Help, I Need Somebody, Help, Not Just Anybody...Or Any Drug...I Just Need Help...

I've said it before and I am sure I’ll say it again, after I say it here: recognising that you need help when you have depression, and trying to understand to what extent you need help, is incredibly hard.

I wake up most days and sort of mentally poke at myself: “How do you feel today?” “What’s you mood?” “Do you feel depressed?” “Do you feel okay?” “How do you feel about the day ahead?” “What’s your anxiety level?” As I lie there for those first couple of minutes after waking there are usually two different general responses to this: either I feel totally anxious and un-rested after (another) eight hours or more of nightmares, usually connected to the traumas I've recently experienced, or experienced in the past, or I feel okay. 

For two minutes. And then after those two minutes are up, I get to know exactly how I feel, really. My heart can start to sink; my stomach can curdle and recoil inside me with fear or unrest; my head can feel empty or too full, or both. My limbs feel sluggish and exhausted. My heart might start to race and I might start to feel sick at the thought of the day ahead, even if it’s just thinking about having a shower or eating breakfast.

If only it were that simple!

Mondays are the hardest because there are five whole days to get through before the weekend. And it’s not even as if I like the weekend, or find it easier to cope with. Sometimes the thought of seeing friends and putting on makeup and a happy (or vaguely happy) (or just not crying my eyes out and scaring everyone!) is too much to take, and the anxiety that I experience at the thought of this is almost enough for me not to go.

But as always, with all of the above, in 99% of cases I make myself go through with it. I know that I’m supposed to be brave and I’m supposed to get on with things, using all of the cognitive behavioural strategies that I've learned to support myself with. And I have my medication too (even though the anti depressants make my legs shake so badly that even with a sedative I can find it hard to sleep because they won’t stop moving).

Today I’m at hospital about to get help because I realised a couple of weeks ago that I was struggling again and that issues I was facing were escalating and bringing out the worst (or the best, if I look at this from the perspective of my fabulous type A personality) in me. I am going to go to groups that will help me look at my anxiety and depression and try to reinforce all those practical strategies I know I can apply when times are tough.

The day begins with group support, where we all have to name the emotions that we are feeling. Today I feel sad, angry – both at being here and needing to be here - and at the external issues that have helped bring me here again. We all speak our feelings. Usually it’s hard for some people because depression can leave you totally numb, so that the ability to experience any feeling seems untouchable, and incomprehensible. To be able to feel – it’s some cloudy far away concept – it doesn't mean anything.

Sometimes hope feels just like 'tomorrow'...something that never comes.

The best thing about support group is that it’s a free flowing conversation about our struggles, rather than a strategic almost-lecture on how to make ourselves or keep ourselves well. The rest of the day is much more tiring because of the things we need to learn – ways to control our anger, anxieties, how to adopt healthier coping strategies, how to use drama or music to articulate our difficulties.

I don’t know how I’ll feel at the end of the day, but I suspect I’ll feel very, very tired. Being ill is hard; getting the treatment is draining, and instead of the beautiful picture or essay or solved maths puzzle one might take home after a hard day’s work at school, I go home with the raw feelings unearthed by a day of delving into my past difficulties and disappointments, my demons and tormentors alive and well and brought into my consciousness from which ever compartment in my brain’s filing system I had buried them away.

But I have to go to hospital. I have to get help. The alternative is to stop living at all, or to continue with all the terrible symptoms of depression that make me want to stop living. So I go. I’m lucky to have the treatment and support. And I've recognised that I need help. So here I am. I'm getting help. It's another first step.

Laptop On Tour Once More! Part One: Ceci, c'est un blog, pas une blague

Alors, mes amis, je suis arrivé à Paris! Yes, today I have finally left Teddington and am on my way to my first holiday in eight months, and since having my terrible physical accident! It's exciting but a little bit scary.

