Anti-depressants

With a mood as black as this, I've got to be careful as I write. A mood quite as dark as this needs some careful handling. Things mount up; they leave you isolated and insular and eventually you'll find yourself crying into a bowl of overcooked pasta in your undergarments and believe me nobody wants that.

So, what are the quick fixes? Traditionally, drugs and booze have been high on the agenda. Pills and gin seemed to have nursed a whole generation of mother' through the doldrums, whilst whisky and cocaine conjure a Johnny Cash like aura over many a young mans darker days. These days I've seen people who, by rights, should have been boring a bartender with tales of torrid love affairs gone wrong and drinking inappropriate amounts of whisky gurning like new borns after having downed a "cocktail" of drugs. Whenever they find a dead celebrity, it's always a "cocktail" of drugs. A scar-face sized bowl of marching powder with a small floral umbrella sticking out of it followed by a reefer with a cheeky slice of pineapple dangling from the tip comes to mind. No, apart from gin or whisky soaked evenings with close friends who can carry your sobbing bulk home at the end of the night, any drink or drug is a bad idea when you’re in a dark place. There's too much room for getting things terribly out of proportion with all the embarrassment that causes with your neighbours, the police and the fire brigade.

Ice cream seems a popular choice if American sit-coms, rom-coms or neo-cons are to be believed. A pint of creamy goodness to sooth away your man troubles. Unfortunately, that's the problem with it. If popular culture is to be believed, and here at Jamfaced we swear by it, then eating ice cream is what you do when a man dumps you. You sit in your jim-jams, usually including a pair of enormous socks and you watch A Brief Encounter and cry a lot, making a terrible snotty ice-creamy mess. I must point out here I have not been dumped or anything. My fair and still loving girlfriend is in the bath shouting for a cup of tea. So, it's all as per normal there. Getting dumped just seems to be the benchmark for feeling down, the acceptable side of being depressed. But, as we all know, stuff just gets to you sometimes and you need strategies to cope.

So, coping strategies here at Jamfaced for dealing with depression or a bad case of the blues are as follows. Firstly, I must say that I am not a qualified doctor and so any advice I offer here will be based purely on what I find good to eat when I have had a shit day and has no grounding in medical fact, be that traditional, alternative or the one where you hang crystals off your ears and sit in a pyramid.

So, cereal is a good place to start. Cornflakes in ice cold milk with sugar. Good noisy food that you can talk to your self with whilst chewing. It involves lots of slurping and can be done standing up which is imperative when trying to shake off the blues. Chocolate is next, quality is very much up to you. I know people that get off on eating a bar of gold leaf wrapped darkest chocolate, sipping at the tiny chunks like a hummingbird. Personally, a giant pack of fun sized Milky Ways does the job.

And finally. Tea. Mugs and mugs of the stuff. A million bad days have been stopped spiralling completely out of control by the simple words "...how about a nice cup of tea?” The true emotional heal-all. The magic potion that every mum or gran knows will shift a dark cloud quicker than you can say..."do you want a Hob-Nob with that?"