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I remember the day it happened, and that I knew I couldn't go on. I would drive to the harbour by the sea close to our house and spend hours procrastinating. I'd write pages and pages about how useless I was. What a failure I was, and how I had messed up things.I'd gaze into the seawater before me and contemplate if I just walked out and kept walking, I could leave the pain behind. I checked my life policy; it paid out on suicide. My three kids had heard me speak and now knew who I really was and understood my personal philosophy and spirituality which was a comfort. I was fully convinced my wife, Sharon, would be better without me.Luckily, I spoke to my psychologist the next day and at the end of the conversation, she said she was very worried. She made me take the number of the Samaritans with me and told me to go home and talk to Sharon about committing myself to St. Edmundsbury Mental Hospital.
Even still, a part of me thought I could do it on my own.I called Sharon on the way home, and after a deep chat, we both knew I had to go to the hospital.
It was the 28th of August 2019, my daughter's birthday. I was present as much as possible but it was hard knowing the next day I would be traveling to Dublin for what was to be a three-month stay in St. Edmundsbury.I was admitted to what was to be my saving grace: an excellent, extremely patient psychiatrist and a wonderful team of people in a truly special environment.
From the moment I arrived, the first issue the doctors wanted to address was my sleeping. I wasn't sleeping at all, and after three weeks, I was worse. I was on the third set of medications,with the first two not having worked. I was dopey and in a daze, feeling zoned out.
I found it hard to let go of the day-to-day property responsibilities of the business I'd left behind. Finally, due to further deterioration, the operations of the business were totally taken away from me.But then the right medication began to take effect, and I slowly started to improve.It was still three months before I returned home to what was to be my new life. Once home, I was lucky to have such a supportive family who were committed to making the necessary changes needed for me to recover.My daughter joined the business, and the day-to-day running was taken from my responsibility.When I was in the hospital, I noticed that many of my fellow patients had been readmitted multiple times. In counselling sessions, they'd admit that when they were discharged,they would go right back into the same abusive relationship or toxic environment that made them end up in the hospital in the first place.I do think that the fantastic work that the psychiatric institutions and medical fraternity do needs to be supported by social facilities and structures.It's imperative that recovering patients are supported to enable them to change their lives from imbalanced, abusive environments to sustainable, healthy living environments.I have to acknowledge that underlying my depression was most probably a spiritual emergency or a crisis fuelled by my inability to follow my own personal journey.I was recently at a conference where it was confirmed that 95% of our illnesses actually come from our lifestyle choices. For me, it was imperative that I changed my lifestyle and to follow my dreams and my passions.If there was one specific aspect of criticism in my own experience, it would be the level of engagement with family and close loved ones in understanding and dealing with the situation.While I understand the focus is predominantly on the patient, which is understandable, I feel there is room to improve the experience for the patient's loved ones.The close family of patients need to be included in the recovery programs. This is especially the case, and the challenge, when a member of the close family is the culprit of the abusive environment. If not addressed, they will just relapse in most cases.
Abusive family members must be held accountable, and the victims offered remedies for exiting such environments in a positive, manageable manner.This also involves more education of the other family members as to the nature of what causes the illness and to empower them to support the victim in addressing the toxic situation for sustainable change.
Mental illness is a horribly dark, sad, and lonely place, only fully appreciated if you've been there yourself.Although improvements have been made, it needs to be better understood, and society needs to be more accepting of the illness for us to mitigate its threat.I found myself surprised last year during Mental Health Week when so many were posting about their challenges and depression; I shied away from posting my experience on social media.While I speak openly about my depression with most people I meet, I found I just wasn't comfortable enough to publicize it in that way at that time. So, most definitely, there is room to improve the stigma of depression and mental illness for us all, bearing in mind that it is one of the most damaging and most threatening illnesses of them all and that it is growing at an exponential rate.
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