Tina Walsh
Tina Walsh didn't know what depression was. No one in her family had ever had it, as far as she knew. When she was brought into hospital in 1992 for tests, her main complaint was a suspected stomach virus that had apparently forced her weight down to under six stone. Tina was so exhausted that she was as incapable as a three-year-old child of looking after herself, not even able to fix herself a meal.
But it was not a virus that had caused her fatigue, her listlessness and her eating problems. Tina had depression. Her physical distress was a symptom of the condition.
Tina, from Baldoyle in Dublin, was treated by a psychiatrist and given medication, then sent home. She felt lonely and isolated and when, in 1995, she felt another dark bout of depression looming, she told herself that she could not go through that blackness again. So she attempted suicide.
Again Tina was hospitalised, but the difference this time was that she was introduced to Aware. "Without the support of Aware, a lot of us would not be here," says Tina. "The support groups helped me to recover more than anything else. Talking to others and knowing you are not the only person feeling that way takes away the isolation and the loneliness. You don't have to explain how you feel because they know already."
She also learned coping skills through the group, such as sitting down at night to make a list of just two tasks for the following day. "No matter how bad you felt you would do these two things," she says. Tina's depression made it difficult for her to get out of bed, and she would spend the day indoors, terrified of the doorbell and the phone ringing. Since 1996, Tina has been happy and well. She has been diagnosed with a hereditary chemical imbalance that is corrected by medication, which she will take for the rest of her life.
"There had to have been people in my family in the past who suffered from depression," she says. "But in the past, people would say `she suffers from nerves'. Or `she's not right'. Such women would probably have been put into the corner and ignored."
Darragh McLoughlin
`The one thing I would love to get rid of is this idea that `big boys don't cry'," says Darragh McLoughlin, who is doing well after having twice attempted suicide.
From the age of seven, Darragh felt withdrawn from society. He was well capable of masking his vulnerability by taking on the role of class clown, but such behaviour hid deep feelings of worthlessness that made him petrified of revealing himself to anyone, for fear that they would lock him up in an asylum. By the age of 12, his life was "pure hell". "In my teens, it just got progressively worse. It was a black, bottomless pit. There was a ladder there and I was climbing up two rungs and falling down three. In school, I was intelligent enough, I had the brains but didn't bother my armpits to use them," he says.
Darragh left school after the Inter Cert and started working, but life was just one long series of daily battles in which he felt he had to prove that everything was normal. He became perfectionistic - his trouser crease had to be razor sharp - but at the same time he had to shave in the dark because he couldn't stand the sight of himself in the mirror. He had girlfriends, but always broke off the relationship at the point of emotional intimacy because he feared exposure and ridicule.
He was drinking heavily and his first suicide attempt, shortly before his 21st birthday, occurred at night at his parents' home after he returned from a night club. At the club, Darragh had been very drunk and unable to speak to his brother and his brothers' friends.
"Every time I wanted to open my mouth, I said to myself, `don't say that, it sounds stupid'," he recalls. "So I drunk myself senseless and then cried all the way home."
In his parents' kitchen, he took an overdose of medication belonging to his mother and passed out, then spent the next day throwing up. His parents believed that he was badly hung-over, but when his symptoms continued, his girlfriend insisted that he talk to his GP.
Darragh was terrified that if he was honest with the GP, he would be locked up. Still, when the GP probed his mood, Darragh broke down and was sent immediately to hospital. A psychiatrist told him that he had depression and Darragh's reaction was, "you better check your books. That's an old person's disease."
Over the next few months, Darragh remained in denial that he had depression. He struggled until one night he went drinking and "flipped out" on a street in Athlone. The combination of medication and heavy drinking had produced a panic attack of awesome proportions. Darragh found himself shouting: "I can't handle it. I can't handle it."
Six admissions to psychiatric units in 18 months followed, as Darragh's mood rose and plummeted. Then, after another night's heavy drinking, he tried to drown himself and was rescued by a friend.
Darragh has since accepted that he is not only suffering from depression, but alcoholism too. His breakthrough came 18 months ago, when he ended up in a psychiatric hospital after a drinking episode. Today, Darragh doesn't drink, has a job and takes medication for depression. It's not easy, but he is winning the battle.