Talk to ….
My name is Gordon Boyle. If anyone has a question please don’t wait until the end; please ask it when it comes to you.
I have suffered from depression for over twenty years. It started after I had my first heart surgery.
I belong to ‘Rugby Mind’ where I am a volunteer. I have become a ‘service user representative’. I also belong to ‘Voices 4 Choices’ – an organisation that fights for the rights of people who suffer from mental health issues. I also have the pleasure of belonging to the ‘Rugby Disability Forum’ that is run by our fantastic Chairman, David Foster. At this point can I please state that, despite appearances, I am not his brother and ‘No’ he is not my father as many people think!
Can I also make it clear that I am neither a doctor nor a psychiatrist - nor even, as someone once thought, a psychoanalyst. I am just another bog standard person with mental health issues – and my label is ‘depression’.
We who suffer from mental health issues refer to the condition as a ‘big black hole’. Sometimes the sides of the hole are covered in grease and, if things are really bad, you end up with demons and goblins in there with you!
A lot of famous people over the years have suffered with some form of mental problem. One such person, of whom you all will have heard, is Winston Churchill. In his case he called it ‘the black dog’ instead of ‘the black hole’ as most of us do now. But he still went on to help us win the Second World War.
Mental health issues are not affected by the colour of your skin, by what religion you follow or, at the end of the day, how old you are. The topic is popular in the media but in everyday life some people don’t want to know you if you have a mental health problem – they may even think that they might catch it from you; or that you may suddenly attack them.
Mention of the words ‘depression’, ‘bipolar’ or ‘schizophrenia’, and particularly that word ‘schizophrenia’, seems to send some people into blind panic. They expect the sufferer to jump on them and cut them to pieces! In practice, a person who suffers from any form of mental health issue is more likely to hurt himself or herself than another human being.
A very important fact – one in four of us will suffer from some form of mental illness at some time in our life. There are over 22,250 people in Rugby who have or have had some form of mental issue. There are 450 billion of us in the world! So if you suffer from some form of mental health issue don’t think that you are on your own.
Those of us who suffer from any form of mental issue suffer twice over. Apart from the condition itself, we are also ‘labelled’ by it from the outset. Even the professionals do it – they call us ‘service users’. Many of us do not like the word ‘user’ because to most people in the street the word makes them think of ‘drug users’. I can assure you that I do not stick it in my arm or stuff it up my nose! If, say, you go to ‘Outpatients’ at the hospital, as most of us have at some time in our lives, they call you a ‘patient’ or a ‘customer’ – but not a ‘user’
On the lighter side, if you go to hospital to see a doctor the word starts with the letter ‘d’ – but in our case if you go to see a psychiatrist the word is pronounced with an ‘s’ so that we have to see someone who starts their working day with a silent ‘p’.
One of the worst things for people who suffer from mental issues is the feeling of loneliness. Even when your family is holding onto you with love, and you are crying your eyes out, they ask why you are crying and most of the time all that you can say is that you do not know! In the early stages of the condition this is just one of the things that we do. Another thing we do is to stay in bed – probably this is to hide ourselves away from the world in which we find ourselves.
For the partner, part of the family or just a very close friend of someone who has started to suffer from mental issues it is difficult to imagine what has happened and how to deal with it. If you want to try too understand the feelings of the sufferer shut yourself away under the stairs or in a very small room, no lights, just sit in the dark and see how long you can stay there without moving – just sitting in the dark. Imagine doing this and telling yourself that you are no good to anyone and you are no good at doing anything.
I could go on about many forms of mental health problems but there are many books that can tell you both about the ins and the outs of the various problems and of the many, many pills and potions that are on the market.
Mental health issues can be cured, but most of the time we just have to learn to live with them. Talking to others who have similar mental issues at, say, ‘Rugby Mind’ will help you to come to terms with your problems. You will find that others are in the same boat and that we are one big family. I tell people that: “if we can’t help each other; who will help us?”
I once had a very, very good psychiatric nurse who one day told me that treatment involved 20% tablets and 80% yourself. I did not understand him at first – but after a short while I did! The tablets can take the edge off things but in the end it is down to you to keep trying really hard and get yourself back on track.
Lastly, the one thing that I want to say to the professionals and those around me each day is: “I’m depressed not demented”.