Where to start?

Where to start is the question uppermost in my mind right now. I don't really know where to start as I know almost nothing about blogging. Where to start is a pressing question for me each day of my life at the moment. I call it 'fighting the blues'. I say 'fighting' as this is a daily battle for me, an uphill climb if you like and a climb that only occasionally sees a reduced gradient.

I seem to have covered the first question I raised as I have started so now I am right into it - I didn't realise it would be that easy! So why am I doing this? Simple really. Diaries are good to let off steam and review progress or lack of it. And this is a kind of diary but one I want to share. I want to share so that people 'out there' might realise they are not struggling alone. As Monty Python used to say, 'there's a lot of it about'!

A lot? A lot of decent folks with a proclivity to mental illness. I think it is probably true to say that most people are prone to something or other! If you have weak ankle ligaments and fall often you won't normally find people avoid you when you talk about it. But prone to depression or anxiety? We simply don't talk about 'those kinds of things' at cocktail parties, or on the football terraces, or walking the dog. Whatever you do, whoever you mix with, however good your friends, if you are prone to mental health problems lots of normal (whatever 'normal' is) people simply don't want to know. I am not criticising them I simply report the facts from my personal experience. Put more simply, faced with something unfamiliar we sometimes run away.

You have to keep working at your mental health just like if you are a runner you have to keep working on your physical fitness. That is why I call this 'fighting the blues' because it really does feel like a fight and it is very much ongoing, well, it is for me anyway!

And so, whatever reason finds you here - welcome! Let me say that again as I do really mean it - WELCOME! If you are fortunate not to struggle with your own mental health I cannot pretend not to be envious and I simply add to my welcome the encouragement to be thankful and to ask you, if you can bear it, not to run away. If like me you 'battle the blues', in whatever way that presents itself in your life, to my welcome I simply add an invitation to share this journey and see what develops.

In my next post I will share some of my own symptoms and tell you more about the novice blogger who has begun this new adventure! For now, I am male, I am white, I am 47, I am married and I have children. And the whole of the last sentence is essentially irrelevant as depression and anxiety strikes indiscriminately.

One more thing before I go. This is not a medical page. I may from time to time say something about my own expereinces of medication but I am not qualified to give medical advice. OK, that's removed that particular ambiguity!

Have a nice day and thanks for sharing the journey thus far.