I feel like I’ve got a lot to say about depression and hope maybe I’ll be good at saying it. I’ve been considering writing about it for a while now but haven’t for numerous reasons.
Reasons I haven’t previously written about depression.
- I’m quite lazy.
- Writing poems doesn’t take as long.
- As selfish as it may sound, I used to deal with depression with an ‘every man for himself’ mentality. Climbing out of it can be a pretty monumental slog, so the thought of being dragged back in didn’t bear thinking about. If I started hanging around talking to fellow sufferers, offering advice, chatting about common feelings, the whole thing was likely to pull me down. I needed to stay as far as away from these people as possible, I’m outta here. Kind of like when alcoholics stay away from their old drinking buddies, I felt a similar necessity to steer well clear of any likely depressives. I wanted to totally disassociate myself from any of that negativity. That’s not me anymore.
This all may seem a bit self serving, but to me it was self preserving. Obviously I wouldn’t want others to suffer, but at the same time I didn’t think I was capable of helping. If you’re treading water in the middle of the sea, surviving though hardly thriving, you don’t want fellow drowners grasping at your neck for their own survival. You need someone from a position of strength, preferably with a boat, to help out. That wasn’t me.
Why are you piping up now then?
The stats regarding male suicides are nought short of terrifying and it was getting to a stage where such instances were hitting closer and closer to home. When such things start to get a bit scary I’m of the opinion that people in the know need to start piping up, offering answers, or at the least provide information so there’s less of a “What the hell is going on here?” vibe going on.
I was allowing such stats to exist while hiding away with an “I’m alright Jack” attitude, keeping any experience I had firmly to myself.
I’m under no illusion that writing this will make any form of impact, nor is it supposed to be some kind of advice column. I’m just telling you what happened to me and how I dealt with it and am still dealing with it. Depression, I mean.
Pre-diagnosis
What the hell is wrong with me?
The worst thing about depression is that before you know you have it, you just have it.
There’s a black fog heading toward you ready to take over your soul and you're willingly inviting it in. This is because you have no idea what it is. You don’t know it’s bad. You don’t know it’s going to ruin your life. You don’t know it’s going to steal your personality and turn you into a glorified zombie. You don’t know it’s going to sap all your energy and take away your ability to hold eye contact with anyone without feeling like they’ve sussed you out as an abject failure of a human being. You don’t know….anyway, you get the idea.
Crying
Before depression, I probably couldn’t tell you the last time I cried. During depression, Jesus.
The weird thing was the lack of reason. I would just spontaneously start crying apropos of nothing. No emotional trigger, it’d just happen. I’d be happily watching telly, chatting with mates and suddenly think, “You’re going to start crying, Jim”.
I’d get up, go to my room and cry for like an hour. For no reason. And I’m not talking simpering, sniffly tears, I’m talking face-aching, bawling my eyes out, throat wrenching, total loss of control crying.
I remember arranging to go on a date with some girl at about 1pm for some dinner. I was quite looking forward to it, then come 12 o’clock the floodgates opened and there I was again, knelt on the bedroom floor, face against the wall or bed or whatever, stomach cramping, all sorts. A mess.
Eyes suitably red and swollen I went on the date wearing aviator shades, presumably seeming like a right poser. I had to take them off at the dinner table and so to avoid any eye contact I had to strike a variety of erratic head contortions so all conversation would be directed to the side of my face.
I had a great time! Nice meal. Girl was amazing, really cool. Said our goodbyes… (Didn’t snog, it was a daytime date, often not conducive for romantic street snogging)…got home, went back to my room and there we go again, lying on the bed with my shoulders shaking.
Permanently embarrassed and/or ashamed
People are often surprised to find out their friends are depressed and come out with lines such as “Well he always seemed alright to me.” and such like. This is because they have no idea what is going on in their friend’s brain or what turmoil they are going to great lengths to cover up.
Example
I arrived at our local pub. This is already an ordeal. The feeling of walking through the door and everyone glaring at you, sensing what a loser you are, how shit your clothes look, what a mess your hair is, how laughable your demeanour is, immediately making you feel like your insides are burning, causing everyone to scoff at how sweaty you’re becoming. This was a bad idea, I should have stayed at home.
Once you’ve got your first drink, everything calms down. That’s alcohol for you. However this time, some alpha-male type, not really a friend of mine but enough to chat to, shouts,
“Jim! get us a …..”
it was pretty noisy and I kinda missed the last bit.
“A what?!” I shout back, already feeling the grip of dread rising in me, a shouted conversation across the pub drawing all sorts of judgmental attention. Alpha male shouts back and I don’t hear him again…something about coke so I plump for one with JD and hope for the best.
I sit down and hand him the drink, which he takes a sip of before pulling his face,
“Fuck sake Jim, I said vodka and coke”.
