I suppose I think - I hope (fingers tightly white-crossed) - that if I write about it, Depression won't bite.

Depression's a bitch. A big black stalking dog with swallowing jaws and a stealthy tread.

It's been a part of my life for longer than it hasn't.

A part of Mum's for longer than she cares to remember.

It's not always there, isn't always skulking around her back door, casting long, gloomy shadows. Sometimes she manages to aim a well-placed kick and send it reeling backwards or outwards or downwards to wherever it came from in the first place.

I can't remember why I started writing about it. To understand it better myself, perhaps? For to fathom the monster was to comprehend my sometimes-sad-lost Mum. To dissect a bit of me? I don't know. It just seemed important.

But once I began, it became a habit. An obsession. A quest. A daily prophylaxis. I hope. Fingers crossed.

I submitted my CV to an editor at The Telegraph. The word Depression was written across it often. At Cosmopolitan. Marie Claire. The Times. Australian Women's Weekly.