Paris and Le Tour Eiffel (just seen), from the air

Some things remain normal of course, one of them my best and beloved terminal (terminal) 4 at Heathrow airport, where to stand a chance of making your flight on time it is best to arrive seven hours before your flight is scheduled to take off (i.e. delayed, cancelled, moved to another day, be grounded by rain...), to travel business or blag your way into the fast track queue to escape the endless tedium of explaining to an official who has no interest in working whatsoever that your laptop cable is, in fact, a laptop cable, which tragically leaves only five minutes to buy everything in sight in duty free, despite the fact that you need none of it, especially the M&Ms, and finally take your seat in the queue. Yes, of course I'm joking: you won't get a seat, and twenty minutes before there's any chance of learning whether your flight will actually take off at all you're going to be joining twenty thousand other people who've materialised as if from nowhere in a long line to make sure that their assigned seat isn't given away to four other people, also hoping to get on the same flight.

Just another day at Heathow. 

So, situation normal so far. I am very, very lucky to have been able to fly business class on this occasion, with a great deal I considered worth it when putting my health - back, foot, arm, head (in both senses) - first, rather than 'out' on the mammoth plane journey upon which I am about to embark.

Le Petit Dejeuner. Actually quite nice for airline food.

Of course situation is not quite normal, because it is still only a few days since the tragedy of Germanwings and flight attendants are understandably being more attentive to safety than ever before. (And I say flight attendants as I didn't see any pilots or co-pilots on my first trip. Much has now been said about the Germanwings tragedy, and some of it has been (and is about to be) said by me.

Last week I spoke to Grazia magazine, who were looking for a female to speak to them about her own experences of having depression to see 'what it's really like'. This feature will appear in Tuesday's edition of the paper while I am away (I'm going to Japan by the way, but am writing this from the lovely Charles de Gaulle airport). I was asked about many aspects of my depression - how it started, how long I have had it, the struggles that I have had and the things I have achieved in spite of the (at times) wholly debilitating nature of this condition. I am hoping that my involvement with the news feature will go some way to widening the perspective of life with depression.

Oh Grazia (and Katy) I love you so

On the other hand, having done many media appearances in the last year, the flip side of being interviewed for print is that my words are not exactly my own. In this case, the (really lovely) journalist I spoke to at Grazia wrote my words as if I had written the article myself - i.e. in the first person, which was a strange experience for me, as many of my specific comments had been either paraphrased or fitted neatly into a fifty word box-sized sentence where I probably spent at least 200-300 words on each topic we discussed. Fair enough, we all have confines to which we work in our specific jobs and career paths.

The strangest thing about the experience - one which I have now had twice - is the way that a participant like me is able to check the information given and give comments on the article if I am unhappy with the way that any comments have been phrased: the journalists read the text aloud to the interviewee over the phone. On the last occasion I was speaking to the Standard (who didn't end up using my quotations) I found it quite easy to receive the comments read out this way, because there were just a couple of quotations being used; in the Grazia article 500 words (roughly) are devoted to my 'first person' account. I actually took notes during the reading to enable me to try to catch sentences I felt did not express my opinions truthfully, or were too far off from what I had originally said.

(And I would like to say, that as you imagine me being sensible and trying to ensure I was being represented, there was the other half of me which was jumping up and down in delight at BEING IN GRAZIA MAGAZINE! There's even going to be a tiny picture of me in there. And when I asked them what the average age of their reader was, they said 37! So (because of course I needed reassurance) I'm okay!)

Then comes a little discussion where we debate word choices and rework sentences. All of this done over the phone. I have to say this is a pretty difficult thing to do - I could easily miss something and risk allowing a voice that is not really mine but is presented as such stating views that are not my own. The only real time this happened which so concerned me is a short sentence where the gist of what 'I' was saying was: 'in male working environments the sense that one can't talk about depression is stronger and it's for this reason that more men commit suicide.' To which I said, "Errr...where did that come from? I have no authority whatsoever to make a comment like that at all and although we discussed the fact that if a man felt (as an individual) that he for some reason had to be 'strong' and couldn't show what might be perceived as 'weakness' by admitting to any need for support with an illness then that would be very difficult.

As it turns out, there is evidence to support the above viewpoint from research; but of course I didn't conduct any research myself and wasn't happy to make such a statement at all - firstly because I don't believe it is true in those sweeping terms, and secondly because I have no authority to make such a statement. I think what we ended up saying that I knew some colleagues who were male and who had felt unable to talk about their illnesses, and perhaps that men might talk about their problems less which might exacerbate the problem.

