Recovery - Everyone needs a plan » The Good The Bad and The Unrelated %

“Should we lose each other in the shadows of the evening trees, Ill wait for you and should I fall behind, wait for me”
Bruce Springsteen.

Sometimes I don’t even notice. I just wake up, shower and brew my coffee alone, feeling steady. Then someone else arises and speaks and suddenly I am irritated, short tempered and down. They haven’t even said anything wrong, but I am cranky and sad nonetheless. It just is what it is. The ‘black dog’ has arrived in a nightmare while I was sleeping. I will have to put my recovery plan into action.

When I was a kid, I used to dream about having an android or a robot that could take my place on tough days Rick Deckard from Blade Runner would call it a ‘skin job’ or a ‘replicant’. I could disappear into my hidden loft and recover while my clone did all the painful stuff on my behalf. No one would notice and I could emerge again afterwards.

It was a nice idea, but one born of fear and naivete. Born of innocence. The older I got, the more I realised that tough times are necessary to serve as a contrast with the good ones. I realised that I had to face the dirty and grubby aspects of living and I learnt to accept them because nice moments would eventually return. It was okay to feel down because times were tough. The feelings made sense.

The trouble came about when times inevitably turned good and I still felt bad. As I grew into a man and my circle of supportive friends increased, I developed a smattering of courage and resilience. I was able to bounce back quicker, because many of my friends were experiencing the same things. A problem shared is a problem halved as they say. We’d talk about them over a beer at Dave’s place. Still, that fear and doubt fermented away underneath. I could sense it.

Everyone walks their own path

Eventually everyone grows up and chooses their path. Even though you stay friends, life pulls you apart. People that you couldn’t imagine living without in your twenties, develop work pressures that keep them busy, their children rightly take priority, they move away and the free time they had has been filtered. You realise that you have to make specific plans for get togethers or they just don’t happen. Again, it is what it is. It happens to all of us.

The advantages of a career and children are many. The problem is that they create stress. Having a career gives you financial rewards and a purpose, but it also creates pressure, responsibility and busyness. Having children is wonderful, but you become primarily concerned about their welfare and future. You never feel as vulnerable as you do when you become a parent, when someone else’s welfare takes priority over your own.

Just when you need the support, the support becomes harder to find. You check up on your mates via social media, only to find a representation of the perfect life. Like everybody else, they are letting the world know that they are doing fine (even if they are not). Added to this, they are dealing with their own stuff. The people you once counted on, suddenly can’t come to your rescue. They’re struggling to keep all their balls in the air too.

That’s when the fears and worries of your youth turn up again. You discover that perhaps you aren’t as courageous and resilient as you thought. You realise that you were just distracted for a long time. Slowly the pain and grief seep back in and start to wear you down. Dreams of avoidance don’t work anymore. You are vulnerable again.

Breaking

When your mental health façade gives way, it sometimes gives way with an ugly crack. Despite appearances, this is not a sudden thing. Like a faultline in the crust of the earth, pressure has been building for a long time. Eventually, you find you are unwilling or incapable of coping any longer and you have to stop. You don’t get a choice if the truth be known.

Depression is like falling into the deepest, darkest hole. You really dont believe that there is a way out. No amount of encouragement, support, money, success or comfort changes it. Faulty thinking, circumstance and perhaps a little DNA have taken over and you are bereft.

Finally some good news

The good news is that just as the pain has its origins within your mind, so too does the recovery,. So too does the healing. You really do have to stand with courage and say to yourself “I will do whatever it takes to get better. I will find the right people, both medical and social, I will trust them and I will follow the recovery plan.” You need to commit to recovery. Promise yourself.

Everybody is thankfully different. Everyone is complex and everyone has a different blending of reasons for mental ill health. Again, it’s no one’s fault. It just is what it is. As the reasons are individual, so too is a plan of recovery. Each person will have their own pathway forward. As the depressed mind is not a good counselor, it needs a medical professional to coordinate that plan for you

Psychiatrists, Doctors and Psychologists deal with this everyday. They have committed their lives to helping good people get better. They are used to hearing tough things and know how to respond. You will not shock them. There usually isn’t a couch, you won’t be hypnotised and told to cluck like a chicken and nobody will laugh at you. The thing that struck me most about the people in the waiting room was just how normal and sane everyone looked.

These professionals will coordinate medication to help you to function if necessary, they will highlight faulty thinking like catastrophising and rumination, teach you skills to overcome pain or use aspects of many other treatments that I am not aware of or trained to discuss. As we are all different, so too will each mental health plan be.

The future

My mental health recovery plan was a combination of things. Medication helped me to function again. Psychology taught me about my mind and how to challenge faulty thinking and Mindfulness taught me to take time and be in each moment non judgmentally. Each of these was a building block to better health. None of them was the silver bullet that killed the monster, but together they created the space and mindset I needed to believe in myself again.

If that isn’t enough to encourage you to seek help, then maybe the promise of a better life ahead will be. I still have a long way to go, but I am no longer carrying many of the burdens that weighed me down. I like myself more, am less judgmental, resilience is slowly building and the future does not chill me to the bone as it once did.

I recognise my triggers and know what to do to bring myself back from the edge. In fact, I now have a quiver of weapons to call on when I need them and I have people about me trained to help. The clones and replicants that I used in my youth to avoid life have been packed away.

You might be proud, you might see yourself as tough minded. That’s okay. Just remember that sometimes the line between wellness and pain is very slender. Even if you don’t announce your diagnosis on social media or tell your mates, at least see your doctor. Promise yourself that. Recovery requires honesty.

More brutal honesty…about Depression » The Good The Bad and The Unrelated

(A song about support in tough times)