December 2014

13th December 2014: Kelechi

| gmattersonline

(Trigger warning: this post contains Kelechi’s account of her attempted suicide).  Remember Ifeyinwa’s short story based on Kelechi’s experience of depression? Today, Kelechi tells her own story. Here’s the transcript from her interview in which she told us about her lowest point.

I think until you do it you don’t know you’re going to do it. Until then, I’d always thought suicide was for other people; I’ve got problems, but I’m not there. I don’t know what made me actually think ‘just do it’, but I think it was just being unable to face another day: there was nothing I could think of that was going to break this pattern. Nothing was going to get better.

It wasn’t like I wanted to die – obviously that’s the consequence – but it was more about how can I stop this feeling? How can I stop this grey, horrible sensation? I remember writing something like ‘well either it will kill me or I will just go to sleep’, either one was kind of good. Even a coma buys me some time.

Then I started to feel sick, and oh my fuck I will never forget this pain. The doctors asked me if I would do it again, and I said ‘nah man, they don’t put that in the films how much it hurts’. But my stomach was just hurting, this pain. I get period pains but this was something else.

I was panicked. Because it was almost like the sickness was telling me something wasn’t right – it now wasn’t what I wanted. I think because I had seen my mum I didn’t want to do it to her. It was more than just me that I was affecting and I was starting to see that. I remember saying to my mum ‘oh mum, I am not well, I need help, I really need help’ and I think it was the first time I ever said it to her. And then I vomited, like projectile vomited everywhere. Wretching and gagging properly, bleurgh. It was disgusting. But we think that that’s what saved me. Whatever I had taken just came up.

And I think that was my lowest point: I’m vomiting on myself, crying, saying I am not well, as my mum drives me to the hospital, and this is the 23rd of December, a few days before Christmas – this is not what you’re meant to be doing. Then we go to A & E which, for the record, is pretty shit.

The only person I really liked was the nurse who made my bed. She was an angel really. She had scars on her arm and used to self-harm. She said ‘I’ve been there, it’s a really dark place and it happens to the best of us.’ Listening to her talk helped.

Everyone had always told me that it was going to get better, but no one else had been there. So it was quite refreshing to hear from someone who had been equally as much of a mess and that you could be ok. She didn’t even say don’t do it again. She just said don’t make a habit of it, because it will make things more difficult for you and they will put you on watch. Even just that kind of practical advice helped.

But by this point I had decided that I was going to get better. The very first woman I’d seen asked me if I would do it again. I said no, quite clearly, and I said to my mum ‘I’m going to beat this’.

By the time I was in the hospital, I was me again, and I was just like this thing isn’t going to destroy me. My mum said that that’s probably the best thing that came of it. I had been to my lowest and had this resolution that I wasn’t going to go there again. I believed it that day. I felt so disgusted and ashamed too. But my mum said, and I think this was really important for me in coming to terms with it, that I shouldn’t feel ashamed. I should never feel ashamed. Sometimes you just go to a really bad place.

If, like Kelechi, you are going through a difficult time it’s important to know you are not beyond help and you are not alone. Talking to someone can help you see beyond feelings of loneliness or despair and help you realise there are options. There are several telephone helplines you can call at any time of the day or night:

  • Samaritans (08457 90 90 90) operates a 24-hour service available every day of the year. Or you can email Samaritans at jo@samaritans.org.
  • Childline (0800 1111) runs a helpline for children and young people in the UK. Calls are free and the number will not show up on your phone bill.
  • PAPYRUS (0800 068 41 41) is a voluntary organisation that supports teenagers and young adults who are feeling suicidal.
  • CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) (0800 58 58 58) offers help and support for young men aged 15-35 on issues which include depression and suicide.

11th December 2014: Dan B

| gmattersonline

Mixed anxiety and depression is the most common health problem in England. We interviewed Dan B who has experienced the combination of the two illnesses:

What mental health issue do you have or did you have?

Oddly, I didn’t have a diagnosis. But I was severely depressed for some time, which led to a break down in March/April 2013 (my final year at university), as well as some crippling anxiety related issues.

Each illness can affect people differently. Can you describe what your depression and anxiety was like for you?

The anxiety was the stranger one out of the two as it is an extreme feeling in the moment, as opposed to the dull ache of depression. Instead of the latter waiting for you at the foot of your bed when you wake up, anxiety will slap you into consciousness.

