TW Depression, Suicidal thoughts / intention, Child abuse / neglect, Eating disorders.

Growing up with a depressed parent apparently makes you much more prone to depression yourself. The nature / nurture debate rumbles on, and whether predisposition to depression lies in our genes or our upbringing, I have no doubt that some of my learned behaviours when dealing with stressful situations hail back to seeing my mother so ill when I was a small child. At around age 8 or 9 if asked why I was unhappy, I would reply, “I’m just depressed.” Very matter of fact. And actually, even then, I often didn’t know the cause of being such a withdrawn and downcast child, I just was. The response was obviously directly lifted from my mother’s vocabulary, I had heard it a million times as I endeavoured over again to cheer her up. I assume I believed as a young child that finding the cause of her misery would enable me to improve things for her, however ‘just being depressed’ didn’t give me a lot to go on. Often, at these times she would have taken to her bed and as a child, I would just climb into the bed next to her, curl up, and snuggle against her. I had little concept during earlier childhood that this wasn’t how every other family (dys)functioned. I just knew I didn’t want my mummy to run away, as she sometimes threatened to, with car keys in one hand and huge jar of pills in the other.
Now, during my second long period of depression as an adult, I empathise with my mother hiding under the bed covers, not that I necessarily condone her leaving a young child unsupervised while she did. Not that I truly understand being that unwell and accepting that collecting your script from the GP surgery every fortnight was the extent of your treatment, but my mother was born in the era where the doctor was God, and questioning him was unthinkable.
I made myself a promise that when I had children they would not be exposed to depression as I had been, as if in some way I could prevent myself becoming ill. And to give myself some credit, I had recovered from a five year acute episode, and was a very different person, much more able to sustain my mental health. Though similarly, years before, I remember a mentor of mine on an acute psychiatric ward when I was a nursing student saying to me how ‘people like us’ wouldn’t get in ‘that state’ (that the patients were in). It was actually a patient on that ward, who had become rather attached to me who enabled me to fully see how depressed I had become. She told me one day how her episodes of depression and mania were so unbearable, that she couldn’t see a way forward, that she didn’t want to live if that was how the rest of her life was going to be. Like me, she was in her early twenties, and it broke my heart to hear her say that. Then came the crunch. She looked me in the eyes and said “Angel, do you ever feel like that?” I couldn’t even return her gaze, as my mouth mumbled, “No” but my heart screamed, “Yes!” Even then though, I managed to compose myself, pop the mask back in place and carry on a little longer. I was doing four shifts a week on the acute wards, one day in college plus homework and assignments, had taken a weekend cleaning job to make ends meet and was caring for my disabled husband. Such a lifestyle is unsustainable for very long, especially if, like me, you have a predisposition to depression. Add into the mix my marriage being less than ideal at the time, and I was an Angel-shaped time-bomb waiting to explode.
It was at the ward Christmas night out that I finally blew my chances of qualifying as a mental health nurse. There we were enjoying a lovely meal together, but my developing illness caused social anxiety to go to my tummy. I had to keep going to the toilet. During my three month placement I had lost a significant amount of weight, due in part to dieting and in part to losing my appetite. One of the nursing assistants I was friendly with asked discreetly if I was bulimic. I suddenly realised everyone assumed I was making myself sick. I laughed it off, obviously it was not the case, but I shuddered to think how close they were to working out how my relationship with food had become so a huge issue. In reality I had essentially been starving myself, egged on unwittingly by all, because as a fat girl, my losing weight was seen as improving my health. Because of decreased appetite I was able to survive on a couple of very low fat yoghurts and huge volumes of strong tea a day. I told my husband I was getting a meal at the hospital canteen. I told my colleagues I was eating at home. I told myself it wasn’t a problem. I realised trying to eat Christmas dinner after weeks of starving wasn’t my wisest move. But things got worse.
After eating we danced, chatted and drank. I was on soft drinks as I was driving and spent my time between the dance floor with the young nursing assistants and propping up the bar talking with the acting charge nurse. My mood was all over the place. One minute I was dancing, laughing and chatting away like the life and soul, the next I was withdrawn and tearful. I think the A/CN complimented me on my appearance, and with my chronically low self esteem it caused me to burst into tears. We had chatted a number of times before at work and I admit I secretly fancied him. It was however not something I had intended to act upon, so when he put his arms round me and whispered in my ear, “I love married women, how about having an affair!” I was pretty surprised to say the least. He had a shocking reputation for treating women rather badly, (another colleague once described him as ‘the ultimate male tart’). Also, with my zero self-esteem, and him having had quite a few drinks by this time, I genuinely assumed he was having a laugh at my expense, so told him to piss off.
Now, according to nursing tradition, a student nurse isn’t supposed to tell the charge nurse where to go. Even when being propositioned it seems. My nursing career was over. I imagine I will never truly know whether his version of events that had been taken to the school of nursing before I even knew what was happening – that he had identified I was suffering with depression, was actually the reason I was sent home, or whether he just didn’t like being turned down. Either way, I was depressed, the evidence was stacked against me, so that was that. Go and see your GP they said, get some counselling they said, and rejoin with the next set coming through at Easter.
I never went back. I totally broke down. At Easter I did return to the hospital though; as a patient. My first of four hospital admissions over the next three years. I wasn’t well enough to work at all for eighteen months, then took a part-time job as a care assistant in a nursing home, back in dementia care where I felt I couldn’t go too wrong. My manager was excellent, a very experienced RMN who used to look out for me when I was unwell, and allow me into work, even when I probably shouldn’t have been, because she understood the importance of my being occupied rather than sitting at home doing nothing. She once told me that even when very depressed I still did a much better, conscientious job than most of the other care assistants. I had other great colleagues there as well. When I relapsed and ended up back in hospital some came to see and brought me a huge bouquet that everyone had collected for. Another of the RMNs I worked with used to refer to me as his ‘best care assistant’ and would encourage me to do nursing tasks that technically I wasn’t supposed to do, but he trusted me, knowing I had completed nearly two years of my training (and at that point still hoped to finish).
The turning point in my depressive illness came unexpectedly. I had a couple of conversations with my psychiatrist that instead of causing me to despair, as they easily could’ve done, seemed to propel me into action. One was about ECT. It was suggested as a possible treatment option. I remember my response as if it were yesterday; “Over my dead body are you scrambling my brains!” Then the conversation where she suggested I didn’t attempt to go back to work again, how she would ‘pull out all the stops and get me every disability benefit available, and maybe if I got bored I could perhaps volunteer for a few hours in a charity shop’. I think the withering glare I gave her spoke volumes. She looked back at me and said, “That’s not good enough for you is it?” While I understand ECT is a helpful treatment for some, and that volunteering in a charity shop is a very worthwhile pursuit, I knew in my heart of hearts they they were not right for me. I realised my fighting spirit was finally resurfacing. It was around that time that the anti-depressant Venlafaxine was approved for use, and many of us in the mental health system were all tried on it simultaneously like a herd of oversized lab rats. For most it seemed to make little or no difference. To me, at the time however, it spelled the difference between ‘staying in the system’ and probably being pushed further down the ECT route, or recovering fully.
After five years under a consultant psychiatrist, I was sufficiently recovered to be discharged back to the care of my GP to reduce my (rather large) dose of Venlafaxine. And that is exactly what I did. Until I was no longer medicated a year later. I fell pregnant with my son shortly after, and enjoyed fourteen depression-free years. They were not, by any stretch of the imagination easy years, but I maintained mental wellbeing despite the challenges.

Thanks for reading.