Imani - Interview 26

Age at interview: 48

Age at diagnosis: 47

Brief Outline:

Imani, 48, describes herself as African-Caribbean, and was born in the UK. She was diagnosed with depression aged 47 having survived an abusive marriage. Imani is feeling better now she is taking antidepressants and having Christian counselling.

Background:

Community development worker, divorced. Ethnic background/nationality: African-Caribbean (UK born).

More about me...

Imani, 48, describes herself as African-Caribbean, and was born in the UK. She was diagnosed with depression aged 47. Imani says she survived a verbally and physically abusive relationship by switching off emotionally and avoiding doing anything that would lead her husband to swear at her, shout at her or hit her. She says she stayed in her marriage because she believed that she had to suffer the consequences of marrying her husband. Imani says the turning point came when she realised she was not following God's purpose when God spoke to her, saying, “I can never bless what's not of me.” Imani says she blamed God for a long time, and that her depression was triggered by the feeling that God was rejecting her in the same way her father had done.

Even after she left the marriage, Imani says the abuse remained in her head, and was like a stain spreading through her life. She says she felt scared of men and about entering a new relationship. She says her friends noticed changes in her, commenting that she seemed angry and had stopped wearing colourful clothes. Imani noticed that she began drinking alcohol more than usual and had put on weight. She felt low, didn't want to eat, wash or talk to anybody, would wander around aimlessly, and burst into tears in the supermarket. She found her job difficult and exhausting because she was working with other vulnerable people.

When Imani got the opportunity to go to a refuge she says she realised she needed help. She went to her GP who diagnosed depression and offered her counselling. Imani felt she couldn't wait for 6 months so she made her own arrangements. She now has Christian counselling, and says her counsellor is brilliant because she's open and hears what Imani has to say. Imani believes the counsellor doesn't need to be from the same ethnic background as the clients, because her counsellor is a white female. 

Imani has recently begun taking antidepressants. She was scared about taking them and becoming addicted, but says the doctor explained that they would give her a 'chemical rebalance'. Imani hopes that her old feelings will not return when she stops taking the antidepressants. She also has the support of an old friend. Imani's faith is also an important source of support. 

Imani says that as a Black woman she experiences discrimination every day. She believes that the overrepresentation of Black people in the mental health system is due to the misinterpretation of their behaviour as loud and aggressive. Imani says health professionals should make themselves available in the community so that people won't fear mental health services.

Imani is hoping and believing that things will get better and she's feeling happier, wearing bright colours again and exercising. Imani's message to others is find some to talk to and they will listen because you are worth it.

Imani saw GPs from different backgrounds and reflects on her expectations and experiences of the...

[long inhalation of breath] I walked in and I saw a black female GP and I was so relieved. I was so relieved. And I just thought, well I knew she would be female, but I didn't know if she would be black, or if she'd be white, or if she'd be South East Asian or if she would be, I didn't know. And I really just, I really wanted to get vulnerable with her and just, you know, tell her this is what has been going on for me and stuff, but she was so strong, you know, she was so strong that I kind of, you know, I let the jelly off the plate for a bit, but when I looked into her eyes, I realised that I don't think it's acceptable. So I put the mould back on and kind of spoke to her like that, and like this, and like that I am fine and dah dah and she just said, 'Okay fine. All right then. And what can we do for you?' And I just thought well I don't know what you can do for me [laughs]. I am here to talk to you so you can tell me what you can do for me. I'm not here to tell you. And then eventually she just said, 'Well all right then, I'll tell you what, I'll give you a month off. Because it is clear that you are depressed, and yes, come back and see us again in a month.' And that was it. 

Is that what you were expecting?

