For Churchill it was 'The Black
Dog', for John Lennon it was 'The Blue Meanies'. Abraham Lincoln had it. So did
Charles Dickens and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
That which I refer to is, of course, depression. Some people have it more severely than others. Depression, if you do not suffer from it and do not know, is more than just feeling 'down' or sad. In fact one of the more tiresome things to hear from someone is the well intentioned yet woefully inaccurate 'Awwww, why are you sad?' At this point the irritability which is part and parcel to most forms of depression becomes apparent in the response.
Depression is not only sadness or 'the blues' but is often as not a feeling of total despondency, utter despair with a spiraling feeling of desperation which is both debilitating and overwhelming. The sufferer usually feels absolutely no will at all to do anything and feels that any action is futile anyway. Sometimes it lasts for a few hours, sometimes a few weeks or it can even linger for months or for years.
Another question people sometimes understandably ask is 'Well why can't you talk about it?' Again comes the despair angle. Depression is a very personal disease. One's thought processes are not the same as when the depression is in remission. Researchers have concluded that it is literally like a kind of electrical storm in the brain.One who is suffering is more or less short circuited. Essentially your own brain turns on you. And there's no place to hide from that.The feeling inside is 'What's the use. No one can understand even if I tried to tell them. There is no hope!' Churchill would be practically inert for weeks when 'The Black Dog' visited him.
I have had to deal with depression for most of my life. I very literally felt it descend upon me. I am even yet caused to remember the very moment it first visited me. It was the beginning of the Summer of 1984, when I was but thirteen years old. It was exactly as if a light switch had been flipped and I felt a terrible blackness descending like a blanket upon me and swallowing me up. The world became a negative from which I had been removed. The horrible and malevolent darkness filled me exactly as a bottle of ink that has been dumped into a glass of water, spiraling, twisting, grasping. It stopped me dead in my tracks. I knew somehow that I would never be the same and a deep fear and deep despair gripped me and dug in its hooks.
At the age of thirteen!
For years, apart from initially telling my Mother about it I kept it to myself. Who could I turn to? I was too young, I guess to consider a psychiatrist; at that age I thought that was something that older people did. When I eventually did see a psychiatrist many years later I found it to be somewhat ineffective. Perhaps I should have heeded his advice to take the drug Prozac but I was suspicious of drug therapy at that time. Later experiences with other therapists and psychiatrists served to further these apprehensions.
I went to a few more psychiatrists and therapists over the years to try to find that elusive sympathetic soul, trying to find the one who held the key which would unlock the gate and allow the terrible flood to pour out of me and release the awful pain and fear which hung over me. I began to perceive a pattern: Apart from the obvious fact that the therapist was there to talk to me and the psychiatrist simply to prescribe meds, I was having question and answer sessions with the therapist. I would be describing what I felt might be wrong (suggesting really, I suppose) and then would be asked "And how did that make you feel?" or "So why do you think you reacted in that way?" I began to get the distinct feeling this was some kind of racket.
Once through with the therapist I would be directed to the psychiatrist's office. He would scarcely look at me, bending over a yellow legal pad scribbling something or other. Then he would write out a script and hand it to me and then I had to pay the receptionist. It always annoyed me that the Doctors felt it wasn't their job to talk to me. Once on the medications it seemed that they would work well for a couple of weeks, by which time I had another appointment. Same routine except that the recurrent pattern would be invariable; the doctor would increase the dosage of whatever pill I was taking. After taking the higher dosage it would now start to have a reverse effect. On one med I felt definitely suicidal after the dosage was increased, something I have never considered doing. Every time I would bring this up and tell them it was getting worse I received the same lack of response, no matter who the doctor was at the time.
The dosage would be increased yet again.
I quickly realized the method of the various psychiatrists I visited were not diagnostic; it was a pre determined regimen of whichever drug they were being told to dispense at the time. Needless to say I stopped visiting psychiatrists after a few such experiences. I also began to undertake the task of healing myself at this time. How?
The therapists were asking me how I felt about things. They offered no solutions to me. I felt that I was sufficiently self aware to be able to monitor myself and to understand the triggers which would precipitate an attack of depression. If I could do that and resolve to terminate the chain of responses,I should then be able to negate them. It would be an exercise in self control and internal discipline.
The first few results were mixed; a few successes, more than a few failures. It took a little time to get the system down just right. Deciding what the triggers were was easy; I could do that at my leisure. The most difficult part was training myself to maintain a sense of awareness at the moment they occurred. It took some time, but eventually I reached a point where my successes were becoming more frequent. It was becoming more natural and less of a conscious effort. I began to increase in confidence at the same time, as we all do when we see a positive accomplishment realized in our lives. I had finally started to turn the tide:
I had decided to fight.
Nowadays when I feel the footsteps of 'The Black Dog' approaching, I find I am usually able to fend it off and circumvent its arrival...if I sense it in time. While I cannot say with certainty that this success I have been permitted can be used as a transferable template for all sufferers of depression in all of its various forms, I have long felt the need to write this essay, this dissertation if you will, in the hope that maybe I could help make a difference, that I could possibly bring to light something which someone else in the throes of depression might be unable to see through the inner gloom.
