Happy Pills

If I had a million dollars in the bank I don’t think I would have to take the antidepressants. I don’t. But I do have a wife and family and house that I love and would very much like to keep around me, so I take the tablets. Their purpose is to get me functioning again as quickly as possible in order to maintain those things that are important to me. They help restore my Serotonin levels and maintain them while my brain repairs the damage to my Limbic system.

Depression is difficult. The first thing the doctor says is take a break, get away from what is causing it so you can see the real world again. But how? I reached this point at them end of six months (at least) of gradual worsening which if you are self employed like myself means six months of your income gradually eroding away, bolstered at the time by using any savings as you try to maintain normality, not knowing what is wrong with you . . .

So here I sit, my doctor empathises with my situation but cannot help. Take a break he says. So I do, for a week, thinking in my all knowing way that I can manage.

It is not enough. As soon as I return to work, even part time now I immediately plunge back into the dark depths again. But worse because although my mood has bettered with facing up to what is happening and with taking the tablets, the anxiety that was always in the background takes over and I end up pacing the house at six in the morning, looking for an escape route and making plans to sell the house just to pay the debts. And so I end up back in bed hiding yet again.

When I resurface, reality hits. This is more serious than I would admit to, I am forced to look at my priorities, to pay the bills now or to take time to recover no matter what the consequences. I decide to take a proper break, to rethink things, to plan properly, to begin recovery.

This is the time that you thank God that you have friends and family.

So with the encouragement of my boss and work colleagues I plan to take three weeks off as soon as can be arranged (in a couple of weeks). I take out a loan to finance it, Nicola takes on more work and I borrow from my mum as well.

Now I can start to look within myself for the answer. Now that the tablets have helped me recover a little, I can hear that small voice in the back of my mind telling me this is the way to go, this is the path I should take.

You may have the most wonderfully luxurious penthouse in the most beautiful part of the world, but unless you are happy within all you are going to look for is the nearest window to jump from . . .  

Matthieu Ricard

  

We can cure you . . .

“You will get better” my doctor kept saying on that first visit, “We will cure you”. I know that he was just being positive to balance my negativity so that hopefully I would not throw myself off the nearest cliff (a possibility not as far from the truth a you may think), but afterwards as I sat in a cafe thinking about it my first thought was no I don’t want to be cured. This was something new, a part of me that had always been there but I had not realised, and I wanted to say hello first, to make friends rather than swat it like the mosquito on your arm that you kill without thinking.

Diagnosis can be a double edged sword. For some like myself it can be a revelation, suddenly everything clicks into place. I now was not a normal person who could not cope as I had always thought, but a depressed person who was doing the best he could, my past made more sense now. The danger comes if you use the diagnosis as a crutch, an excuse for not coping. I have a pregnant friend and it is amazing the things she cannot do now “because she is pregnant”. Like getting up and boiling the kettle to make herself a cup of coffee for instance! This route is to be avoided at all costs because then the diagnosis owns you, it takes control feeding your blackness as you spiral further down. No lets not go there . . .

Instead use this new discovery about yourself make friends with it understand this new part of yourself and use it, like a dog or a horse perhaps. Treat it kindly and it will return the favour helping you go places you could not otherwise get to, it’s intuition may even help you in times of danger but ultimately you remain in charge.

Having discovered all the artists that have suffered from depression, like Van Gogh I now see my depression as the artistic part of my nature pushing through to be noticed. It has made me stop and think . . . a good thing to do do occasionally I reckon.

But talking about stopping and thinking, do not forget the people around you - depression can be very inward looking and isolating but to cope you are going to need your friends, and I am so lucky to have Nicola alongside me . . .


Depression may be dark, but life will never be dull if it is part of you . . .

What is depression?

If you have ever lost somebody close to you be it person or animal, and been left feeling deeply empty and lost, and that life is pointless or too painful to continue with . . . that is depression. In the case of a loss that grief is a natural process and must be worked through in it’s own time. You will always feel it to some extent afterwards, I remember fondly all the cats I have lived with, but gradually you return and continue with life.

But in some people those feelings of hopelessness arise with no apparent cause. Why? I have no idea it could be genetics, it could be upbringing, I think it is probably a combination of lots of factors with chronic stress in there as well. We are all different physically and mentally and whereas some people may thrive under certain conditions others will not. Under stress some people will fly others will get stomach ulcers and a depressive person will descend into blackness. The limbic system of their brain which deals with emotional response becomes damaged leading to a drop in serotonin levels that causes alertness to reduce. Hence mood turns to hopelessness and you do not have the energy to even get out of bed.

Stress is a factor for me but I imagine it is different for everybody. And actually, having thought about it the stress is there for everybody, it seems to be part of modern life. So it is not the stress itself that is the cause but how I deal with it, how I handle it that is the problem.

And the way to recovery . . .




You know, depression is such an inward looking thing that I have not felt much like writing over the last couple of months, or at least not sharing, some things are just too personal . . . 

But “keep writing” said swallowtail in a comment on my last post, and she was right - it helps, thankyou.