So it's a murder of crows, a parliament of owls. What do you call us? A gloom of depressives? A melancholy? A darkness?

Well, I recently met up with a group of Moodscope administrators, writers and users. My husband and children were rather anxious that this would be one of those meetings where we would all sit around in a circle heaving deep sighs and like Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, say things like "Life! Don't talk to me about life. Oh god, I'm so depressed!"

And of course it wasn't like that at all.

I think we were all rather nervous beforehand. After all, everyone knows that writers aren't in the least like their words; we're always a terrible let-down in real life. And most of us can't quite understand why anyone would ever want to read anything we've written anyway. I mean, honestly, why would you? (Don't answer that, please!)

But thirty seconds, a few hugs and half a glass of Prosecco were enough to get us all comfortable with each other, followed by the best chips (home fries) I've ever tasted. So it ended up being one of the most upbeat, positive, creative and potentially productive meetings I've ever attended.

We don't necessary believe in ourselves, but we believe in each other, and oh boy, do we believe in the power of Moodscope to help others in this same boat we're all sailing.

So the ideas flowed, or rather gushed like a torrent. The teasing began, the smiles and laughter injected the atmosphere with more bubbles than the Prosecco.

"You're more emotionally robust than I thought you would be," was one comment. Well, damn right we are! You think it's easy, living with depression? We're tough; we have to be.

So it was a fabulous few hours. It was great.

And as usual it exacted a price. So that meant exhaustion afterwards, yawning to the point of tears on the train home (apologies to my lovely fellow travellers), a grateful kiss to my husband who had cooked the kids macaroni cheese for tea (oh how I love that man) and straight to bed for fourteen hours' sleep.

Take heart fellow depressives. We are not always melancholy; darkness does not inevitably stalk our every step. We're good for a time (and we can be very good, baby!). We just don't have that much juice in the batteries. The Energiser Bunny we are not (well, not unless we're in the "up" part of a bi-polar cycle, that is).

The best thing to come out of that meeting was realising how much we have to give, to contribute. Realising our passion is as good as and maybe better than that of anyone else.

That's a good feeling, you know?

And not at all sad.

Mary

A Moodscope member.