Bill Harper

It’s a little after 9pm on Boxing Day here in Brisbane, so I’m pretty sure Christmas has at least started everywhere in the world. (I’m still pretty clueless when it comes to world time zones.) I hope you all had a great day with family and friends, got everything you asked Santa for, and didn’t suffer too much from all the food and drink on offer.

But this year Christmas felt very surreal, as if it was happening everywhere else but my home.

Apart from one year when my father had to work, Christmas morning has always been about exchanging gifts. When I was young my sister and I would make our parents cups of tea in bed (very noisily if they were sleeping in). Then we’d bring all the presents from under the tree onto their bed and start handing them out.

These days I’m happy to have a bit of a sleep in myself. But I still get a thrill out of seeing everyone’s reaction as they frantically rip off the wrapping paper to see what’s inside.

But this year was different. A lot different.

Despite not going to bed until after midnight I still woke up a little after seven. But I was alone (I wasn’t seeing my son until ten), and so I spend the morning finding out about everyone else’s Christmas morning on Twitter and Facebook. And I felt sad that I couldn’t talk about what my family was doing, or what everyone was getting from Santa. For me it was just another morning.

(I did get a phone call from both my sister and my father, which I really appreciated.)

Even when I visited my son it didn’t feel normal. They’d already unwrapped all their presents, and because I was saving his for the afternoon when he was coming to stay with me I felt like an intruder.

Fifteen minutes later I was home again.

I was picking up a friend in the afternoon to spend Christmas night with my son and me. So I filled in the time doing what I’d normally do. I did the dishes. I folded clothes.

Just another day.

At around five we finally got to exchange gifts (I got Ben Elton’s latest book), and later we had dinner at McDonald’s. Then we watched a bit of TV before heading off to bed.

And that was Christmas.

Mind you, my birthday three days before felt pretty weird as well. My son woke me up that morning, which was nice. But there was no present, or even a “Happy birthday”. I’m not even sure he knew it was my birthday.

We went to his family day care Christmas party, where I got my traditional sugar hit. (In past years I’ve gone to Tom’s Confectionery Warehouse.) And then I went home to an empty house.

Fortunately I didn’t have to spend the rest of the day alone. I visited a friend, who shouted me dinner and then took me to see “Skyfall” at the movies. (She also got me a present–”Jamie’s 15-Minute Meals“.)

I realise it sounds like I’m most concerned about the presents. But I think what actually hit me the most was how alone I felt. It’s not a good feeling at the best of times, but around this time year I find it especially tough.

As much as I’d like to, I can’t predict how things will be for me this time next year. But if it looks like I’ll be spending my birthday and Christmas alone again then I’d like it to be for a good reason. So I might travel somewhere overseas, and spend my Christmas there. I may even live out my fantasy of having a white Christmas.

But that’s almost a year away, and a lot can change in a year.

Or at least I hope it can.

Well, it looks like we’ve survived yet another doomsday prediction. (Okay, technically it’s the 21st for another two hours, but I’m not holding my breath.)

Still, I’m sure it got a lot people thinking about the meaning of life, and whether their time on this planet has been a fulfilling one.

Fortunately for us, Facebook is there to let us all know just how mundane our lives really are.

In case you don’t know, Facebook now gives everyone their own personal Year in Review, which brings up “your 20 biggest moments from the year”. And while it’s a pretty cool idea, it can paint a pretty grim picture of how you’ve spent the past 12 months.

I’m not sure what everyone else’s is like, but according to Facebook here are my highlights for 2012:

• sold the house (actually, this was pretty awesome considering it had been on the market for 18 months)
• changed my profile picture
• took some photos
• was tagged in other photos
• found some old photos on my computer
• became happy (another huge event in my life that I’m very… well, happy about)
• took a video of a nearby park
• went to a party
• shared photos of a Dalek-shaped pot and a security chain with a maze-like path to follow
• took a decent photo of my son (still pretty proud of this one)
• shared some words of wisdom about depression (important considering how long I suffered it myself)
• got a great Father’s Day present that my son made at day care
• made some ridiculous poses that were subsequently shared on Facebook
• took more photos–some funny, some serious, a lot blurry
• updated my cover photo
• made some friends
• liked some pages

Now I admit my life isn’t exactly an action thriller, but a lot more has happened that I’d like to remember. And so I’ll probably write another post later on to fill in the gaps that Facebook missed.

