I Love Lucy. A post on Tragic Loss, Suicide, Depression, Bullying, and Hope

Trigger warning: this blog contains information about suicide and bullying. Please take care while you are reading this.

Image: Banksy

On Sunday my friend Lucy (whom I knew from my stay in hospital starting last year) tragiically lost her battle with depression and ended her life. Lucy was brilliant, bright, funny and beautiful. She had attended Cambridge, like me (although I attended Oxford which Lucy would argue was inferior!), been ambitious in her academic aspirations and had recently returned to Sweden - a country she loved - to resume her studies towards becoming a doctor.

And now she is no longer here. I will never meet her and share a joke with her about the therapy groups we attended together at hospital.We won't discuss ice cream flavours over lunch. We won't watch terrible television together. She won't listen to music any more, sing anymore. Her singing is at an end. Her voice will never be heard again. And although I do love to write, I cannot find any words to describe what that sadness feels like to me.

What I do know, is, that there is not enough help for those of us who are struggling with depression and our mental health. Today in the UK, 17 people will die because of suicide, and up to 100,000 will attempt suicide this year. And that is not even touching upon the terrible lack of support forcing people back to work when they are too sick, which is why we must change the WCA. Nor the fact that too many young people and adults of every age are becoming sicker and sicker with the many facets of debilitating mental health conditions.

I will never. EVER. stop talking about how important it is that we support each other until we have ended the stigma around mental health and changed those harrowing statistics into more lives kept, more lives lived, more lives better because of access to care, support, kindness and love.

To honour Lucy, and everyone in her position, I will do this work. I will do it with others. I will do it for everyone with a mental health condition - or without one. I will do it for those caring for people with mental health problems. And I will do it for myself.

Here is my own story of times when I have lost "Hope". I know I have to watch carefully to try to prevent myself from harming myself during tough times.

I first lost Hope when I was five years old. My memory is so clear. I am standing on a wall in the playground again, because Rebecca and her friends tell me to. The wall has bars behind it and it’s too high for me to jump off. I can’t remember anymore how I got up here. I now know that play-time means wall-time, and when I realise that is how it will be from now on, I come home from school that day and in my room, alone with my toys and books, and I notice that Hope has gone.

I was hurt that she had left without saying anything to me. We had spent the last years together. She was there when I first rode my bike on the grass without stabilisers. She was there when I went to school (the school where I stood on the wall  every play-time) when we painted, when we ran, and when we made bread rolls and mine came out just like everyone else’s, round and golden and smelling so sweet. Hope was my friend: she was nearly always close by. And in the past, she only sometimes stood a little way off from me looking into the distance, like when I fell off the swing and cut my knee and my mother wasn’t there, or when *Beverly said that my painting of the owl was by her, not me, and Mrs Maler said that because we couldn’t agree, neither of us would have the painting, and she tore my owl picture in two and put it in the bin.

I had no words to describe the emptiness of life without Hope. I asked to stay home from school. I didn’t want to go in without Hope. Hope made me a bit braver. Hope showed me the squirrels who climbed the chain link fence at the other end of the playground and hopped along it, drawing out my smile after another play-time on the wall. Hope made things funnier, easier, lighter. Better. Hope made me want to keep exploring things. Hope showed me that the world was exciting and safe and different.

My mother eventually found out about the play-time wall game and that I wanted to stay at home so I didn’t have to play, play again, and play without Hope. Something must have happened – I don’t remember what – but I went back to school and I never played that game again. And then one day, when I was looking at the fallen leaves looking like someone had had a wonderful accident playing with the green, brown, red, yellow and orange poster paints, I smiled. And when I looked up I saw Hope at the end of the playground, watching the squirrels. Hope had come back.

As I grew up, Hope didn’t always stay. She came and went, sometimes staying for days, sometimes leaving for weeks. It was hard to manage when Hope left me. I understood Hope didn’t like school. I didn’t like it either, when Mrs Tramwell told me that a C was an awful test result, and I cried or when Jayne and Tessa sniggered behind my back, though not behind my back because they were right in front of me. As I got older, Hope struggled to stay. I sympathised. Sometimes I didn’t go to school because it was too hard without Hope.

By the time I was twenty I knew Hope found life with me hard. She would turn up sometimes to see me, when I was in a concert or handed in an essay that received positive comments from my tutors, or when I had a picnic on the river friends. Hope came for these times, and lingered a while beyond. I loved times with Hope. But Hope didn’t stay. She would take long trips, especially in the winter when the sun didn’t come through the grey clouds, and the mornings and evenings were dark and cold. It was hard without Hope. I relied on my hot water bottle, extra jumpers, socks and the comfort of bed to read or sleep, while Hope was away. I didn’t want to go out without Hope; I didn’t want to do anything. She would pop in from time to time, and sit on my bed, next to me, just so that I would know she was there. I think she wanted to stay. I just don’t think she could.

