Life at Up Up and away Investment Management International: Chapter 38 Finally getting back to normal!

Chapter 38

Finally getting back to normal!

It took me about a year to start feeling better. I suppose it was a combination of anti-depressants, psychiatric and psychotherapy sessions, mindfulness training and light therapy. But as I had not felt a healthy normal for so many years I had lost touch with what normal was. I think the best way of describing my “recovery” was that of feeling better and that meant starting to enjoy life more instead of being numbed out by it.

The various physicians I encountered unanimously counselled me not to return to work unless it had been shored up with additional employees. As far as I figured it work was a major trigger for more depression. Initially the idea of returning terrified me but as time rolled on and as I began to feel better the terror dissipated to be replaced by common sense logic that my workplace was toxic to my mental state. My colleagues never anticipated I would ever return and my “replacement” was hired. I say “replacement” as if your colleagues believe you are not returning and they hire someone who sits in your office then that new hire is a replacement!

Again, I conferred with my friends W and Kennedy Jones about what it means “getting back to normal” after a depressive episode.

Both agreed they had been depressed for so long or subjected to the triggers that sprouted depression they can’t accurately grasp what normal was. Both wondered if undergoing depression and escaping its clutches made them new men better equipped to face the mental challenges thrown their way.

As W said, “My normal for such a long time of period was a series of events and triggers that worsened into a depressive state. It is not a normal I really wanted to return to. In fact, it descended into a sort of nightmare. I like to think of normal as a futuristic concept. It is the new me made wiser by what sent me down the rabbit hole of depression. My recovery was infused with optimism about the future and a keen sense of awareness of the shit thrown my way that triggered the depression. I don’t wish depression on anyone, but it made me a stronger and more compassionate individual and very aware of my world.”

I think W’s comments show that some suffering can make a person better!

And Jones said, “I really agree with what W has said on this. If you are on the railroad tracks of life you must be able to jump aside when that potential depressive train is on its way. If you have been through this once you become much smarter when that train is coming at you on the tracks. What I must be thankful about is the recommendation made to me about getting involved in mindfulness sessions. The simple task of remaining still and feeling your body and breath was extremely difficult if not painful during my depression. After several months I began to feel as whole and suddenly began smiling during meditation which was at the point my psychiatrist was saying the worst is over!”

Jones and W agreed with me when I said when depressed your goal should be to be better again or feel well. “Normal” is perhaps a bit misguided .It could be that normal is a toxic situation and one you want to avoid

Life at Up Up and Away Investment Management International: Chapter 37 “Depression: The good, bad and the ugly”

Chapter 37

Depression: The good, bad and the ugly

I’d like to share with you some thoughts about depression most of which I think are good points. I have already related to you how I felt but I thought views from a couple of friends might add some more flavour to a mental illness hopefully few of us will experience whether caused by largecorp or not.

You must be kidding me about there being something good with depression! I spoke with my friends W and Kennedy Jones both of whom have gone through bouts of depression.

On the good side they had some interesting responses;

  1. With the help of a good psychiatrist or psychotherapist you should be able to pinpoint the events that led to your depression. Knowing the “triggers” you can learn to avoid them or manage them. In other words, you have learnt something about your mental make up and discovered a part of yourself.
  2. Depression is a mental illness. You should be better able to appreciate good mental health when it arrives.
  3. It makes you more empathetic to those suffering from mental illness.
  4. You find out who your friends really are. Who keeps in touch and who treats you like a leper?
  5. It may be a protective device or a warning sign of poor mental health before it escalates to more severe levels.
  6. You may be better equipped to evaluate the medical care you received before the depression and make appropriate changes to that medical care. Did your non-psychiatric physicians pick up on any clues about your impending depression? Did they tell you medications you were prescribed or conditions you were suffering from that could contribute to anxiety and depression? Only one of many did for me. Good health is not only about your body but your mind
  7. In addition to your direct psychiatric care you may have been exposed to mindfulness sessions that have assisted in transforming your mental outlook so that you respond to situations instead of reacting in an unthinking and harmful way to them.
  8. You begin to realize that good mental health and physical health are interconnected.
  9. You realize that suffering may in the end may have made you a stronger and better person.
  10. You realize the benefits of an employer sponsored disability plans.

