Written Words Of Life - August 2002

After reading the article about depression by Jonathan Dollimore (see We Are Not Alone) I decided to purchase the book The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon (Published in 2002 by Vintage - ISBN 0 09 927713 1) and, whilst browsing through similar novels, I also purchased Malignant Sadness by Lewis Wolpert (both available from Amazon books - see the link on the right hand side of this page).
Both are personal accounts with the authors battle with depression coupled with psychological, psychiatric and clinical observations and facts.

Whilst reading these two excellent books I started to notice that there were certain parallels between their experiences and mine. On this page I hope to address some of these common factors and will start off by referring to the Solomon book.

Andrew Solomon breaks his book down in to methodical chapters that deal with his personal experiences, treatments, alternatives, addiction, suicide, etc, etc. There is no doubt that Solomon suffered a great deal of mental and physical trauma at the hands of depression and, whilst I can empathize with the mental side, I have not experienced the profound physical disabilities to the same degree as the author. Nevertheless there are still comparisons to be drawn.

Solomon makes an opening statement that "Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose and depression is the mechanism of that despair".
He goes on to say that "Depression degrades one's self and ultimately eclipses the capacity to give or receive affection, It is the aloneness within us made manifest, and it destroys not only connection to others but also the ability to be peacefully alone with oneself"
I have personally noted that my capacity to love is very deep, almost limitless. On the down side the opposite is also true, my capacity to despair is as profound! I disagree in the statement that depression eclipses the capacity to give or receive affection. In my case I found that there was a partial eclipse but I still had a strong need to love and be loved. Unfortunately on a number of occasions the love I offered was deflected from its intended course and as a result the payback was not forthcoming. I will deal with this in more depth later.

Later in the book Solomon observes "People around depressives expect them to get themselves together: our society has little room in it for moping. Spouses, parents, children and friends are all subject to being brought down themselves, and they do not want to be close to measureless pain."
How true!
How many times have I been told, sometimes in indirect ways, to 'pull myself together' or to 'pull my socks up?' How many times have I seen the dismay or anger in the eyes of those close to me when I am the numb, incommunicado, miserable hulk that sits in his usual chair and does nothing all day? I have also seen the erosion of patience and tolerance of 'well' people around those who are suffering, not just from depression, but from all manner of physical illnesses such as (in my personal experience) back pain, rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer's Disease. It lowers the quality of life for the non-suffers. It can be tiring, angering, depressing in itself. Sadly this knowledge has only served to add to the despair that I sometimes feel!

Of depressive breakdowns Solomon states: "You are constantly told in depression that your judgment is compromised, but part of depression is that it touches cognition. That you are having a breakdown does not mean that your life isn't a mess. If there are issues that you have successfully skirted or avoided for years, they come cropping back up and stare you full in the face"
How true this is. Every issue, every act of badness or failure in my life comes rushing back to fill my mind. I have done some terrible things in my life, made some bad decisions, treated people badly, committed acts that were illegal even. At the time of occurrence my conscience deserted me but it now returns with a vengeance. What is also heartbreaking is that the time for penance has long gone by. No chance to say sorry, to make amends. It is this feeling of things undone that serve to banish any positive feelings that my creep into my mind. How can I atone for my sins? I really wish I know. Thoughts of self harm or suicide drift through my mind but the coward in me quickly pushes them into the background.

According to Solomon the chemical effects of depression and stress can "physically alter the brain in that a sufferer has lesions to the hippocampus and the amygdala, a loss of neuronal networking tissue." He goes on to write "The longer you remain in a depressed state, the more likely you are to have significant lesioning which can lead to peripheral neuropathy." As if I didn't have enough to worry about already! Perhaps the book should have a health warning for depressives on its jacket.
Solomon also quotes George Brown of the University of London, the founder of the field of life-events research. Brown says, "Our view is that most depression is antisocial in origin; there is a disease entity as well, but most people are able to produce major depression given a particular set of circumstances." Solomon continues, "According to the exhaustive research Brown has done over 25 years, severely life threatening events are responsible for triggering initial depression. These events typically involve loss - of a valued person, of a role, of an idea about yourself - and are at their worst when they involve humiliation or a sense of being trapped. Depression can also be caused by a positive change such as having a baby, getting a promotion or getting married."
This made interesting reading to me because there have been several severe events that have happened prior to a bout of deep depression. Prior to my first major breakdown I had achieved promotion to a prominent position within the organization where I worked. Unfortunately the promotion involved me undertaking tasks that I was not trained to do. This lead to a loss of confidence in myself and a feeling of failure. As time progressed these negatives steadily increased in intensity until such a time as I broke down and, as a result, spent several weeks in a psychiatric hospital. Prior to, and after this breakdown there had been other instances of depression that had been triggered by events such as the break up of a relationship, the death of a relative or the serious injury to my son in a road traffic accident.
The cumulative effect of these knock-back seem to be that I now have no respite from the blackness in my head. No breaks, no positive thoughts or emotions.