A Good Week

This morning’s post was going to be about something else, but I’ve just finished watching a BBC programme called “Mind Games: Depression in Sport“, and I’ve started writing this with tears in my eyes.

Not just of sadness, either – they are tears of something like joy at the sheer wonderful bravery of the four sports personalities who were the focus of Gabby Logan’s interviews. Ex-World Heavyweight Champ Frank Bruno, cricketer Marcus Trescothick, soccer player Neil Lennon and former All-Black John Kirwan shared their tales of woe and of the added agonies they faced at suffering depression during lives which most other people would have imagined as a dream come true.

The programme was not without sadness, of course - indeed, the whole programme was prompted by the recent suicide of German goalkeeper Robert Enke, and also mentioned the deaths of Justin Fashanu, David Bairstow and Ireland’s own Darren Sutherland. Overall, though, the way Frank, Marcus, Neil and John have coped with their illness can only fill a fellow sufferer with hope. It was great to see how well they all seem now, and wonderful to hear Frank Bruno laugh again, as he is the only person in history who genuinely laughs “nyuk, nyuk, nyuk”.

Gabby seemed slightly taken aback by the black humour sometimes shown in these cases – John Kirwan revealed that a NZ comedian has started a depression-awareness group called “the Nutters Club”,  while Marcus Trescothick revealed that his team-mates now refer to him as “Mad Fish”. She seemed horrified by this, but I think it’s very funny, and laughter of any sort when you’re really down can only help. To the very few people who know about all my problems I regularly say things like “since I started going mad”, or refer to the fact that I now have a psychiatrist as “now that I’m a mental patient”.

When I wrote first here that I was being sent to see a shrink in St John of Gods I got comments of encouragement like “Good luck, you big nutball” (Jo), “doesn’t matter that it’s in the loony bin” (Mwa) and “going to visit the nut house will be great for you” (Laughykate). While the main thing those three remarks proves is that women are wagons, the irreverence shown was a great help at the time, as you all knew it would be. It felt as if we were laughing at the whole thing together.

Anyway, it was a super programme, and one I hope got a huge audience among people like me.

And, finally, while we’re on the topic, a guy called David Adams wrote this in the Irish Times last week. 

 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1119/1224259105972.html

I wanted to post a link to it at the time, but didn’t feel like doing another depression post. Now we’re on the topic anyway I’ve put it in. It’s one of the best descriptions I’ve ever read of how you feel when another bout is starting.

Though he never says it, you get the feeling that David Adams is writing from personal experience. If he isn’t then he is showing a wonderful empathy with depression sufferers. Either way, I’d like to thank him, and wish him well.

All in all, a good week in the fight against depression, and in making talking about it more acceptable.

Lookin’ for a Virtual Hug

It’s time I came clean with myself.

I keep deluding myself that I have Bloggers Block, and can’t think of anything to write about. That’s not really the problem. I have plenty I should be saying, and just don’t want to say it.

The simple fact is that I’m quite down at the moment about how slowly my getting better is going, and have refused to put that in writing. After I first went to see my shrink (a sentence I’m still astonished to find myself using) I felt that I was actually on the road to recovery. Of course I knew that one visit and a couple of days of new drugs weren’t going to cure me overnight. Of course I knew I had a long road ahead, but still felt really hopeful.

And, thus wearing my happy head, I’ve produced about six weeks of cheerful bloggery, some of which I’m really quite proud of, and was looking forward to continuing in this vein until my declining years (declining what, I wonder? Drink? Cigars? It?).

Of course (again) I knew there would be times when I’d feel frustrated at my slow progress, and vowed to recognise that frustration as a good sign in itself, a sign that the derealised drifting from day to day was giving way to more awareness and emotion about my illness, and therefore more awareness and emotion about life as a whole. And in general I have, even though I’ve started waking at four a.m. again, and once that happens the days just become daze. But recognising that there will be setbacks and accepting them when they come is one thing, but being happy all the time about it is another.