No way. I really thought that. I walked in there and I saw a black woman and I thought this black woman if I talk to her and let her know, she will just, you know, slip into my shoes and she'll know exactly what I am talking about. She'll know the language. You know, she'll know the sisterhood language and, but it wasn't like that at all. It wasn't like that. And I don't know if my vulnerability made her feel vulnerable and made her feel soft, and made her feel less then strong. And it was something that she didn't want to identify with at that time. I mean I see her as a black female GP, but I don't know how many, you know, trials she has been through. How many times she's had to stand up for her race and her gender. I don't know how many times she could have written a letter of complaint about someone's treatment of her, but chose not to. I don't know what her history was. The only thing was I just wanted this woman who was going to understand [laughs] and I didn't get her. I didn't get that on that day.

So the next day, the next time I went a month later I went back and I, I, oh I hate going to the doctors, I hate it. I hate the thing of not being well. And not being well in a way that you can't look at me and see. And so I go to the GP and I wait in the surgery and I see people around me and it makes me anxious and I can feel my heart racing and I can feel it pounding in my ears and I can feel fight or flight and there have been occasions when they have given me the wrong times for my appointments. I have had to go there and wait. Like, you know, I have arrived at 10 o'clock think that my appointment is at 10. And they say oh no, no, there was a mistake, sorry. Your appointment is actually at 10.40. So I have had to sit and wait and of course they don't call you at 10.40. So it's 10.50 something that I will be in and I am sitting there and I'm getting more and more anxious. Anyway so I made another appointment a month later and thought, let me see someone else. So I saw another GP and this was a GP that I'd seen at another practice before. And her style is, 'Let's get you in and get you out as soon as possible, is that okay, lovey? Good. What have you got, okay fine, medical certificate, right jolly good. Trying to find, how does this computer work?' And I was giving her IT classes in my, in the doctor's surgery. And I just thought well, you know what, this is obviously not the space for this and then she just said, 'Well thanks for the IT lesson' [Laughs]. And that was it. She gave me my certificate and I was gone. 

Imani is learning to live with her depression but believes it will pass. She finds it difficult...

I think' I think we're kind of, we're, we're very close buddies just now, and we are learning to live together, but we're realising that there is going to come a time where, you know' it will happen, it will go and I will stay, but that is okay. Yes.

So you are looking forward to a time when you'll be recovered would you say?

Recovered. [Whispering; thinking to self]

What does that mean to you?

I think the word is' that I'll be well and I think because when you say the word 'well' you just can't help but feel positive and bright and even if the sun wasn't shining there would be sunshine there somewhere. 'Recovered,' 'recovered' sounds' as if and that is probably the most accurate word actually. Because recovered sounds as if I've been long term sick' and I am no longer long term sick. And' [laughs] Recovered [laughs].

Is that something you identify with?

No' Yes, because I associate recovery with addiction. And so I think of recovery, oh not even addiction, with a long term, yes a long term and maybe even life threatening because I can see it with alcohol dependence, drug dependence. I can see it with cancer or something like that, something that really threatens your well being, you know, your physical well being. 

But you don't see something like depression as something that threatens your well being?

Not my physical well being. No. But clearly it does.

Do you see it as, I mean you mentioned, recovery being recovery from a long term sickness. Do you see depression as a'?

A long term sickness yes' And where that sickness is a dysfunctionality, an imbalance, an inability to function at optimum efficiency whatever that might be. Yes, that's how I see it, but I' maybe, I don't know, maybe I just don't want to think about myself as being that. Yes. Maybe it is easier for me to think , 'Oh it's just an illness and it will pass.' With that I can handle it. But to think of it as something that I'm going to be, in effect, living with for the rest of my life, is kind of, deep. Hmm [Nodding].

Imani's having Christian counselling with a "brilliant" counsellor and says although her...

…And now I have a counsellor, and it's Christian counselling. It's… It's a space that although when I'm there, I know that it's helping me unpack stuff, and I know that it's helping me sort through the dross in my life and just getting rid of it, bit by bit. But before it on a Tuesday it's really, really difficult because I'm preparing for that session. I don't know what is going to come out in that session and I don't know how it's going to leave me feeling to travel back home again. But I really look forward to it though in a strange way. 

