When my mental health left the road

There is a long, straight section of Route 46 near the city of Fargo in North Dakota. For 121 miles (194 kilometres), the road stretches arrow straight towards the horizon. There are no bends and no corners. And although it follows the contours of the land upon which it was built, there is no appreciable gradient up or down along its entire length.

For about 50 of my near 59 years on this Earth, that road (ND-46 W) was the perfect, physical representation of my mental health and wellbeing; no deviations left or right and just the occasional up or down to keep the journey interesting.

But in my 50th year, all that changed. My mental and emotional state took a sudden and unmarked left turn, veering off the road and into a ditch. It would be a year, lots of counselling and considerable pharmaceutical assistance before I was back on the road again.

And the road I re-joined felt less straight. The rises had become fewer and further between; the falls more frequent and significantly steeper.

There is a line in the 2019 remake of the movie Pet Semetary that I don’t recall from the 1989 original, nor from the Stephen King novel upon which both are based.

The tagline for the original movie was “sometimes they come back”, referring to the fact that some of the dear departed pets buried at…