Book Extract
NOW THAT YOU ARE BACK (copyright Richard Beeston - 2008)
How can it be possible for anyone to say that suffering can be a good thing? How can you possibly be ‘thankful’ for depression?
One of the striking things about a journey through the wilderness of suffering is that it often opens up a much bigger picture of life, of ourselves, even God. That’s the kind of journey that Richard and Alison have written about in this book.
With a mix of adventure, humour, medical insight and sound wisdom, Now That You Are Back will change the way you think about depression, suffering, and finding hope in the hardest of times.
Extract from Chapter 2: The ‘Black Dog’ Attacks
…Alison’s life began to shut down, bit by bit. At first it was her work. She was becoming overwhelmed with the stress of being a social worker, particularly having to make more home visits, and took an extended period of sick leave. Then it was her friendships – she was no longer interested in meeting with people or going to parties. She preferred to stay inside and seemed happy only at our house.
Then it was her spiritual life – she stopped going to church regularly, and missed most of the small groups we were attending together. Then it was our relationship – even when I was sitting right beside her, she wasn’t really there beside me. She became a shell of her former self.
She would spend days and weeks watching simple children’s movies, sitting on the couch and sliding further and further into the pit of depression.
All I could think about was how happy she had once been. Yet it wasn’t until I returned home from work one day that I realised just how deep this depression had become. I came through the front door as usual to find Alison on the couch, but knew the moment I saw her something was wrong. She looked at me with watery, red eyes, and seemed for a minute incapable of speaking. The tear stains on her cheeks told me she had been crying for most of the day already.
She told me she had come close to finishing it all today.
I sat her down, and looked at her. She was helpless. Lost. Empty. I knew I had to do something, but I had no idea what. It was obvious I couldn’t go to work tomorrow. I also knew Alison couldn’t be left alone – not even for a second.
I wanted to assign her a bodyguard to protect her from herself. I frantically thought through our options. Go to a hospital? Ring my parents? Ring her parents? What about tomorrow? Who would look after her? Where would we go? The little voice in my head said ‘run away’. I was tempted.
However, in the end I did what I would normally do, I asked Alison. I wasn’t surprised that she knew exactly what to do. ‘Call the local mental health team’, she said. ‘I think they are available 24 hours.’
The Ryde Mental Health Team gave us help over the phone to get through the night, and arrived in person early the next day. After speaking to both of us, their recommendation was fairly simple. ‘Go and see your psychiatrist and doctor immediately. Alison may need to go into hospital for a while. In the meantime, make sure someone is with her at all hours of the day.’
Over the next few months, we just did our best to survive. I was still working full-time, but tried to get as much time off as possible to spend with Alison. When I wasn’t available to be at home, our families were very generous with their time and spent many days with Alison. Our doctor and psychiatrist started to work on a plan to help lift her out of the depression. They started talking about medications, diagnoses and treatment options. The barrage of new ideas and words was beginning to confuse me.
In order for me to be of any real help, I knew it was time for some more research. I would start by looking up the phrase the doctors used most when describing Alison’s latest diagnosis – ‘clinical depression’.
I had already learned that feeling ‘down’ is not the same as having depression, and that some medical professionals refer to the more long-term depressed state as ‘clinical depression’ to differentiate it from just a general sadness or melancholy. However, to get a better understanding, I turned to one of the major medical manuals on depression – The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM, as it is known, described Alison’s condition even more clearly as a ‘Major Depressive Episode’. It stated ‘the essential feature of a Major Depressive Episode is a period of at least two weeks during which there is either depressed mood or the loss of interest or pleasure in nearly all activities’.
It also outlined some of the other symptoms that can be a feature of a Major Depressive Episode, including: significant weight loss or gain; insomnia or hypersomnia (oversleeping); fatigue; changes in body movements or speech; diminished ability to think and concentrate; feelings of worthlessness; and recurrent thoughts of death.
I could see Alison displaying almost all of them.