So… how well did Facebook do at capturing your biggest moments of the year?

A year ago today I was a very happy man.

Angie and her son had just arrived from the UK, and we spent two magical weeks together.

We all had an amazing time–cruising the river on a CityCat, playing “Is that edible?” at a Sushi Train, and getting dumped (by waves) at the beach. Even just walking around the streets of Brisbane seemed like an incredible experience.

In short, life seemed pretty much perfect.

Of course, a lot has happened since then. Living on opposite sides of the world became a problem, and so we decided to end the relationship.

I’m hoping Angie and I can get together again. Not now, and probably not here. But I hope it happens one day, and we get to share some more incredible moments together.

And until then, I’m more than happy to wait.

I’ve been waiting two months to write this post.

Actually, that’s a lie. I’ve been waiting more than two years to write this post. But it’s only in the past couple of months that I’ve been in a position where I could write it.

So why has it taken me so long to write this post?

Fear.

About two months ago my depression hit an all-time low. The personal issues I was dealing with combined to form a “perfect storm”, and on one particular night I was very close to ending it permanently.

The following morning I made appointments to see a counsellor and my GP.

The counselling session went as I expected: Get out of the house, keep active, maintain your social networks, and try to get through the events causing all the pain.

When I saw my GP I asked to switch to another anti-depressant I’d heard good things about. (Effexor XR, in case you’re interested.) She agreed, and set me up to make the transition from Cymbalta.

The good news is I didn’t have to go cold turkey to get the Cymbalta out of my system before taking the new drug. The bad news is the two drugs didn’t play very well together (at least for me).

And so for a week I was not only depressed, but a little bit crazy as well.

Of course, I didn’t realise I was crazy at the time, and my actions seemed perfectly rational. But in that week I said and did things I shouldn’t have, and managed to all but destroy one of my closest friendships.

And then, on the night of the first day I took the new drug on its own, the most amazing feeling came over me. It hit me in an instant, as if someone reached inside my head and flicked a switch.

I was… happy.

And not just happy. Deliriously happy. The happiest I’d been in months, and possibly the happiest I’d been since I was first diagnosed more than two years ago.

Even cutting my finger while slicing up mushrooms for dinner didn’t wipe the smile from my face.

I wrote about it on Facebook, and announced it on Twitter. But I wasn’t ready to write about it. Not yet.

The next morning I woke up, expecting the effect to have worn off overnight. Expecting to be back to where I’d been. Expecting to be disappointed.

But my only disappointment was that I hadn’t made the switch sooner.

So why wait so long to write about it? Because I was scared that making it “official”would be like waving a red rag to a bull. Or, in this case, Fate.

You see, I’ve been here before. Shortly before I was diagnosed I spent two glorious weeks on cloud nine. And I can still remember how bad it felt to not just plummet back down to earth, but to keep on falling.

And I don’t ever want that to happen again.

I’ve been happy for seven weeks now. It hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows–I have the occasional bad day just like everyone else. But I’m not sinking anywhere near as low as I used to, and it’s a lot easier to bounce back these days.

Am I cured? Hell no. My brain still has the chemical imbalance, and I’ll probably be taking anti-depressants for the rest of my life.

But that’s just fine with me. Because if taking a tablet can make me happy, then I’m happy to keep taking them.

Eight years ago today my mother passed away.

I can still remember a lot about that day. The phone call from my father telling me about the second stroke. Telling Lynda. Sending my lecturer an email to say I wouldn’t be in class that evening. The long drive to Ipswich hospital.

Hugging my father when I arrived. And my sister, her eyes red from tears and lack of sleep. Holding my mother’s hand and talking to her while they both went home to rest. Calling them both back to the hospital after being told my mother wasn’t going to make it.

In the final hours, trying to function as normally as we could, knowing full well things would never be normal again. Sensing our mother in pain, asking for more morphine, all the while watching the numbers on the various displays counting down.

And then that horrible drawn-out tone that tells you the fight is over.

The drive home seemed even longer, despite the roads being practically empty at that time of night. Listening to Ultravox’s “Dancing with tears in my eyes” and fighting back my own.