Atreyu

There's a scene in The Neverending Story where - on their journey to the big white spiky castle where the creepy child princess lives - Atreyu and his white horse cross sinking sand, and the horse gets stuck. Atreyu stands on the banks, pulling and pulling at the rope, but there is nothing he can do: he watches and cries as his beloved horse sinks into the ground and slowly disappears.

Depression is painful, but watching it is even more so. It is poison, and when somebody you love is depressed it seeps out and touches everything and everybody around them. They drag their world into it with them like sinking sand, and you can throw a rope into the darkness for them to climb out, but – if, like me, you’re always teetering on the very edge as it is, with one foot in already – you never quite know whether you will be able to pull them out before they pull you in. Whether you can hold on tightly enough, or are strong enough, or can tug hard enough. And, all the while, you stand on the banks and you cry, and you cry, and you pull, and you pull, and you wonder at what point you have to let go before you end up joining them.

That’s what I have been doing since I last wrote this blog. Like Atreyu, I have spent an entire month - a month to terminate many, many months leading directly to it - holding onto the rope with everything I have and pulling and pulling, and forcing my toes into the ground so that I don’t slip in too. I have spent an entire month frantic: an entire month struggling. And there has been no choice - when you love somebody (and sometimes even if you don't), you can't walk away if there's any chance that you can save them - but sometimes it has been difficult to tell whether we've both been fighting in the same direction, or whether they just didn't want to be pulled out. Whether there was only one place we would both end up in, and it wasn't on the banks with a rope in our hands.

It is the end, now. I am physically, and mentally, exhausted. I am coughing up green stuff; I am unable to sleep and unable to stay awake; I am covered in a myriad of skin complaints; I am crying all the time; my right eyelid is inexplicably twitching at random moments. My heart hurts, my head hurts. I haven't quite fallen into the sand - I wrapped myself around real life firmly enough to be able to hold on - but it has been really bloody close, and has taken everything I have. I haven't written, I haven't eaten, I haven't laughed: I haven't seen anything but my horse and the rope that joins the two of us together for so long that I've forgotten that anything else exists. I've forgotten that it's possible to live a life that doesn't involve pulling on a rope and crying.

As Atreyu knew, there comes a point when it is time to let go: and that time for me has finally come. I have no strength left. I simply have to stop pulling, and wait and see if it has been enough to let them climb out on their own, or whether they will simply sink back in again without a struggle. Because otherwise that rope will be the end of both of us, and there is nobody waiting on the banks with another one for me.

At the end of The Neverending Story, Atreyu reaches the castle and finds his horse, alive and waiting for him. I'm letting go of the rope now, and I hope with all of my heart that when I reach the castle I find my horse there - alive and waiting for me - too.