My Health Experience: After a very long, painful battle, Julie McCarthysays she feels very well for the first time in 22 years
I LIKEN IT now to a silent scream. I was screaming inside, dying for people to understand the desperate sadness, anxiety, fear and pain that were overwhelming me. Everyone around me could see something was wrong, of course – I was disappearing in front of them, emotionally and physically, but they were as helpless as I was. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, depression wasn’t associated with young girls from happy, middle-class families in suburban Dublin. We were all clueless.
It is amazing how quickly life can change. I was an incredibly happy, confident girl from an incredibly loving and close family, who loved school and playing with my friends. Then out of the blue everything was different – 180 degrees different.
I had what I now know to be a panic attack in a friend’s house one evening where I suddenly felt I couldn’t breathe, like I was going to pass out. I was gripped with a deathly fear and felt sicker than I could ever remember.
From that moment, nothing in my life was ever the same again. I slipped dramatically into a deep depression. Constantly exhausted, apathetic to life and barely able to function, I was terrified.
That must be nothing to how my poor, dear parents felt. It broke their hearts to see their youngest child disappear in front of their eyes. Where was happy, bubbly Julie gone?
Where was the girl who people had nicknamed “the Giggler” because she was always laughing? Oh, that girl was dead emotionally, if not physically. And so began seemingly endless doctor visits and hospital trips. I was eventually diagnosed with ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), although I believe now this was incorrect.
My teenage years were, to a large degree, a nightmare. I went through countless periods of deep depression, suffered from panic attacks and developed chronic claustrophobia.
Life became incredibly limited. Countless nights out with friends were ended prematurely by panic attacks and calls home for my dad to come rescue me.
As I grew older I stopped socialising with my friends as they were now drinking in crowded clubs or pubs, which I couldn’t face even entering. I became increasingly isolated and went through regular periods of feeling utterly suicidal. It is a difficult thing to explain, but it wasn’t that I wanted to die, I just couldn’t face going on living as I was. I was so desperately unhappy, in the darkest depths of despair, feeling I was fighting for every breath.
Thankfully, I somehow found enough strength to keep living and found a way out, temporarily at least. I decided to leave Dublin once I completed secondary school. Two days after I finished my Leaving Certificate, I was off to London with my life packed into a very large suitcase! On the ferry, of course – my claustrophobia meant I couldn’t even think of flying.
London was tough initially. I spent two months holed up in my sister’s flat, but her love and support kept me going, and on returning to Dublin that September for four weeks I went for intensive hypnotherapy which had a massive impact on me. It instilled a degree of belief in me which had been sadly missing for years.
I returned to London and started college, feeling alive again for the first time in six years. I certainly didn’t live the life of the average student. I was lacking in confidence and found living in halls of residence, where everyone seemed full of confidence, tough going. There were times I would hide behind my door, ignoring friends knocking for me as I was convinced they didn’t really want to see me. Socialising was difficult – pubs were a no-go area for me, and that’s where students spend most of their free time.
Still, I did well in college and worked for two years in London before returning to Dublin. Life became better over the years. My panic attacks eased off dramatically as I overcame my claustrophobia, even starting to fly when I travelled.
On returning to Dublin, I made new friends as well as linking in with my old school friends and these have been at the core of my support network in recent years.
There were tough times. After a break-up in 1999 I was very down for a long period and my friends had to stage a mini intervention to explain they couldn’t handle my moods anymore. At this stage though, still, no one had ever mentioned depression, and it was only in 2000 when I was 24 that my GP finally recommended anti-depressants and explained I had the classic symptoms of depression.
It was like a light coming on. Of course, I was depressed! It was so obvious and yet I had spent 12 years – half of my life – lost in the unknown. The medication helped lift my mood and I did feel better for a while.
However, 2001 was the most stressful year of my life and suddenly everything imploded. Over the course of several months, I had a lot to deal with, and it all became too much. By September of that year, I was at breaking point and could no longer cope.
I was in the depths of despair, losing weight (I was barely seven stone), spending more than I was earning, drinking too much, self-harming, fighting with family and friends and could see no way out. No one understood what I was going through; how could they, when I didn’t myself? I wanted to close my eyes and never open them again. That is the only way I can describe how I felt. I was worn out, exhausted, spent – emotionally and physically.
I was admitted to St Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin and consider this the greatest turning point of my life. Initially, I spent nine weeks on the observation section of what I would describe as a medium-dependency ward, and that is what I believe saved my life. Through observation 24/7, the nurses and my fantastic psychiatrist pieced together that I wasn’t merely depressed – I was bipolar and was having massive mood swings, varying between deep depressions and manic highs.
