Black holes and how to climb out of them

I want to talk about Depression.

It’s a strange word.

It can mean a dip in the ground.

It can refer to an economic slump whereby people lose their jobs, money, houses and wander about desperately looking for work and failing that, simply some bread and water enough to survive.

Or it can mean emotional dejection along a spectrum.

The first definition describes the lower end; the ‘blues’ everyone can feel from time to time that pass in a few hours, or days. You feel sad about something but pretty soon all the serotonin in your brain is back to normal and you feel pretty good.

But it is the middle definition that is more indicative of the devastating effects of the personal Depression of the latter. And it deserves a capital D because it is so all consuming.

I don’t find it an amusing topic but hats off to such as the writer, Stilgerrian who can imbue it with humour and thus bring a nasty taboo topic to attention of the great unwashed masses with the attention span of a- “hey look a squirrel!”

On his blog on July 4, Stilgherrian writes about his own depression in a witty and open way in the article My fish are dead: the black dog ate them (an explanation?).

“Well that’s fucked,” you think. “What the fuck made me do that utterly fucked-up thing? That’s utterly fucked up!”

Then you spend the next few hours, or days, staring into the abyss. Shaking is also traditional at this point. And pacing. Also, not pacing, but just sitting.”

Nobody wants to talk about Depression and half the time if it’s happened to you, you just want to forget it.

It truly sucks pond scum and I would rather inhale the 19,000 square kilometre algal bloom that recently floated up onto the shores of Qingdao in China.

Really. I’d give it my best effort, even if it took all my remaining years. Anything rather than feel like that again.

I first experienced depression (as many do) during the tumultuous torments of adolescent hormonal surges. You know the usual youthful flirtations with the meaning of life and your identity, but mine was a little more dire.

In my own family, my mother was a chronic depressive and both my brother and myself, as well as two male cousins and now both my sons, suffered from severe bouts of depression resulting in the necessity of drug intervention. Yah for super genes.

We all had suicidal thoughts. Nasty. Not funny. But damn does it feel good when the great black hole that was your existence is behind you and not even visible in the rear view mirror any more. You leave that m##$%f*@*ing misery behind in a cloud of dust as you roar hysterically and happily into your future.

 I wrote about my own depression {previously published in Baraciolli, Linda. (ed.) (2008). Women of Hope. Sydney: Connor  Court.} some time ago and the words still have the power to bring the memory of the feelings to life; a visceral and gut wrenching fear.

It was a time of madness. I remember lying on my bed, spreadeagled, another anxiety attack pounding my chest to pulp. I was so very tired. I was so hurt. But I had no fear. I was numb. I did not fear death, but worried that it would be the children who would discover me in the morning, an exploded blob of horrifying gore on the bed. Their little, appalled minds would be forever scarred, their lives forever marred by the whispered gossip of;  “...There go those boys whose mother self imploded all over her bedroom ceiling...” But now I had in effect already done that. Died. “So kill me,” I challenged the palpitations and lay there awaiting my physical death. Unconcerned, beyond caring.

I felt desolate and consumed by disbelief. I was drowning in an all-pervading grief. 

I felt annihilated.

In desperation, I took long cool baths in the middle of the night. I would try to ease my jumping nerves and relax, playing a tape softly on the stereo amid flickering candlelight. I played that tape over and over and over. It became my breathing.

Slowly I began to emerge from down in the pit of desolation where I resided. I felt the cold ceramic of the bath against my skin. I lay there night after night in the foetal position, scooped in the bath, being compressed back into my very essence by my grief. I was back in the womb. I felt I have never been closer to losing my very self. And grief is so very palpable. It is like a thing alive. And you don’t know this until you have experienced it, the tangible threads of its naked and raw yearning; to undo the past, to end the present. It is a heavy, dark pain that permeates the air and threatens to send you into madness. I had been reduced to the dirt and clay of which I had originally been made and was now being reshaped.

My depression began with my marriage breakdown, triggered by grief and I suffered from post traumatic stress (PTSS) into the bargain which was a bit of a bugger. But I can assure you, sometimes those truly awful feelings come for ‘no apparent reason’. Many of us are predisposed because of our genes and an event can trigger it or a chemical imbalance in the brain renders you into the syndrome unsolicited.

In the February 20 issue of Woman’s Weekly, Michael Sheather writes about Why Anxiety is our biggest problem. He claims that we (Australia) are in the midst of an epidemic and that “almost half the adult population will suffer from a mental illness issue at some time in their lives.”

Sheather talks about the prevalence of anxiety disorders that are widespread in Australia and affecting some 2.3 million people.

