How It Felt (life alteringly awful) When Clinical Depression Struck Me At Work

I live with a form of #Depression called Dysthymia. Here's the raw truth of what it's been like for me.

Check out this catchy opening…raise your hand if you’re mentally ill!

Please don’t think me insensitive. My own hand is up and waving like palm tree fronds in a hurricane. I’ve been living with a diagnosed Mood Disorder for over 25 years. Almost every day since, I take several pills to moderate my Dysthymia (now known as PDD: persistent depressive disorder) – a long-term, lower level form of Clinical Depression. This after years of talk therapy too. Which helped, but in no way cured.

Not Crazy About Being Mentally Ill

Mental illness: A term still dripping with stigma. People often confuse or conflate it with being insane. Thing is, you can be quite rational overall while suffering from Mood Disorders. Though when it strikes hard, I mean smashes you with a baseball bat to your thought process, it's tough to separate the soul crushingly ugly feelings from what's real.

Fortunately most people respond to professional interventions for PDD. You can become highly productive again when they work. However the recovery itself can be anguished and hit or miss.

I’ll tell you about when I was an employee as my PDD first hit. Initially it was freaking brutal, I won't lie. Thank goodness I sought -- and received -- effective treatment, despite despising the diagnosis, and initially wanting to throttle my well-meaning physician who first nailed my symptoms.

Eye-Widening Statistics On How Often Mental Illness Strikes

If mental illness means being crazy, here’s a scary thought. In a given year, nearly 25% of all Canadians report symptoms of mental illness. Shockingly just two out of five sufferers seek proper help. The rest tend to suffer in various states of excruciating silence. Maybe withdrawing socially. "Self-medicating" with booze and drugs (been there). Dragging themselves, and their symptoms, to work.

In extreme cases, sufferers who can't stand the all-consuming sense of being utterly, unredemptively worthless, or who ruminate over and over the same damned thoughts like a merry-go-round gone berserk, may tragically take their own lives.

How Dysthymia Differs From Regular Moodiness 

Sadness is a natural reaction to things that leave you feeling blue. If a loved one passes away you mourn at work, at home, on the bus. When you lose a job you really liked, it takes time to grieve the loss.

During these periods of appropriate funk you may feel "depressed." Sluggish. Tearful. Perhaps even thinking that life has lost its meaning. Then, after a fairly short while (within a couple of weeks or so), your general mood starts returning to normal, though of course loss-related sadness may persist for much longer.

Clinical Depression is different. It’s a Mood Disorder involving the brain's chemicals (neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine). There may be a genetic component and biological predispositions. The condition can strike even when your job’s going great and life is happy. Often, however, it's preceded by some sort of trauma. The symptoms can consistently be medically diagnosed.

Try all you want to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, as people close to you might urge you to do. Except you can’t talk yourself out of being Clinically Depressed. Changes in your brain's functioning are taking place. Artificial sadness and feelings of being atrociously unworthy can last for months or years – for no apparent reason! Whether wealthy or financially challenged, CEO or dishwasher, Depression can become an equal opportunity destroyer.

Speaking with a trained professional, such as at your workplace's free and confidential Employee Assistance Program (EAP) if available - check the company's intranet in the Benefits section - or family doctor; registered psychologist; walk-in medical clinic; hospital Emergency or Psychiatric department for life-threatening cases; all can play a crucial role in reviving your mental health. 

What I First Noticed As Symptoms Of My Own PPD

In my case Clinical Depression hit about two years after my first of two children was born. I was in my early thirties and healthy. Yet my behaviour shifts were so at odds with the joy I'd been experiencing. After all, here I was the happiest dad in the world. Playing with my beautiful daughter brightened my every day.

Unfortunately I was under a lot of pressure. Things at work were going sour. I reported to a terrible boss, someone so insecure he treated his staff like garbage to bolster his own miserable esteem. A classic cowardly bully. Each Monday morning I wondered if I’d get fired (ultimately they did can me, but it had a very happy ending: my severance enabled me to start my M.Ed. full-time, during a glorious summer in which my second child arrived four years later). On top of this my marriage was just beginning to break down. Plus my father became seriously ill, both physically and psychologically: turns out mental illness often runs in families.

Previously I could confidently deal with all sorts of stress. Not this time. Almost overnight I lost interest in things that had always given me the most pleasure. First I put away the books I’d been reading, the ones I loved to relax with after tucking my daughter in. Next I stopped calling friends I’d been speaking to weekly for decades.

How My Dysthymia Felt As It Got Worse (hint: devastatingly crappy!)

At this point I still had no clue that I might actually be ill. It was just the effects of prolonged stress, right? Except alarming things were happening to me. Suddenly I would bolt up wide awake at 3:00 a.m. My mind raced like a rocket. Over and over I’d replay the same troubling thoughts. No way I could stop, despite solving most of the world's problems in my head (again again again...). Later I learned that this thought-hijacking symptom is called rumination.

Fatigue took its toll. Before this I was an optimistic guy, despite lots of typical obstacles. However my mood began veering toward darkness. This made zero sense to me. Most devastatingly, all at once I had this sense of being worthless. Not your garden variety low self-esteem; no way pal, I mean actually believing that I was a piece of crap (pardon my frankness), of having no right to be alive, of being a needless burden to my loved ones. Worst of all, the immense delight I’d felt each moment with my daughter became dulled (flat affect). WTF?

