, and January is a bad month for it. Today blue sky has broken through. The extra light is enough to show up how dirty the house has become and has shamed me into hoovering.