The demon of depression
by Penguin Mother, who has asked that her name not be published to protect herself and her child from the stigmatisation she describes in her story.
This week memorial services will be held in Pretoria and Johannesburg for a wonderful young man. After a three-week search, his body was found in his car in the veld near Pretoria.
Stunned friends cannot believe that he would have taken his own life and his tragic death has affected all of those who knew him.
His story has brought my own deep and painful memories to the surface and I would like to share the story of my own daughter, in the hope that this may be of help to parents and young people who have been affected by depression.
My daughter began her matric year with the world at her feet. She had been elected as deputy head girl, captained 3 school teams and represented her province in 2 disciplines. She was beautiful, bright, popular and caring and she had so much to give the world.
Her year was very tough and the responsibilities loaded on her were enormous. Yet she was adamant that she could do it all. She was an achiever. She never knew how to say “No” , or “ I need help with that” She pulled away and became more distant from our closely knit family. I began to worry about her behaviour, and suspected that she was using drugs.
Although these new and scary behaviour patterns weren’t entirely consistent with drug use – at least not from what I had read – I knew her well enough to know that she was in some kind of awful trouble. I agonized over whether I was being too interfering, or too controlling, or too suspicious, until my gut instinct told me that my mother’s intuition had to be acted upon.
Our wonderful family doctor made a preliminary diagnosis of severe chronic depression and advised me to remove her from school and get her help urgently as she had been planning her own suicide.
With the intervention of an amazing psychiatrist we were on the road to healing her dreadful, deep and destructive depression. She stayed out of school for much of the second half of the year and we wrapped her in as much love and care as we could. I was terrified to leave her on her own in case she was overcome with “the sadness” again, but we slowly built up our trusting relationship and we began to understand this disease and its awful effects.
She wrote her final exams and went on to medical school. Her battle with depression will never be over, but she has the power and the ability to recognize the warning signs.
My wish is that more people could be educated about depression and that the stigma of mental illness could be removed. If my daughter had been diagnosed with cancer, we would have been overwhelmed with support and sympathy and bombarded with information on modalities. Instead, we were constantly faced with negativity, denial and some frightening psychological diagnosis.
I pray that our story can help just one person reach out for help.
A family’s struggle with addiction
by Katherine Farrell, Idea generator, Creative Director, interface designer, mother to 2 boys, wife to a 3rd boy haha … Find her on twitter
Once upon a time I had the perfect life. Mom to two gorgeous healthy little boys – Ronan (5) and Darcy (3), happy marriage to a good man, nice house in the suburbs and a successful corporate job. One morning I woke up and discovered my husband was an addict and that I had been living a lie.
I had been living in denial, a fantasy reality. Now my husbands’ strange behavior and our multitude of maxed out credit cards started to make sense.
The first solution that I came up with was to divorce my husband and start looking for someone new to cast into the role of Perfect Husband (George Clooney perhaps?). And then someone asked me what kind of wife that made me. Did I not take the vows for better for worse, in sickness and in health? Worst of all, I had been so addicted to perfection that my husband could not come to me for help.
Then I realized, I really and truly love my husband and life without him was unimaginable. I had to find another way and so began my own recovery. It has been just over six months and now I see my husband’s addiction as a gift.
I heard a statistic recently that for every addict something like 22 people are affected. If you consider the immediate family, the friends, the employer and employees – that’s a lot of people! So even if you are not an addict you can be severely affected by this disease. Therefore treating the system of people around the addict greatly improves the chances of recovery.
Addicts survive because people rescue them, prevent them from suffering the consequences of their actions, lie for them, give them money and enable them to be dysfunctional. I found myself being SuperMom, twice the breadwinner and when the crisis hit I was so burned out from my everyday life I had nothing left.
The main reason I am taking my own recovery so seriously is for my two little boys. I believe our children are born with unlimited potential
but sometimes they have to shut down parts of themselves in order to survive in the family or society. I recently attended a co-dependency workshop (at Changes) and learned about the 4 roles that children create in a family – the Hero who overachieves and is super responsible, admired for their successes, takes over the role of parent. The scape goat who is always in trouble, a rebel who gets attention by behaving badly. The lost child who withdraws, isolates and keeps to themselves. And the mascot, the happy-go-lucky class clown that refuses to be serious.
Addiction is often handed down generation to generation. I have met many Mothers with children in rehab – a pain I cannot begin to imagine and I often wonder if I will be in their shoes in 20 years time.
I wrote this story for my children and my husband while he was in rehab:
As High as a Kite
Once upon a time there was a woman who met a man.
She didn’t notice but he was hiding something behind his back. It was a kite.
Together they made a home and started a family.
The man went outside to fly his kite.
One day the family needed the man and they called to him
but the kite had lifted him off the ground and up into the sky and he couldn’t hear them.
And as the kite pulled him closer to the sun he knew he had one last chance to let go
but he was too afraid it would hurt to fall.
So the kite fell back down to the ground alone.
And when their child grew into a man he found the kite, picked it up
and hid it behind his back.
___________________________
In recovery I have learned that I need to have spirituality in my life in order to find balance. I need to believe there is something bigger than me so I don’t have to have all the answers. I have learned that progress is more important than perfection – I try to make things a little better one day at a time. I have learned that my emotions are warning signs that I need to observe and I have learned to express them more appropriately or just contain them until they pass.
I attend 12 Step meetings and I am working the 12 Steps of AA, a free, anonymous and confidential recovery programme that welcomes everyone who needs it. The AA literature is not available in self-help sections of your local bookstore, but the books are the most incredible insightful tools.
My life coach (David Collins) said to me this week that all children want are parents who are relaxed, happy and loving. I am working as hard as I can to be able to give that to my children. I have let go of perfection, control and denial (although they try sneak back all the time). In place I have faith, serenity, responsibility for my actions and I am learning to stop taking life so seriously.
I am grateful to JoziKids for covering the topic of addiction. It is a sensitive subject that a lot of people would rather not talk about. Children are taught to keep family secrets – we behave one way at home and another way when we go out. The only way out of this insanity is through open mindedness, honesty and a willingness to change.
I still have the family, the house, the job – for which I am eternally grateful – but never again will I pretend to myself or anyone else that I am perfect.
Reading and links:
The disease called Perfection
12 Step programmes:
Alcoholics Anonymous
Narcotics Anonymous
AlAnon Family Groups
NarAnon Family Groups
Codependancy Anonymous (read the 12 promises)