At Work, My Clinical Depression Hurt Me

Quickly my deterioration crept into work. Back then I had my own private office at my employer's premises. Several afternoons a week I’d lock my door, plop my head on the desk as if hit by an elephant tranquilizing dart, and sleep for an entire hour. Waking up groggy. Hoping feverishly no one would knock and discover me totally exhausted on the job. I did my best to hide my symptoms, but it was useless.

Soon I was missing deadlines. Uncharacteristically making tons of small errors. It was hard to concentrate for long periods. That rising tide of irrational self-loathing made showing up for work (or looking in a frickin' mirror) a hardship. Then a disturbing new symptom appeared: I started drinking at night to make the darkness go away. Numb away the psychic pain.

It only made things worse. Threw off my sleep cycle, left me dehydrated, and didn't help a lick.

After a month of this my boss called me in for a dreaded talk. He stared at me with those cold, dispassionate eyes: “Swartz, you’d better tell me what’s going on. Everyone has noticed you’re performance is plunging into the toilet.” Sensitively worded.

I told my supervisor everything, except for the full extent of my symptoms. Last thing I needed was for them to think I was cracking up and and a disposable liability. Surprisingly this normally self-absorbed boss showed a modicum of sympathy. “You have a month to clean up your act,” he said.

What I Did To Not Get Fired Or Harm Myself

How sickeningly humiliating! I felt worse about myself than before. PEOPLE WERE NOTICING. If I lost my job, all hell would break loose at home. Things were heading out of control as it was. Getting fired (this time) would bring my house of cards tumbling down, financially and marriage-wise. That night, for the first time in my life, I had early thoughts of suicide. This was so drastically out of the norm for me that I knew for sure my brain was somehow "broken." 

Next morning I dragged myself to work to make sure I was there on time. Appease the powers that be. But at 9:00 a.m. sharp I called my family doctor’s office (our company didn’t have access to an Employee Assistance Program).

I’m in crisis, I blurted. I beg you, please get me in today! The receptionist heard the pain in my voice. She compassionately slotted me in as that day’s last patient. How I hung on till then is beyond me. My doctor, a general practitioner with true humanity, recognized my symptoms right away. He got me into to see his psychiatrist colleague that very week. My understanding is that normally this can potentially take months.

How This Ended Up Saving My Life

The psychiatrist diagnosed me on the spot. “A classic case of Clinical Depression, Mr. Swartz.” I had to restrain myself from telling him to f---off, yelling anyway that he was a quack. He calmly handed me the medical textbook. “Please read out the symptoms to me,” he said.

To my horror, I was an almost perfect match. For me it was unthinkable that I, Mr. Rock, the guy everyone could depend on, couple of Masters degrees, dedicated husband and father, was mentally ill. Sure, my immediate family was riddled with varying psychiatric difficulties, but ME? 

Right then and there we began our initial course of treatment. Talk therapy several times weekly. Anti-depressant medication daily. And so it was that I was able to save my job. Most importantly, after six weeks of being treated - it took a month for the anti-depressant to kick in, and I had a hard time stomaching it initially - my unnatural thoughts of suicide abated. Normal feelings started returning. There was much less ruminating and self-hatred.

Making My Peace With My Persistent Depression

Let's face it. Admitting I was in serious trouble, and reaching out in growing desperation for help, is what saved my life. Except I waited longer than I should have, even though I'd vowed that if I ever started behaving erratically emotionally, like my father had toward his untimely end, I wouldn't hesitate to seek aid. Men and their tough guy personas. Screw that!

Clinical Depression is a physical illness that affects the brain. Resilient as you may be it can’t be wished away. My story has a happy ending, especially considering what could have been a dire alternative. My daughter is now 31 and engaged, my son 27. I went on to write a few books of my own, and became a paid speaker and columnist. Divorced my wife. Got healthier.

PDD is part of my life every single day. I can sometimes get tired more easily late in the afternoon. Too much stress brings on excessive (read: disgusting) negativity. The prolonged darkness and bad weather of fall and winter can trigger evening-crippling Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. It did once more in fall 2017, even though things were going so nicely.

It's crucial that I always acknowledge and respect the #Dysthymia. By working out regularly. Striving to get enough sleep (no cake walk when sleep disturbance is part of your condition). Staying far away from booze and weed (which I've abused to "self-medicate" - more like self-eradicate) way too often in the past, shaming me in front of my shocked and worried children. It brought me to a hairsbreadth away from losing my license for a year and being banned from traveling to the U.S. The three month automatic roadside suspension after blowing intoxicated while driving, plus the $10,000 in lawyer's fees, fines and car confiscation were my warning call, as was two years in court with a stunningly lucky dismissed charges as the outcome).

My Transparency and Call For Action

I consider it my duty to be honest about my condition. Couldn't pretend the bugger's gone if I wanted to. So why not share and help normalize the experience, is how I see it. Haters gonna hate no matter.

Here's hoping that my own struggles can assist in bringing a measure of relief to you or someone you care about. If there's one piece of advice I would emphasize above all else, it's this: No one worth having in your life will call you weak or melodramatic about reaching out for help fast!

The people you cherish, and who genuinely give a hoot about you - your spouse, parents, children, significant other, buddies and valued coworkers - are also affected by the changes you experience. Connect with a professional as soon as possible if the symptoms start. It makes all the difference for so many more than just yourself.

#mentalhealth #depression #clinicaldepression #BellLetsTalk #mentalhealthweek

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Disclaimer: "The content contained in this article is not written by a medical professional and is intended to be for informational purposes only. You should seek the advice of your family doctor or other qualified health provider with any questions or concerns you may have regarding medical, mental/mood or serious psychological issues.”