Black Dog

When others seem to be enjoying life, the black dog stands in the way for a lot of people.

The Black Dog is an equal opportunity mongrel. It was Winston Churchill who popularized the phrase Black Dog to describe the bouts of depression he experienced for much of his life. 

Winston Churchill popularised the phrase 'the Black Dog', although it had been round for many years before. In a way a black dog, hunting by moonless night in a blackened wood is quite possibly the best metaphor for depression. 

It hunts silently, stealthily, approaching its victim unseen and unnoticed until it's too late. No one is immune from it - actors, politicians, homeless people, emergency personnel, middle class families, children, the strong, the weak, men, women, anyone.

But in between clever euphemism and metaphor and personal experience is the cavernous gulf of ignorance. Even family members who love and care deeply for a person with depression can find themselves without understanding - bewildered by what from the outside seems such a minor thing. 

The gulf in understanding, the lack of support from people who just 'don't understand', can lead to the un-consenting and unwilling owner of a Black Dog to feel isolated and alone and utterly abandoned. 

The Black Dog wants nothing more than to keep family and friends away, to make the owner believe that no one does or even can understand what it's like. 

That no one cares and there is no helping hand. 

And once there in the cold dark lair of the beast it saps the life from it's victim.