Suzi – Interview 10
Suzi has struggled with depression since childhood, and believes this stemmed from the effects of the way her family dealt with her mother’s schizophrenia. She has attempted suicide and self-harmed a few times, however now feels she can deal with her depression. She sees a psychiatrist regularly and takes antidepressants (fluoxetine).
Suzi has experienced depression for most of her life and remembers first having suicidal thoughts around the age of eight. Her emotional distress first became evident to others when she had a sudden episode of not being able to speak in her final year of primary school. She relates this and her subsequent mental health problems to her experience of growing up with a mother who had paranoid schizophrenia, and a father who failed to protect their two children from his wife’s illness. As the focus of her mother’s delusions, obsessions, and verbal abusiveness, Suzi was particularly affected. Her father never explained his wife’s illness to his daughter, and compounded her confusion by becoming over-reliant on her for the emotional support his wife could not provide. As well, the family was socially isolated and Suzi was unable to discuss her upbringing or her mother with other people, having internalised her parents; secrecy.
At 21, the disordered eating patterns which had started during Suzi’s adolescence developed into anorexia severe enough for her to require hospitalisation. She thinks anorexia was both a coping mechanism and a nonverbal cry for help, and it was around this time that Suzi’s GP diagnosed her with depression. During her five-month hospital stay she began to open up about her family with her psychiatrist, which led to the decision to leave home when she was discharged. After leaving hospital she began a short-lived relationship with one of her nurses, which led her to stop seeing her psychiatrist as she felt obliged to conceal the relationship from him. With no new coping mechanisms in place of her anorexia, Suzi struggled to cope with the mountains of fear and anguish and hurt; facing her.
In the years that followed Suzi graduated from university, found employment, lived in various share houses before moving into her own place, kept up her fitness (long-distance running), and maintained a network of friends. However this was all a façade; and behind it, Suzi coped with her pain by self-harming. Throughout this period she was voluntarily hospitalised a number of times when she was suicidal, and saw a psychiatrist intermittently. She is amazed now that she survived these years.
Things became marginally easier for Suzi in her 30s, when she found an antidepressant that ‘suited her;, and was referred by her GP to a psychiatrist whom she liked and respected. She also became a Christian which provided her with a strong motivation to stay alive despite her suffering. Although medication eased her symptoms it didn’t take away what was underneath; and Suzi continued to be hospitalised from time to time.
After many years of therapy and working through the legacy of her family history, Suzi now thinks that her depression may also be related to her particular brain chemistry;. She has tried stopping her medication but found it too difficult to cope without it. She now regards herself as having chronic depression;, and accepts that she may need antidepressants for the rest of her life. At 50, Suzi feels that her situation has stabilised somewhat and she has the ‘tools she needs to be able to manage her mental health. She continues to see her psychiatrist regularly and take her medication, works part-time as a nurse as well as doing volunteer work, exercises regularly, attends church, and cares for her dog. She has more good days and fewer ‘bad days; than ever before, and says that the fact that she counts among her friends several well; people as a good sign.