Listening. Harder than reading. You heard it here first.

I will be flying to Japan in another hour from now and will not be able to check anything online for 15 hours, so, effectively tomorrow. This will still mean there's time before the article comes out, but this time I did take pause to wonder whether I would like to have articles in which I am quoted 'read' to me in future, rather than sent over as a PDF for me to read for myself. I think the latter is a much safer option. (Also, I just read Jon Ronson's "So You've Been Publicly Shamed) so I'm rather more nervous after the event than perhaps I would have been before.)

 I'm not ashamed to have depression,

but I don't want to be shamed for speaking out...

I am grateful to have a chance to give a voice to what depression is like from my point of view - but, as I've said many times before - that's all I'm giving. I only know what depression is like for me, not for others. I take medication that has been prescribed for me, while many others take many other things and do / do not have therapy as suits them. I am one person with one voice, my own, and my experiences may be unlike any others.

I'm very fortunate to have this blog to voice my own views on this and that, write about my vacations and my trials and tribulations. I don't necessarily write a neat five hundred words, but what you read is all me. It means a lot to me to be able to be honest in this blog. I struggled this week, for example, and managed to have a good cry at a dinner party with friends that I was thoroughly enjoying despite having massive anxiety sporadically throughout. Sometimes these things just happen. I'm not 'well' yet; I'm just working at getting better.

I need to set off for the gate now so I'll wave au revoir from Paris, and I will write some more - I hope - soon - from Japan itself. Until then, Happy Easter and, as always, take care.

Beat It: The Real Deal on Coping with Mental Illnesses

I imagine and hope that tomorrow will feature a fair amount of press coverage of 'Time to Talk' day which +Time to Change Campaign has promoted as a day where they are asking people to take 5 minutes to talk about mental health, with the hope that they will achieve a total of 24 hours of conversations in total.

So what will you be talking about tomorrow?

The three most common types of mental illness (or issues associated with mental illness) are stress, anxiety and depression. The NHS and many other useful websites promote tips on how to counter feelings of stress and anxiety (and depression, though anxiety and depression are somewhat opposite in the way a sufferer experiences them). I'm going to look at the tips, and my response to what this means for someone (me) who has suffered from all three of these conditions at one time or another:

Okay, so pretty much no one looks like this or has a sunsetting beach to run along. And she looks like she's in a female hygiene products commercial.

 Plus I bet the sand is stinging her feet. But getting active can help. 

1.  Be active:

I think physical activity is a wonderful idea. Fresh air helps and getting out and about can lift your spirits by taking you out from where you were and helping you to relax.

“BUT, I don’t think I can get out of bed. I feel terrible today. I just want to stay here and sleep.”

I've felt this often. If you can, take a shower and get dressed. That counts. And there’s a lovely feeling about feeling clean, even if you go straight back to bed afterwards. Even if you don’t have a shower but make it to the kitchen you’re doing really well. Don’t be hard on yourself if you can help it. What you're feeling and experiencing is hard enough without beating yourself up about it.

I do love a shower. Don't listen to my husband saying that northerners are unclean. We do wash. Well, sometimes. 

2.  Take control

The NHS says ‘There’s a solution to any problem’. This is true, for the most part, but you do need to read the tips on managing your time and calming yourself before you can do anything.

“BUT how can I take control when everything is overwhelming. There is no solution to my problem. I don’t know what to do and I can’t stop panicking.”

If you’re massively stressed or anxious your brain cannot think straight to do this, so it’s time for deep breathing and water first, and calming yourself down, before you start to think about taking control or the steps to do so. Again, take care of yourself. You're not well enough to start addressing the things in your life that feel out of control if your anxiety/depression is 8-10 on a scale of 1-10. 

If only this button did what we all really wanted it to do...

3.  Connect with People

Talking can definitely help.  The NHS says: 'A good support network of colleagues, friends and family can ease your work troubles and help you see things in a different way.'

“BUT, I don’t feel like leaving the house to talk to people and I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”

“BUT, I don’t have anyone I can talk to about this.”

