Depression Stories

The following article appeared in the May 2001 edition of Top Santé Magazine (a major UK glossy). It does a pretty good job of telling my story of depression and recovery. So, for those of you who want more of the gory details . . . read on!

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How I beat depression

After 15 years of debilitating depression, Gillian Pearce, 43, finally found help. In her moving story, she reveals how she fought her illness and started believing life really is worth living after all...

Looking back, I think I'd been depressed to some extent for a very long time. But it was only five years ago, in my late 30s, that I was able to put a name to my emotions. Everyone gets low moods, so I assumed that was all I was feeling. It wasn't until I was diagnosed with clinical depression and took antidepressants for the first time that the world looked different and I wondered why I'd struggled on for so many years.

Until then, life often seemed pointless. I felt awful, miserable and hopeless. Worse still, I didn't seem able to do anything about it and thought feeling bad was my own fault because I didn't try hard enough to be happy. I'd describe what I was going through as a living death. I got no pleasure or enjoyment from life. I felt numb inside and so lonely.

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When I was really low, I'd spend days in bed, unable to face life at all. Sleeping was a blessed relief: being unconscious was the only way to escape from how awful I was feeling. I thought about suicide, too, and would get relief from planning how I'd do it: I'd tidy the house, then take some tablets, go to sleep and never wake up.

I never actually tried it, though. There was always a part of me that would never leave Rebecca, my daughter, who was a toddler when I had my first real bout of depression. It began when her father left me for another woman when Rebecca was just two weeks old. I was 29 and my dreams lay in tatters: I realised it wasn't going to be the happy family scenario I'd imagined. I was devastated, but somehow managed to carry on as normal, holding down a demanding job as an occupational psychologist and hiding what I was feeling from my clients, colleagues, friends and family.

However, I did want my life to change, so I gave up my job, sold my house and moved to America with Rebecca to do a personal development course. But 18 months after my husband left me, my father died unexpectedly of a pulmonary embolism following an operation to have a gallstone removed. It was the final straw. I was close to my dad and when he died I really lost it. Life seemed hopeless. Only Rebecca kept me going. If it hadn't been for her, I wouldn't have bothered to get out of bed at all.

I did try to change things. I studied lots of New Age ideas such as rebirthing - looking for something that would make sense of my life. And I travelled, too, taking Rebecca backpacking with me around the world for a year when she was five. But I still had long periods where everything seemed pointless.

Even when I got together with my partner John, whom I first met when we were travelling the world eight years ago, the depression didn't lift. But he was great to be with, he accepted how I felt and was always there to comfort me when I was upset.

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By now, I'd realised I was a depressive person. But I didn't think I was actually depressed even though I had a degree in psychology, had worked as an occupational psychologist and knew better than most what the signs of depression are. To me life simply carried on and John and I had a baby boy, Prentice.

Then one day five years ago, when Prentice was still a baby I was having coffee with a friend. She told me she'd felt so down one morning she'd hardly been able to get up. When I told her I'd felt like that most mornings for years, she was amazed. We spoke for hours and she advised me to see my doctor.

Fortunately, this conversation turned out to be the one that changed my life. It gave me the courage to finally see my GP, even though deep down I still thought I should be the one to change things - not a doctor or medication. At my first appointment, I wept as I told the doctor how I'd been feeling. She was sympathetic and after diagnosing clinical depression, discussed the types of antidepressants available. I opted for Prozac and started to feel better after only a few weeks. It didn't make me desperately happy, but things became less bleak.

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When I was depressed I felt like I was at the bottom of a pit and there was no way out. The difference Prozac made was that I was still in the pit, but I didn't mind any more. Being diagnosed with clinical depression helped because I was able to say, "I have an illness. That explains the way I'm feeling." But a part of me still felt I was using it as an excuse for how I was feeling and that I should really sort it out myself. That's why I took myself off the Prozac after three months, much earlier than the doctor had recommended.

I now see it was a mistake because within a few months I was back to square one. After a false start, I faced up to the fact that I needed to start taking medication again, but it wasn't easy. I had a real sense of failure and disappointment when I started feeling depressed again I thought, "What's the point of taking antidepressants if I'm always going to end up like this." I felt as if a promise had been snatched away from me.

As before, the antidepressants made me feel better and this time I stayed on them. I also educated myself about my illness and through knowing more about it I've been able to tackle it better. Training to become a life coach, which involved being coached myself, also helped me realise I'm not to blame for my illness.

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John and the children have been marvellous throughout, giving me loads of support when I felt really low, and encouraging me when I felt better. I guess for them, living with me was a bit like being on a rollercoaster ride, with them never really knowing when the highs and lows were going to come.

People often ask me whether my daughter Rebecca has been affected by my depression and I can honestly say she hasn't. She's never picked up on the fact that I've been unwell and has such a sunny personality. In fact, I've often wished I could be more like her.

I've been off medication for a year and feel fine at the moment. There's always a danger the depression could return but if this happens, I know what to do and feel confident I can cope with it. I won't let it steal my life again

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posted by Robert Heard at 8:18 AM