CHAPTER III

DEPRESSION

They never finished all of the Electro Convulsive Therapy. After the first six sessions reality returned and they immediately called a Military Court -3 psychiatrists, 3 psychologists and some high ranking Army personnel. They sat at the head of the room into which I was ushered to take my seat, 20 cold eyes glaring down at me. " Rifleman", the Head Judge said, " are you a prophet?" The air was pregnant with expectancy.

"I don't know", I replied. The honest answer.

They immediately discharged me from further military duty. On the day before I left, they took a video of me being interviewed by a military psychologist. "Yes", I agreed, "the whole thing had been caused by smoking dagga, what a stupid Rifleman I had been."

I went home to my parent's house with two months supply of pills they had given me. A terrible black cloud of depression followed me and settled over my world. "Bi-polar depression " they said (which seemed strangely fitting for such a Bi-polar world.) It was a directionless period; a period of great emptiness, lonliness and doubt. In the ensuing months I plumbed the deepest depths of my soul. They had put a shock to my head, and left part of me dead. I wanted that part back most, but it was like chasing a ghost...