Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression Read Online Free PDF Page B

itself,’ says my psychiatrist.
    ‘Perhaps it’s the medication,’ I suggest. ‘I think it’s poisoning me.’ I don’t show him my tongue, which is coated a deep, dark brown from all the chemicals I daily ingest.
    My psychiatrist frowns. Paranoia is a symptom of extreme depression. I hate my medication. I am never happy.
    Once the irony of that thought would have made me laugh.
    He says, ‘The shaking and the throat may be symptoms of anxiety, which often comes with depression.’
    ‘I don’t suffer from anxiety. It’s the side-effects of the medication.’
    I have been in two psychiatric units. I have seen severe anxiety disorder at first hand. I have, at least, been spared that.
    He says nothing.
    ‘This is all bollocks,’ I say.
    I am not a patient patient.
     
     
    I stumble to my feet and inch along the corridor, hands pressed fast to the wall to steady myself, and knock a framed photograph askew. I collect black and white photographs. There are Norman Parkinson’s women, serene, glacial and unaccountably chic and Andrew Macpherson’s modern girls, smiling and sexy. There is Matt Dillon, from an early photo shoot I did with him on Vogue , when he was just another handsome boy and not a famous movie star. And there is Bruce Weber, photographer, filming in Cannes.
    I love them. They are beautiful. Now, I knock past them clumsily, as if they do not matter.
    My kitchen looks peculiar, as if it is both intensely familiar yet a room I scarcely know. I scrabble in the freezer, pull out a bottle of ice-cold vodka and pour a measure into a glass. My hands are shaking badly. Some of the vodka spills on the wooden table, which I used to polish weekly, with beeswax and soft cloths. I leave the wet puddle, allow the ethanol to eat into the wood. I haven’t the energy to find a cloth.
    The vodka burns at my throat but gradually, the heat penetrates and the claw lessens its grip slightly. What time is it? A little after ten in the morning. I try to remember what ten in the morning means, how it feels. But I cannot. Time means nothing to me any more. I stagger back to bed, and try to sleep. Try to pass out. I don’t want sleep. I want oblivion.
    There’s a pounding in my ears. It’s muffled as if somebody has put a sack over my head. I open my eyes. My bedroom is dark, the curtains drawn to block the sun, which is shining merrily. I hate the sun. When the sun is shining, I should be happy. I should. I should.
    The darkness gathers in my head. It is black, this day. Blacker than black, heavy and suffocating. And the monster is still at my throat. Its form is that of a serpent, with a thick, muscular tail covered in scales that wraps round and around my neck, pulling tight. At its head there is no mouth or eyes, just a single bird’s talon, a black claw tipped with sharp silver. The claw sinks into the front of my throat and hangs fast. I try to reduce its horror by giving it a name, the throat monster. Various therapists suggest that I go one step further and try to befriend it. I think this is facile and ignore their suggestions. I don’t want a cute cartoon, a puppy dog living in my throat. I don’t want it to be my friend. I hate it. I want it to go away. I want drugs, to stop it. Where is modern science when I need it? Why is so little known about mental illness? What is it I am suffering from?
    Grief, said a therapist. Unexpressed grief. It’s got you by the throat.
    Don’t be absurd, I said at the time. Don’t be so fanciful.
    But when I am alone and the monster is tearing at my throat, I think that, whatever it is, it’s going to kill me.
    According to my psychiatrist, the monster is not real. He tells me this apologetically, as if I know it already. Which I do. Of course it is not real. It’s not even a monster, but a somatic manifestation of my illness, a mere, clinical symptom of major depressive disorder. The throat monster has a proper psychiatric name, he says, but not a name I’ll like. It is