Depression

It sounds odd but it's had a very positive effect. It really has. I mean I hope that I understand other people. I mean, yes, you do still write off people don't you as, "He's a miserable so and so". Then you start thinking about it and talking about it to somebody and you think, somebody might else jog your memory that there are other sides to people. And it has had that..... And I, I really feel, well sort of complimented really, that there are people who think, "Thank goodness I can talk to you, cause you understand". It's not a lot to give to people but I'm really complimented that they feel that, they feel that. And that really makes me feel good about myself, not in any, or have I got any sort of....., But just, it makes you feel good inside that perhaps you have helped somebody.

And I think it has had that effect and that also on my son. It's [pause] I think, he probably feels something more for me, perhaps if he'd lived, been brought up in an ordinary, you know 2 parent family. I mean I feel that we have a great closeness, I mean he does too, you know it's not something you talk about really. But, I always feel wherever he goes in the world he, it's the only relationship in my life that I've felt confident about, it doesn't matter if he goes to America or somewhere, he would feel the same way about me. And the fact that he's got a girlfriend, he's you know, so keen to you know [pause] want to be with, and that's not changed him towards me at all. In fact, its sort of, its made him grow up at lot actually, yes. And that's a good thing.
 

Just going back into my normal life where, you know, I see my friends, I, you know, I'm happy with my children, I just, you know, I take up all my interests again. I've got a lot of interests, I just start living life again properly. And this last time I've... I've changed a lot because I've left tea-, I left teaching about, it's a year and... a year and a half ago, in the summer of 2002. And then, and then for the next year, and then, then I was depressed up to Christmas and then.... no, it must have been, [pause] and then I was working on, when I was well again I was working on a very interesting project which I'd become involved in, an equestrian musical which was based in Switzerland, which we were hoping to bring to England. And it's, it's a beautiful production with, a musical with fifteen horses in it and I'd, I'd got involved in it and gone along to write... I do a bit of journalistic writing and we, we did, we weren't able to do it, you know, because it was too difficult, but we tried, we tried for the finance...
 

I feel as if I have been in actually.... in recovery for a few months now, or perhaps longer since May, June time. June time say, but I hadn't actually realised I'd been in recovery. I had to go to a recovery conference to kind of realise I was in recovery [laugh]. It means that life is changing. It is not changed. It's a constant thing, its always changing. It changes every day and I notice things that I didn't, that I haven't noticed for years. 

I can listen to music and appreciate it in a different way.... it can move me now. Something on the TV can move me now, and I have, I feel things and things affect me. I was so cut off. I'd put up, you know, sorry to use the really bland expression of putting up a brick wall, a very good brick wall, but I really had built up a very good high brick wall and nothing came in or out. And I didn't feel much at all about anything. I just functioned for a long time.
 

What's happened with that fear of the depression coming back?

Well as the time between the depression now grows, in does get easier. I... I still think about depression most days, it's still there in my thoughts, but I - I'm more able now to - to see that I do have moods, perhaps slightly more than other people, but because there's a dip, that doesn't mean the depression is going to come back. And I'm able just to go, go with it, and through experience I know that I do come out the other side, but it has been tough lesson and I suppose it had left me quite hyper-vigilant in terms of my thoughts and feelings.

Bad days don't necessarily mean depression?

No, no. Yes, yes. So I may have a stressful day at work, but I can cope with it now.

But my mood, started lifting. I did start feeling better, more energetic, less tired, more able to concentrate and more able to function. One of the, one of the most striking things that struck me the first time I took antidepressants and the second time is all of a sudden you realise how much colour is, there is in the world. 

But I think when I was depressed my, my perception of colour had really diminished. In fact I was sort of progressively seeing, you know, everything in a monochrome world and all of a sudden you know, you take antidepressants and you think, "Wow, aren't trees green", you know. Or, "Wow, apples they are red and they are sort of yellowie." 

And you sort of start noticing colours and things like that, which was great. But the pills weren't strong enough and although I felt much better, I didn't, I didn't stop feeling depressed and that was shortly before, before Christmas....
 