My counsellor is really, really brilliant. And she, she's a white woman and she doesn't, so clearly, you know, the counsellor doesn't necessarily have to be the same ethnic background as the client. But what she does do, is she's really open and she hears what I say. And she has a way of asking me questions that makes me stop and think and search for myself. And we've been through a lot of stuff and now we are looking at what I can do to become more positive. What I can do to, you know, enhance the positives in my life, what are the definitions of success for me? And how I can make that happen.

Well the counselling takes place in a church. It's Christian counselling. So I know that my counsellor will have a Christian belief. No, no, it's an assumption, that's an assumption. Because it's a, it's pastoral centre, so that doesn't automatically assume that every counsellor is a Christian. But I believe that my counsellor is a Christian. She, the language that I use in my counselling is like, you know, very Christian language, and she is not phased by it, and she doesn't feel the need to analyse it or have me explain it or anything like that, she just knows what I mean. She also is able to make me feel… that… she's the small one in the room and I'm the big one, and I think that having that kind of feeling or being able to convey that kind of feeling is really powerful, because she is smaller than me, but she somehow allows me to feel as though, almost as if I fill that room. It's all about me, and it's all about my stuff, and it's all about, but there's no judgement, you know, lots of words are out there, but there's no judgement about those words.

Imani compares two different counsellors and says one seemed to be afraid of her.

This counsellor was my second one from this organisation. The first one that I saw was really odd. I knocked on the door, and she kind of, she opened it, and she saw me, and she kind of half closed it and stood behind it and said, 'Can I help you?' And that put me off. That just put me off and I just told her who I was. And she said, 'Oh, okay,' and she stepped back and she let me in.

But then in the counselling room she crossed her legs. She put her right ankle over her left knee and then she held her ankle with her hand. So she was completely closed down from me. And I just thought, and she kept encouraging me to open up and, you know, to share things and all of that and I just couldn't feel safe. I could not feel safe. And she didn't give me any idea when we were coming to the end of the session, so I could start packing myself back together ready to leave. She just said, 'Right the session's over now. So it's next week.'

And I just thought, had I share stuff with you I would have been going out there, and all of my rage would have been in tatters. I probably would have killed somebody. And so, but then they got me this counsellor and she's really brilliant. She is so brilliant. The first session she just, you know, asked me, about something that was on the assessment form already. Which was brilliant, because I just thought after going through that assessment, I didn't need someone to say to me, 'Well, you know, tell me about yourself. Why are you here?' And my feeling would have been, well, you know, it's on the paper, read it. So, but she was asking me questions and it was really brilliant. I still, she sussed that I have a face for counselling, I have a face for work, [laughs] I have a face for everything, but the real me, is someone that's still well protected inside, and, you know, will this person ever come out. 

 She has a way of, [small cough] excuse me, she has a way of using silence as well, and because I don't fear silence, we can just sometimes sit in silence and I'm looking at her and she's looking back at me. And I am not' yes? [laughs] Yes? And, but sometimes the way that I perceive she looks at me, it's as if she's, you know, peeling back the layers. And almost as if she is actually getting right into me. And with her, that doesn't feel scary. It doesn't feel scary but it feels like, 'Oh my gosh is she going to see something, before I am ready to share with it with her?' 

But I do, like I was saying earlier, on a, on a Tuesday I get a bit stressed on the day, you know, anticipating what is going to come out, what it's going to be for me, how am I going to feel when I leave, those kind of things, but whatever comes, whatever happens, when I am on my way home afterwards, even if I am feeling down, even if I am feeling, you know, elated, even if I am kind of, I am aware that it's part of my process to getting well. 

Where, you know, I can have my naturally induced endorphins back. The first couple of sessions I attended and then I missed one and then I attended, and then I missed one. But I'm really making every effort not to miss any now. And so that, you know, the process can continue. Yes.

