Living with Depression

It’s taken a lot of willpower to open up a tab to write this. It’s taken a lot of mental battling to even contemplate writing anything, but I know that I want to write.

But what to write about? Donald Trump becoming president elect of the most powerful country in the world, despite being Donald Trump? Brexit? Jurgen Klopp’s high pressure tactics and how they contrast with Pep Guardiola’s more considered, possession based approach? All of these things would, under normal circumstances, interest, irritate, impassion, anger, confuse, delight and dumbfound me. But at the moment they do… nothing. So, back to the question. What to write about?

The only thing I can think to write about (and this has probably been spoiled by the title) – the only thing I really experience – is my depression.

Almost ten months ago, I woke up on a Monday morning and I couldn’t do it anymore.

There’s not much more that I remember from that day, that week, maybe even that month. I couldn’t tell you what I did on the Monday other than cry. Not normal tears, not tears I had ever cried before. It felt like every tear was worse than the last and it was uncontrollable. My mum sat at the end of my bed for ages with me, or whatever bit of me was still there. It felt like I had cried forever and that forever hadn’t even started yet. I didn’t think it would stop. I didn’t think it could stop.

It did stop though. It stopped and it felt like there was nothing of me left, no thoughts, no feelings, no joy, no appetite, no wants and no needs. I didn’t really exist. I was a shell. For the next few weeks I completely shut myself off. I did everything alone. That sounds like a lot to do alone but in reality it wasn’t much. I ate alone, slept alone, pissed alone and shit alone. It was probably a week before I showered (which I also did alone). I turned off all notifications on my phone and ignored everything. Nothing existed to me at that point, nothing mattered.

A couple of days later I had a doctor’s appointment which my mum booked for me and took me to. I went and talked about what had happened – it’s pretty obvious that I had depression, I was prescribed some medication and to date I’ve had six different types. Some have worked better than others and some have had worse side effects than others. One medication gave me horrible, vivid nightmares. I was ravaged by lions, I was beaten, I was murdered and I was raped. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very much. The medication I’m on at the moment has kept me stable, but it has also meant that I’ve put on a lot of weight. I can eat a huge breakfast and feel like I’m literally starving at 10:30am. I can’t not eat because I feel physically sick, sometimes to the point that I sweat and have to run to get food. It’s like the polar opposite of having to run for a shit. In the ten months since I was diagnosed I’ve  gone up one, maybe two shirt sizes and have lost a lot of self-confidence. These side effects aren’t from tablets that make me feel good. They just stop me from falling into a really dark place.

Time to backtrack a little. I’ve explained what happened on that Monday but I haven’t gone into how I was before that.

I finished university in the summer of 2015 and I can honestly say it was the best experience of my life at that point. I had a group of friends who I loved and still love, I was learning about something I’m incredibly passionate about from people who inspired me and everything was great. It’s a horrible cliché and I hate horrible clichés but it’s true, all good things do come to an end. By June I had completely run out of money, to the point that I couldn’t buy toilet roll without asking my parents to help me out. Because of this I abandoned my hopes of staying to live in Brighton and came home to Guernsey, I moved back in with my parents and slotted nicely back into life here. I started playing football again, going to the pub with my friends in Guernsey and going on nights out. I got a job and everything seemed to be good. Who needs Brighton anyway?

Things weren’t good though, I gradually started to enjoy things less, the tedium and repetitiveness of 9-5 work in a job I didn’t like or see the value of gradually dragged me down. I spent money recklessly on anything that might cheer me up; food, drink, clothes, video games, DVDs. You name it, I bought it. I spent almost £1000 pounds on virtual currency for FIFA 16 and 17 because in the moment that I spent it I got a rush, wondering if anything exciting would come of it. It never did, but I still thought it might. I was addicted.

I got to the point of hating work so much that I hoped I would be hit by a car on my way in so I didn’t have to go. I called in sick when I wasn’t sick. I just needed to stop, to do nothing. At this point I didn’t like anything, I’d go out drinking and get wasted and feel awful in the morning, partly because I was hungover and partly because I’d spent £100 and got nothing in return apart from a banging headache and some sick in the toilet. Life was shit, really, really shit.

I didn’t quite hit the point of suicide, who knows how close I was. I wanted to get hit by a car after all. But I didn’t get to suicide, I got to that Monday. That Monday when everything smacked me in the face and I couldn’t do it anymore.

