I hate talking about my mental health. I mention the fact that I am depressed when I'm listing all my medical conditions or whatever. But I only talk about it in that detached, factual way. I don't usually go into the details of the thoughts in my head. I've learned from experience that nothing loses you friends faster than freaking them out by telling them that you don't know what the point of you remaining alive is.
At the weekend Giles Fraser wrote a Guardian article about how we shouldn't medicate having "a shit job or a shit home life". It's all stuff I've heard before when I've answered the question "why do you take anti-depressants?" with "because my life is terrible."
Would these people prefer it if I were dead rather than pathologising normal life events?
I've had depression on and off since I was about 8. And it was something that happened 5 years ago that really, truly, made me understand the difference between sadness and depression.
When my mum died I cried for days. I was grief-stricken, heart-broken, and sadder than I've ever been in my whole life. But, interestingly, I didn't feel depressed at all.
Although I've used the Black Dog metaphor once before because it fit what I was feeling at the time, I usually tend to think of depression as an unending night.
At night you can't go to the bank, because the bank is closed. At night you can't return phone calls because businesses are closed. There's no point in opening mail in the middle of the night because you can't make any phone calls the letter might require you to make until morning. You can't do housework in the middle of the night because the hoover or washing machine will wake your neighbours. In the middle of the night you can't phone a friend and say "hey, fancy meeting up for a cuppa?" Because A) They'll have work tomorrow. And B) Unless you want petrol station dispenser tea served through the night window: There's nowhere to go for a cuppa. At night all there really is to do is stare at the ceiling.
Depression to me feels like a night that never ends. Except the sun still rises and sets, the never ending darkness is inside my head. I can't go to the bank, or make a phone call, or open my mail, or do the housework, or ask a friend out for a cuppa because I feel too dark for such things. I just sit and stare at the wall.
When my mum died I cried and cried. But the sun still rose and set, even in my head. I was able to ring around funeral directors. I was able to phone the Peugeot garage repeatedly to harass them into fixing my fucking car because I really needed it. I was able to go to the bank to deal with mum's money. I was able to phone friends who'd also lost a parent because I wanted to talk to people who'd gone through what I was going through.
I was beyond sad, but I never felt that clinical depression darkness that I'm so familiar with. And I think the main reason for that was the amount of support I got. I spent most of the month following mum's death at my dad's house. There were always family members around helping out with stuff. When I came home for things like hospital appointments or to pick up my eventually repaired car there were always friends at my flat who'd come and bring food. I swear I didn't make myself a cup of tea for about a fortnight because there was always someone around to hand me a freshly-brewed cuppa.
That's such a sharp contrast to my normal life. Ordinarily the only human beings I ever speak to are the receptionists at my GP's surgery, my GP, the local pharmacist, and the doctors, nurses and receptionists at any of the 5 hospitals where I'm currently a registered patient. I'm such a frequent visitor to the gastroenterology clinic at my local hospital, and the rhinology clinic at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear hospital that I don't need to give my name at reception any more; they know who I am. I have no local friends to lean on for real life support, the only socialising I ever do is on social networks like Twitter where I engage with people who are scattered across the whole planet.
I can't be sure that such an unusual level of social support was the reason I didn't become clinically depressed in the immediate aftermath of my mum's death, but it certainly seems like the most obvious reason. In fact, it's the only thing I can think of.
But the things that do make me clinically depressed are exactly the kinds of things that Fraser believes people shouldn't receive medication for. I have a shit home life, no partner, and no job at all; never mind a shit one.
I don't take anti-depressants because they're forced upon me by pharmaceutical companies trying to enforce happiness. I went to my GP out of desperation because I couldn't carry on living feeling as awful as I did.
Yes, a great many of the things that make me feel low are down to social pressures. I don't feel a social pressure to have a compulsory smile on my face but we do live in a society in which people are pressured to have a job. Which is a huge problem for someone like me who is too ill to work. LBC (which is basically just a phone-in version of the Daily Mail) on in the Doctor's waiting room reminds you of the sheer number of people who think you're a scrounger and resent paying their taxes to keep you alive. You can't even go to the emergency dentist to get a broken filling fixed without being made to feel small when she asks you "what do you do for a living?" And this is just the social pressure angle, other issues with being too ill to work include: Never having any money, not having career satisfaction, and, of course, being ill all the time.
The fact that I live in a flat that's not accessible enough for my impaired mobility depresses me. Moving depresses me even more. In fact, it was living in the property before this one - the one that was a rodent infested hole the size of a cupboard - that prompted me to seek pharmacological help because I couldn't bear my living situation any more.
My absence of family depresses me. I have no partner, no children, no siblings and no mother. When my dad dies I will be absolutely and truly alone in this world. And don't bother suggesting that I might have found a partner by then: We all know that's never going to happen.
Being ill depresses me. The mobility impairment I've had all my life doesn't depress me in itself, but I can't count the number of times I've been reduced to darkness by people treating me cruelly because they're disablist bastards. Some of my physical health problems cause me to be depressed directly. There's a phase after a migraine called "postdrome" which can cause depression. You'd think I'd be happy that my pain had cleared up. But instead, after a migraine, all I can think about is how much I'd be better off dead. I try to remind myself that it's just the postdrome and I'll be fine in the morning; but it's hard to keep telling yourself that when the rest of your life is a fucking disaster.
I've failed at doing everything I loved. I failed at swimming. I failed at comedy. I tried doing an awesome Masters degree but never got to finish it because of my health. There is literally nothing in my life I can look back upon that I've succeeded at.
According to Giles Fraser, none of this list of misery warrants medication because it's normal to be sad when your life is terrible. And pathologising this normal response is just making Big Pharma rich. It doesn't matter that without drugs to boost my mood that I might not last long. Even just looking at this list of things in black and white makes me wonder what the point is of carrying on.
There are plenty of physical conditions that are a perfectly normal response to life's ups and downs that we medicate. Catching a cold is a perfectly normal response to sitting next to someone with a cold on the bus. We medicate colds with paracetamol and decongestants. Breaking your ankle is a perfectly normal response to slipping on an icy pavement. Should we not medicate that with painkillers? Or are the painkillers just pathologising a normal response to winter?
If it's OK to medicate physical responses to life's normalities that make you ill or cause you pain, why should mental illness or pain of social origin be treated any differently?
