I’ve had a crash in the past week, while waiting for things to happen that were/are out of my control – a loss of confidence followed, with misunderstandings and awkward moments aplenty. I felt like I was missing the beat, that I was faltering, getting things wrong, and that old familiar spirit of loneliness descended like a freezing fog and obscured the sunlight. (Although the lousy weather really doesn’t help, spring feels a long time away.) A friend called it the “don’t look down” syndrome. I looked down. I took fright, and went into myself, into that inconsolable place. All the old critical and undermining demons came out to play. Hey, it’s been a while, pull up a chair.

It’s not been about being anti-social, oddly enough, I cooked curry for 13 on Sunday (non-Italian food is rare around here) which went very well. The dhal in particular. Part of what was getting me down was the yearning to curl up with someone who could make me feel better, with physical touch, sex, holding, connection; that old useless nostalgia/ache about being single. It’s been years and years. Once that thought took hold, it fuelled a sense of failure and loss and then I went into a tailspin.

But I’ve learned a few things about depression in my life. Yes it comes back, but it goes away again. And there are things I’ve been doing over the past few years that seem to have worked in preventing it from taking root. Each bout is shorter and shorter.

First, tell people about it, as soon as it’s bearable. People are kind if you give them the opportunity to be kind. Then, try and do things that are utterly self-indulgent, even though every voice in your head is saying you don’t deserve anything good. For me, it’s been watching Almodóvar DVDs and staying in bed reading. Read something dark, like gritty crime fiction or bleak poetry or edgy fiction. And, even though it took a while for me to get into it, Animals is the book that met my own darkness, and in so doing helped me shift it.

The golden rule (that I always break) when you’re down is don’t try to make dates on the internet. If it didn’t make the ache go away for me in the middle of London, it certainly doesn’t work in the middle of the countryside an hour away from the nearest small city, and you don’t speak the lingo, and are as old as Methuselah in gay years (ie over 40). It’s fruitless and exasperating and demoralising. And I should know better. (When it comes to sex, isn’t that everyone’s refrain?)

Saying how I felt in this blog became impossible over the past week, I had nothing to report business-wise, and only today do I feel like putting my head above the parapet again. Although I’m known for writing about emotional stuff in Hot Press, and, according to one reviewer, my book last year “explored the various stages of loneliness to magnificent effect”, it’s not very convenient to be depressed now. I’m supposed to be preparing to be a businessman, marketing myself, being perky and bright and confident that everything will succeed, using blogging to network and make friends and, erm, influence people. How can I mention I’m down in this public place? So I kept quiet. Happily, I read yesterday’s post by Fiona de Londras on the current debate on emotion in blogs, soft/hard blogging, and it gave me a peg on which to hang this post. The website I am planning will benefit from having an emotionally literate person at the helm. It is, after all, a business I’ve thought up to suit me in particular, warts and all, so unless I goof it up spectacularly by admitting to satanic worship or vivisection in these pages, it doesn’t really matter what I say here.

I do know that expressing gratitude and appreciation for what you’ve got, and not yearning for what you’ve not got, is more than a good idea, it’s a really practical way to get back on track. People have been very kind. And people are doing some lovely things. There’s this gorgeous post at LCFP to be grateful for, there’s the wonder that is the Tale of the Fairy Cowboy, which opens properly tomorrow, (but take a sneak peak now, don’t tell him I told you.)

Then I read Douglas Coupland interviewing Morrissey, and it appears even Morrissey is having sex now.

Oh, god. Now, that’s depressing.