I’m trying my best. But these, I can’t cross the roads. I can’t go out anywhere on my own. I can’t even get a bath on my own. I can’t even, I’ve got to have somebody there at the bath, near the bath or near the door to make sure I can get out, because I have these panic attacks. Because the other day I, I got a bath and my mum were downstairs. I got a bath and I got out of bath, and that were it. The panic attack started. I started breathing really heavy. It was like my breathing stopped. I couldn’t even talk. And my heart, it was just racing so much I felt I’m going to just, having a big heart attack. And, and I’m saying, ‘Mum, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. She’s saying, ‘Come on. Breathe, breathe, breathe. And I’m saying, ‘I can’t. And tears were just rolling down. And my legs and my arms and my body were just completely shaking. So I had to blow in these paper bags like I’ve been told to. And then it released. It was okay, I was okay then. Then I had to take one of my tablets, one of them tema- paza-, mazepam. And I were asleep for two days. And I woke up and I were feeling okay in myself.

There’s some other, there’s some other physical signs, there’s shallow breathing, you know, that shows the anxiety level up there with the thirst, the shallow breathing and the, and the sentence mixing up, those are the three things that stick, that spring to mind as being danger signals, time to do something.
And what are the symptoms of the depression, can you tell me what, how do you know?
There’s a sort of empty feeling, a very sad empty feeling that won’t go away and keeps generating negative thoughts about yourself and the things you’ve done and the things you might have said and you should have said or you couldn’t say and all this sort of thing. So it’s a kind of, it’s a sad feeling, an intensely sad feeling with regret put in there somewhere and with a powerlessness put in there as well, a disempowerment to change anything for the better, those three ingredients, sadness, disempowerment, what was the other thing I said?

’emptiness.
Emptiness, thank you. Okay, see I can never remember what I said, okay, so emptiness, disempowerment, regret, okay? That’s what it’s like’ Intensely, an intensity too, so that actually it actually gets to the stage where you can’t think outside of your head space into the outside world, you know, you can’t help anyone else, you can’t do anything else, it sort of paralyses you and into lying on the couch all day or shutting the door and not going anywhere all day, and all night and all of the next day. It develops into a paralysis. And a sure sign when someone is getting better is when they start to think about other people and how they’re going to fit into the rest of the world and how they’re going to help them. another sign of depression from, you know, just looking at people to see that they’re feeling depressed is when their self-care skills deteriorate, you know, they don’t bother to comb their hair and they don’t bothered to shave and the next thing you know they’ve got a, they’ve had the same shirt on for a week and all these things suddenly change and deteriorate so their appearance and, and their thought of others, you know, their sense of self in relation to others seems to Mmm.

Because I’ve done everything, I’ve tried to put my life back on, in line. But nowt goes right for me. Everything goes wrong. It’s like every time a block, it’s like going into that wall and blocking yourself in it, putting bricks and bricks until you’re blocked in that you can’t breathe. And then it’s like when a happy day starts for me, I can throw a brick off of that wall and start breathing. And I think, ‘Wow, this is a lovely day. And then only half a day I can have a nice day. And then in the evening, that’s it. I’m back to my moods and back to tiredness. I’ve no strength or nothing. I’m getting really weak in myself. And then sometimes I think, you know, ‘Why is it me all the time whos got to suffer? Why is it me whos always got to go down?’ It’s just like climbing up a ladder and saying, ‘I’m climbing up this ladder. When am I going to reach that top?’ And nobody knows when I’m going to reach it. But I’m always slipping back down this ladder. And sometimes I just think it’s not worth living, you know. But then I say, ‘My children are growing up. If I’m not here, whos going to look after them then?’ Because when I get poorly, like in the past when I’ve been poorly they’ve had no food, you know. Like sometimes my sister’s come round with, with milk and biscuits, something like that for them. Or sometimes she’s cooked their food. But I know if I’m not there my children have not been fed or clothed. So it’s important for me to be strong and be there for my children. It’s hard, but I’m trying’

Feel like I want to suffocate myself or put like a rope over the, somewhere so I can hang myself. And sometimes when I’m in the bathroom I’ll talk to myself in front of mirror. It’s like I’m two people sometimes. I’ll say bad and I’ll say good. I’ll say to myself, ‘Well, don’t do this. It’s not, it’s not right. You’ve got kids. And I’ll say, ‘Well, I’ve put up with all this before. Why should I put up with it? I’m packing my bags and I’m going. And then my mind will click, ‘Oh, you’re going downstairs. Why don’t you jump off of this, you know, fall downstairs? You might break your leg or you might end up in hospital. Then I think to myself, ‘No, I can’t do that. If I do that, whos going to look after my kids?’ You know. Things just come to my mind.