Life was hard without Hope, so I decided to work at making her stay. I watched her closely. If she moved towards the door, I took her hand and led her back towards me. If she looked out of the window, I distracted her by creating a picture with my oil pastels or walking in the park to see the squirrels I knew that she loved. I arranged to see more friends, to go to the cinema, cook, travel and explore the world, organising lots of things I thought would make being with me more desirable for Hope. I wanted Hope to stay.

Image: Hey Miss Awesome

Life events tested me to fight for Hope. At twenty four a great friend died and my father got cancer. I asked Hope to stay, small as she was, quietly in a corner as I grieved and worried. I whispered to her, “Please stay,” on days when I stayed in bed. Slowly my whisper became a voice and I started to find happiness again, hand in hand with Hope. I got my degree and a new job; I met a wonderful man and we fell in love; I got another new job (a better job, though a harder job). Hope remained, watching me rush through into new things and exciting experiences.

Image: Love this pic.com

I was afraid Hope might leave again, as the changes – happy and sad – brought my anxieties and worries back. I worked again to keep her, making more friends, socialising, doing, working, walking, and filling every moment of the day with something that would keep Hope with me. I bundled memories of rest days, calm and quiet under the duvet where I had warmed myself, rushing forward into everything clinging on to Hope to stay.

Image: Negatives are taking over

But I failed. I couldn’t keep Hope and myself in this way. In the spaces between this new different life of work, love, new (and old) friends and new city, the quiet moments were dangerous. I saw that I was tired. Smiling pained me. I wanted my mouth to droop into expressionlessness. I preferred isolation and sleep to any alternative. A fog of numbness filled my head with its heavy coldness, which flowed into my sinuses, my cheeks, my ears, down to my neck and through my body to my leaden feet. It weighted down my limbs, pushing me back into bed as I tried to get up. The fog took away my taste buds for food I ate with friends I had no energy to see, which I wasn’t hungry for. Surely my friends wouldn’t want me anyway. I was worth nothing like this. Without Hope. I went back to the doctor, again. I cried. “I have lost Hope.” My nights were wakeful, though all I wanted was to dream away these difficult days. I watched for Hope to come back, but all I saw were shadows of her. Wisps of something close to nothing. Not Hope.

Image: Havocjournal.com

Today, Hope has run away from me again, and I can’t find her. I should be better at looking for the signs that she’s about to bolt, really, after twenty years of living with her, here and there, from time to time. I’m feeling heaviness again; I cannot sleep; I don’t want to eat or see people. But I do. I do because I know that the only way to find Hope is to believe in her. I see people when I can. I eat things I know I like even if I cannot taste them. I run in the park looking for the squirrels Hope and I both love. I take my medicine. I go to work. I write. I try to be kind. I love my husband. I live.

I have succeeded at work despite losing Hope at times. I have achieved more things than I thought I could. I have grown. I have railed against the people who don’t understand depression; what life without Hope feels like. I tell them they are not alone. I stand up believing in Hope even when she is barely a memory to me. Please believe in Hope. Hope is there for you, even if you have to work to find her.

Image: ourworld.unu.edu

I believe that I will find Hope and that you will too. The wisps will become shadows, which will grow darker and more substantial. At last, tiny, but real, Hope will appear. And I will welcome her again, be kind to her and try to keep her with me, always.

Image: kcbi.org

Just Take Five...and Five...and Five... :Can I Become an Executive with Mental Illness?

About a month ago, late August, early September, I don't exactly know when, I felt myself sinking towards rock bottom with my depression. Again. I came to my therapy session with my wonderful, patient, CBT therapist and couldn’t stop crying. For practically the whole session. A few things had come at me at once the day before, and the morning of that day, that winded me, and I fell straight down into deep depression. All we ended up doing during that session was trying to help me to stop crying, because I just couldn't. 

Rock bottom. Yeah, I liked this photo too. Ha.

I was kept at hospital that day, while my therapist, my therapist key worker, the doctor on shift, other therapists and a locum psychiatrist assessed my level of risk at various stages of the day. Were they prepared to let me go home? Would I harm myself, while I felt so completely that there was actually not much point of going home, of going anywhere in fact? During this limbo hospital time. Waiting in the purgatory of numbness and pain in equal measure, I shuffled along to my day patient groups but didn't talk. I wasn't just numb, I was mute. I am not someone who usually struggles to express what's going on, but all the words had drained out of me. I was dry, desolate, lifeless inside.