It was a number of months before I lost my job.  I hated it anyway and even if I did get better I wouldn’t have gone back, but it still hurt. Depression makes you feel worthless at the best of times, losing a job I hated and didn’t want just amplified that.

After a while I told friends I had depression and that was why I wasn’t at work and wasn’t responding to their messages. Not one person questioned me, asked me why I was depressed, what did I have to be depressed about. It was genuinely amazing to be that supported, everybody sympathised and said they would do anything to help and understood that me getting better would take time. At the time it didn’t feel like that though, I don’t know what I wanted from people but I didn’t get it and it sounds so selfish to say it now but I felt abandoned and alone despite everybody around me being amazing human beings. I wanted more, but I don’t know what of.

Around this time I met my girlfriend. Possibly the best thing to happen to me came at one of the lowest points in my life. I was terrified that she wouldn’t like me, that depression would scare her away. Our first date was spent watching films at my house. So was the second. I couldn’t bear the thought of going out and I hated that we couldn’t do ‘normal’ date stuff.

I told her I was depressed pretty quickly, it was petrifying but I did it and she was amazing about it. We’ve been together for 8 months and I love her more every day for how much she supports me, despite being extremely busy.

I’ve also started football coaching this season. It’s mentally draining and, if I was being honest, I couldn’t tell you that I enjoy it. I sort of know it’s a good thing to do, to not close myself off but a lot of the time I would prefer to close myself off. I don’t enjoy it, I just do it and afterwards I often feel worse than I did beforehand. I have no evidence that it is a good thing to do really. People tell me it is though. My doctor and psychologist say I need to keep doing things like it to get better but it doesn’t really make me feel better. Maybe it stops me from getting worse.

This is how I think a lot of the time; ifs, buts, maybes. I don’t have any conviction and I imagine it comes from a lack of real emotion. Some days I feel better than others. Some days I feel awful. Happiness is fleeting, I get brief flashes but my brain can quickly come up with a reason that the feeling of happiness is stupid and I feel bad again. Feeling bad doesn’t mean I’m sad, in a way sad would be good. Most of the time I don’t know what I feel, I don’t really feel anything at all and it’s disorienting. I don’t really get gratification from anything so I don’t know what to do with myself and I never really know what I want to do.

I still don’t work. I’m on what in Guernsey is called ‘invalidity benefit’. I’m an invalid. As you can imagine, that’s a wonderful thing to be labelled by your government when you already don’t really value yourself. The thought of working still feels unbearable, if I had to get up tomorrow morning and go to work I honestly feel like I would have a breakdown like the Monday morning I keep going on and on about (sorry) and I’d be right back at square one. That’s ten months later, on medication with a few useless counselling sessions and some CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) behind me.

For ten months my life has been on pause. I don’t have a career, trying to think about what I want to do for the rest of my life is paralysing. I worked for about six months and fell into depression, how on earth am I going to cope with another 40 years? It’s scary and at the moment I have no belief that I can do it. I couldn’t do a day.

So, that’s what I decided to write about. Life with depression. Writing is one of the things I’ve loved to do and I haven’t done it in close to a year because of my mental health, but doing this felt like a small victory.

Mental health has a huge stigma surrounding it still, especially in men. We’re brought up to deal with everything like a man, not to be emotional and concentrate on real stuff like changing lightbulbs and cars and football.

I didn’t deal with my declining mood when it first started to appear not only for this reason but also because I thought it was normal. I thought it was normal that I didn’t enjoy going to the pub, I thought it was normal to spend stupid amounts of money on pretty much nothing. By January and February of this year I thought it was normal to want to get hit by a car on the way to work.

We need to talk about these things and pay close attention to each other. Depressed people are very good at not appearing depressed and, as I mentioned above, at convincing themselves that their thinking processes are normal. Hopefully in writing this I might help somebody recognise these thoughts in themselves or in others and encourage them to get help quickly. I’m still trying to beat depression but it’s tough and a lot of the time it feels like I’m losing but without the support I’ve had I might have lost. So please, if you have any of these feelings don’t suffer in silence. Talk about it and get help. Having mental health problems doesn’t make you weak or a coward or stupid.

Thank you for reading this mess, it means a hell of a lot to me.