Other times I've won stuff I've not enjoyed it due to imposter syndrome unease - the sense one is about to be found out at any moment can be nausea-making. But this time I got the award for being me . "Surely, you can't stretch a mental breakdown out for 10 years?" said one droll friend.
And being applauded for admitting your freaky loserishness was pleasantly validating. Until I reread my portfolio of stories and realised with a sinking sensation, that everything I've told you is wrong.
I wrote about my depression last year. I may not have come out and said it (my very cool partner is incredibly tolerant of me and forgiving but even so) - but I certainly intimated breakdown was caused by an unhappy love affair. Oh sorry it wasn't a love affair, it was "just a few bonks" as the woodland creature involved chivalrously informed me afterwards. Chur. But I was the one who was wrong. The fact I ended up having a major depressive episode I now realise was not caused by him.
If it hadn't been precipitated by that it probably would have been something else. In fact, I now realise most of the stuff I used to believe about depression was wrong. I used to blame my parents for making me this way. But what I now realise is that our anxieties and fears are part of our temperament. We feel dread as a palpable physical sensation and then we reverse-engineer reasons for it, creating narratives to explain why we feel like that.
The stories we tell ourselves may do more harm when really it would be much more soothing to concede some of us are just made this way. We physically experience something and then rationalise it later. Like being turned on by someone and convincing yourself since you are experiencing this particular sensation you must be in love with this person. When really it is just, you know, a few bonks. Do you see what I mean?
Maybe everyone else already knew this. I am usually late to the party.
I've also written a lot about being authentic; that it is a worthwhile endeavour to strive to be real. Now I discover this was something else that I had completely wrong. There is no such thing as your essential self.
Instead there is a whole cast of characters that make up your identity and no single one of them is the "real" you. You just have to be able to listen to those different voices and their needs and be kind to them.
Here is something else that may or may not surprise you. I now realise therapy is rubbish. Well, not all therapy but ironically the only one that has so-called scientific proof that it works - CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy).
Ubiquitous and generic, it is the junk food of therapy. CBT involves using your rational faculties to challenge unhelpful negative thoughts and replace them with more constructive positive ones. Take it from me: This Does Not Work.
I have read the books, analysed the research, can accept logically that there are sound reasons not to feel as I do. But despite all this intellectual hey-ho, I still bloody feel it.
On a more positive note, the most fundamental error I have discovered in my thinking is that what we think will make us happy won't. This has helped me to feel gratitude for my life, just as it is, all the time, even if it didn't turn out how I expected.
Today I am going to make cupcakes to celebrate my daughter's "10-and-a-half birthday". She says she wants to invent cupcakes with batteries and fairy lights. It is raining.
My partner will continue to try to introduce the children to the joys of Led Zeppelin. My son will talk about getting a new dog. "Golden retrievers are amazing. But they can't really retrieve gold. That's just a name. They are just a ginger dog. It's raining. It's a great day."
My daughter says. "I am warm and happy." I take a moment to realise this is about as good as life ever gets. Then they start having a screaming argument over sharing their iPad.
Whew. Life is good. (Oh, and sorry this column is not very funny. But who cares? They've given me the award now and I don't suppose they can take it back!)
