Debra - Interview 40

Age at interview: 43

Age at diagnosis: 34

Brief Outline: Debra has experienced anxiety and panic attacks for 22 years and was diagnosed with depression nine years ago. In Debra's experience the anxiety and depression are linked, and she often experiences depression following a period of bad anxiety. To help her mental health, she has used a combination of medication and different therapy techniques, including psychotherapy and mindfulness. Debra completed a mental health qualification and is volunteering as a mental health peer support worker.

Background: Debra is engaged to her partner, with whom she shares a home. Her two children from her first marriage live with their father. She is currently volunteering and studying part-time. Ethnic background' Anglo-Australian.

More about me...

Debra’s father was her ‘hero’ when she was growing up and someone whom she spent a lot of time with. His death, when she was 10, had a profound impact upon Debra. Debra excelled at school, both academically and in sport, dedicating her achievements to her father. 

 

She was often compared more favourably to her twin while she was growing up. This added pressure to excel academically and socially and saw her anxiety increase, particularly when she was completing her Higher School Certificate. At the age of 22, thinking she had something in her throat, Debra went to hospital. The doctors ran a series of tests but concluded she had experienced a panic attack and was given a tranquiliser. The physical symptoms of these attacks include ‘rapid breathing, sweating and diarrhoea and afterwards, more general anxiety’. At 24, Debra had a psychiatric evaluation and was diagnosed with panic attacks, catastrophic thinking and obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

 

Debra was referred to a psychologist and started psychotherapy. This was helpful but her psychologist also recommended antidepressants. She can’t remember exactly which antidepressant she first tried but since then has taken a number of different antidepressants. She has previously changed her dosage herself, but has since decided to follow her doctor’s instructions.

 

Debra married at 25 and had two children. When her first child was born Debra felt ‘tired, anxious and wanted to just curl up and hideaway’. With her second child Debra found herself struggling with two children and the loss of her career. She experienced ‘general anxiety and panic attacks’ but found that as her children grew older she felt better.

 

When her children were still under 5 years of age, Debra found her marriage breaking down, but moved house and made a fresh start. However, nine years ago experiencing distress and struggling with her mental health Debra placed her children in the care of their father as she found that she could not sufficiently care for them and take care of herself. Through her GP Debra was referred to a hospital outpatient service, through which she saw a psychologist and a psychiatrist. Getting better for Debra began with psychotherapy, taking antidepressants and moving in with her brother. 

 

Debra uses a number of strategies she has learned through psychotherapy to deal with her distress and has recently been introduced to mindfulness therapy by her current psychologist. She has read a number of self-help books and received information from a mental health organisation. She plans to have another psychiatric evaluation in the near future to help her understand and assess her current mental health and determine future treatment options.

 

Today she addresses her depression with counselling, through volunteering, beginning a new career in mental health and with medication. Debra feels productive and independent, which contributes to her positive frame of mind. She is currently seeing her psychologist under a mental health plan and is concerned that without this she support she could get worse. Debra would like some assistance in finding employment. She has a supportive network of family and friends, particularly her fiancé and her sister and is now able to see her children on a more regular basis.

 

Debra aims to reduce her medication and hopes to not require therapy in the future. She feels positive about working in mental health and hopes to use her experiences to assist other people who face similar issues. She is pleased that awareness about mental health has improved since she was first diagnosed and feels that there is less stigma, and a wider range of services. She would advise anyone experiencing depression to utilise ‘as many services as possible’.

 

Debra described her depression as a very emotional experience, but over the years she learned how...

To, for depression it's emotion. It's very emotional, very teary, very very down, very there's not light at the end of the tunnel. Very I can't cope with doing things, I'm going to burst into tears. I can't think about certain things because they're going to make me very sad. Also on the other side too it can make me very irritable as well in a sense that if I'm feeling down and somebody says some, something to me that I don't like or anything I will react differently to how I normally would react. You know I probably, you know I'll be more snappier or I'd start crying or, or something like that. 

 

And I had that last week because I take, put the Kalma up to one milligram and so I felt like an absolute failure that I wasn't able to cope with half a milligram of Kalma. And just felt very down and very, very tearful and very emotional about the fact that I wasn't able to reach that goal, wasn’t able to hit that expectation. So then I refer back to what we call my toolbox, which, you know, is, is full of all sorts of psychotherapy and, and medication as well. And so I try to put that psychotherapy tools into use and today's not so bad.

 

Debra described the process of bringing her GP and other mental health care providers into...

