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Finishing the piece I felt revived. I had been in a state of limbo
for some time, not sad, but floating, flat. The limbo disappeared, in
its place there was a mild pleasure, not joyousness, but a feeling of
pleasure.
Then last month I read a feature in The Times Body&Soul
supplement on home cures. There was advice for “Feeling Down”.
It suggested that you write on a piece of paper about the events
that are affecting your mood. Some researchers believe that writing
about your feelings for 20 minutes a day improves psychological
wellbeing after just four days.
Sometimes, self-help isn’t enough. This home cure took me back to
my first really debilitating experience with depression, long before I
was widowed. I experienced both physical and mental symptoms. A
wave-like sensation would come over me at work, travelling to the pit of
my stomach. That would pass, but what remained was a mental gloom. I
carried on working, running a house, being a wife and mother, but the
gloom would not lift.
My gynaecologist suggested I see a psychotherapist. I was
reluctant. Psychotherapy was something you didn’t mention in those days.
Certainly not at the office. Admitting that I was depressed enough to go
to a therapist would be admitting a weakness, instability. Perhaps I’d
be judged not as capable as before, my decisions given less value. I
would have to say I’m off to see the dentist or I’m going to the doctor
for a persistent ache.
The therapist, a woman of more than middle age, who had trained
in Vienna, suggested three sessions. For each I would write down what
problems had been bothering me and by the time I explored the issues
–hard work and tedious --a clarity would emerge and a way to deal with
the worry.
This bout of depression had much to do with office politics, I
discovered. Offices can be much like a family, the staff like
children vying for attention from the parent, the boss. My director was
someone who kept everything to herself, whose idea of power was to share
information with no one, except for a favoured acolyte. The rest of us
began to feel left out, to feel undermined. I learned to face the
reality and to cope with greater objectivity.
Psychotherapy had been, for me, a success. I was able to gain
insight into my feelings and with understanding came liberation. But it
is distressing to find that the stigma still exists. In a recent article
in The Guardian on publicly acknowledging that you have, or have had, a
mental health problem, a manager reports: “A couple of years ago I had
my appendix out. When I came back to work I found that everyone had an
appendix story to tell and wanted to chat about it. It was a different
story when I was off work due to a mental health problem.”
The often-heard advice is to “Pull Yourself Together”. And then
there are the “Stiff Upper Lip” advocates. It may work some of the time,
but not all. Advice columns often tell you to talk to someone, a friend,
a relative, someone you can freely confide in. But in many cases those
who love you cannot be objective. With good heart they want to make you
feel better but will often be unable to get to the root of the worry.
I notice, however, signs that the stigma of mental ill-health is
being lifted. In the workplace, more and more employers recognise
the impact that work-related stress has on productivity. A recent report
showed that almost 13 million working days were lost to stress,
depression and anxiety in 2003/4. Some employers are putting support
systems in place, but still less than 10% of companies have policies to
tackle stress.
I returned to psychotherapy when I became a carer to my husband in his
last years. The round-the-clock care, the sleep deprivation, the
anxiety as you take on the role of nurse and medical advisor for a loved
one, carry a heavy toll and I recognised that I needed support.
I was reminded of this by an incident last week. As a trustee for
London Care Connections, a charity for carers, for some time I have been
talking about the depression and anxiety I experienced myself as a
carer, and the depression I now see as I work with other carers. But
whenever I suggested counselling for mental health, the professionals
told me that people do not want to admit to a need for mental and
emotional therapy.
However, last week, the charity discussed how they would like to see
leftover money spent from the borough's carers’ grant. One carer
mentioned mental health counselling. And one by one each carer agreed,
both those who had been raised to believe in the Stiff Upper Lip and
those who came from the traditional societies where mental health is a
taboo subject. Their need was too great to remain silent.
For me, knowing the cost of feeling down, it was uplifting news.
See Jeanne's previous
article in the series
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