When writing red hot copy about mental health issues for this blog, I suppose I should refer to it as ‘My Journey’. After all, everything these days is a journey, isn’t it? A quick visit to Cyberspace reveals some typical examples. The Grantham Journal reports has this headline: ‘Grantham woman gives ‘support and motivation’ to member of Friends On a Journey in their weight loss journeys‘. The Sun, inevitably, offers this: ‘PAIGE SPIRANAC (who she? – ed) has revealed her “journey to build her booty” as she shared a picture of her progress.’ And the Africa Report Com grabs our attention with this gem: ‘Afrexinsure chairman K.C. Li: We’re on a journey to de-risk investments in Africa.’ Quite frankly, I struggle with business speak, or bullshit as I prefer to call it, but a journey is, I suppose, a journey even when in reality it is nothing of the kind. But I’ve started, so I’ll finish. My journey goes on.
The last self-pitying whinge I posted on the subject concerned the decision of a GP at my local health centre – we used to call it ‘the doctor’s, kids, in the days when you could actually meet up with one – to tell me that I needed to reduce my antidepressants because they were bad for me. He didn’t explain specifically how the level antidepressants I was on were bad for me, but they were. He may have said that they were bad for me physically because it’s hard to imagine antidepressants to treat my severe clinical depression ( a consultant psychiatrist’s diagnosis a very long time ago, not my guesswork) being bad for my severe clinical depression. The Prescribing Team – I assume this is a team that does nothing but prescribe things? Do they do anything else? – doubled down on the GP’s instruction when they flat out refused to give me a repeat prescription until I was down to just a couple of days supply, without explanation. If they wanted to make me feel even more ill, they couldn’t have gone about it in a better way.
I’d love to report that I was given advice on what happened next, particularly with regard to withdrawal symptoms, but I wasn’t. There was no equivalent to Methadone available to me so I had to look it up myself. Here’s what I found.
I am on antidepressants known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs). The blurb says this: ‘SSRIs increase the available levels of serotonin in the brain. Seratonin is a neurotransmitter that boosts positive feelings and helps stabilise mood.’ The technical stuff is well beyond my level of understanding and anyway now I know I have ADHD too explains why I’ll never understand it anyway, but even someone as thick as me can understand the bid about ‘(boosting) positive feelings and (helping) stabilise mood‘. All I can say to that is this: what kind of state would I be in without meds? Answer: a complete state or even dead. I’m not joking.
I’m going to be candid here, since I am now wallowing deep in a pool of self pity. The drugs do work, to an extent, because to an extent I’ve been able to function, at least to a point (my managers in the DWP where I worked until 2014 may have a slightly different view). Everyone’s Black Dog, as many of us call our depression, possibly to avoid using the word depression, is different and thanks to the drugs mine is, or rather was, blunted. I doubt that I will be able to describe with any coherence what it feels like, but imagine being in the air in an out-of-body experience – I know, they probably don’t exist, but try to stay with me – and being able to look down on yourself. That is what it is like for me: I can see my depression, my Black Dog, from above and I know that it’s the drugs keeping me away from the worst of it. So, having had my meds reduced in one go by an alarming (for me) 50%, how’s it all going?
As you can probably imagine, a vital aspect to reducing one’s meds is support and aftercare from the local health centre. Imagine having to go through it without any form of support whatsoever? Imagine having no one telling you what, if any withdrawal symptoms might occur and what to do in such circumstances? It would be worrying, maybe even terrifying, wouldn’t it? After all, we’re talking mental illness here, something you can’t easily control, certainly not without treatment. But here’s the thing: there has been no advice and guidance, no making contact to see how things are going, not a dicky bird. It was up to me to search the internet. I settled upon the website of the mental health charity MIND. Here are two lists of withdrawal symptoms:
Symptoms that may feel new to you
- dizziness or vertigo
- electric shock sensations in head
- flu-like symptoms
- problems with movement, such as problems with balance or walking, or involuntary movements
- sensory disturbance, such as smelling something that isn’t there
- stomach cramps
- strange dreams
- tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
Symptoms that may feel like your original problem
- anxiety
- crying spells
- depersonalisation (feeling detached from your surroundings)
- depression
- disturbed sleep
- fatigue (feeling very weary)
- mania
- mood swings
- poor concentration and memory
- suicidal thoughts.
A heady – well, it would have to be heady, given that all this stuff is in my head – list indeed and one that turns into a blur. I simply cannot take it all in. For example, who would think that coming off antidepressants could possibly develop into depression? I am no rocket scientist but even I can work that one out. I recognise all of the second set of symptoms because that’s what it’s like to be very depressed and some from the first list, too. My tinnitus, caused by listening to too much loud music, has been unbearable since I had my meds reduced and my dreams are utterly insane, which is how I feel sometimes when I wake up during the night. But here’s the thing: I’m, having to deal with this stuff on my own. It’s not a lot of fun.
By contrast, the treatment I get for my physical health is very good. I recently had my periodical bowel cancer test (clear) and I am on drugs for all kinds of stuff apart from that. That’s very reassuring but here’s a thing: for all the failings in the NHS, it is still capable of caring for your physical health. Your mental health: nothing.
I keep reading and hearing, usually from celebrities, how much better things are for mental people. The likes of cricketer Ben Stokes, ex Spice Girl Melanie Brown and ex footballer and TV presenter Alex Scott have all been open about their mental health. Scott says, “I will never stop therapy.” Increasingly, famous people in particular are not just opening up but sharing their experiences. I think this is truly wonderful and these people have my utmost respect. Sometimes, when famous people speak out, it helps those of us, most of us, who are as far from being famous as it’s possible to be. When people go into rehab or take time away from their high profile jobs, I don’t see that as weakness; I see it as strength. But there’s a but. There always is. And, as ever, it’s all about the money.
The famous people I named – Ben Stokes, Melanie Brown and Alex Scott – were working class people who went to state schools. If they had not ‘made it’ in life – and we should celebrate their success without reservation: success is a good thing – and gone on to develop mental health problems, they’d have abandoned to the pitiful lack of options within the NHS. Beyond basic and short term counselling there lies nothing until you’re sick enough to get sectioned. Unless you are a well-off person with a mental health condition, you just have to lump it. if it’s a journey, it’s also a road to nowhere, as David Byrne might have put it.
For me, there’s nothing left. No therapy, less drugs, the essential message from the NHS is ‘you’re on your own now.’ I’m tired and old, have never fallen so far that I’ve needed to be sectioned or to call The Samaritans, so I suppose that’s a positive.
So you see, while it’s fine to refer to just about everything as a journey – I’m going on a journey soon to the kettle for a medicinal cup of tea – the idea that a mental health journey is a journey is, as we doctors call it, bollocks. A journey suggests there will ultimately be a terminus. Well, I know that’s never going to happen and there’s no point in my pretending otherwise.
I’ve felt pretty shit this week and I can’t sleep properly – please; no sympathy. I’m just making the point – but feeling pretty shit and not being able to sleep is a normal week, or maybe a normal abnormal week. I’m going to finish with some advice.
Firstly, don’t get mentally ill. It’s just not a good idea. But if you do, then I recommend you are a famous sports star or an entertainer. Not only will you be rightly praised for your honesty that will give hope to others, you will also be able to pay for therapy. If these things don’t apply, welcome to my world and come and join my journey, such as it is.