So I’ve had nothing funny to say (yeah, yeah, I know), and should have been saying this instead. After all, this is my safety valve, an outlet for my frustrations, angers and fears as much as for my desire to be entertaining (one of my strongest needs, I have to admit). But I’d been enjoying writing the lighter stuff, and just didn’t want to go back to, well, whinging.

And I know you won’t all look at it like that, and I know you’ll be concerned and supportive, and I hope you all know that your encouragement really, really helps me, but I just didn’t feel like putting you all through it again.

Which was wrong. You’ve all stuck with me this long, I should have realised sooner that I could dump on you all again.

That’s what friends are for, and that’s how I think of you lot.

And I’m gonna hit publish now, before I get embarrassed about that last sentence.

Bono Vox

I’ve just heard my own voice.

With normal people this would be of  “dog bites man” newsworthiness, not quite matching, say, the first moon landing or the fall of the Berlin Wall for its capacity to enthrall and grip. But I am not normal people, and it’s the most surprising thing that’s happened to me for quite a while.

I was in a shop just now buying a pencil (look, I didn’t say everything about this story is exciting) and the assistant and I both had a look at the label below it to see how much it cost. The label was partly torn, however, and I heard my voice say “it doesn’t help much, does it?”

And it was my voice, and when I heard it I realised that it’s been a couple of years since I’ve heard it. Instead I’ve just heard this muffled, far-away, could-be-anyone voice speaking my (admittedly still sparkling) words instead of me, as if I were a paramilitary being voiced by an actor.

Now, my voice is not pretty. Had I been the narrator of Under Milk Wood when it first appeared on radio it would never have become famous. If James Earl Jones retires I am unlikely to pick up his voiceover gigs. I don’t think I’m high on the list of people they ring when they want someone to play the Voice of God. On the other hand, if the person who does Olive Oyl suddenly drops dead they may well give me a call.

But today, just for that one sentence, my slightly nasal voice with its hint of a Dublin accent was back. And I’ve never heard anything so lovely.

It’s one more sign that the real world might be coming back.

Back on the Couch, or Sofa

Went back to see my shrink in the Loony Bin again this morning.

As before, I had to wait outside his room and read his magazines. Since I was there last he’s added a Formula 1 mag (perhaps he read what I said about last time), and also a magazine called Psychologies. I had a look at it (well, it had Angelina Jolie on the cover) and found that, while the first few articles were about things to do with the mind, it then had sections about skincare, creams,  relationships, etc. In another words, it’s Woman’s Own for people with mental issues (“Schizophrenic? Crochet these TWO great outfits!”).

They have a poll for their readers, and in the issue I was reading (June 2009 – this is a Doctor’s reception, after all), they gave the result of May’s poll:

“We asked do you think that Blogging is boring or a great way of expressing yourself?

Well, 79% of you think it’s pointless, while 21% of you love it as a way to communicate.”

Nutters.

Anyhow, eventually I went in. I tried not to analyse everything as much this time, though I noticed at one stage that I had my left leg crossed so firmly that the lower half of me was practically facing behind me.

And there probably isn’t anything interesting in the fact that, while he remembered me very well and remembered all my symptoms, he couldn’t actually find the notes he took last time (it’s almost certainly not because he’s sent them to the Freud University of Psychosis in Basel, and I’m about to make him famous).

So, how am I?

Well, when I went last he put me on tablets to stop me waking at 3.30 and staying awake for the rest of the night. When I started these I also made a decision that I would not get up before 6.30 any morning, no matter when I woke. I told the office that I wouldn’t be in at seven any more and wouldn’t be the one opening up (which is going well – I come in at 8.10 some mornings and people are sitting working with just lights on over their own desks, and with the alarm ringing).

