Depression is the pits: Every single human being is potentially prone to it as a normal part of dealing with the World at some point in their lives. Most people understand it now. I think/hope.
How I have dealt with it has changed since my first official diagnosis at the tender age of 20, back in 2001. I still encounter it, quite a lot actually. It's like puberty and spots: I imagined that from the age of 16 until 21 I would get spots and then they'd magically disappear, never to return. No one offered me the sage advice that the beginning of puberty (for me, physically, around the age of nine or 10) was the start of irreversible changes to my body and mind and I lacked the confidence to follow those lines of inquiry as I developed.
Similarly, with depression, I started with the assumption that it was an illness like a cold. And for many, it can be: Mourning the loss of a loved one is, in simplified terms, depression and tends to be a one off, or at least one per loved one. In some cases the mourning period may last until the survivor's own death but apparently this isn't too common.
I was lucky enough to have chronic depression, falling into a series of vicious circles and patterns of destructive behaviour: Over-eating and terrible sleep patterns (what's the point in going to bed at a reasonable time, only to be awake for most of the day feeling as if I wanted the Earth to swallow me up?) to name but two.
The scariest 'symptom' was and is suicidal ideation. Or thinking about and acting out suicide. I never succeeded, which on one level only further reinforced the idea that I was worthless and incapable of anything I put my mind to. Nuts, huh? I don't remember each suicide attempt but a couple stick out:
December 1997, my first trudge up to the cliffs, convinced I was unloved and unloveable, writing a suicide note because at 16 that seemed the right thing to do. Tell the parents it's not their fault, it's mine. It seemed rational and logical at the time.
July 2008, taking lots of pills and getting the train to London Bridge, scene of my 'failure' back in 2003 to be one of those people who commutes and earns lots more money than they need. The pills were 'something to calm the nerves' and totally inappropriate for ending my life. I slept a lot afterwards. I also changed GP at this juncture to one who 'got' mental illness, instead of skirting awkwardly around words like 'suicide'.
January 2nd, 2014 - my life was going great, I had obtained a promotion at work to a supervisory role, I was fit and healthy, no reason to take my own life.
And that's just the problem right there: Reason. As if suicide is a reasonable and logical act. I remember the most recent attempt because it was as if my brain had been hijacked by something else.
You see, between 2007 and 2014 I had gone to The Priory and learned very useful CBT techniques. CBT doesn't mean depression is banished forever, which in the intervening years I will freely admit I had started to believe - or more likely desperate hope blinded me to the fact that I have a chronic condition. And like any other chronic condition it needs monitoring and the thing that worked at the start won't necessarily work further down the line. The body and mind adapt. And that tinny voice, telling me I'm crap and unworthy and unlovable and "Why don't you just kill yourself?!" slips back in when my guard is down.
I learned that my depression is the result of the pushing down of emotional feeling and response to the point where all that's left is cold, rational me. Like a robot. There's no colour in the World and so the computer program leads inexorably to dictating that I kill myself. There are no other options.
So when I 'found' myself at Beachy Head, after spending the day running away from the trappings of my life, writing crazed stuff in a notebook about how I just wanted the World to slow down to allow me space to breathe and how people expect so much more for so much less, blah blah blah... I couldn't believe it.
How could this happen? I'm not depressed anymore!
WRONG!
I am, it's part of me. Although there are things I can do to stave off the worst excesses of depressive episodes, it's still there. I no longer take medication for the condition. Personal choice. I am capable of managing it. However, it has meant that I've had to make changes to the way I live my life. I am back living with my parents which in the past was a trigger for feelings of low self-worth. Now, I see the value of having a support network in the immediate vicinity. I need that, or else I tend towards destructive behaviour. Not that binge-eating and terrible sleep patterns goes away, of course. I have also learned that, despite my radiant English rose complexion, I crave heat and sunlight. I am a Summer person and in the Winter months all I want to do is hibernate. This may sound, to an outsider, as stating the bleeding obvious but I had never allowed myself mindful inspection of who I am before 2008. I didn't know who I was until I really started looking at myself, without judgement, and observing how I feel.
As I type, the wind is howling and it is almost the anniversary of my last attempt. I can honestly, hand on my heart (but today, not hoping to die), say that right now I am loving life again. I've been here before though so I can forgive myself for being cautious when I say this: It doesn't mean I won't ever feel suicidal again. I won't beat depression because there's nothing to beat - it is everything and nothing all at once: True chaos - A will o' the Wisp luring me off the firm path in the boggy swamp, ready to drag me over the edge if I let it.
I have lots to say and I'd love to help people, especially if they suffer with depression and haven't learned how to manage it yet. But there's another thing about depression: It has a self-protective mechanism whereby it turns a person in on themselves to the point where they aggressively deny its very existence and any kind of therapy is referenced in disparaging terms. "Hippy dippy" is a common one, or "New Age crap".
So, if anyone apart from myself ever reads this, my best advice to you or a loved one suffering with depression is:
Tell your inner critic to fuck off. Go fuck itself. Do one!
Because all the patterns of destructive behaviour, all the ways we hurt ourselves to prevent us from becoming what we can be, stems from that nasty little voice in the head telling us to be quiet, or that we're rubbish, or it's our fault, or everyone else's fault.
It's the same voice, arguably, that warns us not to stick our collective hands into fires. But over time, we've learned that it's not a good idea to have third degree burns. So that voice sticks around, it latches on to negativity and morphs into the insensitive pricks we meet in life who do us harm and becomes them, in our heads.
We are our own worst critics because, you know, if someone else tells me I'm crap then I must be - so if I tell myself I'm crap all the time then I won't ever try and so no one will ever be in a position to tell me that I'm crap.
People try to sugar coat it by labelling us as Perfectionists or Sensitive (as if that's a bad thing).
I'm not: I'm a depressive. It also means I get stuff, because I have become very good at introspection. I am empathic. I give a shit. All those years, that little voice told me I was the polar opposite of these characteristics that, for want of better terminology, I find to be good ones.
I think this is enough for a first post. Typed at an unsociable hour, as the wind howls, as I emerge into 2015 from another black Christmas. But boy do I feel better for getting this down, out of my head, somewhere I can see it and pin down those elusive thoughts. Observe, without judgement, how I feel.
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