His name is Eric

This is the elephant in my room. I’ve called him Eric. He’s part of a campaign currently being run at the university where I work to try to encourage people to talk more openly about mental health issues. As a member of staff, I guess I’d better set an example.

Mental Health still has a huge stigma attached to it, even in the UK. It shouldn’t, but it does. People are afraid, ignorant or have misconceptions which affect how they respond to it, if they dare respond at all. Previously open about suffering on and off with depression, I effectively retreated back into the Crazy Closet last year following a horrendous experience with someone I’d previously considered a friend. Mind, the Samaritans, and other charities advise you to confide in someone you trust and to reach out for help when you need it. At my lowest point ever, I admitted to this friend (someone who had assured me in writing that he was “always there” for me) that, although I wasn’t suicidal as such, I’d had fleeting thoughts of suicide. I told him I feared I wasn’t coping and was afraid of what might happen. My friend had been living with us for a while after going through a stressful period of his own, so I knew I could trust him.

His response? He sent me a long text message which told me he was “giving up on me”. He told me my behaviour was “manipulative” and "erratic" and that I needed to “get help” (a laughable misconception about this country’s ability to deal with mental health, whereby you mooch up to a counter and say "I'd like some magic pills, please" – I was already on a waiting list for counselling and had been for almost two months.) He told me that my friends were "pandering" to me rather than helping me with their support and understanding, and that I was to stay out of his way. He told me he’d spoken to other people about me and that they agreed with him (I spoke to them later, and they most certainly didn’t.) A few weeks later, at a work social, in front of everyone, he told me I had to leave, as I was not welcome. I left, humiliated in front of colleagues, and didn’t go out with anyone outside of my closest social circle for several months.

At the time I was devastated. This was made worse by his refusal to spell out what I’d actually done wrong (it's completely plausible that I said or did something that angered him - we humans do that sometimes and generally work it out afterwards) which added confusion to my deep distress. When I finally did get counselling I talked far more about the hurt he’d caused me than I did about my upsetting personal situation (I had just found out I had a brother and read my adoption file – his nasty text, in fact, was sent on the day I visited the agency and found out, amongst other things, my birth name). Now I’m no longer devastated. I’m furious.

And I’m furious partly because this person worked in a large, prestigious university and had direct contact with students. Many of them were probably manipulative people who needed to get help… but he wouldn’t have known that, because they probably never told him. If they had, he would rightly have “given up on them”.

And it’s because of people like him that we need to come out of our Crazy Closets and talk about the elephant in the room.

I can’t tell you when I first began to suffer from depression and anxiety (the official diagnoses/labels I’ve been carrying around with me now for over 10 years.) I think it was probably when I was a teenager, but then, it’s “normal” for teenagers to feel low, moody, to be self-absorbed and suffer self-loathing. As a teenager, I remember climbing onto the big windowsill in my bedroom, drawing the curtains, curling up into a ball and sobbing for hours. I had terrible nightmares that usually resulted in my untimely death. Everything made me anxious. I sat in classes at school with my heart permanently racing, worried I was going to be “found out” for something (though what I don’t know). This went on, as far as I can remember, indefinitely. From the ages of 13-15 I can honestly say I have no recollection at all of being happy, even though I had some great friends. Both before and after this period I’d describe myself as a pretty cheerful person.

As a young adult, I became increasingly aware of feelings that were more than simply being sad, or irritable, more than just having a bad day or lacking in confidence. Progressively intrusive thoughts gnawed away at me. Life began to feel unbearable. In my head, everything was heading for disaster – my relationship, my college work, my friendships, my future (though it’s worth noting at the time I was a high-performing student with a lovely boyfriend who is now my husband and a close circle of friends, all of whom I still have.) My usual tendency towards perfectionism became an obsession and a phobia of making a mistake. I found it difficult to articulate how I was feeling, and hugely frustrating that people were unable to work it out for themselves. I eventually sought help from the college chaplain and from a tutor. I told the tutor I was scaring myself as I had this reckless impulse to just run into the road of leap off a bridge. I had no intention or desire to end my life, but I was terrified I would suddenly do something completely insane. Alarm bells rang and he said this was actually a common symptom of depression and other related conditions. With the support and advice of both of these wonderful people, I rather sheepishly asked for help.