It can be hard to reach out when you feel dreadful. I have been there. It still happens to me now. But talking does really help even if it’s hard to get started. And if you don’t feel like you have anyone to talk to / anyone you can talk to, organisations like the Samaritans are there and someone you don't know, but has been trained to be there for you in hard times can help. The main thing is, do try not to let all the negative feelings build up inside you. Sometimes I just say to my husband: "I'm having a bad day," and nothing more. But it means I have stopped feeling like my feelings are choking me from the inside because I have given them a voice.

Yes, your Facebook page is fascinating. 

Now can you help me? I've got third degree burns from holding my tea cup all this time.

4.  Have some 'me' time. 

Apparently we UK inhabitants work the longest hours in Europe. And it’s true, we do, and it doesn’t help. The NHS recommends doing what you can do to take time out.

“BUT, I’m worried I might lose my job if I want to work shorter hours to take time out for me. I need to check my emails even outside of work to make sure I stay on top of things “

You do need to take time out even if it’s sitting on the loo for 5 minutes. Continuing to be stressed or feeling bad without giving yourself some sort of break (even if a short one) to change your scenery and remove yourself from difficult situations is crucial. You can also get outside at lunchtime. And leave your phone. You wouldn’t be able to answer it if you were in a meeting, would you? So give yourself a break. You may not always be able to relax during ‘me’ time, because learning to relax is another thing you will have to master gradually if you're used to feeling tense all the time. I'm not great at relaxing - and I used to be dreadful at it! Try not to give yourself to hard a time about this.

Even if you're having 'me time' on the loo. 

Which obviously I'm not going to post an image of here.

5. Challenge Yourself

The NHS recommends setting yourself goals and challenges. In some cases I think this is a great idea. Ask yourself, what do I want? Is there something different that I could do to make my life more worthwhile to me?

"BUT, I'm overwhelmed as it is. I cannot deal with adding more challenges. I just cannot take on anything more because I can't cope. Please don't ask me to add more to what I'm going through."

It is tough to face the future, even the next few hours or the next day, when you're very low or anxious. The negative thoughts can be overwhelming and goals and challenges do seem hard. I find this one horrendous sometimes because I already feel overwhelmed. But even if it's only a goal to get across the road to the newsagent to buy yourself a chocolate bar, getting up, or picking up the phone to call a friend, try to do something. That something is a goal. Or maybe a holiday to look forward to. If you can do it - great. And again, just don't give yourself a hard time if you can't. You might need to calm and soothe yourself first. I know that's how it is for me.

Sometimes getting out of bed feels like this. 

But luckily with fewer ice picks and more blankets. Brrr!

6.  Avoid unhealthy habits

The NHS says: "Don't rely on alcohol, smoking and caffeine as your ways of coping."

"BUT, a cigarette / a glass of wine helps me calm down at the end of the day. I like having it. Why can't I do it?"

The NHS is right - these are temporary releases which won't actually help in the end. Caffeine will make you jumpier if you're already anxious. I've given it up because it interferes with my medication and I'm tired of being so jumpy. I don't smoke, but I used to drink nearly every day. Now I've radically cut down on the alcohol because I've realised it is dangerous for me to mix too much alcohol with medication. Unfortunately I like wine and food in equal measures. And for goodness sake we are only human. But take care of your health in these matters - because adding to your existing problems with potential health problems or addiction will not help. 

7.  Help Other People

I really believe in this one. I've found that helping other people in some way, even if it's only holding the door and getting a thank you in return, would make me feel better momentarily. It's for this reason also that I've tried to volunteer for Mind and Time to Change: helping to raise awareness of mental health is important to me, and the thought that I might help other people is something that can lift me in my darkest times.

"BUT, how can I help other people when I'm in this state? I can't even help myself!"

Even the smallest things like putting a duvet over your partner in the middle of the night when it's fallen off and he's cold, feeding your cat, making a cup of tea for someone, is being helpful. Try to remember that and give yourself a break.

We can all help in small ways. Some ways are very cute. Like this.

8.  Work Smarter, Not Harder

Good time management is not something everyone has, but the NHS reminds us that "You have to get a work-life balance that suits you."

"BUT, I've got so many other commitments, I can't possibly work 'smarter' because I just have too much on! You don't know what it's like for me."