And it’s starting to work.  I used to wake at half-three & lie there thinking “oh god, it’s nearly four, and four is nearly five, and then I’ll have to get up”. Now I look at the clock, see it’s 3.30, and think “great, three hours to go”, and nearly always fall asleep again.

And I think I’m starting to get better, because I’m starting to feel worse. When you’re derealised you feel detached from everything, and the one good thing about that is, that while you know your life’s pretty miserable, you can’t really feel all that bad about it.

Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve had odd flashes where I suddenly realise “God, what I’m going through is shit“.

I think this is a good sign. I’ve never felt better about feeling crap.

Couch Potato

Bethlem Royal Hospital in London is apparently one of the foremost psychiatric hospitals in Europe. Unfortunately, because of its long and sometimes inhumane history, and because it gave us the word bedlam, it will forever be associated with the very worst type of lunatic asylum – as Wikipedia says, “the epitome of what the term “madhouse” connotes to the modern reader”.

I’m sure every city has its equivalent. In Dublin it’s St John of God Hospital. While it does  wonderful work in the field of mental health, anyone who ever grew up in Dublin shudders when they hear the words, and can still hear elderly aunts and grannies speaking of some unfortunate and saying “and the poor divil ended up in the John O’ Gods”.

I mention this because, as I wrote last week, I’ve decided to take further steps to try & rid myself of the depersonalised feeling which has dogged me for the last two years. My wonderful GP has referred me to a psychiatrist, and, because I work in the city centre, recommended me one in Exchequer Street. When I rang, though, his secretary said that he was quite heavily booked in that clinic at the moment, but that I could have an appointment next Wednesday in his other clinic.

Guess where that is. My aunts and grannies would be quite proud.

Since I’m just interested in getting better, I don’t care in the least. I actually think it’s quite funny, though Mrs Tin is a bit concerned about one thing. She knows well that I still refer to 2001, when I had a breakdown caused by stress and depression, as “the year I went mad”. One of my oldest friends is having his 50th birthday party tomorrow, and a lot of people we haven’t seen for years will be there (some of them haven’t heard the whole Tinman/blackouts/pacemaker saga yet. They have no idea of the treat they have in store).  Anyway, she has forbidden me from saying, when asked what I’m up to these days, that “I’m a mental patient in John O’Gods”.

So I won’t. Probably.

Are You Sure?

Cheltenham Borough Council is suing its former Managing Director for nearly £1 million, claiming that she hid a history of depressive illness and the fact that she was on anti-depressants when she applied for and secured her job.

Part of their argument is that Christine Laird, in a pre-employment questionnaire, answered ‘no’ to a question about whether she considered herself disabled.

Two-and-a-half years after securing the post Ms Laird went off sick, and eventually left.

When I was in New York I bought a T-Shirt that says “I lied to get the job. They lied about the job. We’re even”. I wear it at work sometimes to annoy the boss. The idea that you can be sued – not just fired, but sued – for something you say in a job application will scare the crap out of everyone who’s ever put the best possible gloss on, say, the amount of experience that they have.

The most interesting thing, though, is that the Council is essentially arguing that people with a history of depression are “disabled”. They may come to regret this argument.

If they win this case, and if the recession means that there is no work in Ireland, then the Tinfamily and I are off to Cheltenham. I’m going to drive to the Borough Council Offices, park the Tincar in a disabled parking spot, slap my packet of Cipramil on the reception desk, and demand disability allowances. (I’m also going to demand a council house, which I will let to Irish punters during Gold Cup week, using the rent that they pay me to fly to Tenerife to see if sunshine affords me any relief).

The UK Government website list a whole load of payments and Tax Credits that I might qualify for. And not just me. Six million people in the UK have a history of depression.

Cheltenham BC can recognise that depression sufferers are ill. In fact, I welcome it. But during this illness we’re expected to raise our kids, drive our cars, pay our taxes, do our jobs. And we do.

Are they sure they want to call us all disabled?

Goodbye to All That

It’s over.