In fact I felt like killing myself. And the only outlet I had for that, well I think the starving, it was pretty clear that my Mum was going to put a stop to that, she wasn’t going to let me carry on starving and there were all kinds of threats, but the cutting was something that I could in secret. And it was a way of, I suppose, punishing myself. Sometimes, it was’ a way of if she was screaming at me, and telling me what a terrible person I was and stuff then I felt, well if I am that bad then I deserve this. So, I would, I would cut, because I felt that I deserved it. She was telling me all these horrible things and she would never hit me. And I would think well surely if I am that bad I deserve to be hit and stuff. And so I would do it to myself. And also I think sometimes when I was angry with her, and obviously I couldn’t do anything to her, so I cut myself

I still feel like there is something wrong with me. Very much there is something wrong with me and I’m not like other people and I don’t understand normal people at all. I don’t understand why they enjoy things. I don’t understand why people are motivated to work. Why people have ambition’ I don’t get it. I don’t know. It’s kind of like I am resigned to not really doing very much with my life, but then I think I get depressed because I feel frustrated. I think well why can’t I do something? Why am I rubbish at everything? Why do I not have any talent? Why don’t people like me? Why can’t I have a group of friends? Why can’t I just have a nice life?

I mean for instance for me, how I used to get my aggression out was by doing things like cutting and banging my head, you know, it’s a lot more socially acceptable to go to the gym and run for half an hour [laughs]. And it does help you kind of get out some of your tension and frustration I think in that sense, you know, it is something physical you can do without actually beating anyone up or hurting yourself. So I think it does help in that way, yes.

Did you, I mean did you get any advice about dealing with cutting?
No, I think that’ no I didn’t get any help on how to stop doing it, I mean I think it just kind of came when I was, well I stopped being so angry, like after I was discharged and I was, you know, being treated for, what I actually had a problem with, and, and I didn’t get specific advice for stopping the cutting, I think it was just generally just not hating myself as much, because I used to. I mean I am not saying that, you know, I think I’m great or anything now, but it’s, it’s kind of like I don’t, well sometimes I do but I don’t really have that extreme self hate and extreme anger with other people to make me want to do that. So I don’t think it was specifically towards how to stop the cutting. I know some people do need that, you know, but for me, it was more like my self-esteem was raised enough for me not to. And occasionally I would get the thoughts, but I think because it has been quite a long time since I have cut, I don’t act on it.

I feel guilty. I think that’s probably a part of depression. That’s, guilt is something that – and I think it’s probably because of my upbringing as well, because guilt was something that my mum used quite often to manipulate things wherever she could, and I think she still uses it. Not to the extent that she used to, but she still does use that. So I think that feeling guilty for no reason comes from that. And it’s, it’s a really pathetic feeling, but I even know that I’m feeling guilty without any reason, but I can’t help it. So that’s… you know what I mean? Like if you know what the problem is and you can’t solve it, then you feel helpless, and when you feel helpless then, you know, you feel helpless. You feel more and more down. You feel like you can’t do anything about it, so how do I solve it?

So the eventual solution that you think in your head is, ‘All right, so kill yourself or something. But I haven’t actually attempted it, ever. I’ve always thought about it and suicide always gives me a sort of relieving feeling. It’s like when I hit the pit and I’m thinking, like, ‘What the hell should I do?’ and my mind is basic, my mind just starts killing myself. And at that point, I think, I think to myself, ‘Okay, if worse come to worse happens and I can’t do absolutely anything, then I’ll kill myself. But am I ready to do that?’ And then my, I sort of start thinking, ‘No, I’ll give it another shot. Maybe next night. And that sort of lifts me up, actually, in a funny way. It’s, suicide is like I use it as a counter-suicide mechanism [laughs], if you will.