Well the GP originally diagnosed the postnatal depression but that had, I'd, gone, you know, I wasn't in postnatal depression at the time. The GP basically referred me to the psychologist and also the psychiatrist and that's pretty much all he did really. He, the only other thing he did was the medication side of things. So I was getting counselling from the psychologist. I was seeing the psychiatrist for medication and they were trying me on different sorts of medication and then I was seeing the GP to get the medication. So the GP was really only the dispensary I suppose for the medication. But I was seeing the psychologist and the psychiatrist.

 

Before, in December when I was about the leukaemia he was very, very supportive there as well. I was in such a state that they were going to inject me with Valium because unfortunately - well there's a story I guess there. Unfortunately my GP and I haven't been completely on the same page with my mental health plan. Because he has the responsibility of prescribing the medication, so I completely understand that side of things but I completely also trust my psychologist. 

 

So if my psychologist and I come to certain agreements with certain things, whether it be psychotherapy, whether it be medication, it's been hard to transfer that into the GP type, type of things as well. 

 

Especially when it comes to the benzo - because, you know, GPs are encouraged not to prescribe the benzos. But my psychologist and I have a plan for the hurdle that I seem to create for myself in coming off the benzo. We're looking at it more as a journey now rather than an achievement or something like that. It's taken a bit for me to feel that my GP is on the same page with my mental illness as what my psychologist and I are. But we are now on the same page so that's good. Because my psychologist actually came in and had an appointment with myself and the GP and it was around about December. 

 

Debra was positive about her psychologist's ability in and approach to helping her to better...

I've been seeing a wonderful psychologist it's very important to be able to get a really good therapist as well. Someone that can listen to you and can - my psychologist actually says to me, can, can articulate to me what's going on in my head. You know, which is absolutely fantastic. Once again the old pedestal comes into act with me, I set myself very high expectations being an overachiever. So if I am trying to come down off medication and it doesn't work the way I want it to then that also fuels the depression and the anxiety as well. 

 

I can tend to look at my mental illness as sometimes very black and white. There's a wrong way or a right way or a yes or a no way. I'm working at the moment with therapy to tackle that a different way using mindfulness as well as a way to treat it. But yes I'm hope, I've requested to go and have a psychiatric evaluation after I found out about the leukaemia. And then see whether I get re, whether it's a re-diagnosis of whether it's just anxiety and whether it is anxiety and depression. This will actually probably be my first psychiatric evaluation since the last breakdown nine years ago. 

 

Losing her father at the age of 10 was a life-defining moment for Debra.

My father passed away at, when I was 10, which I found very hard as I had a, quite a good relationship with him - was a tomboy, did a lot of things with him. Found that once he had gone I felt a little lost.

 

My father was born with a bad heart so he wasn't actually allowed to do a lot as a child. I felt that a lot of the things that we did together he was able to enjoy through me doing them because he wasn't able to do them as a child. I was very, very close to my father. Where I was outside doing things with him my twin sister would be inside doing things with my mum. My brother was only five when my father died so I didn't really have much to do with him in the early years of him being a baby. 

 

But the loss of my father really did have an effect on me that I probably wasn't as much aware of until I started to hit my teenage years and started to achieve things - scholarships at school, passing HSC, dedicating them all to my father. And also things like getting married, you know, him not being there. Having my first baby, him not being there. So that loss really did have a profound effect on me. 

I don't really remember doing much with Mum I must admit in the early years, you know, Mum was a housewife, good housewife, you know. 

 

So it was a really big shock for her. But I really did do pretty much everything with my dad. He was actually my hero.

 

Debra felt judged because of her depression and that she was seen as a 'bad' mother.

The main thing was the fact that the kids went to their father that was the, the big, big factor and people judging me for that as well, you know. And when I did the rehabilitation course back into the workforce for people with mental illnesses I even had people judging me doing that. Why is she doing that? You know, she's, why is she doing that? She gave her kids up, you know, her kids went to their father. Why is she doing that?

 

And it was like, well hang on a minute. Okay, maybe I had to do that but I've done it for the kids' own good. It hasn't been an easy decision and I live with it every day of my life and it hurts me every day of my life. But I've kept in contact with them, I support them financially. I support them as a mother, even though he moved them three and a half hours away. So there's another nasty little thing there. But I've been in their lives, you know, since that's happened. But people didn't think I deserved to have a life because I've done that. 

 

Because I, my kids had to go and, and, you know, live with their dad. So a lot of judgement there as well with mental illness. A lot of judgement around the depression. A lot of people can identify with anxiety and high anxiety and stress I guess. But a lot of people can't identify with you're that depressed that you feel like you're sinking to the bottom of a black pit and you will not find your way back up again, you know. But it's, that's, yeah.