Fucking meltdown. Popular alpha male not only drawing attention to me but also making me look like a twat. I murmur some form of apology at having misheard and rush off to the toilet. I lock myself in the cubicle pouring with sweat, gushing out of me in a non-stop torrent. I take my t-shirt off before it gets totally drenched and shove it on the hanger on the door. I stand topless in the cubicle and sweat and sweat…the stress of the sweating only serving to intensify the problem. I just feel so fucking embarrassed and stupid, like everyone has seen what an undeniable waste of space I am. I reckon I’m in there a good 15 minutes before I gain some kind of composure, put my t-shirt back on, psych myself up and head back out into the action.
I sit back down like nothing’s happened.
“Where’ve you been?” says one of my mates.
“Just chatting to a guy from work.” I reply, and nothing more is spoken of it.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, when you say, “He always seemed alright to me.” you haven’t taken into account that when you thought he was happily chatting to his work colleague, he was actually stood half naked in a pub cubicle, sweating in shame and embarrassment.
Suicidal/Wanting to die
I can honestly say that throughout this period, I do not believe I was suicidal. I do however remember being desperate to die. When I went to bed, it would be with great hope that I wouldn’t wake up again. My brain was obviously fucked, I thought, so maybe it’ll just pack up in the night and I won’t live to see the next day. What a relief that’d be.
Crossing the road had also become an invitation of death. I’d never look before crossing and would step out with confidence in the assumption that I couldn’t get away with it every time. I had a few incidences where I’d get pomped by cars slamming on their brakes and I’d always feel fucking great afterwards. I’d walk off feeling totally exhilarated.
I think a part of me thought if I was ploughed down to the ground, it might smack my brain free of whatever was going on inside it, like hitting some kind of reset button and everything would be ok again.
Pinnacle/diagnosis.
Without going into too much detail, I was on holiday with family and friends and felt like permanent death. The crying was in full flow, pretty much like clockwork actually, so it was fairly easy to fit into a relaxed daily routine. Chill out by the pool then at around 3pm walk calmly inside, shut the bedroom door and bawl my eyes out for as long as it took. Head back outside, jump in the pool for a bit while my appearance regained normality…or at least the redness of my eyes could be put down to a chlorine reaction.
Anyway, over the holiday this routine was starting to build to a point where I felt like I was less and less in control of when these crying bouts were going to occur. Trips to the toilet during nights out were becoming more and more frequent so I could blast a quick cry out, or longish car journeys were pretty good, as long as you weren’t visible in any wing mirrors.
By this point I just didn’t want to exist anymore.
I was so fucking bored of feeling like there was absolutely nothing inside of me. Nothing was funny, nothing was sad, nothing was impressive, nothing was pleasing or displeasing, nothing could stoke any emotional reaction from me whatsoever. If I was laughing at anything, it was me pretending to laugh. If I was pleased for someone, it was me doing an impression of someone being pleased for someone. I couldn’t care less about anything or anyone. I was zombified. God knows who or what was in charge of my general motor functions at the time, but it certainly wasn’t me. My brain, soul, character, sense of humour, charisma had disintegrated and some kind of auto-pilot was keeping the ship moving through a half-life.
Until this point, no one had seen me crying.
One night, down some gaudy, boozy strip, my brother found me sat outside a club, tears cascading, stood me up and gave me a hug. The cat was out of the bag. If I was an aeroplane plummeting to inevitable doom, then my brother had jumped in and seized control.
Back home, I was sat chatting to some doctor about how shit I feel. (My brother had booked the appointment and marched me down there himself) I tell the doctor my alcohol consumption.
“A week?” he asks.
“A day” I reply.
“Well that has to stop.” he advises.
“Have you ever had suicidal thoughts or attempted to commit suicide?”
“No, but I’d be happy if I died.”
There was something about saying this that sent an electrical jolt up my spine. The sound of myself vocalising what I’d been feeling for so long suddenly sounded strangely ludicrous when spoken out loud. This couldn’t be right.
Humorous interlude.
I don’t know why, or if it’s normal, but the doctor was making vocal notes into a dictaphone, describing what I’d been saying, my habits etc. along with his own analysis. I found it a bit weird that he would do this in front of me given the sensitive nature of the discussion. Anyway, he then starts to describe me physically. Now I’d like to maintain that during the period of this depression, I was still quite a keen follower of fashion and generally tried to make an effort. I felt like I’d dressed fairly well for the doctors as I didn’t want to look like a total bum going in there talking about my woes. So I’m listening to him talking and he dictates,
“…medium length brown hair, unshaven, dishevelled in appearance…”
DISHEVELLED IN APPEARANCE.
Says it right there in front of me. Cheeky fucker.
Anyway, the doctor told me something about manic depression, gave me a prescription and set me up with some psychiatrist.
I immediately felt different. There’s something about being told there’s something wrong with you that makes you feel like there’s nothing wrong you. Being told you’ve gone a bit mental and so realising you haven’t gone mental.
