Last year a friend suggested I write about mental health disorders. I can't remember how we got onto the subject but I know that since that time I have rewritten the post about 5 times. Sometimes I get to the end and then delete the whole thing. Mental health, in particular depression, is very hard for me to describe let alone talk about. I think the main problem was that I wasn't in 'that place' during my earlier attempts. It is very difficult to write about a subject without being at the helm of an episode at that time. However I now feel ready to try and write about it again. I haven't had a bad episode in a few years but recent events have plunged me back down to that place. It's not as bad an episode as I have experienced before but it's bad enough that I feel it won't take much before I am free-falling into the darkness again.
For me an episode is triggered by the feeling that I have lost control of everything. I will have spent a lot of effort improving my quality of life and when events occur that threaten this I start to panic. The result is that I try even harder to recapture my happiness. I become stressed, and every thought in my head is focused on finding a way to fight the threat. I start to feel suffocated, I become exhausted and I lie in bed, unable to sleep, trying to think of a way out of the hole I'm falling down. The more control I lose the more desperate I become and the more I try to control the small things that before would not have bothered me. I become irrational and my mood darkens. The worst episodes stem from when multiple threats have presented themselves at the same time. This is what has happened recently. I haven't cooked a proper meal in weeks. I do not shower as often. I get angry very quickly. I find faults in the smallest of things. My relationship with my husband and children is strained. I am tired ... all the time. I don't want to participate in anything. I have no patience with people. I cry ... a lot. The worst of this is the strong feeling that life would be better for everyone if I wasn't here. As soon as I get to this point I completely lose it and have a full breakdown. Like a volcano that explodes after a steady build up in pressure everything comes out and it's usually loud, violent and can take time to cool down. But it's not the explosion that's the dangerous part it's what comes after ... the silence. When you have no more tears and no more energy. When the sadness is still there and you still feel despair, but you also feel rational. This for me is the dangerous moment, this is the fight or flight moment. If you know someone who you suspect is depressed and who has suddenly gone quiet, this is when they need you the most. A hug or a kind word could mean the difference between life and death.
Ironically I have just watched an advert about mental health discrimination and how we should start a conversation to help end the stigma associated with mental health. I once confided in a manager that I was being treated for depression. I thought I would get some understanding, and hopefully someone I could confide in when I was feeling 'under the weather', but instead he used this against me. Over a period of 2 years he subjected me to bi-monthly meetings where he told me that I was a poor employee with an attitude problem, even though my appraisal reports said the contrary. These meetings could last 1-3 hours and he wouldn't let me go until he had reduced me to tears. If I complained he would tell his managers that I was 'over sensitive due to my depression'. In a grievance meeting he asked me what medication I was on as potential side effects could explain my attitude. No action was taken against him for this, or for any of the 'meetings' he had arranged. Apparently this was his right as a manager. I knew that I had to leave when one day, after another brutal meeting, I found myself under a table with a scalpel, wanting to end it all. I moved on but I vowed from that day on never to tell anyone about my depression, especially managers. Even with family I feel that if I was to mention my past depression, or that I felt depressed, they would think I was making it up or exaggerating my situation.
Then there are the tablets. Fluoxitine and Citalopram were my poison. Did they work, yes. Did they cure my depression, no. I was aware that my happiness was false. It was like someone else had control of my mind. I became overly happy, manic even. In October 2008 I took myself off the tablets. I struggled through the next year. I moved house, I was made redundant and I was pregnant. I had to disclose my depression to the midwife who recorded in my notes that I was a post natal depression risk. Strangely enough being a mother had the opposite effect. I had this little person in my arms who relied on me and I controlled every aspect of her existence. I was focused and I was happy. I haven't been completely free of depression but I had been coping better.
So what about counselling? I have tried that as well. The NHS allowed me to have 3 sessions and those sessions helped me more then a mountain of tablets. I sometimes wonder why doctors are so ready to dish out the pharmaceuticals yet restrict the availability of this vital service. To stop a volcano erupting you would need to steadily release the pressure not just poor cold water over the top once a day and hope that does the trick. Talking helped, so maybe this conversation initiative, organised by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, has some merit to it.
Those that know me would probably tell you that I am a happy person with a good life, and probably would never suspect that I could ever be depressed. This makes it worse. I feel like I have no right to be depressed, and that by allowing myself to fall back I have let myself and all those around me down. I know others who have depression, they didn't tell me I just knew. I think that everyone must know someone that they suspect has a mental health problem. Many would just choose to ignore the signs, or avoid the person completely. OCD, eating disorders and personality disorders etc have a stigma attached to them. We are given guidance on how to respond to someone with a physical disability but not much out there to help those with a mental health problem.
Just by typing all this out I can feel myself relaxing. The millions of thoughts tangled in my head have started to straighten out and file themselves accordingly. This calm feeling may go away after a few hours and my sadness may reappear tomorrow but at least for just a few hours I can forget. I can play with my child or talk to my husband without snapping or crying. For just a few hours I can look at the wall and not want to paint it black.
Big Hugs, Joolz