It's great to try to be efficient, to consider what really matters. However, when you're ill sometimes you can only do so much. Just try to work out - with help from others around you - what is important for you to get done now, and where you can get help for this, and make a note of other times that you can get done the most pressing things, again with help from others. The most important thing is to try to alleviate some of the pressures that you're feeling. Mind has some great tips on this. It's hard to generalise on this one: if you're a city banker or lawyer you likely feel you can't take any time out at all, but remembering that you got hired for a reason and that you are a smart person is important. Take a breath and reflect on that. And do take a break (even if just for five minutes) to do deep breathing before you try and tackle that mountainous 'To-Do' list.

9. Be Positive

"Are you serious? How can I be positive at a time like this? I feel so dreadful. Everything is awful and I just don't want to be here anymore. It's all too much."

The NHS says 'People don't always accept what they have.' Yep. That would be true. I am not thinking about my house, my husband and my great job when I'm miserable and ill. I doubt even people with a cold aren taking time out to feel grateful for any of these things when their noses are snotty and they're coughing and spluttering with a killer headache. Whatever the illness, we're all in it together feeling like crap and how on earth can we get ourselves out of it? Again, it's important to calm or soothe yourself first before you can try to think positively. This isn't easy at all. I have needed help from a therapist and a good psychiatrist to help me to see myself and my outlook more rationally and more positively. And I can't do it quite a lot of the time. It takes work, so start this kind of thinking, using techniques like mindfulness when you are feeling a bit less ill so that you can actually participate in them.

You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes...

10. Accept the things you can't change.

"Changing a situation isn't always possible," the NHS says. Again, Yep. 

"BUT, I can't do anything about my work, I can't change my family situation."
"I'm stuck and I can't get out."

I think the NHS is right here. There are going to be things you can't change and hard as they are to accept, we just have to try. We just need to make it to the next day (or the next hour). And then the next. I think acceptance, particularly self-acceptance is the most important step in dealing with mental health.

Above all, we can all play a part in continuing to talk about mental health de-stigmatising mental illnesses. It's not something to fear, to shun, to avoid, to pretend it doesn't exist. It doesn't mean you can't do a great job, be a great parent, live a good life, make a difference. It doesn't even mean you can't be happy.

Mental health illnesses are complex and difficult. But not talking about them worsens the condition, so please think about that and talk about it tomorrow and the next day and the next. Let's keep talking.

We Need to Talk About Mental Illness: Time to Talk Day - 5th February 2015

February 5th is Time To Change (@timetochange 's #TimeToTalk day), encouraging people to take 5 minutes out of their day to have a conversation about mental health.

It's something that people find hard to talk about, myself included, despite this blog and my media appearances over the last year. There are still large numbers of people to whom mental illness is something to be feared or looked down upon. I've met people who have avoided me after learning that I have depression; I've met people who appeared to think that suffering in this way affected my ability to do my job at all, and who saw it as a red flag, requiring decision making to be taken completely out of my hands. And I've met friends and acquaintances who have not understood and have kindly suggested that I 'pull myself together'. And so on.

When I suffer acute depression episodes one of the things that I find hardest is that I often suffer from feelings of acute defectiveness and failure:

"I'm depressed, there's something intrinsically wrong with me."
"I'm depressed, I will never get better, I have failed as a human being."
"Why can't I just feel better? I'm always lurching back into doom."
"I'm so anxious that I feel physically sick and can't focus on anything; I'm no good and I'll never be able to do anything properly."

In the summer of last year, when I was so ill that I agreed with my psychiatrist that the best course of action was to go into hospital to have more intensive treatment and rest from all the external forces worsening my depression, most particularly the bullying I was experiencing, I had to decide whether to talk about what was happening to me or not. I thought carefully about the people in my life who were my friends, and what would change if they knew that I was depressed. The negative thoughts that I've listed above are completely false in many ways, but I was so depressed and anxious that I needed help to get rid of them. They made me sick with fear that I would lose the friends I so cherish and love, and constantly tearful at the state that I was in,

On the other hand, I didn't want to keep my illness a secret because it was contributing to my illness. I didn't want to accept that it was something to be ashamed of, and something that I should be hiding from other people. Those very perceptions were only exacerbating my illness, because the effort to conceal my true state required something close to the superhuman. The smiles, the jokes, the well turned out woman with styled hair, made up face, with the pretty work dresses and the fabulous shoes (I will never not be wearing fabulous shoes. I'm addicted.) These were my friends and if I had a hope of being better part of that was to be more open about my own illness and how I was feeling. I was afraid of rejection. I was terrified of being seen as a failure and as someone who was damaged. But I wanted to be honest. So I 'came out' from my hiding place and told them.

