So, the village I live in is flooding and I’m not having too much of a good time either. This bout of depression/insomnia is a real arse-kicker. The insomnia’s been going on nearly a month now, the pit of depression at a ‘can’t cope any more’ level for about two weeks. The flood actually makes a good metaphor for the depression as day by day, inch by inch your defences get worn down and the water rises higher, threatening to drown you.
I already do everything I can do to mitigate this FUCKING BRAIN DISORDER I’ve been saddled with. I take the pills. I see a therapist every week (what am I, Californian?) I try to intellectualise, process and distance the emotions that are hurting me, to remove the factors that make it worse, to understand where it comes from and what sets it off.
And it’s no good. The fact of the matter is that there’s something physically wrong with my brain and all the psychobabble and barely-understood psychiatric drugs can do is cushion me a little and stretch out the patches where I’m a functional human being.
I know, like I tell others with this problem, that this will pass and I’ll feel OK again – and I will.
But ‘OK’ isn’t enough. I want to feel happy. I can’t actually remember the last time I felt happy. I can remember happy patches in the distant past but otherwise, no. I can feel angry, authentically sad, awed, full of wonder, many other emotions but not actually happy. Momentarily content seems to be the best I can hope to accomplish.
I lie to you all, constantly, about how I feel. Put on a happy face, a joke, a laugh, a witticism but it’s all a terrible struggle and physically and mentally exhausting to pretend to be a normal human being day in, day out. I am absolutely terrified of going into the red in everyone’s sympathy bank. This black pit of despair wears me out, it must be boring, strenuous and difficult for people unfortunate enough to be my friends.
How can I expect my business partners to put up with this if I’m out of action – effectively – for many weeks in a year and barely functional for others? How can I keep deadlines, take the strain, help out or otherwise be anything than a liability?
How can I expect my wife to put up with this and stay with me? To patiently cope and take up the slack when I can’t, when she already works very hard and deals with life’s little disruptions for the both of us.
I want a child. Is it fair to bring a child into the world with a mentally ill parent and a good chance of inheriting the disorder, or is it selfish narcissism?
I don’t want to lose my friends, my family, because they don’t understand or they lose patience with me. I don’t want to admit when I feel bad not only for fear of losing people but because I care about them so much I want to spare them the pain I know they feel, that I feel, when someone they care about is in pain.
My drugs are up (150mg Sertraline now) and a short course of sleeping pills to try and get my sleep pattern back on track. While I was at the doctor though, I caught sight of some private letters relating to my diagnosis and treatment from my old CBT counsellor and psychiatrist, before I left the CMH’s remit (Community Mental Health). It didn’t make pleasant reading (I read very quickly). Anxiety, severe depression and dependency was the headline. The detail was a bit too personal, even though I try to share in the hopes it helps people understand and helps others with the same problems, but let’s just say it wasn’t very flattering at all. It is almost certain that I will be coping with and managing this stupid fuckbrain of mine for the rest of my life.
That is not a nice prospect.
Put yourself in my shoes for a moment. You are sad, desperately sad, for long periods of time. The power and grief of losing a parent, sibling or friend in intensity but for no explicable reason. You’re just sad. Nothing you do makes any impact on this sadness while you’re feeling it and you’re so desperate NOT to feel sad (or anything) that self harm, drink, spending as much time as possible asleep, all these things become palatable just to have to not feel soul-crushingly tired any more. At these points even suicide starts to seem like an option, even for someone as intellectually dead set against the idea as I am.
I do everything I can to drown out that little naysayer in my head. Keep my mind engaged from the moment I get up until the moment I go to sleep. I play games, I write, I argue – endlessly – in part from my conscience but also just to keep busy. I deal with my own pain by trying to ignore it and to help others. I raise money, spread the word when people are in need, try to reassure and support people that need it, try to be a good person – even if I don’t feel like one. Even this feels inauthentic though. Am I helping people for good reason or just to make myself feel better? Even this… talking about it, being open about it – which people think is brave or helping – why am I really doing it?
This is depression’s ‘superpower’, overanalysing and doubting every motive for everything you do.
Now I know that the professionals think I’m going to be dealing with this all my life and that it will likely get worse and harder to manage.
Imagine that.
Knowing that you’re going to be feeling this same, spirit-crushing grief for the rest of your life and may never feel happy again. Just imagine that. Think how it feels. Think what lengths you might go to to dull the pain or block it out.
Then there’s the shame. Mental health issues do not feel like real issues. Like being poor, disabled or unemployed in modern Britain being mentally ill is seen as ‘shirking’. Even if you don’t really believe it yourself you feel somehow ‘inauthentic’. Every time I manage to force a smile on my face or make a joke a little voice inside my head tells me that I’m not really depressed, because if I were I wouldn’t be able to do that. Wouldn’t be able to perform, or joke. In a perverse turn of events I am gut-churningly jealous, jealous, of people with physical disorders whose authenticity is more rarely challenged. People I admire and care about like Mandy, Alex, Jamie and more whose coping ability is legendary but who have crutches, or wheelchairs, or braces that SHOW that they’re ill.
There’s shame too in that this is all a horrible stereotype. The locked away writer with depression, the ageing goth getting by on pills and spite.
I’m a living cliché.
