First rays

Michael Carty

Brighter times lie ahead. The cloud will break, even if almost imperceptibly at first. The sun’s rays will begin to shine through.

A change for the better might arrive with the smallest sign. A sign of what is to come. A sign that should not be ignored.

The first rays of sunlight should be treasured. Those first rays that promise everything, that illuminate the path forward from here.

Someone I know and love has recently started to take antidepressants. Slowly, they are starting to notice a change, brought on by the medication. Just the smallest signs of change. But positive change.

Seeing those first rays of light break through for them reminded of my own experience of starting to take antidepressants, nearly two years ago. I have tried to write openly and honestly about each stage of this mental health journey.*  But I realise that I have not yet written about one small but significant early step.

First rays of the new day

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In March 2022, I started taking antidepressants for the first time in my life. I had gone to my doctor at my wits’ end, my mind in horrible turmoil, my sleeping patterns shot. The doctor diagnosed me as having mixed anxiety and depressive disorder, and prescribed medication that would, he said, help at first to restore my sleep and with time to deal with my low mood.

Within a few days of starting on this medication, I found myself able to sleep better on the whole, with the odd relapse into insomnia. My emotions felt almost numbed, blunted. But even that state was a marked improvement on the mental turbulence that came before.

Early spring of 2022, perhaps three years ago from now. The early hours of one particular Friday morning. Unable to sleep, I got up and put on television. Channel hopping, I chanced upon a dead-of-night screening of a film I’d not seen, Sofia Coppola’s deliberately anachronism-laden film Marie Antoinette. As an admirer of her earlier film Lost in Translation, I thought I’d give this one a quick chance.

I’m still not sure why, but I was immediately enchanted by what I saw. I happened to join Marie Antoinette during a sequence depicting a masked ball at the Palace of Versailles. Much joyful dancing and romantic intrigue, to the tune of Siouxsie and the Banshees’ 1978 song Hong Kong Garden.

Eventually, Marie Antoinette’s night of celebration starts thinking about turning into the morning after, the party winds down, and most of the guests head home.

As the first rays of the new day start to break through night’s dark, Marie Antoinette and a few of her close friends run and play in the fields and woodlands in the grounds of Versailles. A familiar guitar-lead song strikes up in the background. It took me a moment to place it. Then in a joyous moment of recognition I realised that it was Ceremony by New Order.

Ceremony is a song I’ve known since I bought the double cassette version of New Order’s wonderful Substance compilation, way back when I was 18. I had always liked the song, but had always almost overlooked it amidst the embarrassment of riches overflowing from Substance. But on that morning in early spring 2022 – and every time I have heard it since – Ceremony was transformed into one of the most moving and joyous pieces of music I know.

Watching these scenes from Marie Antoinette, I realised that I was experiencing a small moment of happiness. The first moment of true happiness I could recall feeling in months.

Just starting to burn through

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The first rays shining through. Those first rays that promise everything, that illuminate the path forward from here.

That moment was just the tiniest taste of happiness, of something that felt different to the mental turmoil that had consumed my every waking hour. Depression and anxiety had for a long and testing period crowded out all other feelings. This was a reminder that a different view of the world was possible.

Over subsequent days, weeks and months, these tiny, happy moments became more frequent and lasted longer. But they had to start somewhere.

They had to start with that first hint of the sun’s rays, just starting to burn through the cloud.

I am thankful that I have a song that I already loved, but which will now always remind me of that moment.

I am thankful that another soul I know is now starting to feel those first rays starting to shine through. May their recovery be swift and full.

May you be nothing but kind today, to others and to yourself.

May today be nothing but kind to you and yours.

RESOURCES

  • Mental health (NHS) Information and support for your mental health from the NHS.
  • Information and support (Mind) Resources from Mind, the UK mental health charity.
  • NAMI Homefront (NAMI) Online resources from US charity NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness).
  • SANE Australia Visit the site of this “national mental health charity making a real difference in the lives of people affected by complex mental health issues”.

FOOTNOTES

* Here are all the posts so far in the ongoing series on my mental health journey: Into the infinity of thoughts; Renewal; No words?; Mental health first response; Glorify; In our darkest hours; At the heart of things; No feeling is final; Relax harder. Anxiety: Your own worst enemy; All these moments; Mental health: Six things I’ve learnt in 2022; Coping?; The sun will return; Gratitude; Mental health: Night and day; Transitions; Peace?; It’s OK to forget; and Stayin’ alive.

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