Email to a ‘Black Sheep’ #2

From: me
To: ‘black sheep’
16 June 2022 @ 4.10pm

Hi,

How’s it going? It was good to talk to you the last day on Zoom. I hope you are feeling a bit better.

It was fine that you had your camera off. I was just glad to talk to you and hear how you are doing.  I know it’s not easy, and you can’t tell me everything, but it’s good to speak it out or write it down. It can help figure out what you feel and think about things.

When we were chatting about the ‘black sheep’ you said that the sheep’s pelt sometimes really does feel like a physical weight. It can be hard to even walk upstairs, not to mind getting out of the house to meet friends. You said it’s easy to talk about acknowledging the ‘black sheep’ but it’s hard to do when you are so exhausted. You know, I was thinking that sometimes a ‘black sheep’ can fall prey to a ‘black dog’.

Maybe during the past two years this ‘black dog’ moved into the shed at the bottom of the garden. It started as a faint whine in the morning. Then a yelp at breakfast. Then a growl all day. Finally, a howl at night-time. Maybe you hid in your room to avoid getting bitten or biting others. No-one could see that you were being followed around by this ‘black dog’ snarling at your heels.

The image of the ‘black dog’ has been around for centuries in myth and folklore, often as an image for sadness, fear, and illness. Irish folktales tell of ghostly black dogs that haunted churchyards and followed people on a dark road home, an omen that something bad was going to happen. But it was not until the 18^th century that the ‘black dog’ was used in everyday speech about depression, or ‘melancholy’ as it was called.

Then, in the 20^th century, Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during WWII, spoke of having ‘the black dog on the back’ when he was feeling down. Since then, it has become a common metaphor for depression. He was a writer, so it’s not surprising he used language and imagery to try and capture this negative emotion that can be so hard to describe. You’ve shown me some of your poems and you know I think you have real talent. So I think that you too, as a writer, might find it helpful to write down what you’re feeling as words and images. Sometimes we don’t know what we think, or feel, until we see it on a page.

At first glance, the ‘black sheep’ and the ‘black dog’ do not seem to have much in common. A sheepdog herds sheep, listening to its master’s whistle, but an untrained dog can attack or kill them. The ‘black dog’ can be a threat, like his brother the wolf who finds and puts on a skinned sheep’s pelt to hide in the flock. It is an old tale, and one that does not end well for the wolf. In one telling, the wolf’s brilliant disguise fools the shepherd who locks him up with the rest of the sheep for the night. But then the shepherd takes a fancy for lamp chops, so he takes his knife and kills one of the sheep – except it is the wolf. I see it as a fable about the dangers of disguise.

Nearly everyone wears some kind of disguise, prepares a mask to face the people we meet. But when what is going on inside feels overwhelming, or shameful, or impossible to put words to – when there is a big gap between what we feel and what other people see – it is a very lonely place. And it takes huge energy to pretend everything’s OK and to cover it up.

So it’s no wonder you’re exhausted. Like a dog chasing a sheep, depression and loneliness can run in an endless circle, wearing you out. When you have the ‘black dog on the back’, it’s easy to feel like the ‘black sheep’ – lonely and misunderstood, rejected, unloved and perhaps even worse – unlovable.

But you are not, and you never will be, unlovable.

Churchill told his doctor that ‘it helps me to write down half a dozen things which are worrying me.’ Naming something gives it an external identity, separates you from it and gives you power over it. Words can put a leash on the ‘black dog’, call this dark companion to heel. Name it with your voice. Name it with pen and paper. Whatever way you choose, naming it helps to tame it. Then it can’t hide in the shed at the bottom of the garden anymore. And some day, when you feel able, you might go for a walk and let it off its leash and just enjoy the sky-blue day.