Help, I Need Somebody, Not Just Anybody!

DEPRESSED, ANXIOUS, DESPERATELY IN NEED OF HELP?

Luckily for me I am not in that situation, but bad luck for those who are! This morning I called my neurologist's practice to make an appointment for a regular check-up. After about 15 minutes, I finally got through and was given an appointment - in four weeks' time!
If I had been in desperate need, I could perhaps have insisted on an earlier appointment but even then, with luck, I would have been allocated 5 - 10 minutes with the doctor. In this time, I would receive a hurried assessment, a prescription for the relevant medication and a recommendation to apply for a place at the local clinic, for which I would most likely have to wait.

Once there, I would be questioned, examined and prescribed more of the same, or something else and then have to wait about four weeks to see if the pills worked. If not, something else would be tried, and if they didn't take effect, something different until eventually, as in my previous experience, the depressive phase would have passed in its own good time.

During the waiting period, I would be obliged to show willing and take part in the obligatory therapies offered:

1.  Sport:  Try leaping around playing volleyball, or badminton and actually catching the ball, or hitting that tiny feather when your body has been slowed down by meds, your balance is off and your eyesight has worsened (just one of the many side-effects)!

2.  Occupational therapy: Try drumming up enthusiasm for creating anything out of wood, yarn, clay, or painting a picture when you have absolutely no energy, your creative faculties have been numbed and your hands are shaking (another side-effect of the meds). Or they have made you so dozy, you can hardly lift a finger, let alone get creative with it. Although I did manage to raise a certain finger, metaphorically, in the direction of some people.

3.  One-on-one therapy:  Try not to hit the smug, healthy therapist (often a trainee, about 15-years-old, with the life experience of a caterpillar) who, among other things, hands out tips as to how to get through the dreaded weekend, such as:

a.) Luxuriate in a warm bath, cook and eat a delicious meal, adorn the table with pretty napkins and lighted candles. Listen to lovely music in the background. 

b.) Meet a friend for coffee, go for a walk. Reach out!

All very well if you are healthy, in touch with yourself and free of this debilitating state which robs you of all sense of yourself and the ability to enjoy any of the things you normally love to do.

Luxuriate in a warm bath?  I could hardly bear the feel of water on my skin. I had to force myself to take care of the minimum requirements for cleanliness. Just getting in and out of the shower took a huge effort. Make-up? Schmake-up! No energy for that, either. Just as well, otherwise I might have been accused, as a fellow patient was by the head doctor, of not being really depressed if she could be bothered to make the effort to wear make-up.

I love to cook and eat, but not when I feel totally exhausted and food has become tasteless, feels like sand in my mouth, and my throat is so constricted it is an effort to get even a small morsel down. Candles and napkins? Forcing nourishment into my body was challenging enough without messing about with such fripperies.

I love listening to music and singing and dancing. No car journey, regardless of how short, is complete without my selection of favourites to which I sing along at the top of my voice.  Hardly a local gig goes by, ne’er a stage goes unturned without me strutting my stuff, right up there in front of the stage. During the dark phases, the sound of music hurt my ears, my throat was dry and my limbs were heavy. 

I once ran, weeping, out of a music therapy session. We were instructed to drum out our feelings on various instruments. Fuck that! I wanted to smack the self-satisfied expression off the therapist’s face.  Everything about her irritated me, which is interesting in retrospect, considering I felt numb of feeling and emotion. I saw her at an event a couple of years later, performing with a small group of patients. I still felt the urge to slap her.

Don’t tell me you have never been overcome by a sudden and unreasonable desire to hit someone just because they exist!

As for Reaching Out, one thing depression tells you (well, me at least) is that you are a piece of shit, not worthy of the ground you tread on, the air you breathe and certainly not of the love and affection which your family and friends have for you. No amount of reassurance in the world can convince you of that and you are deaf to it anyway, because your head is too full of thoughts as to how you can put an end to it all without leaving a bloody mess and hurting your loved-ones.

I felt too ashamed to face anyone. I would hide behind a bush, a car, and the stacks of goods in the local supermarket if I saw someone I knew. I no longer recognised myself. It was obviously my fault that I was such a mess. There must be something severely lacking in my very being. Other people were 'normal' and I could not bear to be around them. The sound of laughter hurt. It was as though I were being stabbed by tiny, sharp pieces of metal. It felt like a personal insult.

How could others be so happy when I was in such hell? I love to laugh. I can't not laugh. I shed tears easily, too.  I was robbed of both, apart from during that music therapy incident.

4.  Group therapy:  Try not to lose patience and scream at the guy who talks, non-stop without pause for breath. On and on and on and  ...

I lost it. I screamed. I yelled! I would have spat fire and brimstone if I could. Poor guy. This was his illness, he couldn't help himself, but my sense of empathy had also fallen by the wayside. 

I stormed out of a sports session once because the guy next to me  kept ramming and blocking me during a game of volleyball. “Asshole!” I yelled, before slamming the door. I later apologised to the sport therapist. His wife, who worked there as an occupational therapist and who had become my friend, told me that he had told her what had happened and that he was excited. “She’s getting better!”  Could have fooled me! I didn’t feel any different.

In spite of my numbed state, I formed close friendships with some of my fellow patients. We shared something which people who haven’t been through such an experience cannot understand.  These people came from all walks of life. We would not have become friends under normal circumstances.  I even grew to like an annoying room mate who peed on the floor one morning because  she forgot to go to the loo. She was unapologetic. I was relieved that I hadn't stepped in the puddle which graced the floor in front of the closet where I had been about to reach for my clothes.

We were all in the same boat, whatever our issues. Our illnesses was invisible to the outside world. We didn’t sport shaven heads, or limp around with a leg in plaster inviting sympathy and scribbled dedications. We could not be put into an explainable category.

With time I realised that I need not feel ashamed. Depression can, and does, strike anyone at any time. It does not discriminate between rich or poor, old or young, black or white. This is one situation where equality actually does exist.

I wish I could conclude this with a pat solution. Take the pills and all will be well. It is sadly not that simple. I am not convinced that medication makes things better in the long run. If anything, I believe that it can exacerbate the condition if taken for too long. It is a touchy subject. For my part, I am doing all I can to stay healthy, mentally and physically. It comes down to taking care of oneself properly, which I neglected to do for years.

At the clinic, we were all repeatedly advised to get organized and find a doctor/therapist for continued treatment. Hah! Here in Germany the waiting lists are as long as the Great Wall of China, so you’re buggered. People suffering from depression, addiction, panic attacks and all those other nasty diseases cannot afford the luxury of waiting.

My phone call to the doctor’s office this morning brought it all back. How desperate and afraid I had felt then. How alone.  I’m alright, Jack, but I was angry. I could have spit fire and brimstone in frustration. 

Instead, I sat down and started to type.