it runs in the family

My Dad has it too...

I grew up in a small town called Bewdley in north Worcestershire UK. It's the sort of quaint little town tourists flock to in the summer because of the charming little shops, the river views,  the quiet. As a teenager it was to me the place I ran away from, I wanted more out of life; urban culture, theatres, music. But now I'm older Bewdley is the place I want to run to, my parents still live there and probably always will.

My Dad it seemed to me when I was 9 or 10 was born miserable, he was grumpy, he shouted, moaned about everything. I thought this was the default setting for most hard working unreconstructed men, but looking at other's fathers this wasn't the case, their Dads were happy with their lot, they loved their wives and kids. Mum told us children Dad's moods were down to his childhood (divorced parents, domestic violence, latch-key kids, one child loved above others) and this certainly contributed to my Dad's depression. But looking back at the family tree, I remember his father my grandfather as the same. Grandad has been dead for little under a year, he was 95 when he died and that's a fine age to live to! But grandad was miserable most of the time too, my gran (his divorced but long suffering ex wife) told me stories that would upset me too much to reveal here so I won't.  The long and the short of it was grandad was a hoarder, he had approximately 14 cars rusting on his front lawn when he died, a year on from his death and my parents are struggling to sort out the house such is the volume of stuff he hoarded; 2 metric tonne of newspapers, crockery, tobacco tins, the list goes on! Grandad had an obsessive personality, the hoarding is part of this, a branch of OCD. No wonder my Dad was like stuck down with depressive episodes! I do believe grandad had episodes of depression too, he would get obsessed with something while depressed and then become too depressed to do anything about it. The familiar link to all this is I'm a hoarder too and I get obsessed with things, at the moment it's sourdough, but who knows what else is around the corner.

I can see looking at my family depression, is in our genes in the same way I have my Dad's shape face, my grandad's eyes. I wonder if they too had the same black black cannon ball in their chests, the same murk I wake to every morning. I love them both my Dad and Grandad and not out of obligation,  in looking at their depression it helps me to understand mine and why I have it. Inheritance is more than what you are left in an elderly relative's will,  it's also what they give you physically as well. I have depression, as does my father and my grandfather.