This was by no means an end to the depression, it was just that now I knew what it was, and maybe I could figure out what to do about it.
End of part 1
I was going to do this as a 2 part thing, but I’m on a roll now, so I guess I’ll just carry on. The next bit’s pretty short anyway.
Part 2
Post diagnosis and beyond
I didn’t pick up my prescription and didn’t make any contact with the psychiatrist I’d been set up with. My head was a foggy mess, I had no real sense of who I was as a person anymore. I’d been acting happy with mates and crying by myself for so long that these had become my 2 main character traits, yet neither bore any resemblance to my original self. The idea of taking pills that did something to my brain didn’t appeal to me at all. I just wanted the fog to clear.
I realise some people will tell me the pills would have done this, but I dunno. I felt like I’d walked into this mess naturally so maybe I could get myself back out. My brain was fucked enough as it was; drugs were a definite no-no.
Running
Running is a God, a religion, a saviour, a necessity, a friend, an escape. Running is everything to me. My advice to anyone with depression, go running. All the time. It keeps the lows off the floor and tempers the highs.
Rather than give you a prescription for anti-depressants, doctors ought to hand over a JD Sports voucher and send you off for some boss running gear.
Manic highs
I don’t know if I like manic highs or not, they’re weird. They make you feel absolutely incredible, invincible, unstoppable, like you could conquer the world RIGHT NOW. The problem is your body feels so fucking great it doesn’t know what to do with it. You feel like a firework that’s been shot into the sky and you’re desperate to explode but it’s not happening. Building up and up with phenomenal euphoria but no release. You need to do something, ANYTHING to satisfy your sudden superpowers. You make a thousand plans for everything you could do or should’ve done. You’re going to become a productive monster starting NOW and everyone will know how great you are.
Then you wake up the next day and can’t be arsed again. Still, it’s pretty fun while it lasts.
Zero emotion
Once the permanent doom had subsided, I became lucid enough to realise none of my standard emotions had returned to the party. I still didn’t feel glad nor sad about anything. Still no pleasure in anyone’s achievements nor displeasure in anyone’s wrongdoing. Who cares?
Friends would tell me supposed great news. We’re engaged/pregnant/got a new job, insert whatever else one is expected to be publicly chuffed about. I found I couldn’t care less about any of them. So what? I’d spy a crestfallen countenance whenever I’d greet proud news broadcasts with a forced, “Oh right, nice one.”
I’d behave badly and not feel a hint of guilt, or hear some lurid gossip about someone else’s ill behaviour and think zero of it. Nothing is good, bad, right, wrong, ill advised or otherwise. Everything was zero. Even now I don’t believe my morals or emotions truly got back to full strength, as if depression gassed them out and left me with a depleted replacement version.
Knowledge is power
Earlier I said, the worst thing about depression is that before you know have it, you just have it. As such, I believe your best strength can indeed be knowing you have it, can recognise it and know exactly what it feels like and be able to react when it comes creeping back in. These days, I can sense the slightest hint of black fog the moment it breathes its grim breath and am able to blast it out before it manages to infect anything.
Go for a run, go for another, go for a swim, call a brother. Whatever it takes to feel tip top.
I don’t know if there’s some kind of switch inside you that releases the depression fog, but if there is, I think mine was previously protected by the world’s flimsiest balsa wood, caving in at the merest suggestion of anxiety. Now, with knowledge of the problem, I genuinely believe I have the switch stored deep within a thick, metal safe, multi locked, trapped in a chest down in a double bolted cellar of an alarmed and guarded house in a gated community. It’d take a tank with a serious axe to grind to get anywhere near it.
I sometimes think, maybe it’s just gone, maybe I’m totally better. So I’ll get complacent and ease off the running routine and feel pretty smug about it. Then the next day there’ll be a weird incident; I won’t be able to look a shop keeper in the eye or something, or I’ll get a bit anxious at a family party and I’ll know I’ve given the depression an inch and he’s fucking gagging to take a mile and drag me down to square one. No chance. Trainers on at the earliest opportunity, pound the streets, clear the cobwebs and dregs of whatever dirty ghost is trying to have its way with me.
It’s a bummer to think it’ll always be in there lurking and waiting for me to trip up, but it’s also pretty good to know I have a lot of power over it. I know I can take control of the depression and stop it taking control of me. That’s a pretty good feeling.
People need to talk about depression, get it out in the open where we can all see it and keep an eye on it. It thrives on being bottled up. That’s when it can reach its most potent and do the most damage. We need to open the bottle and allow it to be diluted by knowledge and conversation and fresh air. For me, running was and is everything. For you, or your friend, it could be something else. Talking and sharing ideas is everything depression doesn’t want people to do. Depression wants to be anonymous.
I guess I’m writing this as a way of sticking a big ‘WANTED’ poster on the wall. There’s its ugly face, let’s deal with it.