And with the first woman that you went to see, you said, the minute she opened the door and hid behind it again, that immediately put you off. What was it about that?

Because what I saw in her face was fear. And she was expecting me, so I wouldn't have expected her to be fearful when she opened the door, because my form would have sort of described me. And so to see that fear on her face and then I was going to be vulnerable with someone who feared me, I was then concerned wel

Imani says professionals should make themselves available in the community to reduce the fear and...

I think that the whole spectre of mental health has, in the media especially, and I know that we blame the media for lots of things, but I think there is a level of responsibility when they are impacting on so many people's lives in just one go. Mental health isn't something that means someone is going to lose control and smash the place up. Mental health can be' mental health can be where it's almost as if you have been unplugged. And it's something that everyone at some point in their life will experience. But if we keep dressing it up as this horrible, dark, uncontrollable void in which you get totally lost and you may never find your way back again. People will fear it, and because they fear it, they will also fear people who carry that label and so I think it would be really brilliant if health professionals could make themselves available to community groups, church groups, schools, mum and toddler groups, everybody, on the radio and you know, blow this thing wide open so that the people who have family members at home, who do have a chronic mental illness they won't fear any more seeking medical advice. They'll feel open, they'll feel welcome. And they won't feel judged.

If they, if the health professionals can, even make a commitment to do one session per month somewhere for free, that will help to change the whole face of mental illness for everybody including the medical professionals themselves.

People didn't notice Imani was depressed because she gave them the impression that she was strong...

On the face of things I was still functioning. I was still coping. I was still able to smile in the right places. I was still able to, you know, appear in public and my face was well moisturized and, you know, so to all intents and purposes, I was fine. I was coping. I was managing and, 'Wow that's what she does, she's so strong.' 

And did there come a point then when they were cracks in that? And people could see what was really happening?

' I think what happened was, I, I had given them this thing that I can cope and then I felt responsible to maintain that, because if I then took that away from them and I asked them for something else, and then they weren't able to offer it, what would that do to me? Maybe what would that do to them? Because regardless of what I was experiencing in my marriage, there were still people who were coming to me with problems, and because I was' able doesn't seem to be the right word, but because when they came to me, they were leaving with something, they, I believe that they thought, 'Wow and she was going through all of that. Gosh I never would have guessed. You know, I went to her and I had problems, and she was talking to me, and she was'' and all of that. 

And I think' it got to the point where I then felt I had already given them that person, and so I couldn't take that away from them. And so even though I was dying inside, I wouldn't have said so. And part of that I think is also about ego, and, you know, the reputation of being a strong woman, you know, somewhere in my psyche maybe that made me feel good, to feel that, you know, that's how I was perceived. 

 And I didn't then want to appear as if I can't cope, 'Oh my gosh, gosh, no, no, I'm all right, I'm fine really. Yes, you know, I'm fine, yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank God, you know, I'm well.' But inside, it was something completely different and there would be very few people who would know that crumbling inside, and to begin with it was my sister, but then I realised what it was doing to here and so I then found a friend who I could talk to and, but then I could see what it was doing to her. And so it gets to the point you just stop sharing because you're in this situation, why don't you get out of it? Why don't you get out? Why don't you go? Why don't you leave, and you're asking yourself that question. Why don't you leave? And there's no answer. There's no answer except, yes, but you married him, you married him. 

You could have said no, but you chose to marry him, and marriage is for life. And so you just... you just keep it inside and hope that somebody somewhere will be able to look at you, look into your eyes and see the sadness, and just be able to reach into your situation and just pluck you out of it.

This woman who escaped an abusive marriage describes feeling abandoned by God and how this tested...

