Don't take me with you! (My Experience of Depression)

Member Name: kimgraham

Product:	My Experience of Depression
Date:	13/08/02 (85 review reads)
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I have read some very moving opinions here with regard to depression. I am going to write this from a slightly different angle.

I am not depressed, neither am I the depressed type, if indeed ,there is such a thing!However, I have spent most of my life surrounded by people with very severe depression. Sometimes coping with their depression has caused me to feel very unwell indeed.

I thought it might be useful to share some of my experiences and tell you how I have learned to live with depression in the family. All too often the depressed person gets all the attention and nobody notices that the close family members are adversely affected by it.

To begin with, my Mother had serious bouts of depression from when I was born until Alzheimers kicked in a few years ago.It was so bad that she had several spells of being hospitalised in a mental institution.

On one occasion she was so bad, and her behaviour so erratic, that my Father and Grandfather had her committed. I watched her struggle as they took her away. She felt utterly betrayed. If I close my eyes I can still see and hear it as if it were yesterday. I was five years old at the time.

Shortly after she came home it was deemed necessary to give her electric shock treatment. This was done at home. A man used to come to the house with this terrifying looking equipment which he would set up in our living room. It didn't seem to occur to him that two little girls should not be witnessing this, and he went ahead regardless. Mercifully, my sister was only a year old and doesn't remember anything. I do, unfortunately, and had nightmares about it for years.

Not long after this my father and baby sister contracted TB. I had not long started school and was already very unsettled by my Mother. My beloved father, who was my anchor and refuge,was then in hospital for a year. It did not help that my sister was with him. I was left with Mum. I am sure that you can imagi
ne that she was beside herself, not knowing if they would live. It made her depression and erratic behaviour even worse. Fortunately I was too young to fully understand what was going on.

I felt very,very bad. I was not allowed to go to the hospital as I had not proved to be immune. Mum had not passed her driving test and the hospital was two long bus journeys away.It was a special TB isolation hospital like they had in those days.
Sometimes on a Sunday she would take me. I was not allowed in, but there was a length of drainpipe outside the window running along Dad's room. I was allowed to stand on it and watch through the window.
I could could see Mum, Dad and my baby sister all there together and I was not allowed near them. I think that what I felt at that time was very severe depression, although in those days the powers that be never thought that little children could get depressed!

Thankfully they both recovered. My mother then turned into a raving neurotic and made my life hell for probably 75% of the time. She couldn't help it, bless her, she was ill.

As a direct consequence I escaped as fast as I could by getting married, quite young, as fast as posible to someone who was kind and stable. Moreover, he had a wonderful kind mother. She was an alcoholic but such a caring person that it just did not seem to matter.I just craved stability and normality.

Just before the wedding it dawned on me that I was making a dreadful mistake. I think I loved him at one point, but one month before the wedding I realised that I did not. What to do?

I went and spoke to my priest at length, who told me lots of brides felt like that, it was only pre wedding nerves. I wasn't sure and went to see him again two weeks before the wedding. By this time the priest was getting a bit fed up with me. He told me not to be selfish; I had to consider what I would do to my fiance at that short notice, also what about my father
who had spent a vast fortune on the wedding.

I went through with it. I knew as I made my vows that I did not want to. I walked out of that church feeling really sick!

I learned a lot from this. I learned that sometimes you have to try really hard to make the most of a bad job. I felt sorry for myself sometimes, but I felt infinitely more sorry for my poor husband, who knew something was amiss, but did not know what.

I tried for eight years. We had three children in very quick succession and you can see that I really tried to make a go of it.

I couldn't in the long term. I met somebody (who was my tutor at an evening class) and without meaning too, as I am usually fiercely loyal, fell in love with him. I knew straight away that whatever else happened, my husband deserved something better than our mockery of a marriage. We divorced and I moved in with Tony. We then had our daughter Caroline and our son Robert, who was stillborn.

Oh dear, if I thought my Mum had been bad, it was nothing in comparison to Tony.
He was fine to begin with and then it became obvious that he was not like other people. I could write an entire novel on his antics, all mental health related, but shall confine myself to a few incidences.

Progressively he became more and more depressed. I found this difficult, as I am basically a happy little soul and it really made me down in the dumps. Whatever I said was wrong. If I offered help I was sneered at. If I didn't offer help then I did not care and was a heartless cow! I could not do right for doing wrong. I felt utterly bereft and helpless.

Eventually it got so bad that he had to take a year off school. That was worse. I worked my butt off, to keep us afloat, but as I wasn't there he was lonely and couldn't cope. For the first few weeks he was off school I was, thank goodness on my school holiday. We sometimes had an overlap as I teach in the independent sector and
he in the state.

