The Dark Illness of Perception by Alan M.
Not long ago, I discovered DAS and have already benefitted from making contact. I am extremely grateful to all who help and contribute to the much needed cause. Trish asked if I could give a “note” of my experience of depression. I hope that this helps someone, anyone, even only one! It has already helped me. When mentioned 500 words, a friend said, ”So, just the intro’ then?” I blether, it’s a trait - one of a few (used to be many) that I work against - honest! With that…
Whatever you call it-Black Dog”,”Fog” etc. my experience of clinical depression is of a living hell, a night without any dawn breaking It is potentially fatal. I call it “The Bottle Dungeon”. Why? As a child, the annual holiday was often in St.Andrews (no further forward are you? See - I do blether!). It was an underground cell in the shape of a flat – bottomed bottle with a single entry/exit - very narrow neck allowing light to enter tormenting the wretched occupants. They would crawl up the walls towards the light(and freedom) only to learn that the walls, started to work against them as they climbed, sapping what little energy they had, leaving even less for the next futile, desperate attempt. Eventually - confession and removal or starvation and the bleak end. Are you with me now?
Each day I tried to crawl out of depression I fell back in the same way. Why bother? It would only return anyway, and, one definition of insanity is the repetition of the same action expecting a different result-so, wasn’t I sinking further into insanity each time? The debates with the “internal bully” were frankly “nae a fair fight”.
What right did I have to be depressed? In late 2002 I was an Advocate, busy, a recovered alcoholic 5 years sober (now 11+ years at the time of writing thanks to many people!), popular (I kept being told!) Clearly it was my fault . Had someone else related their history as mine, I’d have seen it as a debilitating illness needing support and treatment. In me however-it was a fault, a failing, an error, something else to use to beat myself up. I had read, but forgotten, the words of The Talmud, quoted in Elizabeth Wurtzel’s “Prozac Nation”-“We do not see things as they are, we see them as WE are”.
That is why I call this the illness of perception. Take a calculator, move 4 to 7, 3 to 8, 2 to 6 – now try for an accurate calculation - see? In my illness, the number buttons have been jumbled just like that for some reason and “reason” is the first thing to go.
Eventually,in April 2003, I tried to hang myself, just to end the torture, to punish God and get peace. I remember thinking” Right God, if this is the life you’ve planned for me, you can f—in’ have it back, you backed the wrong horse, infallible my arse!! The cord snapped and I beat myself up about yet another failure.
I (re)made and (re)drank my last coffee, (re)had a last fag and (re)washed and dried the cup, saucer and ashtray - no mess to be left! (A body didn’t seem to feature in my thinking). Cord (re)snaps(!) toss coin and call Murray Royal in Perth rather than go to Homebase for rope. Examined, admitted and, "Yeeha!!" - a consultant who agreed - what right did I have to be depressed? I was simply avoiding my problems, time to straighten up and fly right - clearly! She equated obtaining a Law Degree/career with losing the ”right” to mental illness. Her discovery that I had written a guidebook to the 1984 Mental Health(Scotland) Act sealed my fate I think. Two weeks and thrown out (that’s me not her - she did not last much longer though).
I was turfed out, no CPN or support with pills in hand. There followed three nightmare years and a further admission, although, to a wholly different atmosphere and ethos. I could write a book (I might yet) on that stay as a “user”, as patients were called at that point - God knows which eejit thought that supposedly PC, less offensive term up!! The consultant was amazing, a real credit to his profession and his help, guidance and gentle cajoling brought me into that light. The nursing, auxiliary and cleaning staff couldn’t have been of greater support, not soft, but wonderful people. Dr. C treated patients as I did clients and court staff – we all had a contribution to make.
I am truly humbled to have met them and the fellow patients who helped, each in their own way, and some now gone before their time.
In the Murray Royal grounds sits The Walled Garden (café) – a sanctuary! If you are in the area it is well worth visiting. It served as the third massive hurdle cleared by two of us, the first was the door of the ward, the second the hospital shop 50 or so yards from the ward. Bonds are made quickly and deeply in hospital similar to prison (I’m told!). Three of us spent hours there, simply sharing – a massive factor in recovery. If you talk about it, it can’t fester in your head in the same way.
There is way more I could write but…
Three years on I have come to accept the anti-depressants in the same way a diabetic does insulin, albeit in my case, I still test the “I must be alright by now” theory.
I now hope to work in the area of helping others who are facing up to similar demons - many not mentioned here. To hear someone say, “I know how you feel, it WILL change” and see in their eyes that they actually do, is often a huge step towards that light. It was for me. I now know what hell they had come through to earn the right to say it with a disarming sincerity. To my father and my sister, no words can adequately thank them, only seeing me grow (even if 2 steps forward 1 back a lot of the time). Some days I get reminders of what that hell was like. I need them, I’m not cured, I am, like so many of us, on a journey that has its own turns, lay-bys, and, the occasional puncture!
A good friend hit me between the eyes about suicide during a visit. ”You’ll always have that option - the simple fact is that we all do BUT if you take it, you’ll never have another. Some time ago you would not have accepted you’d feel like this BUT it happened. So you now have to accept that sometime in the future you WILL feel differently - that your life is worth the living”. Thankfully, I hear as well as listened and it is worth living; changed in ways I could never have imagined and would never have planned. There’s a new route map, one including the views, support and honest criticism from others I love and trust.
I thank everyone who was/is there for me. There ARE others here for you .
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