Perhaps, just maybe, I could help someone else to achieve a measure of victory too.
That which I refer to is, of course, depression. Some people have it more severely than others. Depression, if you do not suffer from it and do not know, is more than just feeling 'down' or sad. In fact one of the more tiresome things to hear from someone is the well intentioned yet woefully inaccurate 'Awwww, why are you sad?' At this point the irritability which is part and parcel to most forms of depression becomes apparent in the response.
Depression is not only sadness or 'the blues' but is often as not a feeling of total despondency, utter despair with a spiraling feeling of desperation which is both debilitating and overwhelming. The sufferer usually feels absolutely no will at all to do anything and feels that any action is futile anyway. Sometimes it lasts for a few hours, sometimes a few weeks or it can even linger for months or for years.
Another question people sometimes understandably ask is 'Well why can't you talk about it?' Again comes the despair angle. Depression is a very personal disease. One's thought processes are not the same as when the depression is in remission. Researchers have concluded that it is literally like a kind of electrical storm in the brain.One who is suffering is more or less short circuited. Essentially your own brain turns on you. And there's no place to hide from that.The feeling inside is 'What's the use. No one can understand even if I tried to tell them. There is no hope!' Churchill would be practically inert for weeks when 'The Black Dog' visited him.
I have had to deal with depression for most of my life. I very literally felt it descend upon me. I am even yet caused to remember the very moment it first visited me. It was the beginning of the Summer of 1984, when I was but thirteen years old. It was exactly as if a light switch had been flipped and I felt a terrible blackness descending like a blanket upon me and swallowing me up. The world became a negative from which I had been removed. The horrible and malevolent darkness filled me exactly as a bottle of ink that has been dumped into a glass of water, spiraling, twisting, grasping. It stopped me dead in my tracks. I knew somehow that I would never be the same and a deep fear and deep despair gripped me and dug in its hooks.
At the age of thirteen!
For years, apart from initially telling my Mother about it I kept it to myself. Who could I turn to? I was too young, I guess to consider a psychiatrist; at that age I thought that was something that older people did. When I eventually did see a psychiatrist many years later I found it to be somewhat ineffective. Perhaps I should have heeded his advice to take the drug Prozac but I was suspicious of drug therapy at that time. Later experiences with other therapists and psychiatrists served to further these apprehensions.
I went to a few more psychiatrists and therapists over the years to try to find that elusive sympathetic soul, trying to find the one who held the key which would unlock the gate and allow the terrible flood to pour out of me and release the awful pain and fear which hung over me. I began to perceive a pattern: Apart from the obvious fact that the therapist was there to talk to me and the psychiatrist simply to prescribe meds, I was having question and answer sessions with the therapist. I would be describing what I felt might be wrong (suggesting really, I suppose) and then would be asked "And how did that make you feel?" or "So why do you think you reacted in that way?" I began to get the distinct feeling this was some kind of racket.
Once through with the therapist I would be directed to the psychiatrist's office. He would scarcely look at me, bending over a yellow legal pad scribbling something or other. Then he would write out a script and hand it to me and then I had to pay the receptionist. It always annoyed me that the Doctors felt it wasn't their job to talk to me. Once on the medications it seemed that they would work well for a couple of weeks, by which time I had another appointment. Same routine except that the recurrent pattern would be invariable; the doctor would increase the dosage of whatever pill I was taking. After taking the higher dosage it would now start to have a reverse effect. On one med I felt definitely suicidal after the dosage was increased, something I have never considered doing. Every time I would bring this up and tell them it was getting worse I received the same lack of response, no matter who the doctor was at the time.
The dosage would be increased yet again.
I quickly realized the method of the various psychiatrists I visited were not diagnostic; it was a pre determined regimen of whichever drug they were being told to dispense at the time. Needless to say I stopped visiting psychiatrists after a few such experiences. I also began to undertake the task of healing myself at this time. How?
The therapists were asking me how I felt about things. They offered no solutions to me. I felt that I was sufficiently self aware to be able to monitor myself and to understand the triggers which would precipitate an attack of depression. If I could do that and resolve to terminate the chain of responses,I should then be able to negate them. It would be an exercise in self control and internal discipline.
The first few results were mixed; a few successes, more than a few failures. It took a little time to get the system down just right. Deciding what the triggers were was easy; I could do that at my leisure. The most difficult part was training myself to maintain a sense of awareness at the moment they occurred. It took some time, but eventually I reached a point where my successes were becoming more frequent. It was becoming more natural and less of a conscious effort. I began to increase in confidence at the same time, as we all do when we see a positive accomplishment realized in our lives. I had finally started to turn the tide:
I had decided to fight.
Nowadays when I feel the footsteps of 'The Black Dog' approaching, I find I am usually able to fend it off and circumvent its arrival...if I sense it in time. While I cannot say with certainty that this success I have been permitted can be used as a transferable template for all sufferers of depression in all of its various forms, I have long felt the need to write this essay, this dissertation if you will, in the hope that maybe I could help make a difference, that I could possibly bring to light something which someone else in the throes of depression might be unable to see through the inner gloom.
Perhaps, just maybe, I could help someone else to achieve a measure of victory too.
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