I spent 12 weeks in St Patrick’s, slowly finding medication that suited me, going to group sessions and piecing my life back together again.
I won’t lie; it was an awful time. I kept a journal, as writing helps me deal with my dark moods, and there is one entry that will always stay in my memory: “When I got here I thought, ‘what am I doing here with all these crazy people?’ Now I know I am one of those crazy people.”
Of course, none of us was crazy, just sick and in desperate need of help. It was help that I found in a psychiatrist-shaped guardian angel, who patiently worked with me, regardless of how awful I was to her and to everyone else around me.
People say depression is a selfish illness and to a degree that is true, but I would argue there is justification for that selfishness. I was angry, sad, frightened, frustrated and exhausted, and it took every bit of energy I had just to get through the day. There was nothing left to take care of others’ feelings. That sounds terrible and makes me feel horribly guilty.
Being diagnosed bipolar was a relief in one way, but traumatic in another. No one likes thinking they have a mental illness, but that is something we need to fight against. I would not be ashamed if I was diabetic or asthmatic, so why should I be ashamed of having a mental illness? It is part of me, part of who I am. It doesn’t mean I am crazy – it means I am ill. Public awareness and understanding of mental illness needs to improve in this regard.
The diagnosis was merely the beginning. It was three more years before I reached a point where I felt stable – where I was not depressed, I was not high, I was not having mood swings. I remember telling my doctor once I just wanted to feel normal, but it had been so long I wouldn’t recognise it if it happened. She assured me I would know when I was well again and that we would get there.
Her belief in me kept me going and one day it just occurred to me, like a lightbulb coming on in my head in a cartoon: “I feel normal.” Oh God, the relief. I haven’t got the words to describe that feeling. It had been 16 years then since I felt really well, but I did recognise it when it happened. It wasn’t 100 per cent but it was good. I was stable. I was happy.
Sadly, the nature of my illness is that it comes in cycles and you don’t get sick and then “cured”. And so, having had a great few years, in 2008 I found myself ill again. The classic signs were back, but I was choosing to ignore them. The blackest of moods, desperate unhappiness, exhaustion, drinking too much, comfort eating, shopping like my life depended on it (when I get ill I get an uncontrollable urge to shop), self harming. Ultimately, it was just the searing emotional pain of life seeming unbearable. Tough times again.
I ended up spending another month in hospital last autumn. I resisted going in, which was the wrong thing to do because I ended up more ill. But in the end I agreed to being admitted and the relief was overwhelming when I was. There is a safety in knowing you are in hospital when you feel suicidal, for me anyway. Again, we worked on finding the right medications for me, I attended occupational therapy daily and I pieced myself back together.
The past year has been incredible. I began seeing a therapist as I felt a talking therapy could be very beneficial. I could never have anticipated the life-enhancing impact it would have on me. In recent months I have worked through the emotional scarring that getting ill at such a vulnerable age had left on me; I have revisited and overcome incredibly painful moments in my life which I could no longer block out and, ultimately, I have dealt with my demons.
The self-esteem and self-confidence which I had largely been bereft of since I was 12 have returned and I feel great these days. I haven’t self-harmed in over a year and have no desire to do so.
Since June I have been completely tee-total and feel much happier since I made that decision. Alcohol and I just don’t work together – if I take one drink, I want 10, every day. Being tee-total gives me a sense of control over at least one aspect of my life. I said to my mam recently that I feel better now than I have ever done since I first got ill when I was 12. She cried – with relief and happiness – and told me her and dad feel they finally have the “real” Julie back. Mam really summed up how I feel, too. I feel, for the first time in almost 22 years, that I am myself again. I am well; I am stable; I am happy.
If I could say a few things to anyone who may be depressed or suffering with bi-polar disorder, they would be: ask for help and work on your recovery – with your doctor, therapist, support group, and take control of what you can control, eg reduce or cut out alcohol, get lots of sleep, eat well, exercise, ie take care of yourself.
Try to have a good support network: I am blessed with the most loving parents, sister, brother-in-law and amazing friends who have given me unending support. I have brought them all to hell and back with me, but those who stood by me will be in my life forever now and I am blessed to have them.
It can be a long, seemingly endless road, and at times an unbearably painful one, but I am living proof that no matter how low you go, life can – and will – get better if you seek help.