A watershed for anxiety came in my third year of University. We had a class on Tragedy theory (the irony is not lost on me!). I had often struggled with organisation but I was more organised than usual for this class, though I hadn’t read one article. I was full of hope for the term ahead, wanting to do it all and do it perfectly. I knew that many of my peers, who were friends too, had done less than I had on this occasion. The two-hour class started “So Dan, tell me about X article”. She’d gone straight for my Achilles heel and I felt this wave of disgust as I had to confess I’d not read it. I kind of shut down after that, while my heart raced and an overwhelming urge to bolt came over me but my fear was that I’d [expose my anxiety] if I did. It would be failure.

What was your experience of depression like? 

Depression for me has been a bit different. Largely because it forms, in one way or another, part of my life. I grew up in a household with alcoholism and drug addiction and I’ve never really been able to separate my feelings from all of that. I was first depressed at around the age of 13 when I just stopped ‘feeling’. I thought I was fine. But everyone else was asking what was wrong.

Alcoholism and addiction were permanent guests in our house and as such there’s no safety, little trust and no peace. Even when they are being battled and there is some sort of reprieve from activity, they never leave.

You said you were never able to separate your feelings from what was going on at home when you were growing up… 

I’m a master of justification. When those you love are being abusive, irrational and extreme – and you have no way out, you have two options. You can fight it knowing full well that you’re powerless, sad and scared. Or you justify it and it ceases to be an issue (which is false, of course).

Can you elaborate on what growing up was like and the first bout of your depression?

The first time I felt low was around 13 and I ran for the bus in the morning and all of a sudden it felt like someone had pulled apart the two sides of my brain. Looking back now, strangely, nothing came of it. I told my parents and the school but I just went back to normal. I tried talking to a teacher, who listened calmly but then told me that she wasn’t the right person for this. She didn’t tell me who was, mind, and yet again, I simply returned to my previous state. As someone who would identify [himself] as ‘high-functioning’, it was tough to admit that I was in fact barely functioning.

Could you describe your break down in your final year of university and what caused it, if anything?

I snapped and retreated at the end of second term in my final year. Without knowing why, I hid and stopped processing information. It took many weeks before I realised what was happening. A stupid thing triggered it [caused by] the people I was living with, involving a misunderstanding and lots of dysfunctional communication. I snapped and was furious, thankfully in private. But I’d not been that angry before.

The wider cause was a backlog of grief, anger and sadness that was compounded by bereavement, which [remained] untreated, and a dollop of university head-fuckery to boot. A lethal cocktail.

Can you describe a panic attack? 

In short, it feels like you are going to die. Your chest restricts and you feel paralysed. The first time it happened my dad had taken me shopping in London for a coat for my sixteenth birthday and he wanted to do something nice for me but I freaked out as I thought it was too pricey. He went ahead to buy it anyway but he wasn’t listening to me saying ‘no, thank you’. I started to freak and my legs went to jelly and I snatched his card from him at the counter. I went back to that shop two years later and the guy recognised me!

And what’s life like now? Would you describe yourself to be recovered from your depression and anxiety? And what does recovery mean to you? 

My understanding of recovery is coloured by my relationship with addiction. I believe more in a state of recovering than [being] recovered. Whilst that might sound disheartening on the page, it’s quite freeing in my eyes. Life is never static, we never achieve a single state, so if you work to make recovery a process of improvement it can be a positive way to look at life.

I don’t suffer from periods of anxiety in the same way. It’s present still, and I see that in the life choices I make. They are impulsive, manic and sometimes reckless but panic attacks are mercifully less and less frequent.

Depression, as the name suggests, is a dip and not a permanent state either. It will come back as it’s part of the ebb and flow of being human. The goal is to lessen the extent to which it dips each time.

What have you learnt from your experience?

I’m more fallible than I felt at eighteen. I’m capable of love. That experiencing this now is a blessing as I see so many people who shuffle through life head towards the floor and then it hits them like a fucking train. I’m more confident I won’t be in the way of a train.

Capable of love? Can you elaborate? 

I feel [I am] in a position where I can love and allow myself to be loved. I can feel now and, more importantly, I can separate [feeling] from hurt.

How did you feel before about your capacity to love?

Cold, really. That’s the only way to put it. The equivalent strength of feeling manifested itself through drive, ambition etc. I could be cheerful and upbeat but it came from a place of discomfort.

Looking back on everything, would you change yourself if you could and why or why not? 

No! What a catastrophic waste of time and energy. It would have all been for nothing.

Want to continue reading? Take a look at our other pieces on depression and anxiety.