Photographic memories

Anyone with clinical depression who has been told to ‘think positive’ and ‘remember the good times’ will know the creepy, forced smile you offer the purveyor of said well meaning sentiments. Because trying to explain to anyone that actually has access to the happy part of their brain that you don’t really want to be miserable, you’ve just lost the ability to feel good, is like being repeatedly slapped in the face with a trout.

Depression is a negativity dump truck, unloading its toxic cargo of sad thoughts, self doubt and unpleasant memories into your cranium every hour of the day. The reason sufferers can’t just focus on happy thoughts is that, temporarily, they don’t exist. All that was once joyful and light has been squirrelled away deep in the annals of your consciousness, to be uncovered once depression’s done playing it’s sick and twisted game. Sometimes it’s impossible to comprehend that happiness was once physically possible.

Enter photography. Photos are genuine, bona fide happiness EVIDENCE. Even when you can’t remember what it’s like to feel joy, you can certainly look at an old photo that captures a moment of happiness and know that it really happened. Is that me grinning like a deranged meerkat as I jumped out of a plane in New Zealand? Yes. Am I actually laughing in that surfing shot? Looking calm and relaxed on holiday with my family? Yes and yes. It happened. Was I on mind bending drugs or under the spell of a magical unicorn? Nope, just enjoying myself.

If the only memories I had were what’s locked inside my head, I’d be in trouble right now. But these glossy, dog-eared snapshots represent a time when I knew what it was like to be happy, and they’re playing a critical role in keeping me hopeful at the moment. The camera doesn’t lie.

So when I’m feeling hopeless, my mind is clouded with ‘I can’ts’ and ‘you’ll nevers’ and I’m convinced the depressed version of me is the only person I’ll ever be, I leaf through some old photos to remind myself of who I was before the big D. A girl who travelled, socialised, danced, laughed, lived and who had fear but jumped anyway. And I tell myself that if I was her once, then I can be her again.