Part two: I need help.

It’s obvious that my depression is deepening, and my thinking has taken a plunge into a deep, dark and endless tunnel. My days are filled with thinking about an exit, a permanent stop to the dark thoughts and visions I have for my future. It’s hard to feel that you and your thoughts are an unbearable pressure for your wife, kids and friends. The feeling of being a useless and negative individual is unbearable. I’m convinced that my family and friends would be better off mourning for my loss then it is to live with me. My reasoning being that the mourning will slowly decrease but living with someone with a serious depression will never stop.

My employer whom I’ve informed about the actual problem reacts in the most human way possible. After three days of working for the company I’m home sick and he reacts in the most positive way possible. How the hell is that possible. Apparently, there are still good people of this planet and he’s certainly one of them.

I need help, that’s for sure but suffering from a depression makes the decision-making process impossible. I don’t have a clue as to what steps to take. Finally, and with the advice of a few people, I take the big step to inform my GP about the situation. Talking to him about my feelings and thoughts are tough. It’s almost impossible to talk about the subject without ending up in a crying, sorry mess.

“I know I need help but I’m afraid it’s too little, too late”

His advice is to start talking to a psychologist but there is a long waiting list. It takes weeks before I have my first appointment for an intake. My thoughts in the meantime get even deeper and I slide down into a state of non-active, negative and possibly even life-threatening state. This is unbearable.

After weeks of waiting, hoping for a next step I finally have my intake and after talking for about three hours to the very friendly and professional psychologist she tells me that I’m not in the right place for help. I’m too far gone; my situation is not something she can help me with, and she tells me that she will find me a place where I can be helped. The message hits me like a brick. After all these weeks, waiting, hoping, I’m still no step further. It’s demoralising and thoughts of stopping all together increase significantly.

After another two weeks however I get a call that there’s a spot available at the regional mental health institute and that they have moved me up the waiting list because of the serious threat I have become to myself.

Two days later I’m welcome at the institute and I have my first meeting with the professional there. We have a three hour talk again and at the end of our meeting she is sure, you need to be helped right away, no waiting but immediate action.

In December 2023 I can start in a group with people that suffer from depression too.

Opening up about my personal problems, in front of a group of strangers is difficult, almost undoable and I’m not convinced that this is going to help me getting rid of my thoughts, my depression. How would listening to someone else’s problems and thoughts going to help me? The first weeks I can’t get rid of the thought that this is not going to help me. Yes, their problems and the different fazes in which they are does show me that they are ahead of me but I’m never going to get that far.

In the meantime, I have talks with a psychiatrist who prescribes medication to support me during my depression. Again, I’m hesitant because the medication makes me slide even deeper in my depression at first and I’m even more desperate than I was before. Since I’m not in a mental position to make any reasonable decision, I let myself be convinced that this will help me and that I must be patient.

After a few weeks the sessions, three full days a week, I still don’t have the feeling that it helps. I follow sessions about personal goals, psychotherapy, social skills, confrontation, psychodrama, psychomotor therapy, visual and creative therapy and although every single therapist is obviously a specialist my scepsis hasn’t decreased.

“I should have felt some improvement by now, if this does not help me, I’m done, it’s over”.

Then, about three weeks in, my family starts to notice a change, limited but a change non the less. In therapy we learn how to change the behaviour that is not helping and practise with seeing what has caused the depression, what thoughts keep it in place and how to change them. It’s very confronting but it looks like it’s starting to pay off. I personally don’t see a lot of improvement yet, but I do start to recognize the issues and bad thoughts with my group members. It’s strange to realize that it’s easier to see what issues someone else suffers from then my own issues.

Six weeks into my nineteen-week therapy I start to realize that my helping thoughts for others, the worries they cause me and the solutions I come up with for them should better be aimed at myself. I should start aiming them at myself, at my needs, my wishes and try to ‘practice what I preach’ to my group members. Slowly but gradually, I start to see that it does help me to replace ‘Red Thoughts’ for ‘Green thoughts’, to be more kind to myself and release the pressure, to ‘cut myself some slack’.

?It starts to become easier to see myself as someone that adds value instead of someone that is a burden to everyone in its surrounding. It’s a slow and painstaking process but it seems to be starting to pay off.

I’m still a long, long way from being my old self but it looks like I’ve found the way up. So far, so good…

(if you experience feelings like described above please visit https://www.wannatalkaboutit.com. For the Netherlands see https://www.wannatalkaboutit.com/nl/)

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