Depression and recovery - a travelogue | Submitted thoughts and stories

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Depression and recovery - a travelogue

Author: Peter G Mackie
Published: 15 April 2010

Peter has had recurring problems with depression. While professionals have provided some useful support; ultimately, he has come to rely on his own insights into what helps him in recovery. He has found a renewed sense of purpose in his own creativity and spirituality, and through developing new skills.

I was born in Perth in 1957, and spent my early teenage years in a psychiatric unit for adolescents.

This caused me to lapse into depression and, as I felt that there had been nothing wrong with me in the first place, led me to develop a deep-seated mistrust of psychiatry and, to a certain extent, of society in general.

However, after I left home and started working and earning money, things started to get better. In 1977 I went to live in The Netherlands. During the winter I worked doing odd jobs. As my education had been disrupted, I was only able to find unskilled jobs, but I still managed to save enough money to travel extensively in Europe during the summers, which gave me a different perspective on life.

Considering what had happened when I was younger, I think I managed pretty well for the best part of the next 25 years, but in September 2001, in the same week as the September 11th attacks, things started to go wrong again.

In late 2000, a letter had arrived at my family’s address in Scotland. It was from a magazine, saying they were planning to do a write-up about a book I had written when I was 17 - The madhouse of love - which described my early experiences in the psychiatric hospital.

I eagerly awaited further news but when I wrote home enquiring about it, my father refused to tell me whether or not the article had arrived.

At this time I also started being troubled by old memories. One was of something that happened in West Berlin when I was in my twenties. Some people had been poking fun at me in a bank, and I ended up exploding with rage at a young girl who I was friends with, and who had had nothing to do with the incident. I was overwhelmed with an intense feeling of guilt which I couldn’t shake off. Another memory that surfaced was of a sexual experience I had had with a girl at primary school.

While the reawakening of these two memories disturbed me, at the same time I felt a strong surge of creativity erupting inside me. I became certain that I was born with special gifts and that I was going to play an important part in changing the world, at one time even becoming convinced that I was Jesus Christ come back from the dead.

In a frenzy, I wrote two stories based on these resurfaced memories and decided to return to Scotland to publish them and to find out whether the magazine article had arrived.

This turned out to be a disastrous decision, one that taught me that I should never go against my inner feelings if I have a deep-seated intuition about something.

When I got back to Scotland, I did manage to publish the two stories, but everything else went wrong. I ended up spending about 5 years, moving from place to place looking for work, and encountered the same problems over and over again. Either there was no work or I couldn’t find somewhere to stay or, when I did find jobs, I was bullied or would get the sack after a short while. All of this shattered my self-confidence.

I ended up returning to Edinburgh in January 2007 with no money, feeling quite desperate. I went to the Access Point for homeless people in Edinburgh and went to live at the Salvation Army hostel where I became severely depressed. Then I got hold of a copy of Spike Milligan and Anthony Clare’s book Depression and how to survive it.

I found that the book helped me to understand myself and to realise that I wasn’t the only one out there – the definitions of clinical depression made me realise that I fitted the pattern. Due to this, and the fact that I was feeling so terrible, I decided to seek further help. I had been very reluctant to make such a move at any time during the previous 35 years, but this time I realised that I couldn’t go through this on my own.

Fortunately, I found a sympathetic doctor who suggested I try an anti-depressant. It eased my depression and gave me back a more positive feeling for life. The doctor also arranged for me to see a CPN, who turned out to be on a similar spiritual wavelength to me. We also had shared interests in music and had read many of the same books, by people like Hermann Hesse and R.D. Laing.

But we didn’t always see eye to eye. The last time I saw him, he was urging me to force myself to do things. From my own experience, I had found that this made me worse, whereas resting made me feel better and helped to renew my energy. Sometimes I find that I need to take a long rest, without worrying too much about anything. I also find it helpful to take at least one day a week without doing anything and to completely wind down.

Challenging my CPN’s advice helped me to feel more confident about trusting my own intuitions about what I should do to stay well.

For example, I find that, from time to time, I need to lie down and let my thoughts flow naturally from one thing to another – to let my subconscious mind slowly sort out everything that is in the different layers of my mind.

The best way for me to do this is to lie down and listen to music and/or read a book. A good night’s sleep is also really helpful, of course; although, unfortunately, not always possible.

Perhaps most importantly, I have found it essential to keep off alcohol. As I get older, I find that alcohol can cause severe depression – to the point of making me feel suicidal, and I limit my intake as much as possible.

During the last few years, I have been involved again with promoting The madhouse of love, which has been re-published as an e-Book by Chipmunkapublishing; and also a CD of songs called All over the shop.

Being involved in these two activities has helped me to achieve a purpose in life and to regain self-confidence, as has attending a computer course three days a week with like-minded people at a mental-health project not far from where I live. The training has led to my getting a European Computer Driving Licence, which, I hope, may help me to find a job.

Above all, however, the most important thing of all for me has been to find a strong spiritual feeling inside, which is the only thing that can stand as a rock through thick and thin.

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Story disclaimer

The stories presented here are for information only. They are meant to inspire hope and show that recovery can and does happen. The stories highlight various examples of recovery and we do not advocate any of these experiences as the ‘right’ way to recover. Recovery is an individual and unique process, each person must decide for himself or herself what will work for them. Please carefully consider any decisions you make about your own recovery and consult with someone you trust if you feel unsure.

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