The Boy Between: A Mother and Son's Journey From a World Gone Grey

by Josiah Hartley

By the time I came to the conclusion that to slip away from this existence was probably the best thing for me, I had lost the ability to think deeply about anything or anyone.

My brilliant boy had figured out at this tender age something that it took me decades to grasp: that happiness is the goal. That’s it: happiness! If you have that then everything else kind of falls into place and nothing else really matters.

I didn’t realise he would fall often and his wings would break and that trying to get him to open his eyes, let alone fly, would be the hardest thing of all.

I do that a lot: laugh or make light of the things that cut my very soul. Because what’s the alternative?

‘Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.’ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It’s like building your home on a fault line, knowing there is a strong possibility that at some undetermined time, probably when you least expect it, you and everything that makes up your world, all the things you hold dear, might tumble into a gaping void. And so no matter how fine things might seem, even on the brightest of days, this foul possibility sits at the back of your mind. Yes: a bedrock of despair.

‘A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.’ Washington Irving

We were loved and cherished and I knew the way I felt about my mum and dad was something wonderful,

‘Existence is exhausting, you experience and process one moment in time and immediately there’s another one to be processed. It’s an endless, daunting, relentless cycle going on forever till we die.

‘I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.’ Jane Austen

You know that incredible feeling when a worry is lifted from you and you feel free?

‘And yet to every bad there is a worse.’ Thomas Hardy

there was the old safety in numbers thing, and to be part of a family of four was naturally a lot more reassuring than when there was only two of us. It gave me confidence to know that if one of us fell through the cracks, there were three people in the wings ready to pull them out.

‘Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering “it will be happier” . . .’ Alfred Tennyson

‘I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.’ John Keats

I could see through her smile, the one designed to convince me and everyone else that everything was going to be fine. If anything, her mask irritated me. I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew things were far from fine and at some level I just wanted her to acknowledge that and then maybe I would not have to pretend too.

‘Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.’ George Bernard Shaw

‘Our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves.’ Henrik Ibsen

Mental illness – it’s like the very worst thing to have to admit about your brain and equally hard to admit to others.

‘The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.’ F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was made of glass: so fragile that one knock and I might have shattered.

‘One word frees us from all the weight and pain of life. That word is love.’ Sophocles

‘Teach me to live, that I may dread the grave as little as my bed.’ Thomas Ken

It was like the colour had been switched off in the world. It was a gradual thing and so there was never a point where I opened my eyes and was shocked. It was more like slowly turning down the colour on a TV until one day the picture is entirely muted in tones of silver, grey and black. I do remember walking along the street one day and thinking that the world looked gloomy, dull, but it kind of suited me and I never thought to ask anyone if that was the colour they saw too or if it was just me.

The darkness was winning – that’s the only way I can think to describe it – my field of vision getting narrower and narrower.

3 a.m. is my favourite time. It comes with blissful quiet, knowing that the world doesn’t expect anything of you, no one is going to call, no one is going to ask you to do something.

I was scooped out, completely hollow, and at the time it made absolute sense to cast off the pointless husk that housed my despair.

‘The very worst kind of sadness is the kind that doesn’t have an explanation.’ Anon.

‘You know this is nothing to do with you, don’t you?’

You have an illness. You have severe depression. An illness. And just like any illness you need to be kind to yourself and give yourself time to heal

‘I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.’ Charles Dickens

taken from ‘Depression and Christmas’ advice from The Priory: ‘Society drums into us the idea that Christmas is a time of joy, laughter, cheerfulness and partying. However, for people who struggle with depression, the constant reminder that you should be happy can make you feel even worse.’

‘When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.’ Leo Tolstoy

‘Fall if you will, but rise you must.’ James Joyce

‘One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.’ Aristotle

I wanted to die on that day, but not necessarily the day that came after. And that’s the message: no matter how bad you feel, how low, how sad, how broken, tomorrow is another day and you might feel differently, and so please, please hang on, just hang in there . . . give it time, give it one more day and then one more day and then one more . . . Please do that.

that joy’ll come back, and hope and spontaneity. And I feel that till it does, I’ve got to keep my lips shut and my chin high, and my eyes wide.’ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Life can feel very much like a race where there is little room for kindness or for niceness, not when there is so much intra competition to be the best of the best, to win a place at university, gain a first, get a job, beat all other applicants, climb on to the housing ladder (if you are very lucky), make money, have a perfect relationship, travel the world, make more money and be a winner, whilst not forgetting to show your altruism in the form of charity, and your beauty captured in any number of selfies with interesting or exotic backgrounds!

Depression came along like a wall of water that knocked me off my feet. I didn’t see it coming; I wasn’t expecting it, I thought I was on solid ground. Each time a wave hit, I scrabbled to my feet, only for another wave, larger than the first, to smack me back down to the ground. It was exhausting and relentless. Everyone can survive the first couple of waves but when you have lost count and you are tired it takes more than most people know to get back up.

Try not to think too far ahead. Breathe. Take deep breaths and keep breathing. Don’t panic, take things a minute at a time, an hour at a time, and each hour you get through is an achievement. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Nothing and no one matters as much as your mental health and keeping you present. Right now. Drink water. Eat some food. Wash yourself. Keep warm.