I went to a hypnotherapy mainly about sleeping because at the time I wasn’t, you know. I think that’s probably been one of the major symptoms I have had because of all the anxieties in my mind, a lot of them are deep, but I don’t know what I’m anxious about. My mind was always constantly worried about stuff and. I think a lot of it I mean when I read about it, it fits in with the sort of general anxiety disorders. And it was sort of I was always like worried all sorts of stuff from exams to family to, you know, what like teachers and what have you and what they thought about me. And, you know, like doing things in front of people I was worried about what they’re thoughts were and how it sort of would affect me.

I was always so anxious that I was thinking about three, you know, levels ahead, if I was, say if I was with my cousin and I did something which I found, I thought might be embarrassing or something I was worried about what he’s going to tell, who he’s going to tell, how many people he knows in the school or whatever and, you know, who are they going to tell. Do they know my family or whatever? All these things these were going through my mind. And then I’d be thinking about stuff like that at night and I couldn’t sleep. And then other stuff like what my family wanted , you know, because they were already asking about , you know, what I’d be doing about marriage and all that, arranged, arranged marriages and stuff and.

Well, it’s been for a while and some days, I have good days and bad days. I started first knowing that I was getting sick about ten years ago now. And feel uneasy and, and feel awkward around people. And I kept asking myself, Why, you know, why I’m like this And I couldn’t get, I couldn’t really determine what was wrong. And then it got a lot worse. And I used to get, sort of like neglect, couldn’t feel that I was, hadn’t much to live for. And I asked, you know, to, to get help. It got so bad that it’s, that I couldn’t cope. I was shivering, I felt fear in me. And I asked to, I wanted, you know, something to take to stop what the feeling and everything. So, you know, I’d see a consultant and he said, It’s probably just pressure you’ve, you’ve got The tablets did its job but it stillI still felt that there was something wrong with me.

And now that I’ve been having this for a while I realise I have an illness and I’ve got to have medication for it and I have to keep taking the medication. If I don’t take my medication, you know, I get into a deep depression and feel like I can’t cope. Appetite’s not there. I feel tired, I want to sleep all the time. Just feel lazy to get up, nothing to get up for. And when I do get up, I want to go back to sleep, and, you know. And staying in the flat most of the time, not doing nothing really, you know. I have to force myself some days you, you know, to get the tidying up done and washing clothes and things like that. So at the moment I’ve been battling. Sometimes I just can’t be bothered. I have to force myself like now, you know, to get things done. And then when I finish I have a sit down and relax.

My mind always bottom, hits bottom. It’s not like, I used to be like up and doing things and stuff like that. I’m not like that any more. I just feel tired. And when I tell everyone I’m tired they don’t understand it. No, they don’t understand it. They think it’s, I’m lazy. But I’m not lazy. I’m not that kind of person to be lazy. I had, when I used to have anxiety attacks I never had any medicine like that. I just brought myself up with learning how to relax, how to be patient with them, not be fear with them. And I did it. But now it’s, it’s coming tiredness and your brain is not normal. And then it’s like you think, ‘What you are? You’re going to live with this for all of your life?’ And this is the life.
And how does that make you feel?
It feels bad, it feels bad.

So I mean these symptoms that you have, does that, do they stop you from being able to do anything? How do they affect your life?
It does affect your, it affects your moods. Moods go on and off. You feel like you’re hopeless. You feel like you don’t want to be dressed up, you don’t want to be going out. You just want to be laying down or watch, sit down and watch TV, you know, you’re not interested in TV. I’m not interested in songs. You think that you, it’s like darkness come to you. It’s like, you feel like darkness. But when you feel better, you feel like sun shine and you feel like, you like listen to songs, love songs and you feel a different person tomorrow.
And does it make it difficult to do things around the house and, and that sort of thing?
Yes, they do, but I push myself a lot. I won’t like be, like I won’t like be mess house and sit down. No, it would irritate me more. I will be get upset more. I think, ‘God, the house is upside-down. And look at me, sitting down. You know, even I’m poorly, I have to go and clean my house up, keep my kids clean. Because I don’t want people talk about any of my kids. And when every day they go to school, they comb their hair, nice clothes, uniform clean, everything. Yes, even I’m poorly, I look after my kids. Plus my husband as well. [Laughs] Yeah, nice shirt, like new clothes, everything, don’t look a mess. Because even I, I’m poorly, I change my clothes, do my hair, this like normal, clean.