The timing was impeccable. Tony could do nothing for himself. He had a pyschological paralysis, and could not even sit up in bed. I had to feed him for three weeks and give him drinks through a straw which I had to hold.Eventually he accepted the help of a doctor and was put on Prothiaden. Gradually that brought him to a more reasonable state. All sorts of other things were going on, which I will not bore you with, but made my life highly stressful. This was all a matter of months after I had had my still born baby.

On one occasion we were at a competition and he flipped, pretending to be a horse and galloped all round the room neighing. How much more did I have to take? Several years actually!

At this point I could feel myself sliding into deep chasms of despair. Then the funny phone calls started. They came at all hours of the day and night. I had a tap put on the line and went to my GP. She thought it was a miracle I was still sane! I was given some antidepressants and sleeping pills and they just made me feel like a zombie.

At this point I found out from Tony's mother that he had a history of depressive illness, having been hospitalised with it whilst he was at university. Great, I don't half pick 'em!

I was not convinced that I needed anti depressants as I had good reason to feel down, but there wasn't actually anything wrong with me.

The phone calls continued and I then discovered that, ill as he was, he had been having an affair with a mother of one of his private pupils. He said it was because I was always working and wasn't there to care for him.The woman then started coming to the house, she would scream through the letterbox.

One time I put the chain on the door and asked her to stop as my children were sitting on the stairs behind the door waiting to go out! She said she didn't give a f*** who was there and that she would not leave unless he went h
ome with her.
Hre, rotten coward was hiding in the kitchen refusing to come out or speak to her.She then called the police saying I was holding him hostage!

After all that I did become really depressed for the first time in my life. I wanted to die. I did not eat for three weeks, just survived on cups of tea. I just lay on the sofa staring in to space. Thank God the children were away at the time.Then his paralysis would come back. He could not move, he would weep, he stuttered. I could not bear to see him so broken. In his more lucid moments he would blame me. At other times he would cling to me and shake with fear.I did all I could to help him, but we weren't getting anywhere.

I eventually decided that I had to help myself. Lots more happened, then, one day after moving house, the woman turned up again. That was it, I threw him out.

That was six years ago. I really struggled to cope for the first two years. Our relationship continued but we lived separately. His depression did not get better and he was dragging me down into an abyss.

I knew I would not survive unless I took control of the situation. Firstly, I had a course of Prozac. That kept me on course while I un-scrambled my brain. I loved him and fely hugely sorry for this poor ,tortured man.I still feel the utmost compassion for him. He is a very lonely and unhappy person.

The first thing I learnt is that you have to let go. You also have to realise that you can't always help someone, however hard you try. It is also extremely important not to allow your self esteem to be eroded.

I went to my partners GP. I begged him to help us, quoting our little girl and saying how badly it was affecting her. As we were registered with different practices they refused to discuss it with me. In the end I said, okay. You don't have to discuss, but you can let me talk to you and you can listen.You don't have to say a word, but once you know what is go
ing on in its entirety, you can help him better.

I think it worked as he was sent to a psychiatrist and a separate counsellor.

The damage he did to me and our daughter was immense. We picked ourselves up and moved forwards. You have to take little,tiny steps.I congratulated myself each day that I got through without crying.

I took up things such as keep fit to boost my self esteem, and I bought a computer. My friends online have helped more than any of them will ever know.

I had only been here for six weeks without him when I had a heart attack.They said it was a partial pre-disposition due to family history but also due to accute stress. It is not especially common for ladies in their thirties to have a heart attack. It shook everyone to the core. Interestingly it did not change Tony's behaviour at all. It was then that I knew that I had done the right thing.

These days I am pretty chipper. I am a real fighter, born of necessity. I know that life is a wonderful thing, but all too short. Moping around doesn't solve anything.

If you are depressed, please get help early. There is so much that can be done to help. Also think of your family, and don't be too hard on them. They are probably trying really hard to understand and help. It is really not easy having a loved one with depression. When you can't reach them it leaves you feeling hopelessly inadequate and lonely.

If you are the partner of a depressed person get support for yourself, you will probably need it. At one point I felt as though I were being hurled into a whirling vortex from which there was no escape. There is an escape route, but you have to be strong. You can get help via your GP which will help you maintain your equilibrium. Counselling can be very helpful.

Sadly, it did not help me, but Tony had a particularly vociferous ,longstanding and ultimately untreatable depression.
Do you know if he comes in the house
we all feel really down within minutes- it as if the depression is contagious!

I have been pleased with my recovery. I have an excellent job and am held in fairly high regard.This has done wonders for a severely crushed self esteem.
My children are all but one, adults now, of whom I am very proud. Each and every one of them is a decent and caring person.

Last year I stood as a candidate in the General Election and did far better than I had hoped for. I knew then how far I had come. It meant that my self confidence had returned.

I do not think I could ask for much more.I consider myself very lucky indeed.

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