I mean, as I say I find living at the moment, what I would call living of course... Quite tricky at the moment, really as I've already, you know, I said now before because [clears throat]. I mean, I have to take it, as I say, day to day really now. Day and night time too of course, but mostly in the daytime because of how I'm feeling or.... Or not knowing how I'm going to feel, that's the trouble. You know I often think, oh, what am I doing, and although it sounds rather dark, sort of wh- what am I doing in the world? You know and what is the purpose, what is the point of, say this, what is exactly going on, but you know, in some ways we all have to know that. What are we here for? And what are we doing? And what are we getting out of it? And so on, but th- you know then in living like what are we getting out of... like from it? 

But, [sighs] I feel that you know as I've already said that, you know, with my depression and anxiety and the ME as well, or possible ME until I've seen, hopefully, a specialist or some.... which as I say I'm waiting for. I think. It's sort of knowing what to do about it really because, it certainly doesn't make living easy with all these symptoms and feeling sort of off as I sort of call it you see. And sort of, knowing how to sort of go on you know every day can seem rather samey as I've already said, you know, it's another day and then, sort of a night, and so on.
 

But I've never, never been ashamed of myself. As a wee girl as I said I have realised and I just thought I was weak because I was always told I was stupid, an idiot. She's an idiot, she can't do anything, she's stupid, she's this and she's that. And that is the change in my life. I thought my life was completely finished. I've missed out. But now I feel as if I've got something to offer and meet all sorts on a night out. My pal phoned last night and she said to me, "Would you like to go away for a wee weekend", and I went, "Oh I don't know about that". I said, "Oh I don't know" she said, "Well", no nay think about it, she says alright, "No, wait a couple of months down the line". So now when I come off the phone I went, this was me worrying again, about what she would think about me if I was away with her like..... so I don't know. Maybe I will give it a I try.
 

The most important thing in my mind at the moment is how much better I am than I've been in my whole life. It seems amazing at the age of sixty nine that I should be... feel as if I'm more healthy than I've been in the whole of the rest of my life. But I can remember back to when I was about four years old, and even then I was supposed to be a weak little boy, at least in the eyes of my mother. And from then onwards I was ill, I'd look after myself, life seemed to be kind of grey a lot of the time and I felt cold and I felt lonely a lot. 

When I was in secondary school I got, I was playing football and I got pneumonia, and as a result of that I got tuberculosis. And at that time you couldn't cure that easily, there weren't any drugs for it, so I had to stay in bed for about six months and I was a very active child. So I took that very badly, but as a result of the illness I became very interested in ways that I could get more healthy. Then when I got back to school after the illness I wasn't allowed to play games for some years actually, and that made me even keener to find other ways of getting stronger. Then I got very interested in organic food and whole foods, I used to bake my own bread... when I was about thirteen years old and this kind of thing. But it didn't seem to have a very obvious effect on my health.
 

I've recently met somebody through work, who has suffered from depression in her life, and is further along the road to recovery than I am, and that has been quite inspirational, because I can see that you can come.... you can come out of it okay. She was in hospital, she's been through an awful lot, she didn't have the benefit of therapy like I'd had, but she's, she's not just surviving, she is enjoying her life. 

And I think that's been really helpful for me to meet somebody who - I'm at a point now where I can talk openly about it. If I'd have met her two years ago there's no way I would have said, "Yeah, I also have depression", and I think it's helped her and it's helped me.
 

I think the difference now is that now I understand why I'm unhappy. I wouldn't say I'm blissfully happy up against that, but I think I know what I do that makes me unhappy. 

I haven't got to the point of being able to turn it around yet, fully, but I do know that there are certain things ingrained, about how I live, about how I conduct myself, that are very detrimental to me being a happy person. And there are things that keep me in a place of being depressed, and that's what the therapy really helps with it.... in helping me understand how I perpetuate the depression..... 

I think for me it's about blaming myself for most things, thinking that I'm a bad person, and I can expend huge amounts of energy on the mental processes that go into making me responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world. And that's really very tiring, but I'm really very good at it.