“The most common form of anxiety is post-traumatic stress disorder, followed in descending order by social phobia, generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), agoraphobia, panic disorder and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).

Depression , when people lose the ability to experience life’s pleasures is also far-reaching, spreading its gloom to more than a million people across the country.”

And sadly, anxiety and depression often go hand in hand. To combat this, many people turn to substance abuse in order to simply cope with day to day life. But the tragic reality of alcohol abuse in particular, is that too much alcohol is in fact a depressant; so while feeling euphoric for the few hours of partying, the aftermath the next morning can be difficult to bear, intensifying the already painful feelings of depression and dissociation, resulting in desperate, impulsive behaviour that can be disastrous.

Psychiatrist, Professor Hickie (Sydney University Brain and Mind Research Institute) told Sheather that while women report a higher incidence of depression and anxiety, men run the highest risk of suicide. Women are traditionally ‘more in touch with their feelings’ and seek help earlier than men who try to problem solve and end up self-medicating if left undiagnosed. Hence the higher suicide rate.

Professor Hickie suggests if you don’t think you know someone with mental health issues, then you don’t know the people close to you very well.

In the last few years the topic has become more prevalent in the media and in particular trying to address the problem with men. Beyond Blue are doing a fantastic job in reaching out to men in our community, paralysed by their condition and suffering in silence because of the stigma. It is people such as Stilgerrian and the young Oli Shawyer who are broaching the taboo topic and bringing it to Australian men at long last.

On Mamamia in May Oli Shawyer writes Heartbreaking, socially crippling, isolating anxiety. This is what it feels like.  It is a profoundly honest and open account that Oli bravely gives us.

“I used to sit on the train in to work crying as I stared out the window – trying to convince myself that everything was going to be ok – that I could get through the day. I used to look at everyone else through my sunglasses and wish I was them. They smiled. They laughed. They didn’t smile. They didn’t laugh. I didn’t care – I just figured they were better off than I was…

 I no longer had any control over my thoughts and I’d somehow developed the ability to take a truly trivial topic, and in the same draw of breath, allow it to transform into a monster of self-destruction. ”

I don’t know why it is such a stigma here or why Aussie blokes have such difficulty in admitting to depression and anxiety. I suppose it’s the myth based on a pioneering people of strong, silent types who beat the unforgiving landscape of the Australian outback to eke out an existence in one of the harshest environments on the planet.

But people, that was a long time ago in a land, far, far away in time and space.

To say you’re feeling bloody miserable in a modern urban environment where there is little to be sad about (you’re relatively wealthy, good job, great wife/girlfriend, fabulous kids… a first world problem) seems self indulgent and well, wussy.

Depression is a mental illness and as such is at the core of you; a matter of who you are. You must be inherently broken if you are depressed; such is the thought processes when you are under its influence. But you have to realise, or get those you love who are suffering from it, that that is simply not true.

That is the most difficult thing to overcome in all of it; the debilitating, destructive thought processes that are just lies you tell yourself.

We are at base, creatures made up of some 80% water and a few bits and pieces of chemicals and minerals encased in an organic container. But man can those few millilitres of chemicals cause a lifetime of misery and heartache for you and all whom you touch.

The light is not apparent at the end of the tunnel, just the long darkness ahead with no seeming end. More lies, but the seductive power of those dark tendrils that weave about you in the shadow of your mind.  So compelling and omnipotent when you are wrestling the blackness.

But gentlemen, let me ask you; When you have to put up a shed on the property, don’t you call in a few mates?

When you’re constructing the granny flat for the mother-in-law don’t you call on your mates to help? Eventually- no rush after all.

When you have to pull the motor out of your car, don’t you hire a hoist?

Sometimes my fine, strong men of Australia; you can’t do it alone.

And it’s ok really. It’s not your fault. It’s a microscopic malfunction like in the Apollo 13- you remember that catastrophe? It was all down to a fault in a thermostatic switch; a little bitty part among thousands. The astronauts fault? No.

Nor is Depression yours. But how you deal with it is. Do everyone a favour. Get help and live your life happily in just a few easy lessons.

Really.

And one more thing before I go; if it was your mate suffering depression what would you do and what would you think of him? You'd help. I know you would. And you'd tell him it wasn't his fault. So give yourself a break.

HELP:

There’s a gazillion. Here’s some to be getting on with though:

Start with Your GP

Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636  http://www.beyondblue.org.au/
Head Space: 1800650890

The Black Dog Institute: blackdoginstitute.org.au

The Mood Gym: https://moodgym.anu.edu.au/welcome

Mind Health Connect: http://www.mindhealthconnect.org.au/depression/depression-3

Lifeline Australia:131114