Black Dog

Hi, I’m Fletch and I wasn't always in a magical space where I was manifesting dream lives and abundance, vision boarding, saging everything in sight, connecting to the Universe and living a beautiful life in Bali. I was struggling. Really struggling to stay alive. I've had depression for most of my life and have always struggled to kick it.

This is the most honest blog post I've ever written.

I’ve had depression since being little.

It felt like a life time of one step forwards two steps back. I could never seem to kick depression. Even though I’d learnt to live with it - it was always just there rearing its head ready to cover me with a black cloud.

I'd seen a lot as a kid. But only really realised this as I got older. When my teen years hit and the hormones came I got diagnosed with endogenous depression where I'd get a serious bout of PMT (that lead into depression) and wouldn't leave at the end of every cycle. I usually got a breather from The Black Dog, as for 2 weeks out of every month, I'd be feeling back to myself - and would cram a months worth of stuff into this 'happy' window, knowing that the bad days would be back soon enough. The good days however, got less and less, until eventually, every cycle had no full stop or capital letter. No punctuation between the good and the bad days. Life became about living without colour. Black Dog. Depression. I didn't really find things funny. Have any hobbies that I enjoyed. I couldn't understand how people enjoyed doing the things they did such as be young, go out, have fun. I felt like an alien in many aspects of my life. I existed.

I couldn't hold down a job because of my friend (depression) so I set up my first business during uni where I could work on my terms - and then I became a 'workaholic' - because having your own business kind of requires that. I could sleep on the bad days and cram work in on the better days. Working so much forced me to not have to deal with the depression or roots of it. I mostly worked in my PJ's and had little left for myself, anything or anyone. I became a high functioning depressive. I spent most of my 20's avoiding social occasions, having children and giving them as much of myself that was left whilst building the business. It was no life and I don't want this for anybody reading this. There is another way.

From the outside, life looked good to others - I graduated from Uni, had nice holidays. Had a good relationship. Ate at nice restaurants. Worked for myself, building a business. People only saw me when I'd made an effort, put on a show of strength of epic proportions. Never on the bad days, depression saves those for your most loved. I constantly worked on improving myself. I tried to consistently show up. Get better from a poorly mind, as I used to call it back then. Nothing worked.

After the birth of my second child, I developed full blown post natal depression, which completely floored me and left me unable to function with coping / living with depression. Things inside my head had reached a terrible point where I nearly lost my life. It’s not that I wanted my life to end. It’s just that life with depression was too hard and too much to live with. Things should have been so good too. I'd just had a beautiful healthy baby boy. An easy pregnancy and birth. We had money to take time off work and not the usual struggle. Instead a poison came into our home.

I had no choice but to stop working in the business. It was Si that scooped up the kids, ran the business and helped me where he could to get well and mend.

I felt like a failure and I could see no way out from having this 'thing' but I had to accept this reality if I wanted a chance at life. Things had to change. I couldn't go on living like this, repeating the same patterns. Depression ruled every aspect of my life.

Life got put on hold, where I focused solely on my mental health and discovered the things I had to do for myself (alongside medical advice) to really make a difference.

That year ultimately led me to recover fully from depression. Although what followed was many years of healing. But the recovery began here.

I discovered that the actions that made the BIGGEST difference to me and my mental health and generally coping with life were the smaller things. The things that anyone could easily sustain alongside their day-to-day life. It took me a long time to figure out and formulate plans, checklists, task sheets and a formula that worked to beat depression and get me back to living a life that I deserved. Happy. Fulfilled.

I also knew this knowledge could help others not have to go through what I had been through. And so this blog was born! And now the exact planners and help guides that I used to implement small changes that helped me beat depression.

I took a whole year off from life in order to figure out how to heal my mental health and beat depression using these small, sustainable actions that can be implemented into any of our lives. Once I had the basics sorted, this led me down a whole rabbit hole of learning, how to use energy and vibration to heal and live well. Which led onto the laws of the Universe, quantum physics and manifesting the life of our dreams. All big hitting topics for another day!

I’m grateful that I’ve found happiness, and it took me a while to accept that I lost 20+ years of my life living with a beast. Years of my little one's lives where I just existed. So many wasted years of my life that I will never get back.

And I’m certain I could have avoided 'losing' those years to depression had I known what I know now, which actions would actually help me and how to implement them in my life. And I still check in and use these guides today when life gets busy and I've not been taking care of myself - which happens from time to time. The only difference is - I know exactly what I need to do, how to do them - and I have the tools to implement.

I want this for anybody that is suffering right now in their life. Anybody struggling with their mental health. It just doesn't have to be this way. And sadly for so many it hounds their lives. I've lost many people to mental health. My own mum tried to end her life when I was younger.

My life is now dedicated to living as it was meant to be lived (hence the big move to Bali) whilst using my experience to help others from losing any more years of their lives too.