"Dear friends,

As some of you know I have been having a hard time at work recently with some bullying and difficult people, which has made me very upset. Unfortunately because I also suffer from depression I've now come to the point where I can't cope anymore with working.

I've decided with the help of my superb doctors and counsellor to go into hospital to recover from some of the impacts of this situation. I will probably be in hospital for 1-2 weeks, we think.

I would love to receive text messages or messages of support during this time - and of course, despite its very inconvenient location - you are most welcome (and encouraged by my doctor) to visit. However I won't expect this as I know many of you might find it difficult. 

I hope you understand why I wanted to be honest with this with you and I hope that you can support me.

Sending much love xxx Jessica"

At the time of writing this email, I cried. I cried when my mobile rang a minute or two later with a call from one of my friends ringing in response. I couldn't answer the phone because I was crying, and I cried when I heard the answerphone message sending love and reassurance that my condition didn't affect our friendship at all. And still I cried.

Why did I cry so much? I think it was because I did not believe that my friends would stick by me, someone who was defective and a failure. Who wants to spend time with someone who's so down in the dumps that they have to go into hospital? Who wants to be friends with someone who's been bullied? Doesn't that mean that there's something wrong with me?

No.

Had I not sent the email above I don't think I would have made as much progress in hospital learning that the negative thoughts above were symptoms of my depression and not fact. Had I not told the truth I would have been holding back on my recovery. And when I did tell the truth I realised that I could be myself - illness and all - and I would still have support from those who cared enough about me to understand, or to learn more about what it really means to have a mental illness, and those at work ready and willing to listen - many more people than I expected.

More than this, though, was the aftermath. I have gradually become braver about talking about my condition. I have made myself speak to the press about my experiences as a way of training me to talk to others about my condition and how I need adjustments to help me to deal with it. And I hope that I will continue to get better at talking about mental health, because I am an example of how there is no one-size-fits-all mental illness sufferer. We come in all states, shapes and sizes. 

So, along with other supporters of #timetotalk, on 5th February I will be spending a good part of the day having 'honest conversations' at work about my mental health and about mental health in general. I will be inviting my husband to dinner and talking to him about mental health, something which he has had to learn about through nearly 10 years with me suffering the ups and downs of depression, anxiety, medications of different kinds and their varying side effects. I will be speaking to my family about it through email, phone calls and posts on Facebook, and I will be tweeting @volette to record my thoughts throughout the day.

I feel I must keep talking about mental health to try to help myself accept myself as I am, styled or dishevelled, weeping and weary or well. And I want to try to help others understand the complexities of these illnesses and the impacts that they may have on sufferers, from the personal perspective I can offer. I would love you to join in with this conversation and spare 5 minutes on 5th February have a conversation about mental health. Whether you're a sufferer, know someone who is, or know nothing about it at all, it's so important that we keep the conversation going. Taking the time to talk will make a difference. Perhaps more than you know. 

2014: Depression - an illness. Everybody else is doing it, so why can't we?

This is a post about mental health. I hurt myself badly this year through depression. And then I broke myself physically. Another post about that to follow. And it all started with a stubbed toe.

This year we did some major renovations to our flat. When I say 'we' I mean 'I' of course. My husband's idea of a renovation is changing a broken light bulb. or taking down the Christmas tree (in April). (I can confirm that April is, in fact, well after twelfth night, and thus you superstitious types might want to clutch your lucky(? for whom?) rabbit's foot as you continue to read.)

Flat à la Manhattan, and piano (just seen)

I decided to bring a touch of Manhattan to our London home, so with the help of our DIY Tzar Tris, I drilled and took off the plaster from our hall wall, exposing beautiful multi-coloured bricks beneath. I repainted the hall, living room and toilet walls, and framed and hung many pictures, photographs and mirrors to offset the stark white setting I had created. I varnished and stained tables and chairs, bought cushion covers and rearranged furniture. And then, transformation almost complete, one happy Sunday near the end of June, for no reason at all, I moved our piano - as if purposefully - into my left little toe.

