Live and let die (My Experience of Depression)

Member Name: dawnfrancis

Product:	My Experience of Depression
Date:	18/10/01 (133 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: absolutely and categorically none

Disadvantages: destroys your mind, destroys your quality of life, destroys your soul

This is dedicated to the bravery of all Dooyoo members who have been brave enough to disclose their own suffering and who have given people like me the strength to do the same. In particular I would like to thank Chris Pitts, whose op finally gave me the push I needed to post this.

This is an op I always knew I would write one day but which I have tried to put off. But today seems like the right time. I don’t know why, but today I feel like I am pausing on a very, very long journey, and as I am sitting down I feel I want to talk to the people passing me by. Some of them may listen and go on their way. I hope these people will remember what I say and perhaps view things a little differently if they ever meet another ‘me’ sometime in their lives.

Other passers by might want to sit down with me awhile and share. There is no need for talking because we understand. And in that silent understanding we find strength. And maybe when they leave their path might be just a little less rocky because of knowing that they are not alone.

Whoever you are….hello and it’s great to meet you, and thanks for stopping by. I would, however, like to warn you that some of the things I’m going to say are somewhat controversial, and might not be best for you to read if you are in a fragile state of mental health yourself.

My name is Dawn. I’m 30 years old. I have a nice flat and a nice car and I like my job. I have enough money to live comfortably (though, of course, more would always be nice!). I have a mother and sister who love me very much. I have friends who care about me.

I have a next door neighbour, he is called Death, and I walk in his shadow every single day of my life and there are times when I cannot breathe because the attraction to him is so intense. When I cannot see because my eyes are entranced by his face.

This is my story

********* THE BACKGROUND DETAILS
***********

As you will see I’ve never been in the best of mental health. As I don’t want this to be a huge autobiographical essay, here is a quick bit of background.

Born 1971 and nearly died during birth, feared brain-damaged for a year after. Anxious and nervy child with many phobias but teachers never worried about this straight-A pupil. Suffered panic attacks from age 9 or so. Intense fear of vomiting (emetophobia) led to dangerous weight loss and fainting fits because too afraid to eat. Won scholarship to specialist music boarding school aged 13 but had to leave two years later because of intense and severe emotional problems. Aged 19 got 3 A levels, place at Oxford, and suffered nervous breakdown. Agoraphobia and panic disorder. Housebound for a year and lost hair, as well as place at Oxford. Episodes of depression and anxiety all throughout 20’s. Overdose aged 22. Been treated by clinical psychologists, counsellors, psychiatric nurses, and doctors.

Though all this was an easy ride compared to what came later.

as for causes……grew up in an atmosphere of terror and abuse but don’t want to go into all that right now. Just to say that one counsellor suggested that I’d spent so much time trying to be a little protector as a child that I had completely lost any sense of identity, any sense of myself as a separate individual.

but who can really say for sure?

Three years ago, at the age of 27/28 I had the worst episode of depression ever and it knocked me around so badly that I did not fully recover, nor do I expect to. It affected me more profoundly than any of my previous encounters with depression, or any of my other problems. And I want to write about it.

***********THE HOUR OF LEAD*****************

It had been a terrible year. At the time I was still living at home, coping with depression, anxiety, and unable to leave the security of
my mom, who was the only one who could pull me out of the abyss.

Straws are enough to break camels’ backs yet I had a few tonnes of steel hit mine.

Mom had a suspected heart attack and was seriously ill in hospital.
Then we nearly lost our home because of her divorce settlement. I ended up having to pay money to the person who’d ruined my childhood just to keep our house. This is like being knifed in the heart.
Friends dropped away, my best friend after a huge argument. She deserted me when I needed her most, even though I’d supported her through a major life crisis for over a year.
Then I stopped some hormone tablets I’d been taking.and my emotions went haywire.
Then it was nearly Christmas and mom was hospitalized again, another suspected heart attack
Then I lost my grip

It was about a week before Christmas when it started for sure. I was washing my hands in the sink. But it wasn’t an ordinrary wash. I was thinking ‘Wash them quick, quick, quick! the quicker the better! then you can hurry into bed and escape another day of pain. Quick!’ It seemed such a brilliant idea, I was almost excited. Then I stopped, horrified.

Because for the very first time in my life I then realized that I had absolutely no quality of life. I could not even stand at the sink and wash my hands without being crippled by emotional pain.

Christmas Day. I woke up and I could not move. my head was screaming so bad that any physical movement hurt. I can’t describe what it was screaming but it was something on the lines of ‘Please God get me out. Get me out. Get me out. Make it stop’.

Ok so here’s a problem. your sick mum is downstairs trying to make the effort to have a good Christmas. your sister is doing her best. You can’t possibly let anyone know but you feel so desperate, so bloody wretched, so full of torment that what do
you do?

It’s actually very easy. You make a promise to yourself. This is the last day you will EVER feel this way. If things do not improve when you wake up tomorrow you will kill yourself. It is the lullaby that rocks you to sleep.

But Merciful God………what a way to live.

And so I was inducted into the Valley of Death. For a time I was nearly psychotic as my thinking went very bizarre. I could not shop in the supermarket because I believed people were staring at me and thinking I was a pedophile. One day I nearly crashed my car because I thought all the parked cars in the driveway were talking about me and telling their owners in the houses that I was a freak.

