I’ve probably been depressed for the last couple of years but only realised it some months ago.
It’s baffling I missed it. Having been in therapy for over three years, I’d say I’m pretty self-aware. But over the last few years, I’ve wasted hours at a stretch window shopping online, compulsive buying, or scrolling social media feeling only churning resent and sadness. I’ve cried uncontrollably over work, felt so low I’ve contemplated calling the Samaritans in the middle of the night, and obsessed over and got really down about my weight. I’ve spent more time sitting on the sofa staring into space, in the same pair of matching pink sweatshirt and pants than would ever be considered normal.
Things I loved – seeing friends, reading, cooking, eating out, theatre, live music, doing new random fun stuff, running or playing squash, even going on holiday – became harder and harder to do, until I stopped doing them much. The effort of even planning them was exhausting. It felt like there was a mountain sitting across my chest, making even breathing a chore.
Yet I never saw any of this as depression. It all felt like a personal failing.
I’m not depressed, I’m lazy
I suppose one of the confusing things is that my life has never been so good. I am in the happiest, healthiest relationship I’ve ever known. My relationships with my family and my partner’s family are richer and fuller than I could have ever dreamed. My acceptance of self is better than ever. I have a warm comfortable home. I’m financially stable. Having spent years longing to be commissioned by theatres and TV companies, I now have a post-it over my desk reminding me not to take on any more work, because I’m swamped with offers. Sure, that’s a not-so-humble brag, I know, but it helps frame the context: as far as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs goes, I’m doing pretty well.
And so I trudged on through the quicksand, heaving myself forward despite the mountain on my chest – if only I was more disciplined, if only I was smarter, funnier, more charismatic. If only I was more ambitious or adventurous, or the sort of person people wanted to be friends with or do fun things with, or invite to BBQs. My fault, my fault, try harder you lazy slob. Why does everyone else find doing basic things like the laundry or taking out the bins or just waking up in the morning so easy, but for you it’s like climbing Everest?
Eventually, even my slow trudge ground to a halt.
The dog that wouldn’t poo
It was January, and my partner – I’ll call her S – and I were booked to go to Paris for a weekend. It was a trip that had been arranged and rearranged and rearranged yet again because of the pandemic. Now the train and hotel were booked, our tests were ordered, our vaccine passports were downloaded. This mini-holiday was finally going to happen. Did I mention holidays and travel had become impossibly hard for me? But I was doing it!
Then our dog got sick.
The little shit is a notorious scavenger and the vet thought he might have an intestinal blockage but couldn’t be sure. If he started to poo normally over the next forty-eight hours he was okay and it would just be a tummy bug. If not, he’d need surgery. The problem was, our train was in forty-eight hours. I could not bear to cancel – we’d lose all the money at this late stage and I desperately needed to get away. So I tried to hold out hope. A hope hinged on dog poo. I’d walk in circles round the park in tears, pleading, praying for a poo. I’d bring him home with no success, and collapse into a heap on the floor as soon as I got in the door, sobbing as if my only child had just been hit by a bus.
After an agonising 24 hours spent in this melodramatic state, he finally pooed. It was the happiest stickiest poo I have ever scraped off the pavement.
With much relief, I batch made boxes of rice and boiled chicken – food to give a sick dog – for his sitter, kissed the little shit goodbye, and headed for St Pancras. We were off.
Paris
S and I had a delightful time. I ate my body weight in baguette and moules-frites, as we walked the length and breadth of the city. I showed off my proficiency in not just one, but two European languages, by earnestly requesting ‘l’addition por favor” – something S, being an actual multi-linguist will never let me live down. Then, with very, very low expectations we ventured to the gay district to check out the scene for queer women. After two or three bars packed with only men, and two formerly lesbian bars now boarded up or turned into a seedy karaoke joint, we’d all but lost hope but thought we’d try one last stop – a little way away, but why not?
There it was, La Mutinerie – as Google Maps promised, “a self-described feminist bar” – a joy to behold. Vulvic art filled the walls while queer girls and non-binary folk with under cuts and their dogs huddled round tables with bottles of beer, chatting intensely in French.
I bet none of them bawl their eyes out over dog poo, I quietly and shamefully thought to myself.
Regardless, it was a beautiful trip and home we came to a no longer sick dog.
