Mental Illness Isn’t about Health, but Empowerment
I was diagnosed with ‘severe depression,’ at the peak of my corporate career. Within three months, I was working as a labourer on a building site, having moved out of my house and into a small apartment with my wife and brand new daughter.
I was lucky.
Depression, for me, felt like drowning. I was out of control and at the mercy of everything happening around me, circumstances would change — positively and negatively — without me feeling like I was an active participant and as a result I felt like a fraud and a failure at the same time.
Every time the CEO visited our office, I was sure he would fire me, and I would spend the night before sweating (literally, I ruined our mattress) and struggling to breathe. The sacking never happened, and there wasn’t even a hint it would. In fact, our office won several awards, but in my head, I was still a fraud.
When I got a promotion, secondment or received a pay-rise, I felt like there had been a mistake or that I had tricked somebody despite the fact that everyone including my manager, kept pointing out that I worked hard and was doing a good job.
Eventually, my head won. Following a meltdown at work (think being in the fetal position, speaking in riddles) I was sent to a doctor who immediately referred me to a talented psychiatrist who was superb and offered me the chance to speak and be heard at a meaningful level. I was also put on medication, and given a laundry list, both of things that I could no longer do and that I had to start doing.
The above paragraph is an accurate summation of the treatment program for most people with mental illnesses. First, an incident occurs that identifies the person as suffering from depression, anxiety or whatever else. Then, a medical professional performs a diagnosis and a treatment plan is put in place and…well, that’s pretty much it.
Now all of this is fine, but the question must be asked, seeing as treatment plans vary significantly, is there an element either related to the treatment plan or not that means the difference between improvement or not?
Obviously, there’s no simple answer to this because everyone experiences what we term ‘depression’ differently. In a few decades, we’ll look back and laugh at how we used to lump so many diverse emotional and mental experiences into one single, clumsy piece of medical terminology. But for me, the answer to my depression was empowerment. Or, maybe that is better termed, ‘permission.’
When I had my breakdown at work, my wife let me off the hook. She gave me permission to leave my career of ten years and take a job as an unskilled labourer without freaking out about money or the future and this gave me some space to think, or perhaps not think, at least for a while.
This wasn’t an easy thing to do. I was earning pretty good money (more than a writer earns, I’ve since discovered) and I had plenty of other businesses that would have employed me. There was an easy, temporary solution — get another job and it’ll be better. Probably.
But I was permitted to do something else, with no terms and conditions attached. As I look back on my experience, it becomes apparent that without this crucial element and the mental freedom it offered, I would have continued to painfully and slowly spiral. Instead, I rebuilt myself over a period of years and while the ‘old me’ would laugh at my current life choices, he was a bit of a dick so I don’t really care what he thinks.
It’s not that depression isn’t a medical issue, it’s just that this kind of clarification is clumsy and not useful. Below the surface of this generalisation lies something else and for me, and perhaps someone you know, that thing was a need to change.