At the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, the 11th, 12th and 13th holes are known as “Amen Corner”, the most crucial and difficult part of the course.  If you’ve played through these three holes and you’re score is more or less the same as it was when you started the 11th, you’re regarded as having done well.

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and St Stephen’s Day are the Amen Corner of my festive season, and this year my situation is more or less the same as when I started the 24th, in that I am still (a) alive, (b) sane and (c) married, though in some of those categories only just.

I’ve written light-heartedly about how Scrooge-like I am in my attitude to Christmas, and have really neither the courage nor the penmanship to truly explore here the real awfulness of these few days if you’re a person who feels awkward in social situations, who is cowed by large family gatherings and outbursts of affection, and who then is filled with self-loathing because of his spiky and ungrateful reaction to invitations to such events.

I’m not going to go much further into this. I just had to say something, somewhere. All these relatives are well-meaning and wonderful people who think they are doing something nice by inviting us round to their house, and if I were normal then I would think so too.

I think my attitude may come from the fact that we were raised in London far from any family, so the three Amen Corner days were always spent in our own flat, with our own Mum and Dad, playing with our own toys in our own time. I want our own kids to remember Christmases as time spent in our house, not as an endless series of treks around the homes of the aunts and uncles.

That last paragraph, though, is intended as an explanation but not a justification. It should be possible to regard family gatherings as events rather than chores, especially as there are no arguments or hidden issues in either my family or Mrs Tin’s. I don’t know why I can’t do it, and never really could.

Sorry about this post, but I’ve written it after spending most of the night awake and I’m going to publish it before I can change my mind.

Oh, and I’m getting a cold.

A Head Full of Cloud

Well, that was fun.

I’m more or less back to normal after the worst attack of depression that I’ve had for a couple of years now. It began on Tuesday morning, just after a meeting which I would describe merely as frustrating. I made a good job of putting my case across, but didn’t feel that I’d managed to persuade my boss of all the benefits of what I was proposing. But it wasn’t an angry or upsetting meeting, and I was quite fine as I went back to my desk.

And then everything collapsed. I just sat there, unable to do anything, feeling that it was all pointless, and so was I.  I couldn’t concentrate, the noise of ordinary people speaking in ordinary tones seemed hurtfully loud. At the same time, the cloud of cotton wool that I’ve had in my brain since last summer seemed to get larger and more enveloping. At one stage I spoke to someone but even as I was talking I had no idea what I was saying. In a dim corner of my mind I was very afraid that I might say anything at all, that I’d come out with something so outrageous that there’d be no way too save my job after it.  I was also afraid that I’d panic, that I’d start shouting or, worse still – for a bloke -  crying. The only way to hide it was to sit in my cubicle, staring straight at my screen, keeping away from all contact with anyone.

This is not easy anymore. Before I started this job I worked on my own, and when things got really bad I’d hide away in my office (during one really bad bout I didn’t go to work until 5 every evening and stayed till 10.30, so I didn’t even have to talk to people on the phone). In my new job I work with 160 other people, and hiding away is just not possible. GoldenEyes and Blondiebird, my two best friends in there, know enough about my situation to leave me be, but other people that I’d meet in the kitchen or in the loo kept asking me was I ok, and this just made things worse. Being told to cheer up, it might never happen, is no great help when you know it’s never going to happen but are depressed anyway.

It’s also getting harder as the Tinkids get older to keep it from them. I just kept going to bed first thing in the evening, telling them that I was very tired from getting up early (this part at least was true – I was getting up at five and getting the first train to work, since I was awake at four every morning). I heard Tinson2 asking MrsTin what was wrong with me though, and I know he’s just sensitive enough to think I was angry at something the kids had done, and that just broke my heart.