The pink pyjamas
In the days that followed, I fell apart. I could barely leave the house. Getting out of bed felt nearly impossible, changing into clothes other than my pink tracksuit was unthinkable. I cried uncontrollably. When I finally dragged myself to dinner with S, her mum and a friend, it was a small miracle. When the friend began talking about the difference anti-depressants have made to his life, my ears pricked up. I began to ask questions, and then out of nowhere said I was considering taking them. “Well, my darling,” he said kindly. “Frankly you’ve been sitting there with a cloud over your head all evening, so it can’t do you any harm.”
I took all this information to my therapist. I told him about the mountain on my chest, how hard things had become, how things I used to love no longer gave me joy. He was surprised – I hadn’t mentioned any of this before. I know, I told him. I just thought it was normal. That was until the whole dog/Paris debacle.
He explained that anxiety and depression often work together as a tag team. The high anxiety of the dog that wouldn’t poo and the holiday that may not happen, was so draining that it sent me to a plummeting low when I returned home.
We talked about medication, about the causes of depression, about ways of managing it, about how good I have been, it turns out, at masking it. With relief, I realised I finally had a name for what I was feeling.
Sertraline and other saviours
I spoke to a GP and was prescribed a low dose of Sertraline. I felt like a fraud. Part of me still didn’t believe this was depression. It was my laziness that I was trying to pass off as depression. S kept reminding me that no, that was my shame voice trying to pass off my depression as laziness.
Separately, my therapist told me about a leading academic in the field of depression, who suggests that most depression is a result of shame.
I noticed whenever I sat down to work I’d have an anxiety attack then fall into a deep well of despair. I asked my agent to contact everyone I owed work to and tell them that I was taking some months off. During this period, seeing people was hard. I mostly stopped. I could barely even string a sentence together some days.
S was my lifeline. She’d hold me, stroke me, bring me endless cups of tea and speak gently to me about this and that. When she’d get ready to go to work or see friends, I’d cry, but insist she must go anyway, despite my blubbering. She felt guilty and torn and pained at my pain. I felt guilty over my emotional manipulation, angry at myself because I couldn’t help it. She was the only thing keeping me afloat – a burden no partner should have to bear. But bear it she did. I will never know how to express my gratitude for those days.
I kept a diary to track the impact the medication was having, and almost like magic I felt it kick in after a few weeks. Suddenly, the mountain on my chest felt lighter. It became a little easier to get out of bed. I stopped crying as frequently. I started to see friends here and there. I dipped into my savings and bought myself a bike and, yes, some Lycra and went out for rides.
Nothing is forever
Before I knew it I was in rehearsals for my play. The excitement of it all was thrilling, and numbed a lot of what I was feeling. But it was also stressful and I was particularly fragile. The ups and downs of that process are probably material for a whole other blog, so I’ll save it for another time.
For now, after more than four months off work, I’m easing myself back into life. There have been some pretty wonderful days, where I can’t feel the mountain anymore. I can do things again, like my laundry, or get dressed and leave the house before midday. Looking into S’s beautiful eyes has always been breathtaking, but lately it makes my pulse quicken in a way I had forgotten it could. Where once my world was shades of grey, now startling pops of colour are returning.
There are also days when the mountain’s back with a vengeance. Last week I had a zoom call with a TV development person. We couldn’t agree on a particular point and, much to her alarm, I burst into tears. I tried to reassure her I was okay, but it came out as a nonsensical blubber. I attempted again. More blubber. I was clearly not okay. However interminable, those days always come to an end.
Someone once told me, “this too shall pass” applies to the good days as well as the bad. I like that. Nothing is forever.
The blog
I’m learning that talking about stuff helps. So does daily structure. So when the idea of a weekly blog popped into my head and sent a zing of excitement through me, I leapt on it.
The purpose of this blog isn’t to have masses of readers, though of course, I would love if my friends chose to read it. I haven’t spoken to a lot of you about how I’ve been lately, not fully or truthfully. I hope this goes some way to explaining what’s been up with me.
But also, the blog is to keep myself accountable, both to stay aware of my mental health, and also to do something every week. So every Thursday afternoon, I will sit down to write a blog which I’ll publish on Friday morning and post about once on my private Instagram page.
They won’t all be as long as this, I promise! I won’t go into too much personal stuff, particularly to protect the privacy of the people around me. But I will talk about what it means to be a writer with depression, and I’m sure other stuff will creep in too.
So, there it is. Sorry this one’s a longie. If you’ve gotten this far, thank you!
Until next Friday.
Love,
Iman