Living with Depression

By Nick Weatherhogg

Almost one out of every ten adults and teenagers living in the United Kingdom are affected by some form of depressive illness.

Thats a ten-fold increase from seventy years ago, and if it remains unchecked, almost everyone living in the U.K. will be depressed by the year 2100. The problem is just as badif not worsein other parts of the world.

Nick Weatherhogg, who has suffered from depression for many years, explores what it means to battle the condition in this inspirational book. He explains the situational, biochemical, and other causes of depressionand what treatments may be most effective.

He argues that we need to conduct more research on depression. If we fail to do so, depression could become the worlds number one health problem by the year 2030.

People do not choose to become depressed, but they can choose to fight their way out of the darkness. Join the author on a journey that offers the chance to keep enjoying life while Living with Depression.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524663650

Nick Weatherhogg

Born in Wales and raised in Essex, Nick went to Leeds University, initially to study medicine. Having left that course after contracting meningitis, he stayed in Yorkshire to return to his strength with a degree in Mathematics. After teaching for 27 years, he recently left the classroom and has started working nights in a residential care home near to the family home. Nick lives with his wife and four sons in Somerset.

Book preview

© 2017 Nick Weatherhogg. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/16/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6366-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6371-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6365-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016920952

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Why Me?

Chapter 2 My Depression

Chapter 3 Your Depression?

Chapter 4 You Are Not Alone

Chapter 5 The Boring Bits

Chapter 6 Tablets, Talking, and Traditional Helps

Chapter 7 The Mathematics of Depression

Chapter 8 Rethinking Priorities

Chapter 9 Alive Despite Depression

To my dear wife, Brenda, and our wonderful sons, Andrew, Dan, Tom, and Joe – the innocent victims of my depression.

Darkness

by Nick Weatherhogg

Darkness.

Darkness everywhere.

So real. So tangible. Darkness.

I eat it. I drink it. I think it. I dream it.

Darkness.

Suffocating.

I am drowning. Suffocating.

I am drowning, and yet I am alive.

Suffocating, and yet I am alive.

Death would be welcome.

Death. The end? And then what?

Darkness.

No. I must escape.

Darkness.

Darkness everywhere.

So real. So tangible. Darkness.

I live it. I live in it. I don’t live in it.

I don’t live in it for I don’t live.

I work in it. I don’t work in it.

Darkness.

Light. A flash of light.

Too brief. Just a flash.

Was it real? Was it there?

Just a flash. A flash of light.

A flash of warmth.

A flash of hope.

But just a flash.

Darkness. There is no light.

And yet I saw it.

I saw it. I felt it. I sensed it.

A flash of light.

Would that I could summons it

as a laird summonsed his serf:

Light, please come, please come again.

Just a flash, relieve this darkness,

Give me warmth, give me light, give me hope.

Darkness.

Darkness everywhere.

So real. So tangible. Darkness.

I hate it. And yet I need it.

I need it because it is me. I have become darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness everywhere.

Am I everywhere?

I need the light. I want the light.

A flash of light.

A hint of light.

A glimpse of light.

Those who inhabit the world of normality

open their eyes from darkness and the see the light

My wakened eyes see only darkness,

perhaps I need to close them,

perhaps then I will see the light.

Darkness.

Darkness everywhere.

I lie down in the darkness, for it has become my abode.

Nothingness washes over me like the ocean’s waves

Out of control, out of my control,

I have become nothing.

Is my request too burdensome?

Just the hint of light.

Please grant me just this:

light to see by,

warmth surrounding

and hope in my heart.

And yet darkness.

Introduction

It’s like I have this large black hole in my brain and it’s sucking the life out of me. The answers are in there so I sit for hours and stare. No matter how hard and long I look, I only see darkness.

—Katie McGarry

I am sure that the majority of people who sit down to read this book have already read at least one text on the subject of depression. I am equally sure that the vast majority believe they have a fairly clear idea of what depression is and how it is manifest. When I first started training as a psychoanalyst, I remember working with a clinical psychologist. One of the first things he said to me, and perhaps the most profound thing he ever taught me, was, Always remember, everyone who comes to see you as a client has got something wrong with them, even if there is nothing wrong with them. Too true. Increasingly across the country, indeed throughout the world, there is a growing number of people visiting clinicians because they are feeling depressed.