Dumbed by Depression

After speaking to several of the staff at hospital and confirming that - in fact - I would prefer to go home and promised that I wouldn't harm myself rather than be admitted to hospital again. (Which would have meant I'd have to deal with all the stresses that would have brought (pay caps from work because of my last year's absenteeism record, worries about bills, worries about whether friends would just give up on me because, clearly I was a lost cause)) I went home and to bed. I still felt numb. I took the doctor's advice and upped a couple of the over-the-counter things I take to help me to sleep / be sedated, although I was - frankly - fairly appalled that this was considered to be the only option - i.e. "Let's make you more of a sleep walker, less engaged with the world than they are; in fact let's put you to sleep so that you just pass through the days without engaging with anything at all." 

"Great," I thought. "More zombie like. What is the difference between this and being put into a coma? Really, why am I bothering? Is this what the next thirty years will look like? No thanks. No."

Stunned and Stunted by Sedatives

On Woman's Hour a couple of days ago, Jane Garvey helped radio 4 reach "peak radio 4" by making fresh pesto with Sally Clarke. At the end of the show, Jane remarked something like "It is absolutely lovely, it really does [taste as if it's just been made]..." and even Jane (apparently not a born chef?) thought she could manage this pesto: "even I could do that in probably not much longer [than five minutes]".

Sally Clarke

But that is not the point.

Think of all the things that 'only' take five minutes: getting out of bed? Well, that only takes 30 seconds if you shove away the duvet, kick your legs out and leap out. Have a shower? That takes 3 minutes if you're in Melbourne - or less, or maybe five if you're not exactly luxuriating in the bubbles. Getting dressed? 

5 minutes must be enough for that, if you don't count makeup and styling. Add another 5 for those, go ahead, be generous. Then 5 to pack up your lunch, grab your keys and leave the house. 5 + 5 + however many other five minutes to get to your car, the bus, the station, the taxi, the airport, and off to work, or wherever you're headed that day. 

How many fives is that? And that's just the start.

Woman's Hour... Is amazing

This week I heard on Woman's Hour (in a different episode) that fewer women are applying for senior positions. According to a study conducted by Harvard Business School, women associate power with conflict and don't want it. (And by conflict they mean conflicts - like family, for example. Board level executive versus CEO of mummy.) Some female leaders like Sheryl Sandberg tell us to 'lean in', that is, to move towards ambitious career opportunities and not say to ourselves, "I will not go for that position / that promotion because in a couple of years I might want to have children and..." But what about for mental health?

In my therapy session this week, I discussed with my therapist my current exploration of what I could do to make life better or easier. To make life liveable. You see, on that day above, when I was so low, my therapist didn't lie to me and tell me that everything would be completely better one day. In fact she said that I might always have to manage these feelings. That it might never get better. Never. Never ever. I might always have days when all I wanted to do was to not wake up the next day, when I felt that I had utterly failed (contrary to any rational proof) and that I was a ridiculous burden to everyone. And in any case, I wasn't having any fun. None. And so what was the point?

So, on that day, when I was wondering about whether I actually wanted to live at all, I went for my natural response to all situations: practicality. "What can I do to make my life better, if I'm going to have to get through the next thirty to fifty years (or, goodness knows, even longer) with this diabolical illness?"

I saw a locum psychiatrist as mine was away on (much deserved) holiday. (I say much deserved because, for goodness sake, even I can see that psychiatrists and all health professionals are people, and that they need time off, just like everyone else, so they can be productive.) He suggested I might like to see a life coach with an understanding of psychiatry so that I could explore options for changing my life and what I filled it with so that, on those terrible, awful days, I could at least look at the essentials and think: "Well, you're doing some good. You're helping someone, you're supporting people, you're trying to make people's lives better. And you're being creative. So, you see, Jessica, there is a point to your being here, even though you just want to close your eyes and never open them again."

However, seeing my therapist this week - after a month of getting used to new medication, and of making a couple of changes (and, for those of you who missed it, completely freaking out with massive anxiety at being named on the @BrummellMag (Brummell Magazine) list of 2015 inspirational women of diversity and then being shortlisted and having to attend a judging panel for the 2015 Women of the Future Award in the category for Community Spirits) I learned an alternative perspective. 

(Incidentally, this is the last year I qualify as a WOF @womenoffuture, #wof10yrs. Next year, I become a Woman of the Past. I'll be launching those awards very soon. Ha.)

