I'm in the kind of low mood which makes reckless displacement activity seem perfectly reasonable -  getting a drastic new hairdo, running off with an unsuitable man or boarding a plane to Somewhere Else. In the far distant past I once managed all three at once.

My dog Pete is dead. The house feels empty. I feel sad. 

The Grim Reaper visited a male friend of mine the other day. Mr Reaper called by very unexpectedly at four a.m. and stayed just long enough to drop an anvil onto my friend’s chest before slipping silently away into the early morning darkness. 

Nothing makes you feel quite so alive as wandering with a dog in a cemetery on a clear spring day. 
You are alive and vertical in a place where everyone else is dead and horizontal, covered in earth and lying on their backs in what remains of the boxes they were buried in. You are aware of the miracle of being alive: your heart working tirelessly in your chest, your breath, your ability to propel yourself on two strong legs, to see, to hear and to smell.

No one can see the Black Dog except you. Depression and anxiety are like that . Invisible. Which is why it feels so lonely. If you have a cough or a limp, someone will notice and commiserate . But if you are depressed - and you’re not sitting in a corner sucking your thumb or plucking the fluff off your jumper - no one notices. 
If you are anxious you can look pretty normal - unless you've staggered into A & E with full-blown symptoms of a heart attack. 

Image from I Had a Black Dog by Matthew Johnstone

I wrapped the dog in a blanket, lifted him gently into the car, and took him to the vet. Beside him on the seat, I folded a red quilted jacket I bought 30 years ago on a freezing December day in Seoul. If Pete had to be put down, I planned to wrap him in my old warm coat and take him home to bury him.