Firstly, of course: "OWWWWWWW!"

Definitely NOT walking into the centre

But secondly, necessarily, Google for NHS advice and thirdly a trip to our oh-so-appropriately named 'walk-in' centre for a toe check up - was it broken? Was there anything that could be done, other than grimace and hobble? Apparently not much. Strapped up - my little toe to its bigger next door brother, that was it. However, dear reader, little toes are still very large in the area of pain, and a right royal pain it was - not only literally, but through the subsequent sartorial limitations. I'm talking about SHOES. The mothership of fashion in my view. SHOES. I-COULD-NO-LONGER-WEAR-ANYTHING-BUT- UGGS. Like, total disaster, babe. Tyra dissed them in season 3 of ANTM. Ugh [sic], What to do, yeah?

Uggs? Nooooo!

Luckily I found a pair of plimsolls - coincidentally these were Uggs too  - but shoes not boots - that I could wince - less - around in and off I went. 6 week recovery. Not really an illness at all. Simples.

Unfortunately life didn't quite work like that.

In my previous post I talked about loneliness and moving back from New York. Such was my loneliness and feeling of isolation and lack of support that I began to suffer a severe episode of depression, which started early 2013 and continued well into February this year. During the worst of this time I spent all the time I could in bed, or watching television catatonically.When I wasn't crying from loneliness or just plain sadness, that is. I worked though the struggle to do so was immense, every day a new battle to just survive it. I found social situations exhausting and stressful, and sleeping became fitful at best. Fortunately I found help - a (UK) doctor who prescribed medication and cognitive behavioural therapy to treat the symptoms, while I managed the move back home to the UK. And gradually I felt better and able to go out into the world again: I mostly slept through the night, I saw friends, I exercised.

The road to recovery

At the time of the toe incident, and while still being treated with medication for depression, I was working for a client and having an increasingly hard time. My job means going into tricky situations, this no exception, but the difference here was that two of the people at the place I was working - third party people (i.e. not from my company or the company I was consulting for) - had taken such violent affront to me that life at work became very tough.

Let me just talk about my job for a second. It is to advise. It is to think through solutions and share them, and ask for input. It is to join a team and work with them towards a better company - better outcomes, people, changes. It is to get things done. That is my job. And finally, let's consider that I am not a 21 year old wet-behind-the-ears graduate with the sounds of a sticky-floored nightclub ringing in my ears. I am nearing veteran status as a consultant, I work bloody hard and I know what I'm talking about - or when I don't I say so, or keep schtum.

Making stuff happen. That's what I do.

These two women decided a week and (in one case) a day after meeting me that they did not like me or want me around. Fine. We all meet people we wouldn't socialise with outside of work, but with whom we need to get on with. And, for goodness sake, I cost a lot of money - so it would be foolish not to use me.

Still, perhaps they were fools. Within a single day I was demoted in my role to fill the most junior status imaginable; I was also seated in a building 10 miles from where they worked. Only two others from our twenty-plus sized team worked in this building, and were often elsewhere, leaving me alone, in the Midlands, even though it cost £500+ a week to get me there on the train, let alone hotel costs. I was physically and deliberately isolated from them. If I worked at home I was criticised for not being ' visible': interesting how you can be more physically visible working 10 miles away than 100 - I haven't been able to understand how that works.

Eventually they seemed to understand that I could in fact do more for my money, and I worked on a single piece of deep research. Alone. No guidance - I wasn't granted the pleasure of answers to my phone calls or emails. Fine - not the way I wanted it but I did it. But again, I was isolated. I was disinvited from meetings; I was criticised in the office, or only spoken to to disinvite me from yet another meeting or to comment on my appearance: "I couldn't get one leg in that."