These are the symptoms of depression. It turned out I had most of these, but I also had a crushing feeling that I was being melodramatic and was wasting everyone’s time, and that I simply needed to pull myself together. After all, as a couple of people tried to reason with me, I had a very nice life; I had no “reason” to be depressed. But depression is like any other illness – there’s no “reason” why you get cancer, or why you catch a stomach bug, though there are risk factors. Depression can affect anyone for no reason. It can, in some cases, have triggers – I get very annoyed by some of the militant mental health campaigners who shout as a sort of Rule 101 of depression that it is ALWAYS just random – my episodes have often been sparked by some momentous events, whereas at other times there’s been no explanation at all. Yet when you’re unlucky enough to get cancer, people don’t tend to call you a malingerer or an attention-seeker (though I’m sure IDS is thinking it, but that’s a rant for another day.) When you’re throwing up uncontrollably with norovirus and you ask someone to get you a glass of water or pick up some shopping for you they probably don’t accuse you of being manipulative.

If I’m being entirely honest, the way I feel about my own mental health issues is primarily irritated: I’m very active, I have lots of hobbies and interests, including stand-up comedy. I just don't have time for all this misery crap. I also consider myself a fairly intelligent person, and it infuriates me that one half of my brain can’t simply reason with the other half and tell it to pull itself together. But it can’t, and God knows it’s tried! A couple of years ago, things started to get out of control. My mind was convincing myself that terrible things were going to happen, that I was somehow going to make some catastrophic error at work and get fired and as a result become destitute and divorced. I became so terrified of opening my mail at work that my hands would shake when I did it, and I would sweat and salivate as though I was about to be sick. During the day my stomach caused delightful issues, and at night I was restless and agitated. I slept for probably no more than 3 hours a night. I was crying on a daily basis over everything and nothing, and was convinced I was worthless. I went back to the doctor, and in a comfortingly short space of time things got better.

Finally, last year, in the build-up to my friend’s “giving up on me”, I had the worst depressive episode I have ever experienced. This time there was definitely a trigger, in the form of huge personal turmoil. Overwork, the emotional stress of finding out about a past I had purposely consigned to history and presumably a tendency towards depression combined to make the perfect storm. In my fitful periods of sleep I was haunted by the same dream on a nightly basis: I was in front of a judge, having been found guilty of the crime of being born. Each night he subjected me to execution by a different means. Each night I was jolted awake, shaking and crying, while being hanged, electrocuted and shot by a firing squad. I began absent-mindedly scratching my hands and arms with paperclips and staples while working. I spiralled into what I can probably legitimately term insanity, and have even blocked out some things that friends tell me happened over the couple of weeks when things really came to a head. I desperately wanted to shout "PLEASE HELP ME!" even though there was no particular help I wanted. It's perfectly possible I came across as manipulative; I certainly came across as snappy and unpredictable, probably started to drink more than I should, and leapt from relative hyperactivity to borderline panic and despair. One night I sat in the square near my flat alone, and sobbed for no conceivable reason - if someone had asked me what was wrong, I wouldn't have had an answer. Eventually, there just didn’t seem any point to living any more. My very sensible, educated brain reasoned that I was never meant to have been born in the first place, that this whole chain of events had caused nothing but pain for many around me, that I had let everyone down and that I neither deserved nor wished to be here any more. For the only time in my life, I thought about how I could do it.

I am exceptionally lucky that, for the most part, I have good friends and an amazing family, deserving of sainthood in some cases, who have been patient, loving and understanding. I am lucky that, like those with diabetes, epilepsy and countless other conditions, mine is entirely manageable – drugs (after a bit of trial and error) and CBT have both been useful on different occasions and, as with any illness, knowing everything there is to know about it helps you to counter it whenever it comes to look for you again. I am incredibly lucky that, unlike many chronic conditions, any episodes of depression and anxiety are for me extremely rare and short-lived, and easily reined in before they turn into anything dangerous. Last year was a blip that, if I’m honest, makes me feel a little sheepish, and makes me kick myself for not "coping" better and allowing myself to be deluged by symptoms I should have recognised. I now no longer sit weeping on park benches, can now open my post like a normal person, and recently embarked on a foray into stand-up comedy. I love my job, have a new flat and a picture-book homelife and am probably going out rather more than I should. Normal service has resumed. Life is very, very good.

But as a result of this I am confident, willing and in a good position to discuss the elephant in the room. His name is Eric, and he needs your help.