Enduring

Over the last year or so I have felt how I think it must be to come out, or to struggle publicly with a very alternative lifestyle. I’ve decided to be very open with my mental health struggles, for the first time in my life, rather than hide them. And what a fight, both against other people and myself!

It took me a long time to realise that I suffered from clinical depression. Looking back I have been sick all my life – I can remember times that I would now label as being depressed, even when I was only 6 or 7, perhaps even younger. I was a very nervous child, scared of everything, and anxiety has stayed with me all my life. And when I was a young teenager I had crippling OCD. But that was decades ago and I didn’t know then that there was such a thing as OCD, let alone that something should be done about it – not that anything probably could. And in retrospect I had spells of severe, incapacitating depression as a young adult, which I just attributed to life events. It never struck me until recently that I was really rather ill. Severe depression isn’t like being very sad: It’s mental agony, like someone stabbing you in your soul with a red-hot knife. Everything is pointless, there is no pleasure in the world, and all you can think of is death. I still suffer from obsessive thinking too, and we now think excessive rumination on negative things plays an important role in depression.

Now at last I can see my life in context.

In a way realising how ill I’ve been, and still am, and deciding to seek professional help, has been liberating and life changing. It has taken years of experimentation to find the best medication. It has taken years to find the best form of therapy. Now at last I can see my life in context and am feeling the benefits. Last year I felt good enough to experiment with reducing my medication – against my psychiatrist’s advice. What a disaster! I now accept I will probably have to stay on this level of medication all my life. And there will still be relapses. But I have learned that every relapse lasts 6-8 weeks, so it’s just a question of enduring it. Counting the seconds if necessary, and plotting a chart of my daily mood on a 1-7 scale waiting for the upturn.

The prevailing view in society is still very much that people who are depressed are just weak, and should pull themselves together – a view held even among some of my psychologist friends. These people wouldn’t dream of saying to someone with cancer that they should just “snap out of it.” In the UK long-term mental illness should be treated as a disability just like long-term physical illness, but in practice it is often quite a fight to be recognised. So we are fighting on two fronts: Illness and discrimination, or put more kindly, lack of awareness. I think it is the duty of those of us who can to talk about mental illness, at least when we are well enough to do so.

But I am not weak; mental illness has made me stronger.

My mother (who I think is quite ill herself) has not helped, saying things like “what have you got to be depressed about?”, “you should just be stronger,” and “I don’t believe in pills,” while happily taking all sorts of medication for her “physical” symptoms. But I am not weak; mental illness has made me stronger. It has tested my resolve, and if I can face this level of pain and torture, I know I can face anything. I am sick and strong.

When things improve as they do for me from time to time, life seems better than good. Colours are brighter when I am well, and wine tastes better. Perhaps my depression isn’t as unipolar as I’ve assumed. Glad to be mad? Not quite, but almost.

Professor Trevor Harley
Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Dundee
Author, Public speaker, Lifestyle consultant, Dreamer, Loony, and Stand-up comic
My website; www.trevorharley.com
Blog: http://whatisthemeaningofmylife.com
Email: trevor.harley@mac.com