Then, on Thursday morning I got a bit of unexpected help when my third best work pal, SuperSlimMum (pregnant again and thinner than Posh Spice) arrived in the office just after me and smiled hello. When I was unable to smile back she asked what was wrong and, rather to my surprise, I told her. She amazed me by telling me that she’s had depression since she was 22, is on the same tablets as me, and was very bad all through her first pregnancy as she gave up all medication. She knows about ten times as much about all this as I do, and talking to her set me on the first steps back to feeling better.

So we’ve set up a kind of support group for each other. Mrs Tin and my other friends are all very supportive, but SSM knows what I’m going through, and it’s a great help.

One thing she keeps at me about though, is the cloud in my head. In the middle of last summer, during all my blackouts, I started to feel as my head was full of cotton wool, that everything is happening far away, that I’m living my life but not involved with it. She says that’s a symptom and can be cured, and she wants me to ‘get help’.

And she’s going to keep at me till I do. Which is good, because I’d kind of come to accept it, though I hated the fact that it’s ruining any pleasure in life. I was half afraid that I’d damaged my brain in some way during the periods when my heart wasn’t beating. Now I’ve Googled the thing, found that things like Brain Fog and Depersonalisation Disorder, do exist, and though there are many possible causes, what I’m suffering can hopefully be fixed.

That won’t cure the depression. But if it means that I can sit and chat with my friends again and actually feel like I’m taking part, then I’ll settle for that to begin with.

Hide in Your Shell

Sometimes I won’t write things for a few days.

I’m still here. I still read other people’s stuff. But I’ve nothing interesting to say, nothing funny to say (yeah, yeah, I know), and the way I do feel I can’t find words for yet.

But it will pass. It always does. And I’ll be back.

Why? Because it’s There

ClosestWorkBuddy emailed me a copy of a report from the BBC News yesterday. It essentially said that there are nine categories of drinker, as listed below:

The Nine Types of Drinker
Name	Characteristics	Key motivations
Depressed drinker	Life in a state of crisis eg recently bereaved, divorced or in financial crisis	Alcohol is a comforter and a form of self-medication used to help them cope
De-stress drinker	Pressurised job or stressful home life leads to feelings of being out of control and burdened with responsibility	Alcohol is used to relax, unwind and calm down and to gain a sense of control when switching between work and personal life. Partners often support or reinforce behaviour by preparing drinks for them
Re-bonding drinker	Relevant to those with a very busy social calendar	Alcohol is the ‘shared connector’ that unifies and gets them on the same level. They often forget the time and the amount they are consuming
Conformist drinker	Traditional guys who believe that going to the pub every night is ‘what men do’	Justify it as ‘me time’. The pub is their second home and they feel a strong sense of belonging and acceptance within this environment
Community drinker	Drink in fairly large social friendship groups	The sense of community forged through the pub-group. Drinking provides a sense of safety and security and gives their lives meaning. It also acts a social network
Boredom drinker	Typically single mums or recent divorcees with restricted social life	Drinking is company, making up for an absence of people. Drinking marks the end of the day, perhaps following the completion of chores
Macho drinker	Often feeling under-valued, disempowered and frustrated in important areas of their life	Have actively cultivated a strong ‘alpha male’ that revolves around their drinking ‘prowess’. Drinking is driven by a constant need to assert their masculinity and status to themselves and others
Hedonistic drinker	Single, divorced and/or with grown up children	Drinking excessively is a way of visibly expressing their independence, freedom and ‘youthfulness’ to themselves. Alcohol used to release inhibitions
Border dependents	Men who effectively live in the pub which, for them, is very much a home from home	A combination of motives, including boredom, the need to conform, and a general sense of malaise in their lives

When I asked why she sent it to me, she just laughed. I suppose I do mention the pub a lot.

The scary thing is that I reckon I fit into five of the nine groups. Even ‘Border Dependents’, which I had taken to be someone who drinks to celebrate the Peace process is going well, turns out to be one. the only ones I don’t have are four, six, seven and eight, and even seven, the macho drinker, is one I had when younger.

It’s very worrying. It’s enough to drive you to drink.