BLACK DOG
A personal perspective on Mental Health
by Alan Ewing, BA Hons, MSc, Cert HE
Mental Health has been in the news over the past week with the annual awareness campaign. My own experience of living with “The Black Dog” has spanned fifteen years now and has, as for many, been an up and down experience, with a diagnosis relating to anxiety, relative OCD and self-destructive episodes. I feel that many GPs see “depression” as a term of generic reference. A passing phase that can be cured by getting out more.
Artistic depression gives another angle on the experience. There are times when you want to write till the cows come home. You want to act, dance, sing and create. When the darkness descends you feel as though nothing is worth doing. To comprehend this is difficult. It is like sinking into the void. All is empty and hopelessness surrounds you in every area of life.
Medication can be a bane. Anti-depressants are now acknowledged by medical research to have severe withdrawal symptoms, including electric dreams caused by chemical withdrawal on brain inhibitors, together with feelings of illness. In my own experience these experiences are akin to a form of cold turkey, or at least what I imagine what heroin users describe. Attitudes from medical administration staff are usually abysmal.
There are various therapies such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, which can help with aims, goals and self-esteem, thought it is important to remember that depression is an illness caused by physical functions within the brain. What it is not is an emotional or psychological frame of mind. Relationships, alcohol, a depressant, have to be under self-management. It is a day-to-day experience which has to be taken in all seriousness.
Alan Ewing BA Hons, MSc, Cert HE
copyright dewysumoz 2018
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