And’ yes, I’d started dieting when I left University but I left University quite overweight and I started dieting. And I got down to a normal weight and I realised that I still wasn’t happy so I thought the solution was to lose some more weight. And it went on like that. I would lose some more and then I would think well I’m still not happy, maybe I need to lose a bit more. Until I got down to a weight which was very, very low and I was very seriously ill. But I don’t think anybody realised because I was on like income support and I wasn’t, by that point I wasn’t seeing any psychologists or anybody. And so I was kind of on long term sickness and not getting any treatment, so nobody really realised. I mean people already knew that I was very thin, but, you know, I didn’t really talk to them.

And I was just getting more and more depressed, and just completely obsessed with my weight, with food. And my entire days were filled with, you know, I would go out shopping for food and just, I would buy all the stuff that I wasn’t allowed to eat and just keep it, so I had hoards and hoards of food. And everything I did every day was to keep me away from food. And I would go out walking. I would go to the park a lot, because that was somewhere that I considered safe because it didn’t have food and my head was filled all day with numbers, whether it was weight or the calories or whatever it was. I got myself into a lot of debt as well. Credit cards, I would just go out shopping and like I would be a kind of, I think the starvation made me a bit manic and I would just go on like spending sprees and stuff. And then I think when I got to a really, really low weight, I think it was quite clear that I was dying. I would like pass out, you know, and I would just, and like my urine was coming out red and stuff.

I suppose just my, my activity becomes very fast paced, my speech also of course is also kind of very fast, you know, and I might, you know, share my mind kind of talk about lots of ideas. And therefore so very similar to what I had in my original kind of first or second episode where there was a flight of ideas and, you know, plans and all that kind of thing. I suppose one, you know, one can say you don’t, you know, how, you, you’re either in the creative bunch, you know, where you have lots of ideas, you know, and lots of good ideas but how do you translate those ideas into reality? And for me say, of course, I’ve become a realist to say actually ideas are great but then how to convert those ideas into some realities. So, you know, I always, you know, have fantastic ideas up here [coughs] but then I’m more cautious now, you know, how I share it with or what I do with them. And of course it’s, you know, share it with a few friends that I have and then trying to put into context to say, ‘Well actually yes this is a great idea but it’s not achievable in the short run. It might take, you know, six, it might take a year or two years.

But I go through phases where I suppose I have lots of ideas and I’m kind of, you know, writing things down and sharing it with others So in terms of, you know, and there’s a flurry of activity, you know, so in terms of doing lots of things, so in terms of, but I think I come, I can realise that I’m going through a kind of phase where maybe I just need to take things easy and maybe those, you know, ideas are very far fetched, you know, do-able but not in the immediate in the kind of immediate period. You know. And I think perhaps, you know, that in itself maybe is, is good for me anyway to say actually well maybe yes, you know, I need to kind of, you know, try and put those ideas, you know, in a pile in my in-tray but right at the bottom, you know. Because if I kind of prioritise it it’s not good for my health. You know, so it’s kind of that type of, kind of thinking that, you know, in terms of managing it, yeah.

Can you give me an example maybe, of the kind of ideas that you have?

I mean some were very simple ideas, you know, and of course, you know, I, you know, I’d share one of the ideas then in terms of, you know, which was going through my manic episode, you know, early, you know, my first, you know, few weeks of, you know, my, my kind of early, early psychosis, you know. You know, I had this idea, you know, to kind of, you know, make lots of money.

Yeah because I used to have really violent bouts, I didn’t know that I was manic depressive, I know I was, it was diagnosed on paper but I wasn’t actually told by the, anybody outright that I was a manic depressive. And to me that was a big word when I did find out. But yeah completely, you know, I could be as high, like as high as a kite at one moment and then the next moment totally down so, you know, and very, very violent with it, you know. So it wasn’t advisable for anybody to kind of get near me when I started feeling low so that is one of the reasons why I used to lock myself away because then I wouldn’t have to deal with the outside world and they wouldn’t have to deal with me. And that was really basically the only way to keep myself at a certain level

But my, my behaviour was so erratic, you know, people were actually frightened of me, yeah that’s why they used to call me Mad Max, yeah they were frightened of me.