Winston Churchill was afflicted with bouts of serious depression throughout his life; he famously referred to these periods as his “black dog.”  (I always thought that Churchill coined the term himself, but apparently it originated much earlier, maybe with Samuel Johnson in the late 1700s.     See http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/docs/Foley.pdf, if you’re interested.)

I’ve struggled with depression for decades, and while the term doesn’t resonate with me, black dogs have been on my mind these days. It’s because of Andreas Lubitz, of course, the murderous Germanwings copilot, who crashed his plane and the 149 people on board into the Alps.  The front page of my local New Jersey newspaper recently carried a headline about a murder-suicide in a nearby town, and I also understand that the Mad Men actor Jon Hamm spent 30 days in rehab due in part to depression, not that it’s really any of my business.

Celebrity depression always reminds me of Robin Williams, whose relentless, manic hilarity displayed pyrotechnic intelligence and covered, apparently, more than one serious illness.  I remember hearing Carol Burnett talk about comedy on The Actor’s Studio, and about how close it is to tragedy, how often what sounds funny with a laugh track is gut-punching without one.  I remember thinking that if someone as insanely bright and unbelievably talented as Robin Williams could not keep the black dogs at bay, then there wasn’t much hope for the rest of us.

My depression, however, is not alive and breathing, and it’s not black.  It’s stone cold grey and heavy and silent as a grave.  It hangs over my head; it hovers by a hair; and sometimes it pins me down.  And when it does, it immobilizes me.  I can’t get out of bed, off the chair, out of the house.  Finding clothes to wear is too hard, food is too complicated, and I can’t talk because I can’t think because I can’t move the weight of depression off me.  I can’t imagine murdering even one person, much less slamming 150 of them into a mountain, when depression overcomes me.  I can’t imagine defeating Hitler, although I can easily imagine snapping my own neck in a noose.

But I do understand Churchill’s dog idea.  Depression follows you.  It lies at your feet in the dark, and it trips you when you try to get up.  It breathes malodorous dog breath in your face even when it’s not even actively barking or snapping or padding after you, claws tick-ticking on the hard floor.

I don’t actually know but I’m pretty sure Churchill struggled hard with his depression, just as I do and just as, I’m sure, Andreas Lubitz did.  I use all the tools I have:  I take prescription drugs to adjust my brain chemistry (although I’ve certainly tried the other kind).  I exercise because the endorphins help, in much the same way, I suspect, that running marathons helped Andreas Lubitz.  I work very hard at whatever I do — lawyering and parenting and volunteering and cooking and and and — so that I have something else to focus on besides my illness.  Most of all, I have people who love me very much, people for whom I would jump in front of a speeding train and for whom I will shove back against depression or anything else that prevents me from loving them as much as they love me.

We don’t know why people do what they do — whether they’re depressed or not, whether they’re Mozart making music or whether they’re murderers.  I cannot for the life of me conjure up any empathy for Andreas Lubitz, although I also cannot for the life of me entirely brush off the errant strands of sympathy I occasionally feel for him. Nothing excuses one murder, much less 149 of them; my sympathy does not go very far.

But depression isn’t a disease you see, like a tumor or a broken leg or a heart attack.  People who are depressed are more than just sad or discouraged.  When I’m depressed, my reality is distorted and the only uncertainly I have is how long I can hang on to whatever’s left. But most people won’t see that struggle.  We don’t see it until it comes screaming out of the clouds and smashes into a mountain.  And then it’s too late for all of us.

So yeah, I’m thinking about Churchill’s black dogs these days, and how they roam.