I have always wanted a pet. Ever since my sister brought home Fitzy, the yappy little mongrel, I thought, yes. Finally, we are going to be normal.

But Fitzy was only ever on loan. We were looking after him while my sister arranged to buy a dog which would be an investment. It was called a Shitsu, and she got two of them. I blame the boyfriend.

I remember my dad, throwing Fitzy a tennis ball, and Allison standing back while I circled around the bouncing little bleeder, saying, Here Fitzy! Here! because that is what you say to dogs. Dad was smiling. Mum was inside the house. Things like that don’t last forever.

My depression is not a black dog. Winston Churchill used to call his that. Mine is more of a shadow, an unpleasant odour, something that clogs the pores and the nostrils.

My depression is like this: a weight on my chest, which would move, damn it, if only I had the energy to get up.

It is a vapour, that circles my body and my mind; the hint that life is bleak, that there is no point, that it would be better to just, lie down.

The reason for these gas and fluid analogies: my depression has never been a solid thing, no panting, doleful mutt. It has always been like this: a Geist, a trickster, uncannily able to get into every crack and crevice without saying a goddamn word or opening a goddamn door.

My depression makes me tired.

Here are the things that lift the cloud. I have friends who love me. I have a husband and a daughter who keep me in this world, tethered, so I can’t sink. I have intelligence, and work, and I can exercise and release the good chemicals.

I don’t want to overstate it. But I don’t want to understate it, either.

We can’t have a dog because of allergies. I don’t think it would solve the problem entirely, anyway.

But when I turn my eyes directly on him, my shadowman, he flickers, a wisp shimmering in the headlights. I name him, Ged-like, and he flees for the corners of my ceiling. There he hovers, and lurks, while I get on with living. I can do this, and he says nothing. I can do reality. Watch me burn.