 For a long time I blamed God. I blamed God for the marriage, I blamed God because my husband, ex-husband was abusive. I blamed God because I just thought well, if, you know if you're all powerful, if you're in total control, if you know you order my footsteps, if, you know, all, everything that happens to me, is your purpose for my life, then you must have purposed for me to be with this beast and as such, do I really want a relationship with you, if this is what you have purposed for my life, if you are supposed to love me so much? And because God is the one who loves me more than anybody else, because God is the one who, you know, regardless of what my Bible may say, if I do anything contrary to my Bible I know that God's love continues for me. And yet, he allowed me to be with this person? How could that happen? How could that happen? And I just couldn't equate that in my head. I could not equate that in my head.

Christian friends kept saying to me, 'Focus on the promises of God, focus on the promises of God, you know, where he will never leave you, never, he will never leave you and he will never leave you alone, where He can deliver you from all circumstances and situations where He will love you unconditionally, where, you know, your illnesses, He can deliver you from illnesses.' Where all of those things are true, then why this? And that's what was going through my head and I just thought, felt, that' God was just doing to me, what my Dad had done. And he too, was rejecting me, and he was so busy, you know, doing grand plans for other people's lives that he'd missed me, and I was the one that was sitting behind him all the time, and, because of that I was the one who was going through all of this horror, all of this stuff, and he just didn't see it, he just didn't see it. And that broke me. That broke me. And, and I think that is how my depression came in.

As a Black woman, Imani feels there is an expectation for her to cope and be strong.

Because I think that, I think, I was going to say being here, but I think it's, I think it's an international thing because being here as a black woman, you the perception is that, you know, a white woman is feminine, is frail, needs to be taken care of, needs to be looked after, but some how the feeling is that a black woman is the care giver, is the nurturer, is the person who gives of herself. And that will be professionally, it will be at home, it will be in her local church, it will be wherever you might find yourself and, and so sometimes yes, as a black woman there is this thing that you will cope because you are strong. And because, maybe because you have survived, and because, you know, you come from a long line of Africans who didn't die in slavery, you are strong. And it's hard, because there are times when, you know, you want to, I was watching Airline and there was a woman who just got to the end of herself and she threw herself on the floor and just screamed and when she had really screamed her frustration out. She got up, she picked her bag up, she put her hat on and she stood at the desk and she was able to engage. And I looked at that, and I just thought all power to her, because my fear of doing that, and maybe that's another part of it, it's expectations as well, because if I do that, I am immediately perceived as mad, as so there is an expectation of a code of behaviour for black women and if you step out of that, it's a negative. And it's not that oh my gosh, something is wrong, and I will, you know, see if I can help her. It's almost like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, panic, panic, horror, horror. Let's call the police and so I think that, yes, there is this feeling that you have to, you know, the soft mellow side of you, you really do have to just hide away, and you have to cope, you have to manage, you have to be strong.

So is that the code of behaviour?

Yes. Yes.

And whose, who has those expectations?

The society in which we live. 

Is that everybody or is that people who are white or is it also within the black community?

I think, because I think, it's the white community. And I think it comes from yes, I think it comes from the black women being the nurturer and the care giver and even in, you know, during slavery, and even afterwards, when we were still people's nannies, regardless of what may have been happening in your own home, you still stepped out, you still put your hat on, and you still went to work, you still provided, you know, whatever was coming you were able to deal with it and accept it. And still keep going. And so I think that it's part of the European imposition on us, but I think that because sometimes we, [inhales] we lose touch with who we are and the definition of who we are and we start to assume a definition imposed. 

There is this, there is sometimes this feeling that we are now beginning to expect it of ourselves and that's part of the reason why I came to leave the country when I did. And met my ex-husband and all that horror started. Because I [sighs] because I do feel, sometimes I do feel, I just want to be feminine. Sometimes I feel, that I do just want to be soft, sometimes I feel that I do just want to be vulnerable, but when I'm soft and vulnerable, what does that mean? And because the strong definition is always resonating in my head, that just doesn't fit. And then my fear in that, is, in a relationship, allowing the man to be the strong person in that relationship, means that you have to give something up, and how willing are you to give that thing up, so that he can be strong? And yes, it is okay to be soft, to be vulnerable, to be