Not the most fun project ever

I'm afraid that now I will stoop to that level of personal comments - which I feel are unprofessional - to help you imagine these two vicious persons I am grateful no longer to be acquainted with. For this I turn to Roald Dahl, who perfectly describes one of this pair (who were both female - I imagine still are) in James and the Giant Peach: "(Aunt Sponge) was enormously fat and very short. She had small piggy eyes, a sunken mouth, and one of those white flabby faces that looked exactly as though it had been boiled." Copy this but make the other woman tanned with massive false eyelashes - not, unfortunately, massive enough to complement her chubby cheeks and grotesque exterior, and you have the pair. If doughnut scoffing were an olympic sport, I'd fancy these for the GBR gold and silver.

Sponge and Sponge 2 (No Spiker.)

Shunned by silence on the few occasions I was in the office by these two 'colleagues'; whispered about; isolated and spoken to only rarely, I of course shared this with my superiors, but the fact was this: I was being bullied. When I asked for help I was advised it was 'inappropriate to show stress'; another person said it was 'as much my fault for not bringing it up sooner.' And another has admitted to me since that I could have equally been criticised for requesting to stay and fight it out or admitting defeat and requesting to leave. I felt trapped.

Bullying. Evil. Always has been. Always will be.

As a child, I was bullied at 5, at 10 and at 14, very badly. I thought I was over it. Clearly not. My depression - which had been under good control, no longer needing CBT, seeped back little by little. I found it hard to go to work, knowing an empty office would await me, and little likelihood of much work-related interaction. Knowing I would have to try to speak to those two women who refused to interact with me.

Unfortunately this could only be maintained so long

It got worse and worse. Isolation grows like weeds around an empty gravel patch and suffocates the other life that could potentially live there. I left to walk for lunch and would bite my lip to try to stop the tears coming - every day, and clock watch the minutes to take me home and to bed. I suddenly found it hard to socialise again. Running became a trial, as if someone were constantly pushing at my head. Going out was exhausting. I was becoming catatonic again.

Finally I could barely hold myself together through the day - though I had taken not a single day off - it was becoming harder and harder to start the day at all. I didn't want to go to work. I didn't want to live.

I refer again to the description of myself at work. I am someone whose job it is to get things done, and that is what I did. I made an emergency appointment with my psychiatrist - yes, my doctor is a psychiatrist. I asked my GP to refer me to him (as I had been privately paying for him before) to apply for medical insurance and finally, I asked and agreed with my psychiatrist to admit me to hospital. I could not go on any longer.

Here comes the rub. Mental health as an illness. I was absolutely terrified of anyone at work knowing the truth; I feared stigmatisation after the feedback to not demonstrate stress at work. And I feared it because before I had been shunned after (once - ONCE) crying at work. The next day I was rolled off a difficult project at the end of my term, rather than extended. I wasn't consulted. And I felt sub-human because of it.

I got better, though. Two weeks in hospital and a lot of day patient care and I felt ready to try life out again. The doctors and staff who treated me were amazing. Thank you to my friends whom I emailed to tell of this at the time. You have been incredibly supportive and amazing. You visited me in hospital and brought me wisdom and love - and even though I can't love myself in this state I re-read your emails and keep trying to accept myself just a little bit more.

Today is World Mental Health day and I am coming out. I am someone who has depression. I take medication and get help for it. And I can work and operate as a normal person with that help - and hopefully, soon, as in the past, without it. Please don't patronise me by treating me differently because of this. Please don't make decisions for me. If I had broken my leg, you wouldn't start treating me differently at work. You would sympathise but you wouldn't stigmatise. So please don't. I have an illness and it is being treated. If I need help I'll get it. I don't want it to define me and I don't want to be 'the one with depression'. I'm as funny, intelligent, driven, annoying, ridiculous etc. as I always was - as I was 1 minute ago before you knew. Please think about that.

But workers, everywhere, and mostly, leaders, and future leaders. Please recognise mental health for what it is. Something that is challenging, difficult and takes time to heal, but does not and should not preclude suffers from being just like you. Look around. Maybe there is a leader among you who is excelling in spite of it. And don't send flowers for just physical illnesses. Mental illnesses are just as serious and real.

Depression is the curse of the strong, so it's more than likely that in our country where 1 in 4 people have a mental health problem, you know many people who might be suffering - perhaps in silence. Let's end the stigma together. I am standing up. Please stand with me - and my friends.We are all standing close to you now.