[Sigh] I would just like to say there is light at the end of the tunnel and I just know that people watching this who are really ill will just be thinking, “Oh yeah bog off you stupid old woman”. But I felt like they may be feeling now, and I would never, ever have believed I could be this well. I am more well now that I have ever been in my life. My quality of life is better in terms of… I’ve got a bounce in my step. I have fun. I don’t kind of live for weekends or live for holidays, I enjoy every day. And I guess theres stuff that sounds patronising like just take the best out of every day, but we only have one shot at life don’t we? This isn’t the dress rehearsal. This is it. You know, I have got well and I’m taking my tablets and I’m happily going to take them for the rest of my life. I’m not going to muck about with them.

Right well, I suppose the thing I would like to say is hang on in there, hang on in there. Most people, and I stress most people, do recover from depression. Of itself, it doesn’t appear to be life threatening. But of course it can lead you to you know self harm if you so get that far along the line. But if you cling on to the thought that most people recover, and that you will get better. But it may take time, and I think I would just stress that you need hope, you need hope that it’s not the end of the line for you.

You very likely will get better but you need time. And you needn’t be too hard on yourself and think that you’re a failure and you’ve got it all wrong… you cannot see the end because your circumstances are such that you’re locked into this cycle of hopelessness, you can’t function, your brain doesn’t function, and you can’t believe then that you’re going to be okay as a human being, in which case you’ve just got to hang on.

It’s lovely if you’ve got the support and encouragement of those around you, but you’re not necessarily going to get that, and we needn’t pretend that you will. But as I say most people do get better with depression.

You are stuck. They are stuck with the professionals. That… that does not sound very complimentary to the professionals, but initially, they [sufferers] need to get help from wherever it comes. I would like to think that today, people are more compassionate than maybe they were when I was depressed. Perhaps they are I would think there were more skilled people about. And you need to take help from wherever you can get it, but equally it’s [pause] Really, the bottom line is the person who’s got it is the best person to overcome it. The only person to overcome it.

It’s like a hole, it’s sort of like slipping into a muddy hole and you’re trying not to slide… trying to get up the sides and you keep sliding down again and you need help. I think that’s what I would say. The periods of counselling I’ve had, self-help psychology, rebirthing. Things I’ve done have all helped, even going for physical therapies, like acupuncture, shiatsu, have helped, because you can talk to somebody sensible and they do give your physical system a boost, you know. I mean depression makes you feel different physically. It upsets your physiology in some way and doing those sort of things, going to the gym, doing exercise and things, getting out, doing something can help reverse that, and doing nothing never helps I’ve found. I mean I’ve tried just sort of giving in to it, just laying about and, “Oh, OK, eventually it will go”, but you don’t get anywhere with it.

It sounds like you been active in dealing with your depression?

I was thinking that before you came, you know, but I have been a positive person. I haven’t just sat back and I haven’t accepted drug treatment because I don’t think they solve the problem. It may be that some people have chemical imbalance or something like that and that’s a different matter. If the cause is physiological then maybe you need some drugs. But if the cause is psychological then you need to do something in order to think in a different way.

I mean it obviously needs to be a medical person. And I’ve met with such a lot of kindness from the medical world that… you’ve got to trust them. And accept that they are giving you drugs for your benefit. You’ve… you’ve nowhere to go. So your back’s to the wall, so the only way to get better is to… let the medical people help.

I mean I can judge situations in retrospect, but at the time, I was almost immobilised, inert really. Yeah it was… I would sit in a darkened room with my arms over my head for hours, feeling so wretched I didn’t want to eat or drink. So I was totally… almost totally withdrawn, so you’re not really able to make any judgements and that’s it…

You go and see the doc, you’ve got to go straight away… you won’t do it without some help, it’s as simple as that… you feel really alone, you feel weedy, you feel cack, you just think that you’re no good. I would say that you’re wrong [laughs]. Point one. And just accept you’re wrong, say no that’s wrong I’m probably… also accept you’re not well, and therefore you not thinking right, so anything you think now is probably not right.

That’s hard to do because we tend to trust what we think, especially if we think it is as powerfully as we do. But if you can just say, “No, actually at the moment, I’m ill and what I think is probably wrong,” that’s good… the voice that says to you bad things seems incredibly undeniable and it’s not. And if you could just try and say, try to act as if it’s not, then that’s really good. And again you will not believe it, but you get better and not very, not very far away from now, you will feel better.

It isn’t a one size fits all is it? You know, I think I would say to folk if you feel like you’re not getting any better, and it’s not a quick journey to get well anyway, but if you really feel after say three or four months on the particular medication that you are just not getting any better, go back to your doctor and ask your doctor to change, to consider changing your medication. Ask your doctor to refer you to a psychiatrist if you are not under a psychiatrist.

And my personal experience is… is go for a younger doctor who has had more recent training in the more modern anti-depressants. And particularly, I know, you read stuff about people saying Prozac has done this, done that, you know, but any drug, you know has some side effects you know, and don’t let that put you off because living with depression is far worse than any side effects. And I… I don’t have side effects I don’t think. Perhaps I would say I’m not quite as sharp in my mind as I used to be, but maybe that’s just because I’m getting older [laugh]. But I am certainly smart enough to be able to function extremely well and do a challenging job that demands my brain to work.

