It's a long time since I wrote.

Depression steals words and light and inspiration.

Mum's has hung around for a year. A whole year. The longest in thirty years.

We strove to find excuses: too much change, too little interaction, the wrong drugs, the right psychiatrist too late. It's easier, less discomfiting, to seek reasons for a recalcitrant Depression than having to accept it's just there. Unwilling to budge.

Twelve months is a long time. It exhausted mum, 'some days', she told me, tearful, 'I would rather just not wake up'.

I don't mean to look shocked. I mean to look compassionate. Kind. Understanding. How can I? For I have never been to that place. And to hear your mother articulate a wish to die is shocking.

'Oh Mum', I say and try to swallow the lump in my throat before it dissolves all over my face.

But the dragging-heels Depression has lent something paradoxically positive: it has prompted decisions and conversations and ultimately change.  We will manipulate prophylactic adjustments which I - we - hope will thwart further sabotage by the beast.