"Think Ninja – but without the turtles."

No – not you people. Those were the words I was writing for my fashion blog when I felt it.

I felt it as clearly as if I had been swimming underwater for too long and my head had broken the surface. There was suddenly air and light and sound.

The chemicals in my brain had switched state. Instantly, as they always do.

Thinking about it, although the swimming underwater analogy is helpful, it's not entirely accurate. This might be better.

Have you ever visited a watermill, and seen the wheel standing dry, stationary, far too heavy to push round by hand and, without that movement to turn the grinding stones above, useless and futile?

Then have you seen the miller twist the lever that opens the mill race; heard the rush of water through the sluice; smelled that green watery smell with that sharpness on the top like the blade of a scythe?

Have you felt the tremble shiver through the wooden fabric of the mill, heard the creak and slosh as the wheel starts to move, slowly, so slowly and then quickly with an easy and powerful assurance?

The millstones start to grind. The wheat is turned into flour which will in turn become bread, the staff of life. And down where the waters race, a sunbeam catches the splashes so they look like shooting stars...

And, more prosaically, the Moodscope score goes from 17% to 71%. It looks as if it's taken twenty-four hours. In fact, it's taken only a couple of minutes.

Now, because my depression affects me physically, I still need to take it easy for a few days. It's still far too easy to overdo things, get tired and find that score slipping back through sheer exhaustion, trying to do everything at once because – Hallelujah – now I can!

But this bad go is over. I'm back! The happy, lively, optimistic, sociable Mary everyone knows is back (because only a select few know the other one).

You people know both of me, and, through your comments, I'm beginning to know some of you.

So, for those of you still feeling that the powerhouse of your life has rusted shut and will be silent forever, I pray for streams of water.

And for those of you totally intrigued about how I can get Ninjas (but not turtles) into a fashion blog, you'll have to visit my page at Houseofcolourhuntingdon.wordpress.com. We're talking Japanese influence on fashions this summer.

Mary

A Moodscope member.