I don’t know what more to do or how to cope. I’ll probably be a lot better off after a couple of proper nights of rest but I’m low as hell and terrified my friends and loved ones are going to get bored of dealing with me being like this, tired of futilely trying to prop me up or make me accept a compliment. I’m scared of losing my job, my wife, my friends and my life to this horrible, fucking, disease in my brain.
I’m utterly exhausted. My body hurts from feeling sad. Every joint and sinew, every muscle.
You’ll be tempted to write platitudes to me on Facebook and Twitter or in the comments and it’s not going to help, at least not right now. Later, when I come out of this it might but, if you’re going to say anything I want you to really think about it. Not just say something quick and reassuring. Really think about what I’ve said here. I’m lucid, if tired and depressed, and I’m trying to explain and show what this is like.
This is the long haul. I’ve got to adjust my thinking and anyone who calls me their friend is going to have to do the same.
I’m sorry I’m a burden, and don’t tell me I’m not.
There are people who do not try to do all the things you describe that you do to fight, to keep hope alive and take out what you feel on those closest to them, and blame them and ignore that there is something wrong with them and just transpose the blame, the pain, and the anger….and lash out and use excuses and lies. When you have lived with such a person your efforts do not seem worthless or without merit. Its hard yea, you don’t always cope well..yea. But you keep up the fight, and trying. What else can you do … As for the other stuff you talked about Blah ….life is struggle, pain and sometimes other things. We all live it the best we can. It seems thats what you are doing .
James, I told you that I wanted to know how you felt. From a selfish point of view, to know how you feel is better than imagining how you feel, especially when I know you are very low. I’m sure many others will say this to you too – there will never ever be a point where I run out of patience or sympathy. I love you. It pains and worries me enormously to know how you are feeling, but there is never the slightest feeling that you are to blame in any way. I know it must be much easier to say than to do, but please try to give yourself and the medication the chance to start to help you get over the worst of this episode. Please tweet or post regularly, letting everyone know what’s happening – as long as that is not a difficult burden – and above all keep safe until you start to recover from the worst of this.
With love from your Dad.
And BTW, you are a fucking hero for posting how it is. I’m sure it helps others, and I hope to goodness it helps you too. ((HUGS))
dude, you are not a burden, you are a friend . I know i am not the best mate in the world ( mainly due to outside influences) but i am your mate. always will be. You need anything at all, ANYTHING, even if its just a chat, i am on the end of the phone ( you do still have my number don’t you), if you need me, i am 20 mins by car away. if i dint mean it i wouldnt say it.
STAY STRONG Buddy, we are all rooting for you.
Thank you Andi. It is so hard for me, living in another country, but it is a comfort to know that James has friends like you close by.
Also
*big fuzzy hugs*
You are not alone. This is not your story only. It is the cry of the many, worldwide, who share this unlovely experience. Fight on, dude. Write on. Every time you give voice to the darkness, you are telling the story of the very many who know exactly what the hell you’re talking about. And so you must feel pity for yourself. That is your work, to hold yourself in compassion until the worst is over. You won’t feel ghastly always. You will come through.
Thank you , thank you, thank you, Liesl.
My lovely, I wish I could take this from you, or do or say something that would help, but I know I can’t. I may be a long way away, but I am always on the end of the phone if you ever need me. You will endure, and come out the other side of this. Until you do, big hugs and squishes. Lots and lots of love. Try and stop worrying about what others think of you (I know that’s easier said than done) – all you need to know is we love you. Just focus on you, and getting better. Keep fighting.xx
P.S. Barry your reply made me cry. You are a wonderful Dad, and a very good man.xx
Emma, thank you so much for your support. I’m sure your words will be of a great help and comfort to James.
Alright, here’s my prognosis for whatever it is worse. I am a nutcase so please take this with a grain of salt.
You live in a world which has set the bar far too high on what life should be as opposed to what it truly is. We live amidst a flood of images of smiling happy people leading better lives than we will ever experience. That is bullshit. It’s opposite, children living the best years of their lives picking through garbage heaps in the Philippines is also bullshit. Sure, both cases happen in reality but in such rare amounts they are negligible to the world at large. For nearly all of us life is a steady monotonous drone of neutral gray area occasionally punctuated by occasional moments of happiness and sadness, both of which are fleeting. And while it’s not really all the great, this is not that bad either. It is acceptable – providing you can bring yourself to accept it, which is something our capitalist culture finds unacceptable since capitalism depends on us constantly spending money on a never ending quest for this unachievable goal of permanent happiness.
Depression? For me depression is the mental equivalent of pain. You stub your toe and you feel pain and it’s there as a reminder not to do that again. If you take pain killers then you get to stub your toes all you want and the drugs protect you from the pain. Yet. that kinda defeats the purpose of the system, which is to protect your feet.
When something doesn’t go right in a life we feel depression as a reminder to not do that again. You could take anti-depressants to protect yourself from the hurt, but once again this would be defeating the system (and yes, this is also why I have never gone in for anti-depressants or psychotherapy). It’s far better to find the external cause of the depression and avoid or remove it than kill the messenger of hurt. Of course, what I think I was trying to say above, is that the absence of depression is normalcy. It’s not happiness. Asking for happiness after a bout of depression is asking too much. For that the we have puppies 🙂
So what I would do if I were you is to stop seeing the depression as a disease in your head and recognize it as something forced upon you by the outside world. Then find that source and either stop it, change it, or get out of its way.
Hope I helped.
-J