Recent years

This happened in my forties:

I got divorced,
I remarried,
I faced retrenchment at work twice,

I didn't realise that my depression had sneaked back.

Divorce:
After nearly 20 years of marriage, with two beautiful children as a result, I just could not do it anymore. I felt like we were both caught up in some type of downward spiral. We were not able to help each other, and most likely, making things worse for each other. The bad things that happened became the only things that I could see (depression sneaking in and laying it's traps). How it all effected the children, and knowing that I made the decision to do this was weighing extremely heavily on me.

Remarry:
There are many beautiful people in the world, but it is not always easy to find them. I remarried when I found that beautiful person who seemed perfect to me. Ultimately though, I was wracked with guilt. Guilt for leaving my children (even though they were living close by, and I saw them pretty regularly), guilt for dragging someone new into my black-clouded world, guilt for not being able to give everyone who loved me enough attention. Depression works in insidious ways.

Retrenchment at work:
In what, I guess with hindsight, was a perfect storm, events conspired to make my world even worse. With all the events going on in my personal life, I was struggling to cope at work. Unfortunately, the timing was abysmal. At roughly the same time, there were restructures and management shake-ups. This meant that there were very few people left who had witnessed the incredible work that I had done in the past, and could attest to this. All that the new eyes could see was some subdued, withdrawn individual with an irregular productivity profile.

Ultimately, the work-place is not a convalescence home, and my managers had had enough. Over the course of the next few years, I was asked to reapply for my job at least five time, and in one of those occasions I was pushed out of it. Fortunately for me, another manager saw something in me and brought me into his team. I think that I then proceeded to let him down. Only to be reinstated into my previous job roughly one year later. I do believe, however, if I had had a better manager, I would have been much more productive. I am a strong believer in the fact that your leaders can either diminish you, or multiply you. In my case, in the perfect storm, my manager was an extreme diminisher. The hole that I falling down was just getting deeper and deeper. In the end, I took the initiative and left. I had no new job or real way of supporting myself and my family.

Depression sneaked back:
Reading this, and thinking back, it is obvious to me that depression was playing a larger part in my life all this time than I realised, and was most probably responsible for a lot of the outcomes. I had been treated for depression in my twenties with medication, and had somehow believed that I had shaken it off. I had stopped the medication after a few years, and had been coping just fine since. I will never be able to pinpoint when exactly it came back, if it was a gradual process, or if I was even any better. I was going to General Practitioners with all sorts of ailments, and on more than one occasion was asked whether I was depressed. I didn't think that I was, how wrong I was. It had been there for a long time intertwining with all events in my life making it impossible for me to determine whether I was depressed because of the various life events I had been experiencing, or whether I had brought all this into my life because I was depressed.

I still don't know. I just know that the most important thing is to keep moving forward. I am surrounded but people who love me, all my children, my wife and my family. I am a lucky guy - I just can't cope.

Now at 50

It sometimes feels like depression sneaked up on me. Then in a moment of calm and insight I realise that I have been in this battle for most of my life. I'm 50 now and still struggling. This is what I am going through right now.

I have a well paid job which I guess that people have faith in me and my abilities. Yet I live in constant fear of being found out. On many days at work I can't seem to do anything, fortunately when I do do something I seem to make up for it. Still, this way is going to catch me out sooner rather than later because I cannot match the pace of well people.

In my journey getting to 50, I have tried many things to try to overcome this black dog. I read a lot, which may actually be me hiding away from the world inside a book or article. Reading about depression is depressing. From my understanding, it is not an exact science, with no clear understanding of cause and effect. There also seems to be no clear understanding as to how anti-depressants and other depression related drugs work. The approach that I have experienced is that it is trial and error. In my case, sometimes the error has nearly cost me my life.

Holding down a job and dealing with depression don't seem to be mutually compatible to me. Trying to treat depression and work at the same time is extremely difficult. Taking time out to see a psychologist or any other type of doctor is stressful because I need to take the time off work. This stresses me out completely. I used to go to one psychologist who was consistently running more than an hour late - I used to leave there feeling worse than when I arrived. How do you explain to your boss where you have been when depression is still a very difficult thing to declare to you employer. Also, medical treatments are sometimes pretty much touch-and-go. Some side-effects can be debilitating, sometimes there is a type of 'break-in' period that can leave me feeling very disorientated, and even more, if the actual drug is not producing the desired result, sometimes even exacerbating the problem. All this while trying to deal with the fast moving, results oriented, work environment.

I realise that people who do not suffer can not understand what depression is about. It's not about being sad, it's about being incapable of getting up and going. I know that it is frustrating to them when they ask 'what is bothering you' and my answer in general is 'nothing and everything'. I have been accused of being lazy, a long slab of misery, and useless. It is testament to my strength and sheer will to survive that I can sit here and write this at 50 years of age.

In the next few weeks and months, I would like to expand on my experiences. I will write about my medical experiences, earlier phases in my life, parenthood, and how I try to cope at work to start, and then see what else inspires me.

In my experience, depression is a very lonely disease. It closes out the world at exactly the time when I need positivity and joy around me. With this writing I hope to bring the world back in, and save myself. Hopefully somewhere in all of this, other people can get some insight into what is going on with someone who is depressed, or even identify depression in someone who has been acting unusually.