There are so many people out there that I know that are in distress right now because they say that one in four people suffer from depression, so how many millions of people is that? There are more people who die through suicide than die in road traffic accidents and I don’t hear much about suicide in the media.

So what I would say to anybody who is reading this, and that is in distress, is that you’re going through a process for a reason. And that may be difficult to read. You’re having feelings, maybe thoughts and feelings that you think are unusual or that are distressing you, but help is out there. In lots of different ways, and lots of areas.

I know in my local area there is a 24-hour mental health line now, and there is The Samaritans, there is Depression Alliance. There are people out there who are the same. Although you may not think it, your friends and family would want to know that you are in this distress and would want to help.

You may think…. It may be difficult for you to reach out, and I understand that because I didn’t for a long time. But I would really urge you to reach out if you can muster anything, reach out because there is help out there.

I think realistically in the stage that I was, I was not capable of doing anything. It needed somebody around me to do the initiating… Say look, here is somebody who needs help. If someone could actually come and said you know, “Are you depressed?” “Yes.” “Are you feeling suicidal?” “Yes.” “Do you feel capable of initiating contact with anyone and asking help?” “No.” That would have been the total of what I was capable of doing at the time. It really needed somebody else to make that contact for me and ultimately yeah, it was my wife saying, “You must go to the doctor, I will make the, the appointment. I will drive you there. I will take you there. I will sit in the, in the waiting room with you”, but, “you need the help”. It really had to come from somebody around me because I was incapable of doing it myself.

And I wanted to finish by saying that the worst thing you can say to a depressed person is, “What have you got to be depressed about?” It is really as useful as saying to someone with hayfever, “What’s the point of sneezing at flowers?” Depression is an illness over which a person suffering has no control.

Instead of searching for a possibly non-existent reason for a person being depressed, if you know someone who is having problems, offer them positive help. Offer to help them open their mail, offer to help them with their daily correspondence, check that they are able to get up in the morning. When I was depressed I was unable to cope with many daily tasks, it was only with the help and support of those around me that I was able to function at all.

Have belief in yourself that you will get out of this. And what I often say to people constantly on the telephone when they say, people say, “They won’t do this” and, “they won’t do that.” I say, “Well that’s right, no-one else can do it for you. The only person that can actually bring you out of this is yourself”. That was a very difficult concept for me to grasp… but I now know it, it’s true. And so if I am the only one who can get me out of this pit of depression, then it is up to me to get on with it.

It is a case of not allowing yourself to forget that you can do something for yourself. You can get yourself out of it. In fact, the only person who can get yourself out of it is yourself, and no one else. It doesn’t mean to say other people can’t help you, therapists, medication, whatever, going to classes, there are other people who can help you. But you have actually got to do an incredible amount of work yourself. Developing that self-belief “I deserve the best”.

Because I think that if I set goals for myself that are, unattainable, because I feel different on a daily basis, then I’ll just set goals for myself to be disappointed. And therefore result in me feeling bad, which won’t help. So, I set mini goals. I need to get to lunchtime. I need to get to home time. I need to get to here. I need to get to there. And then I come home and I just maybe… sort of think about all the good things I’ve had, try my best not to dwell on the bad things, try and still argue my chatterbox, still sort of trying to make head or tail of the situation. Still accepting that I might still need help, keeping up to date with my GP. Speaking to my counsellor whenever I need her across the phone.

I’ve also, because I’ve got to that low point I think, one thing I sometimes mention to people is that I kind of reconciled myself with the possibility that my life might be absolutely dreadful. I might have a really horrible life, and die having fulfilled none of my ambitions. And you know, you might think that might be gloomy but I think somehow being able to accept that, it was good because then anything positive is a bonus. So anyway, I’ve gone through that period of, that’s probably it.

It may be the lesser of the two evils. It may have a protective… Also if somebody is traumatised, I’m thinking of people who in the Second World War for example, who were in prisoner of war camps, they’re traumatised, they keep having flashbacks. Maybe a period of depression protects them against unbearable pain. Although the depression itself feels unbearable at times, it may be protecting them from something even worse. That would do more damage. So…

So it can be seen as not the enemy?

As part of the whole story. No, not the enemy, not the enemy. It’s not helpful to think of it as an enemy. And it’s not helpful for me to think badly of myself because I’m depressed. It seems to me it’s ok, in the sense, I am ok, not the whole of me is depressed, a part of me. This depression is a manifestation of a malaise, of a need to become more whole. That’s how I look at it. If I am depressed, then I have the opportunity to change. I get to a point, when the depression is not so severe, I get to a point, and only I know when that is, and I know in my bones, when I can choose either to change certain ways I live, attitudes I have, or to go back to the old ways which will probably result in another depression. It’s rather like having a dream, which is telling me something. I take no notice so it recurs and recurs until I do.