Thursday 22 March 2012

Help! I'm losing my mind to depression!

Dear reader,

Those dark, heavy days have caught up with me once more. A fat-grey bellied cloud follows me around and something sits heavy on my chest. I am struggling once again with day-to-day life. I still attend group therapy everyweek - in fact, I had a session this morning where I spent the hour sobbing fat tears, panting like a baby, trying to catch a breath. To be honest with you, I am at a cross-roads - where do I go from here? I take the maximum dosage of anti-depressants to help me daily, I have undergone CAT therapy, I have undergone CBT, counselling - call them what you like, but now I am trying group therapy and I am still in bits. Will I ever be able to exorcise this demon?

The answer to my own question is I do not know... but what I do know is that I have no choice but to try for as long as I exist (and I'm barely doing that just now, sleeping 18 hour days) I have to try. Where am I going with this - apart from releasing a bit of steam from the pressure cooker, I guess what I am trying to say is that even though things are hard just now (a bit of an understatement, try bloody-well impossible!), I guess in some ways therapy is a place for me to exist - exist in a different climate, to cocoon in a safe place to talk to other like-minded individuals, who offer shared anecdotes, jokes, their own woes and above all, the one thing a non-sufferer and most of society cannot offer you, EMPATHY. A shared understanding of the horrors that salvage your body and mind as this poison flows through your being.

Because, accept it as we must whether we like it or not, there are not many people in our working lives, personal lives or social lives who can understand this - they can try, but they are only human, after all, and become annoyed by us. We can seem, at times, self-indulgent (though why we would wish to indulge in mind-blowing pain, I do not know) we can test the patience of others, but, at the end of the day we are suffering. As the adage goes: just as a person suffers a sore leg and needs help, so too does a depressed person.

I am about to sign off and retreat to my bed on his gorgeous warm spring day - I can't choose life at the moment, because I have no choice. Depression has chosen me and subsequently, I am exhausted. I need my rest. What I want to say to all you out there is please get in touch if you wish to talk, because, although it may not seem it at the moment, talking and having some empathy from others has helped me slightly. Someone, I believe, saved my life today. How long for, I do not know. But as long as I exist, I will have to try and fight for my life.

Goodnight for now.

Thursday 1 March 2012

Group Therapy



Dear reader,

I heard someone refer to an image the other day of a duck treading water - a duck that, on the surface, looks to be calmly gliding through life, yet underneath the aforementioned duck's legs are frantically flapping about, attempting to keep afloat. This is how I have felt recently.

Trying to put on a brave face, I have been getting through my days by treading water, putting the looming, ominous feelings associated with my depression to the back of my mind... yet deep down, I am frantically paddling, trying to keep afloat. You see, at the moment everyday is a struggle. The all too familiar destructive behaviours associated with my depression are back and, not usually one to lie down to defeat, I try to battle these behaviours on a daily basis, but let me assure you it is hard... Depression exhausts the sufferer making to difficult to fight. It eats your days, your time, and these are things that cannot be recycled and reused later. Depression has the unfair advantage.

I have been recently attending Group Therapy - a form of talking therapy in which 10 sufferers of depression and/ or anxiety/ addictive behaviours meet up on a weekly basis to discuss and provide advice on depression and its behaviours (this is something I would like to write about in more detail in the next coming months). Although in the early days, I have found this therapy most helpful - certainly more helpful than the other forms of therapy I have undergone before.

What makes this different from other talking therapies you ask? The difference is that this type of therapy challenges the traditional approach of patient and doctor. Instead, a group of sufferers bring their stories to a group situation each week to discuss their obstacles in life and the problems depression brings to their life; what makes this therapy useful is that every person in the room is in the same boat: we are all sufferers of depression despite having very different backgrounds and very different stories. It has been refreshing and has even challenged some of my stereotypes.

One thing we all have in common is depression and in spite of our different backgrounds( one group member is an ex alcoholic; one had abuse issues; one has lost his children; I have major self-esteem and some childhood issues and so on) we all share common symptoms of depression: fatigue, sadness, isolation, disengagement, low self- esteem. However, one of the approaches to improvement is to think about destructive behaviours that depressed sufferers have and how to combat these... This made me think of mine...

 My destructive behaviours include: burning the midnight oil by staying up past midnight (it is 2.48am as I write this and I have to get up at 6am for work) thinking about and anticipating the days ahead with dread; working myself to the ground when I have deadlines to hit, not taking time out for me, closing myself in and isolating myself from my peers by not attending social occasions, not seeing or speaking to family or friends if I can help it, cleaning my house frantically, taking too many painkillers to combat the piercing, throbbing headaches I get (mainly because I am sitting up to all hours in the morning) and sleeping too much during the day- what are yours?

As I sign off, I think about these behaviours and really wonder if they contribute to the cycle of depression I find myself in or is depression something that is inherently in us? Will I ever be able to exorcise this demon?