In past blogs I have pictured the image of a black dog crouching beside me as a metaphor that depression is ever near me, waiting to take over my body, soul, and spirit. My brother Bill, a Christian psychotherapist, said that image is one of fear; the black dog is waiting to leap up and tear me apart.

My response to him was, “I am not afraid of depression. I have accepted it as a condition of my being that may

visit me again, but now I know how to deal with it.”

Bill said, “Then it’s time for the black dog to die and be replaced by a more appropriate metaphor.”

Here it is:

In my life, there is a cloud of depression somewhere around me – sometimes far away, sometimes close, sometimes enveloping me. Right now, it is far away.

I prefer it to be far away and tolerate it being close, but even when depression envelopes me, it is dissipated by the tools I have incorporated into my life to bring health to my body and soul; and by the sun/Son that brings light into my spirit and brings me into a quiet place where I am healed.

So body, soul, and spirit, these three, that when in order, can keep incapacitating depression away from me and even allow me to live a functional life when the cloud covers me.

In short, I can live free of the depression that is the black dog waiting to attack me, but I am not ignorant that he has been replaced by a cloud ever in my life.