My cotton wool room

[Pete54]

 Hi all,

I hope sharing my story will help me to express something that words have always really failed to do.

I'm 61. My messed up thinking about myself and relationships led to poor choices that were destructive; choices that hurt others and which, in the end, cost me my first marriage. There is a huge disconnect between my life as a health care professional and my personal, internal life. I'm told I'm good with people; that I can talk to others easily & interact in a caring, consultative way, with good communication that contributes good outcomes for clients. Yet I have no friends. I have no one (other than my current wife) who is close to me (and even there I feel a lack of understanding). I must send out non-verbal "stay away" messages, because rarely do family, or people I might wish to call friends, initiate contact with me. Life can be very lonely. Perhaps I'm afraid that others will see the messed up fraud that I am and I subconsciously push them away.

For me, depression is like home being a small, dark room with walls lined with thick cotton wool that has pieces of broken glass embedded in it. Somewhere there is a light switch that would go a long way to helping me find my way and avoid the pain from the broken glass, but the darkness makes it pretty much impossible to find. At the same time the cotton wool muffles the soundness of my thoughts and choices and also the voices of anyone offering help or direction. And all those thoughts seem to want to get my attention at the same time. Everything is just a mumbling jumble of painful thought, and no one seems to be able to hear when I call for help. I can sometimes break free from that bad place for a few hours to go to work where most people wouldn’t know anything is wrong, where you can trick yourself and others into thinking that everything is ok, but it’s exhausting keeping up the act of being normal; I can put on a good mask make it look like everything is OK. At the end of the day, though, you have to go back to my "room" – back to that place of confusion and pain – which also doesn’t make sense because any rational thinking person would choose to stay away. Depression isn’t rational. I'm not really able to be explain it with words!

I've seen counsellors/psychologists. My GP has me on an antidepressant which gives a little help, but life is still flat, without purpose & full of guilt. Some days I just wish I didn't have to wake up and do it all again. I just ache both inside & out.

[White_Rose]

Dear Pete

Thank you for entrusting us with your story. You are in such a lot of pain and I ache for you. And I want to welcome you to Beyond Blue because here you can talk in safety and we will hear you.

I think at some time or other we have all been in that cotton wool room, shouting our heads off for help and no one hearing. Then you put on your mask, straighten your shoulders and go to work where you use so much energy keeping up appearances that by the time you return home you are exhausted.

I have no idea how you interacted with the various psychs you have seen, but from the way you write I wonder if indeed you put up the barriers. I know I did. It took me ages to let go of my self-control and let it all out. And once the genie is out of the bottle it's hard to put it back. I think that's one reason why we try not to let it happen.

I have told myself in the past I don't want to get well and that's why I don't talk or listen. Not true! I desperately wanted to get rid of my depression, but that was the only explanation I could find. Like many people I sat in my grubby little corner, refusing to come out because the world was too big and I was too scared. Allowing myself to be seen as someone who could not cope, who needed help and had no idea how to live a normal life. It was humiliating, painful and I was ashamed of myself. What a failure.

However I did manage to "come out" and admit I had problems. I had a psychiatrist who got me to talk. Don't ask me how how. Other than that, I feel he did little to help me, but it was a start. My GP has been a tower of strength to me and I regularly meet with her for long appointments so that I can take the next step. How do you get on with your GP?

If you are not comfortable with the GP then change. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Find a Professional. This will take you to a search page where you can look for a GP by postcode. These GPs have experience with mental illness issues. You may find someone who is of more help to you.

I see your comment about making poor choices. Join the club. I wonder which is chicken and which is egg with choices and depression. So now is the time to make good choices. Take a deep breath and let it all out to your GP (old or new) and go to a psychologist or psychiatrist and do the same. Will it be hard? You betcha! Will you get to the end? You betcha! Love to know how you go.

Mary

[Pete54]

Thanks Mary,

Thank you for your words of encouragement. It's good to have a forum where we can try to express the muddle that is in our minds.

The first GP that I actually went and spoke to, was a work colleague where I was working in a remote part of the country over 2000km from Perth. I felt fearful about confronting the fact that I had depression as I had lived in denial "forever", but also pretty confident after I had seen the way she handled other clients. She respected the difficulty I had in "letting the genie out of the bottle" both personally and professionally even to the point of not making notes that may be seen by others within the health service. She did take some convincing that I felt I had depression, because all she saw was the mask I put on for others every day. The gulf between what I hope others see in my work life, and what I see when I look at myself from inside is huge. It was only after I showed her the scores from the tests I had done, and confessed about my negative (even harmful) feelings I had, and the hurtful choices I had made that she began to believe me. It's soooo exasperating not being able to articulate what is inside. She listened well, referred me to a psychologist (unfortunately another colleague in a small town I had to "own up to") and got me started on some depressants. Honestly, I don't know that the psychologist helped much. He gave me a lot of theoretical ideas about being conscious of my feelings, but very hard to put into practice. He wasn't the first either - I had taken myself to several psychologists/counsellors over the years and none of them really helped. Although I persevered with the anti-depressants, they were almost worse than the complaint! I did feel somewhat relieved from the constant, dragging sense of guilt, but I was always tired and had muscle aches and pains.  

I have since moved to another part of the country where more services are available and now have another GP who is supportive and I see him pretty regularly.  He changed my medication to one with less side effects and referred me to another psychologist. That guy did a lot more digging into my past. He looked at me in the context of my family, my childhood, my schooling; who and what were the building blocks to the person who is me now. 

It's a slow, slow process. The chemistry in my head still isn't good. At least I know the problem. Now just have to work on fixing the mess.