And here, we find our beautiful language is failing us; there is a world of difference between feeling depressed and being depressed. If I could own the copyright for every English dictionary in the world, one of the first things I would do would be to produce two entirely different words for these entirely different clinical conditions. I would add two words to our dictionary: maybe fepressed (for feeling depressed) and bepressed (for being depressed). Yes, I would add two words … and I would remove a whole phrase. I would remove the phrase I know how you feel. No, you don’t. You really don’t. Please, please, please, if anyone ever comes to you and says they feel depressed (regardless of whether they are fepressed or bepressed), please do not tell them you know how they feel. You don’t. I could tell you that as I am sitting writing this, I have a toothache (not true, incidentally, if any of you care). I am sure many of you can empathise, and, before my moment of blatant honesty, many of you may well have said, I know how you feel. No, you don’t. This is my tooth, not yours. This is my pain, not yours. This is my toothache, not yours. You don’t know which tooth it is. You don’t know what sort of pain it is, or the intensity. Is it throbbing or sharp? You don’t know my pain threshold. I have no desire to be rude, but you just don’t know. Please sympathise, empathise if you can, but please do not tell me you know how I feel.

Depression, real depression – bepression, if you will – is somewhat different from a toothache. Please don’t tell me you know how I feel; three-quarters of the time, I don’t know how I feel. I am trained in psychoanalysis, I have run a psychology department in a secondary school for several years, and I suffer from severe depression. It is my honest conviction, and here I am painfully well aware that I risk offending some (please believe me, that is never my intention), it is my honest conviction that maybe 90 per cent of people claiming to be suffering from depression are those with fepression. That does not in any way belittle their feelings, their challenges, or their desperate struggles, all of which are very real and can be quite debilitating. But for the 10 per cent, for those with bepression, I sincerely hope these few thoughts will be a real encouragement to you and maybe shine a little light into the very dark world you currently inhabit (as I do myself). And for the 90 per cent, I earnestly hope you too will find light and encouragement, but also understand the depths to which this awful malaise will plummet. And to the rest of you, hopefully a majority, who recognise the concept of fepression, who have felt low, dejected, hurt, and, yes, fepressed, from time to time, I hope that this may be a help for you in understanding the truth about depression that you may indeed sympathise, empathise, strengthen, and encourage those afflicted.

Benjamin Disraeli once said, When I want to read a good book, I write one. Please don’t think this is what this book is about. I have read several books on depression. I have read about the physiology, the biochemistry, the psychiatry. I have read personal testimony. I have read those who offer no hope, for they feel there is no hope. I have read those who give the five easy steps to removing depression forever. Did they help? Some did. Were they interesting? Some were. Do I think I can do better? Probably not. All I can offer is my own thoughts, my own experiences, my own battles, my own hopes. I suffer from depression – but it is my depression, not yours. I cannot offer you any quick fix or painless solution. But I do sincerely hope I can offer you a little light in what will always be a very long, very dark tunnel.

So I offer you Living with Depression. The English language is so often too limited, except, of course, to the small minority who have such a rich and varied vocabulary that they can always find the exact word or phrase to perfectly express their thoughts. Sadly, I am not one of those people. I write Living with depression, and of course, you now know I mean Living with bepression. Living? Very often when you hear someone speak of living with depression, it is frequently in the same sort of context as living with cancer, living with AIDS, or living with my mother-in-law. We tend to use the word living in this context to mean surviving. I am sincerely hoping I can show you that we can take it to mean a little more. To mean, well, to mean living. Having a life, being alive, finding positives even in the overwhelming darkness. That doesn’t mean that we smile and skip and laugh and sing; most of the time we won’t, because we can’t. Neither does it mean that we can get on with life, pretending that we are not depressed; that is not going to happen, either. It means we come to