We are a multi-faceted mob and Alan Muir is no exception, whether seen as a solicitor/advocate, recovering alcoholic, survivor of child abuse or ‘overqualified – you’d get bored’ jobseeker, Alan is grateful (most days) to be around to tell the tale

“We do not see things as they are, we see them as WE are.”...

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Not long ago, I was put in touch with Depression Alliance Scotland and have already benefitted greatly from the time I have spent with them. Trish, a worker there, asked if I could write a little of my experience of depression. I do so in the hope that this helps someone, anyone, even only one! It has already helped me. I have cause to be grateful to all who give their time and energies to this worthy cause.

Whatever you call it, ‘the black dog” or ‘the fog’, my experience of clinical depression is of a living hell, a long night without any breaking dawn. It is potentially fatal. I call it ‘The Bottle Dungeon’, why? As a child, our annual holiday was to St. Andrews. We stayed in what I recall as an underground cell in the shape of a flat-bottomed bottle with a single entry/exit along a very narrow hall that allowed little light to enter, thus tormenting the wretched occupants.

I used to imagine that I was crawling up the walls towards the light (and freedom) only to learn that the walls started to work against me as I climbed, sapping what little energy I had, leaving even less for the next futile, desperate attempt. These imaginings would always end in confusion, removal, starvation and bleakness. Are you with me now?

Every time I tried to crawl out of depression I fell back in the same way. Why bother? It would only return anyway, and, one definition of insanity is the repetition of the same action expecting a different result so, wasn’t I sinking further into insanity each time? These debates with my ‘internal bully’ were quite frankly ‘nae a fair fight’.

What right did I have to be depressed? In late 2002 I was a busy Advocate, a recovering alcoholic, five years – now twelve – sober. Popular (I kept being told!). Clearly it was my fault. Had someone else related their history as mine, I’d have seen it as a debilitating illness needing support and treatment. In me however it was a fault, a failing, an error, something else to use to beat myself up with.

I had read, but forgotten, the words of The Talmud, quoted in Elizabeth Wurtzel’s ‘Prozac Nation’ – “We do not see things as they are, we see them as WE are.” That is why I call this the illness of perception. For instance, take a calculator and move the numbers 4 to 7, 3 to 8, 2 to 6 and so on – now try for an accurate calculation… In my illness, the number buttons have been jumbled just like that for some reason and ‘reason’ is the first thing to go.

Eventually, in April 2003, I tried to hang myself, just to end the torture, to punish God and get some peace. I remember thinking ‘right God, if this is the life you’ve planned for me, you can fuckin’ have it back, you backed the wrong horse, infallible my arse’! The rope snapped and I beat myself up about yet another failure.

I (re)made and (re)drank my last coffee, (re)had a last fag and (re)washed and dried the cup, saucer and ashtray, no mess to be left – a body didn’t seem to feature in my thinking – the rope (re)snapped! I tossed a coin and Murray Royal Hospital in Perth beat going to Homebase for more rope. I was examined, admitted, and talked to a consultant who agreed with me, unfortunately! What right did I have to be depressed? I was simply avoiding my problems, time to straighten up and fly right – clearly! She equated obtaining a law degree/career with losing the ‘right’ to mental illness. Her discovery that I had written a guidebook to the 1984 Mental Health (Scotland) Act sealed my fate I think. Two weeks later I was thrown out, she did not last much longer than me though.

A journey into the light
So turfed out, no Community Psychiatric Nurse or support, with pills in hand, there followed three nightmare years and a further admission, although, to a wholly different atmosphere and ethos. I could write a book (I might yet) on that stay as a ‘user’, as patients were called at that point. God knows what eejit thought that supposedly PC, less offensive term up! The new consultant was amazing, a real credit to his profession. His help, guidance and gentle cajoling brought me into the light. The nursing, auxiliary and cleaning staff couldn’t have been of greater support, not soft, but wonderful people. Dr. C treated patients as I did clients and court staff – we all had a contribution to make. I am truly humbled to have met them, and my fellow patients, who each helped in their own way, (some now gone before their time).

In the Murray Royal grounds sits The Walled Garden café – a sanctuary! If you are in the area it is well worth visiting. It served as the third massive hurdle cleared by two of us, the first was the door of the ward, the second the hospital shop fifty or so yards from the ward. Bonds are made quickly and deeply in hospital (similar to prison I’m told). Three of us spent hours in there, simply sharing, a massive factor in any recovery. If you talk about it, it can’t fester in your head in the same way. Three years on I have come to accept the anti-depressants in the same way a diabetic uses insulin, albeit in my case, I still like to test the ‘I must be alright by now’ theory.

I now hope to work in the area of helping others who are facing up to similar demons – many not mentioned here. To hear someone say, “I know how you feel, it WILL change” and see in their eyes that they actually mean it, is often a huge step towards the light. It certainly was for me. I now know what hell they had come through to earn the right to say it with such disarming sincerity.

A good friend hit me between the eyes about suicide during a visit. “You’ll always have that option – the simple fact is that we all do BUT if you take it, you’ll never have another. Some time ago you would not have accepted you’d feel like this BUT it happened. So you now have to accept that sometime in the future you WILL feel differently – that your life is worth the living.”

Thankfully, I heard as well as listened and it is; changed too in ways I could never have imagined and would never have planned. There’s a new route map, one including the views, support and honest criticism from others I love and trust. To my father and my sister, no words can adequately thank them, only – I hope – seeing me grow (even if its two steps forward one step back a lot of the time).

Some days I get reminders of what that hell was like. I need them, I’m not cured, I am, like so many of us, on a journey that has its own turns, lay-bys, and, the occasional puncture!
I thank everyone who was/is there for me. There are others here for you…