a very close friend who lives in a different country and who has bad depression for the last four years uploaded a photo on facebook. photographed at a conference, he looked so well in it: big dazzling smile, tan suit with bright tie, coiffed hair, positively in the pink of health — this was clearly an old photo (i felt a little wistful just looking at it — those were the days when he was sunny and confident at the top of his profession.) so naturally, worrying that he was uploading old photos because he was feeling nostalgic or sorry for himself and needed to talk, i asked him when the photo was taken. answer: “last friday.”

i felt awful, because it never crossed my mind that this could be a ‘now’ photo. what a damaging question; for all the encouragement i too glibly dish out i showed him that i myself do not believe he can improve. and he must have hated my question — quite apart from the question of improvement’s possibility it revealed to him that my constant mental image of him is of his bad days. it’s true: in my mind i see him frail and far too thin (the suit masked some of that), black weariness a halo, martyred to self-hatred. and men who are proud (and he is) hate knowing other people feel pity for them (and he does), even as they are mired in their own self-pity and self-loathing (we’ve had so many fights about that, i’ve trained myself to scan my sentence, checking that i’m *sympathetic about his situation* without implying i’m *sorry for him* — and still i put my foot in it this time.)

but that is the thing: i am happy and relieved that he has good days like these and can go out and meet people in work situations and look as good as that. but it terrifies me too that you can have such good days, that you can look this good on the outside (you can fool too many of the people) but you’re really ultimately not at all okay. for you know very well what they are like on their bad days, which is nearly every other day. likewise a few months ago i heard him give a radio interview: he had sounded so friendly and fluent, that i thought this is a stranger, an imposter: the radio voice might be the one i remember him having years ago, only older, cracklier, but it is not the same voice i hear nowadays: the voice i associate with him now is hoarse and defeated and not always so coherent, on his bad days all his verbal tics are evident and you can hear the weariness like a millstone. and you get in the habit of waking up each day and checking twitter feedly facebook first thing because if there is a new post it means they are still alive, and you thank your stars they are now on social media so you can silently check, because in the past you had to send a feeler email every few days but be careful not to do it too often so that it becomes obvious to both of you that’s what you’re doing. (anxious hovering is possibly more irritating than indifference? but one moment of neglect and leaving them feeling abandonned is dangerous too — anything can happen.)

but it’s also true i don’t believe people “recover” from mental illnesses. i don’t know what the medical literature says but for a long time now i simply believe yes, it’s a condition that you have, it is (probably) permanent, and you just have to accept it’s going to be debilitating to some extent depending on the individual, but like any other chronic condition or disability what we do is to learn how to rearrange our lives in a way that takes the condition into account, have support systems in place, do what helps us, and ensure it affects us as little as possible and that we can still go on with life even if you have to think about one day at a time. and sometimes, some days, they have such splendid days like last friday that you can’t even tell. but it’s a terribly fragile splendour, and i know it doesn’t last.