My therapist said to me, "You have really changed. you're so much better than you were last year. You can't see it, but I can." And: "I'm not sure that you need to add more things to your life. your life is full of good things - your job, your blog and mental health work, your husband. You are already doing a lot!"

Finally, she said: "Your problem is not that what you're doing is bad; it's the feelings that are bad."

She is right. Those five minute activities described above, I can do about 150 of them, of those things that 'only take five minutes' in a relatively normal day, maybe 190x5 on a very full on day. I can do a lot, and I generally try to select meaningful things to do, because I know how hard it is for me to break through the numb wall of antidepressants and reach some kind of contentedness with life.

But on a bad day? I can still do 150 five minute things. I can maybe do more. But I don't want to do a single 1 of them. In fact my body and mind are fighting me against every. Single. One. Of those five minute activities. "Stop. Go back to bed. Close your eyes. Shut everyone out. Shut down."

So what does that mean for me? 

Am I one of those women referenced by the Harvard Business School? HBS studied 4000 men and women in total and "concluded that women are less likely to apply to rise up the corporate ladder because even though they feel they could get the job, they don't want to deal with the 'conflict' (my single quotation marks) that comes with corporate power." [Jenni Murray, Woman's Hour, 25th September 2015]. This means conflict against life goals / choices - trade offs and sacrifices that women would have to make at a higher level, rather than face interpersonal conflict on the job and at home as they juggled various enormous pieces of their life towards having a very successful career and a very enriched home life.

My FAVOURITES. Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey on Woman's Hour

The 30% club is about to change its focus towards board-ready women, that is, women ready for the executive. Clearly I have some way to go here as I'm at best a middle-senior manager at the moment. However, my firm KPMG co-published a study - Cracking the Code - which showed that it's really a lack of promotion rather than attrition which explains why women aren't making it to the top. Women are twice as likely to leave jobs on the way up because of the opportunity cost those higher level positions bring.

So am I one of those who are eschewing power because of the conflict associated with it? Not at the moment. At the moment I'm managing to do all those things above - I complete all those five minute activities. Like showering. Which, FYI, is not on the job descriptions of positions I've been looking at for over the last five years or so. Or so. 

But I don't know whether I can succeed or even survive in a job (anymore, or maybe not ever) where I consistently have to work 15+ hours in a working week day, every day. I know I have a smart mind, a willing heart, and a passionate drive to make a difference. I know I have the commitment to try to keep succeeding, to keep 'leaning in' and progressing. 

But working all hours is not - and never will be - good for my mental health (let alone my physical health). Can I still succeed in business on my own, balanced, healthier, terms where my five minute activities never reach the point where I've used up nearly every five minutes in that day, to the detriment of future health, the success of my ambitions, the satisfaction and transformative changes for the clients I work with, or the benefit of the mental health charities I am committed to supporting?

Do I have as much choice as I think I should have? Let's see...

The answer to these questions needs to be "Yes", but I really don't know if "yes" is the answer. My progress should be judged on outputs rather than the count of the five minutes I dedicate to my work. But one could argue that others with more stamina to put in more of those five minutes, just as productively, are going to overtake me in the career stakes (male or female) just based on their ability to go another five minutes. To do another thing when I had to stop to keep myself from becoming ill.

If I stay in business I imagine I will find out the answer to these questions. For now, I'll just try not to worry about them, which might cycle into anxiety or depression, and prevent me from doing those basic five minute activities.

So for now, I think I'll just go and buy a jar of pesto. Take care this weekend. x

You Matter. World Suicide Prevention Day #WSPD15, #RUOK

I think few would disagree that suicidal thoughts are in themselves very frightening. However hard we may find it to live in this complicated world of wars, births, deaths, marriages, losses gains, progress, recession and so on, suicide is not something that we often discuss, at least not among my friends. Imagine, though, a person whose world has become so unbearable that it seems a release to consider letting go of all of the things that are making life seem impossible for a different choice – a choice where none of these struggles exist anymore, and where that person will be freed from expectations and constraints of life placed on him / her by others, or, most importantly, by him/herself.

I recently spoke to a group of senior leaders at work about resilience in my definition of the term. More to come on that in another post. During my talk, I mentioned how bad things had been last year and how things still were, quite often, very very bad for me with depression and anxiety invading and dictating various aspects of my life – what was possible and impossible. I told the group that at my lowest ebb I had not been suicidal, meaning I had not made plans to kill myself or set about putting those plans into practice. What had happened to me, though, was something very damaging: I had stopped wanting to live. I awoke each day with a heavy head as I looked out of the window at a world I no longer wanted to be part of. I felt a total failure, despite the promotions, the new job, the happy marriage, the friends I had. I felt awful. I felt I was awful, and that feeling this terrible way each day was my life sentence, a sentence I wanted to give up.

