Member-only story
THE NARRATIVE ARC
What the Spectre of Depression Taught Me About Love
How I became more like the man she thought I was
February 1st, 2024 was a strange day. A few hours after the above photo was taken, I was in a bookshop in West London celebrating the launch of the latest publication from Inkandescent, an independent publishing company I have a personal relationship with — One Last Song, the debut novella of Nathan Evans, a wonderful man I’ve had the pleasure of being a student of during my undergraduate degree, and someone I can feel comfortable calling a friend. A few hours after that, I was having a breakdown with my mother in the family living room.
February 1st was really the culmination of a period in my life — probably a couple of weeks — where my usually precarious-but-finely-balanced mental health was starting to tip over, like a tin can being blown towards the edge of a cliff.
I was used to that feeling of falling. I was accustomed to that dull hum in the stomach you get when you’re cresting the top of a rollercoaster and start to hurtle towards the earth in the illusion that you’re free-falling. Still, you’re safe in the knowledge that, barring a freak accident, you’re in the safe hands of the ride itself.
