World Mental Health Day

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World Mental Health Day

Today being the World Mental Health Day, I thought I should write up my own experience of Severe Clinical Depression:

For most of 62 years I was a light sleeper. Between the ages of 40 and 60, I had watched and helped quite a few of my friends who had gone through one or more bouts of Clinical Depression. They had all completely recovered with medication prescribed by qualified psychiatrists, and so I knew that it was eminently curable if diagnosed early and medicines taken regularly with support from family and friends.

But when I myself was struck, I couldn’t at first recognize it, since my symptoms were different. This led to a delay in diagnosis and treatment and caused prolonged suffering and delayed recovery.

It is well known that although there is a genetic component lending to susceptibility, Clinical Depression can hit anyone. It is also well known that though it can be due to a traumatic incident, it can also be caused by a congregation of several circumstances each of which appears individually trivial to onlookers.

In my own case these were:

1. Retirement and relocation at the age of 62.
2. Transplantation from a secure rural campus into an unruly metropolis.
3. Pending family responsibilities.
4. Culture shock due to a sudden shift from an environment of intellectual life of academics to an unaccustomed ‘worldly’ life.
5. Mild financial issues.



I was accustomed to a 20-minute afternoon nap all through my working life. It was refreshing and regenerating.

But one afternoon, I found that when I was drowsy and felt like snoozing, I was struck by an electric-like shock with all its symptoms of heart palpitation; and woke up and couldn’t go to bed again. These attacks went on and a stage had come when I couldn’t sleep at all either by day or by night although I was dying to sleep. And the palpitations became practically a permanent feature.

I never read anywhere nor heard that fibrillations could indicate the onset of Depression, and so delayed going to a psychiatrist. This worsened and made it a severe case. Finally after eliminating all other causes such as heart problem, hypertension etc I myself visited a psychiatrist who at once said it was an untypical case of Severe Clinical Depression (the ‘electric-like shocks’ were apparently symptoms of ‘arousal’).

The treatment started with the routine drugs to cure the ‘biochemical imbalance’ (serotonin uptake), and sedatives; but there was no improvement. My insomnia worsened and after a month of absolutely nil sleep I was becoming crazier than ever. The good doctor tried increasing the dosages but it didn’t help at all. And I was growing more and more despondent. All known tranquillizers in ever-increasing doses were tried but to no avail…….no sleep at all for more than a month.

Finally, late one evening, when the suffering became unbearable, my intimate son and medico wife decided to SOS my psychiatrist, who instructed on phone to buy a tablet of Olanzipine and administer it immediately. I was skeptical and refused but my loving son and wife prevailed on me and pushed one tablet in.




The result was miraculous! Within half an hour I cooled down and slept for the first time in months for a few hours. From the Internet my son gathered that this drug which is routinely prescribed for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is given in the rarest of rare cases of Resistant Depression when everything else fails.

I continued to sleep well for months but also had pleasant side effects like a sweet tooth (which I never had), an increase in weight over-compensating for the few kilos I lost, a sudden mythical sense of ‘power and confidence’ etc.

The drug was gradually withdrawn and my recovery was steady; and is now complete after nearly 5 years:

1. I found a ‘second string to my bow’ in the form of a literary hobby which helped overcome the ‘useless’ feeling that came upon retirement.
2. I got used to the chaotic metropolis and took to driving on its unruly roads…an achievement indeed.
3. Most of the pending family responsibilities got resolved fortunately.
4. The culture shock is, if anything, on the other foot now.
5. Family finances have improved and are apparently on a sound footing.

I rigorously take the one mild maintenance pill of Dothpriene at bed time which is supposed to ‘protect’ me from future attacks.

Sine Qua Non:

Without the support of family and friends it is very difficult to diagnose and treat oneself. Depression is a vicious circle. In my own case, my relatives, friends, ex-colleagues and students all helped me in various incremental ways unknown to them.



Lighter Side:

My wife and son used to religiously take me to the psychiatrist every week or ten days in the beginning months. The good doctor, apart from regulating the drugs, used to advise me to;

1. Take a walk.
2. Go to a library.
3. Listen to soothing music.
4. Watch TV.
5. Take up some gainful employment.
6. And so on

On the sixth or seventh visit I smiled and the Doctor was curious. I replied that I was feeling like an truant student who comes to the class without doing any of the prescribed ‘home work’. We all had a laugh…but I was bluffing. My smile actually conveyed my feeling that if I could do all those things which he had asked me to do, I would be a normal person and wouldn’t have visited him at all!

Moral:

Depression can manifest with a variety of symptoms, but is ‘curable’ by proper drugs; and needs the support of a capable psychiatrist, understanding family and friends, and ‘luck’. Without these it can be fatal.

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