Susan - Interview 22

Age at interview: 61

Brief Outline:

Susan has experienced depression numerous times over the course of her life. While she has not been medically diagnosed she characterises her experience as depression and takes antidepressant medication (sertraline). In addition, she finds exercise, spending time with friends and family, and pursuing her interests in music and photography helpful.

Background:

Susan is a retired academic. She has a civil partnership with her same sex partner. Ethnic background' Anglo-Celtic.

More about me...

Susan’s family moved around overseas numerous times. She first experienced depression when she was 22 and living in England. This was linked to what she describes as a ‘disastrous' first relationship that was 'emotionally devastating’. She says during this time she felt ‘ghastly' and was abusing alcohol and marijuana. She moved to Sweden to be with her parents and recovered but still recalls this time with great sadness. Susan was not diagnosed with depression at this time but describes this experience as depression.  

 

When Susan was 28 she returned to Australia and became involved in a series of unhappy relationships that further contributed to her depression. She consulted a doctor, who prescribed diazepam. During this time she took a camping trip with her brother, which she says helped her to get better, as did meeting her current partner. Although Susan has never been medically diagnosed with depression, she says she thinks of her episodes of sadness and grief as depression. She describes her depression as a ‘tide, or a wave that ebbs and flows’, and uses the metaphor of a ‘basin, which at certain times can overflow due to grief or stress’. When this happens Susan consults her GP, who she has an excellent, long-term relationship with. Susan would prefer not to take medication, but acknowledges it has been helpful.

 

Recently Susan has experienced depression related to the death of her mother, her voluntary redundancy and ceasing her involvement in her community choir. Her mother’s death has been extremely difficult, particularly the deterioration of her mother’s health before she died, and having to sell her mother’s home. Her partner has been extremely supportive of her during this time. The anniversary of her mother’s death has been a particularly difficult time for Susan. She has spoken with a grief counsellor and has found this to be very helpful.

 

Susan has a number of strategies to help herself, including maintaining her exercise, keeping in touch with her social network both online, via Facebook, and friends she regularly sees for lunches or breakfasts. She also absorbs herself in music, photography and learning languages, or by cooking. 

 

Susan describes recovery from depression as regaining her 'zest for life', or her 'joie de vivre’. She has regained an interest in goals and desires for the future, particularly places she wants to travel to. She would encourage anyone experiencing depression to consult their doctor and remember their family. 

 

Susan described her depression as an overwhelming sadness combined with questioning her reason...

Well it’s, it depends on how you define depression really and if you define depression as feeling like there is absolutely no point to anything whatsoever and you know why on earth are you alive, and what's the point and you might as well, you know, cut your losses and go and jump under a train. That's what I was experiencing in (country name), while I was deciding what to do.

 

Ah, and I can’t even think of (city name) now without feeling that terrible feeling of aaah, just such a profound sense of – not even sadness; I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just kind of darkness in the soul. So I think that that was depression.

 

And what I was thinking was ah it's sort of like a basinful of water, you know, the plug is in the basin and - but the tap is dripping so you – when you, you've got that sort of terrible sense of hopelessness kind of hovering, it's like that basin is getting fuller and fuller and even the slightest more drip will make it overflow, and the grief is the plug but the water that's filling up is the depression. That's sort of how I - that's a metaphor for me, how it feels. So, you know, to unplug the grief will let the depression out, but it's really difficult to unplug the grief because grief is there. 

 

I remember standing in the kitchen one day and I had this - this beautiful white mug that I used to have all my- you know, drink tea and coffee out of, it was my mug and it had a big black S on it for Susan, and it was given to me by somebody that I’ve, I loved and I remember lifting it above my head and crashing it down onto the quarry tile floor of the kitchen and then thinking to myself, why did I do that? It was sort of like destroying S, so I thought, aha this is not very good, and that was soon before I left that relationship and then started to find my own recovery. 

 

Susan felt ambivalent about antidepressants, but was aware of their benefits for her and was...

Well I don't really like taking drugs at all, to tell you the truth. I don't really like taking drugs that interfere with the processes of the mind and the emotions, but sometimes you've just got to do it because not taking it is more dangerous than taking it. That's my view anyway, so - and I actually went along and saw my lovely GP here in (city name) and said, you know, I'm worried about this, I've been on these tablets for quite a long time now, you know. I'm worried about you know, damage...

 

…permanent damage, the way my mind works. And she said, well I'm worried about what might happen if you don't stay on them. 

 

So that gave me a bit - oh. So that's - I've now been on them for, for about two, ooh… three years. On a very low dose, but it's there. Just there. But I'm finding just in the last six - three months or so ah, that the insulation layer has got thinner and thinner and the grief plug has got harder and harder and the basin is filling up and up and up, so that's why I've decided to double the dose. 

 

Well for one thing - for one thing, I don't have a 100 per cent trust in drugs, particularly not drugs that mess about with your, with your mind and your emotions. It's a very delicate mechanism, the moods and the, and the mind and how you see the world, and how you deal with the ups and downs of life. It's a delicate mechanism and I don't really like interfering with it. 

 

It's just that, as (doctor’s name) said, sometimes not doing it runs a greater risk than doing it, so as soon as I feel like I'm - that my zest is coming back and looks like it's there to stay, then I will leave the drugs alone. But then if things go pear shaped again I'll go back on them. I don't have any problem with it, if I need it.

 

Susan spoke of the lack of understanding displayed toward her by a former employer in relation to...

Well I don't talk about it to anybody who I think is going to say that to me, you know, I don't talk about it. I don't talk about it to anybody but my friends. I think that when I was in that government department that I left, I don't think they understood, or had any capacity to understand how somebody's performance might drop off if they're suffering from depression. So I think that the way they dealt with me was actually extremely unfair. 

 

Ah, well there's a process in the public service called counselling. In fact it isn't counselling at all; it's shaming, and that's what they did to me. I was very angry.

 

I don't really want to talk about it actually.

 

Susan described recovery as rediscovering joy in life, and being optimistic about the future.

The best word to describe it is zest, you know, zest being like lemon juice on a salad; it gives it a sharpness and it brightens it up and it makes it taste great. It's a sort of a spiritual zest that, that I think is my healthy default position, that when I'm well and not depressed zest is my natural response to life, and that it takes the form of energy, of - especially of creativity, you know. 

 

I wake up in the morning and I'm thinking about – I'm thinking really creatively about problems that I deal with, or about words to a song that I might write, or places that I want to go to and how to, how to achieve that - how to achieve things that I'd like to achieve. It's a sort of a zest and energy. That's how I feel when I'm really well, and the anti-depressants make that more possible, but don't restore it totally, ‘cause I think it comes from in, within. A drug can't do that for you, I think. 

 

On a good day I feel that there are opportunities and surprises in store and that my life will be - the last third of my life, or the last quarter of my life perhaps, will have wonderful things in it. What they might be, I don't know. I've started a bucket list. Do you know what a bucket list is? A bucket list is all the things you're planning to do before you kick the bucket, which is - that is to say die. And there are places that I would like to go to and things that I want to achieve before I die. 

 

So my bucket list includes things like write a good piece of music, see Barcelona, see Venice, go to Antarctica, take a really good photograph, ah learn Italian, you know? Things that I'd like to do before I die, so I’ve started a bucket list and that's full of optimistic thought and ideas.