Down, down, down until I was a wretched wreck of a person dragging along a body and a life I no longer wanted. Every waking moment was sheer agony. There was a constant buzzing deep in my brain that I could literally hear and feel. The pain would physically paralyze me. Twice at work I wet myself because I could not move out of the chair to go to the loo. The smallest percieved slight from a friend would become seized by my mind, blown up, until I could think of nothing else. And I wanted death so badly, I wanted it with everything I had, my whole being ached for it. I was blinded by the light that shone when I looked Death in the face. When I saw kids on TV waiting for transplants I used to think ‘oh please God let me die because they could make better use of my life then me’. I use to fantasize about ripping my heart out and somehow getting it to these kids. Hateful body, hateful mind and an unwilling soul trapped inside.

‘This is the Hour of Lead--
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go’.

Emily Dickinson 1862


******** TO CUT A LONG STORY SHORT ******
I did not die and I finally succum
bed to the allure of Prozac which at least reduced the intensity of the symptoms.
I got through. I did not kill myself because I felt a sense of duty towards my mom. I could not bear to put her through that pain. But I resented her so much for this. I have been called wicked for saying this but anyway, here goes, I have often wished her dead so that I can be free. People constantly point to the good things I have, and yes, I have many.

But once you have stared Death in the eye, with no fear, you are a marked person, forever.
After the best part of 3 decades of poor mental health I am finally facing up to the fact that this is me. That I will never escape completely, that I have a cancer of the soul that I can only keep at bay and never banish. I try lots of different ways to keep it at bay, so that for whatever time remains to me, I will have at least some quality of life.

As a consequence of the cumulation of so many years of mental ‘illness’, I suffer from intense episodes of what I describe as ‘anguish’. I can be walking out shopping and all of a sudden it’s as if someone has told me my mum and sister have died in some terrible accident. I collapse inwardly. I pray to God to strike me dead on the spot. The strength of mental pain overwhelms me and it is just too much. The sense of vulnerability is so great that it seems preferable to die than to remain living in such hell.

Eventually I found solace in building up a special suicide kit and keeping it close at hand. And this is the controversial bit. It gives me peace. I know there is an end to my pain. During these episodes I can’t do anything because my mom is alive but the minute she goes I won’t have to fear the loss. I’m out of here. I’ve done most of the things I wanted, I’ve had some good experiences, and I’ve fought for many years against something bigger than myself. I think I’v
e given it a good enough go. This is an illustration of my thinking during such periods of anguish.

In between such episodes, as I said, I am working hard on quality of life. And I’m actually doing ok at the moment on this score. I am about to switch antidepressants and I am going to start therapy with a psychotherapist who also trained as a psychiatrist. I like to think they will help me understand both the biological and emotional aspects of why I am the way I am.

There are lots of things I enjoy, and sometimes I can keep the Shadow at bay for extended periods of time. During those times I’m not ecstatically happy. I’m just peaceful, calm, not thinking about much at all really. I’d happily settle for a life like that. I don’t want an exciting rollercoaster of a life with loads of great things happening to me. I’ve only ever asked for my mind to be quiet. So simple and yet so elusive.

***********SURPRISE TWIST IN THE TALE*******
For those of you who don’t know……..I’m a psychologist (though I do not treat people with depression or anxiety). This makes admitting to all this stuff not only embarrasing but also potentially dangerous for my career. The bigger twist is……throughout all of the shit, from childhood onwards, I kept a plastic smiling face turned to the world. I got all As at school. I got a first class degree and a PhD. I got a good job and carried on working. No-one would ever know unless I told them. Ever.

************TAKE HOME POINTS************
If there is one thing I want you to remember about chronic mental health problems it is this:

An outwardly happy and successful person may hide a tortured mess inside. People say to me ‘there’s no WAY you can be depressed if you’ve achieved all that in your life’. How dare they question my suffering?? What makes them think they’re the exper
ts? Think of all the successful and famous people who have committed suicide. Does the fact that they had such wonderful careers prove that they couldn’t have possibly been depressed? How come they took the exit door then?

Let me put the record straight. As living creatures we are designed to avoid pain. For some people their mental pain is intensified while at work so they have to give it up. This is awful but at least others see they have a problem, and at least they have a sanctuary to escape to. In my situation the only way I can shut my mind up is to make it work, work, work. So staying at home is not an option for me. I cannot relax in my own company and I cannot shut the mental screaming up unless I crowd out my mind with work. This does NOT mean that I, or anyone else in a similar position, is not suffering just as deeply as people who have to give up their jobs. At least their home is their sanctuary. I have nowhere. I have to be a different person at work, then when I get home, instead of relaxing, the floodgates open and the pain rushes in.

anyway it’s very easy to put on a face. much easier than you think.

When you’re dead inside.

************SUMMARY************

I appreciate that this op is a bit disjointed but it is difficult to write in an ordered fashion about such intense experiences. Instead I decided to go for ‘snapshots’, to illustrate the reality of living with mental health problems.

It’s not all doom and gloom. At the moment I am going through a fairly stable period and I am quietly enjoying my life without thinking about much at all. I know, however, that at any time my peace of mind can be ripped away for me for no obvious reason. It is that constant possibility which ruins my quality of life more than anything else. I believe strongly that as a sufferer of a very chronic and very painful condition, I have the right to euthanasia when
my suffering finally becomes intolerable.

To those walking in the shadow too, I say there are friends beside you, though you cannot see them. There is a reason, a point for all this pain, but maybe it is not for us to know right now. Let the pain wash over you. don’t fight it, don’t be afraid of it…..just try to keep breathing. It’s all you can do, and it’s the most difficult thing in the world to do. I wish you peace of mind because you have been denied that fundamental human right.

To those who have not experienced such problems I would beg you to look on people with mental health difficulties with more sympathy and understanding. And please, never, ever tell someone that they ‘can’t’ be depressed because they are still in work/dress nicely/seem happy etc. You just might be twisting the knife for the last time.

Remember, even corpses can smile.

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