Nothing if not practical, I eventually realised that the tears every day before work and the panicked feeling that I couldn’t shake no matter how much exercise I did, sleep I got, reading or other distraction techniques I employed, the feelings of absolute hopelessness, were not going away, and that I had to do something about it. I chose to see my psychiatrist and explain how I felt. He made me fill out a questionnaire to assess the severity of my depression, and as I circled ‘very frequently’ against ‘feeling of not wanting to be alive’ I started to cry and cry, realising when I saw my self-assessment on paper just how bad things really were. I was dreadfully ill. I was living not even a half-life, even though from the outside every aspect of it was going well.

And this is how to interpret...

Mind puts it like this:

Mixed feelings
You may be very clear that you want to die – or you may simply not care if you live or die. However, for most people, suicidal thoughts are confusing. As much as you want to die, you may also want a solution to your difficulties. You may want others to understand how you feel and hope that they can help. Yet, you may not feel able to talk to anyone who offers to help. Having such mixed feelings and being unsure about what to do can cause great anxiety.

The latter description is more relevant to me – I just did not care whether I lived or died. But I did want a solution and I did want others to understand.

In hospital I met many other patients who were stuck and wading through the treacly mess of depressive thoughts. Looking into the treacle to try to find meaning, but seeing only blackness. Trying to get out of the treacle, but being sucked back into its sticky, strong mass that we had not the means to counterattack.

One patient who became my friend was very silent almost the entire time that I was there. Many more were like him. I was pretty well versed in the language of therapy and (no surprises here) had always been something of a talker, but others, particularly men but not exclusively, were so immersed in the terrible depths of their illnesses, so entrapped, that their mouths and gestures were glued shut and slowed by the treacle. And even if they opened their mouths to speak, many times they had no language to say what was going on.

You may be aware that more men commit suicide than women, by which I mean that more men succeed in the attempt. It is always dangerous to make generalisations, but the rates of suicide among men are rising over the past few years, whereas for women they have stayed broadly the same.  Wikipedia says: “The rate of nonlethal suicidal behavior is 40 to 60 percent higher in women than it is in men. This is due to the fact that more women are diagnosed as depressed than men, and also that depression is correlated with suicide attempts.”

The Guardian says: “The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity in England 2007 survey found that 19% of women had considered taking their own life. For men the figure was 14%. And women aren’t simply more likely to think about suicide – they are also more likely to act on the idea. The survey found that 7% of women and 4% of men had attempted suicide at some point in their lives. But of the 5,981 deaths by suicide in the UK in 2012, more than three quarters (4,590) were males“

As I have said before, I am not a doctor and have no qualifications in this field other than the benefit of my own lived experience.

I personally believe that we need to do more to support each other – whether we are struggling or not – to prevent ourselves and others potentially struggling to the extent that life ceases to be enjoyable. Even for me, while I may (may, no proof) be genetically predisposed to depression and therefore have life’s experiences + genes to thank for my seemingly effortless propensity to become depressed through various times in my life, life can be enjoyable and often is. I am so lucky that I have people who ask me ‘Are you okay?’ and really mean it.

The hardest thing for me about feeling so dreadful was the loneliness of it. And I talked about it as it was happening to my husband and my doctor, and still I felt alone. What must it be like to be someone who is experiencing these terrifying thoughts that a world without them in it would be a better reality than one with them?

We cannot move mountains to end all suicides today. But we can do little things to connect ourselves to one another and seek to invite connection from others, so that people feel that they are not alone, and that someone – a lot of someones, in fact – cares for them. We can ask each other how we are, not as a throw away ‘hello’ platitude, but as a real question expecting (and accepting) a real answer.

We can ask about each other’s lives and share something of our own, so that we make connections with each other. We can smile at the person we meet out running and wish them a good morning. That might be the only time that person sees a smile or hears that all day. Simple steps like these can be very powerful. And at the end of the day, we can say thank you to our work colleagues for what they have done for us. We can ask them what their evening or weekend plans are, and listen and share our own. We can thank our friends or partners for helping with dinner (whether ordering Domino’s or cooking a three course meal, whatever!).

By connecting ourselves with others and by sharing things about ourselves, especially if we are not having a good day and we feel we can say it aloud, we are inviting others to do the same. So when I next ask you how you are, or how things are, or if I ask, “Are you okay?” I promise: I really want to know the answer.