On the bad side of things, they said:

  1. You had a tough time going through this depression. It is not a pleasant experience which is anywhere on the spectrum of disconnectedness to anguish. In short you may be smothered in negative emotions or as W said it was like that Blind Faith song “I’m Lost and I Can’t Find My Way Home”.
  2. In many respects you realize how poorly equipped the Canadian medical system is in terms of wait times and access for psychiatric and neurological care.
  3. Your social network may abandon you.
  4. You may have unpleasant side effects from anti-depressants including cessation issues.
  5. While your social network may not have abandoned you, you may not feel like connecting with them anyway.
  6. If you had no employer sponsored disability plan you may be hard pressed financially. The Canada Pension Plan long term disability benefit is not exactly the most generous. Jones said it paid about 1/7th of his monthly salary.

On the ugly side of things, they said;

  1. Getting off anti-depressants may be more than unpleasant. It may be horrific including terrible “brain zaps”.
  2. You feel you have been cured and then spiral downwards again. That spiral may lead to a deeper depression.
  3. Matters may be so discouraging there are thoughts of suicide to end it all. Ironically anti-depressants may have the tendency to increase the likelihood of suicide. Of course, suicide is the effortless way out.
  4. Anti-depressants may have more than unpleasant side effects. They can be debilitating.
  5. You may be treated like a cog in the wheel with an unempathetic psychiatric support team where pills are the answer as opposed to mindfulness based cognitive training, psychotherapy light therapy, cognitive therapy or compassion cultivation training.

In other words what my friends are saying depression is not a pleasant experience. In the best case it makes you a better and more compassionate person. In the worst case it drags on and off for extended periods of time and in the worst cases leads to “termination with great prejudice”.

Life at Up Up and Away Investment Management International: Chapter 36 “A little bit of dabbling with anti-depressants”

Chapter 36

A little bit of dabbling with anti-depressants

It was months after starting to visit my psychiatrist that I was “introduced” to anti-depressants. One was called sertraline and the other mirtazapine. There was no immediate psychological effect while I was on these drugs. However, I could feel the depression start to lift after about a year. Was the improvement a result of the drugs or was it simply a matter of time, lack of stress, psychoanalyst sessions and bright light therapy? Again, I lamented the state that Up Up and Away had sunk me. Imagine me, Tony Hornet taking anti-depressants.

There seems to be a debate about whether anti-depressants work or even if they should be the first line against a fight to conquer depression. Many argue cognitive behavioural therapy, mindfulness based cognitive therapy, bright light therapy or compassion cultivation training are better front-line soldiers against depression.

Bear in mind that the pharmaceutical companies would like nothing more than you taking anti-depressants as they are a huge profit component to the bottom line! I could go into greater details but advise you to read Lawrie Reznek’s “Peddling Mental Disorder” which slams Mega Pharma and puts into doubt the effectiveness of anti-depressants. Mega Pharma is just another largecorp.

Debate the fact that anti-depressants can be effective against depression until you are blue in the face. However less debatable is the fact that they affect the chemical balance in the human brain.

Hopefully you will ask your prescriber of anti-depressants just exactly what cessation effects are. The advice inevitably will be even if a psychiatrist believes you are “cured” to avoid a relapse the anti-depressant should be continued for several months after you are” cured”. Not to discourage you but my Dr. Wong advised me you are never cured but only go into remissions. You best hope is for a long remission!

My formerly depressed friend W felt that anti-depressants made him feel weird and detached in additional to causing vicious gastrointestinal reactions. Against a tapered cessation as suggested by both his psychiatrist and the drug manufacturer he decided to go cold turkey. He described to me his life was sheer hell for weeks after. He felt like screaming and pulling his hair out. Like many who go cold turkey and for even some of those that taper off he experienced the dreaded brain zaps that feel as if electrical shocks were being administered to his brain.

A journalist friend of mine, Kennedy Jones, went through a tapered cessation and described his first couple of weeks as feeling that he was “just not there” and felt very detached. Over the period of a month or so he gradually began feeling more connected with the world about him. After that it was good days and bad days for about three months and then he was “back to normal”.

As Jones stated,” Listen, there are side effects for most drugs and anti-depressants are no exception. Listen to the major complaints in the depression blog sites about how horrific anti-depressant cessation can be and you might be frightened. The theme is if they had known about the cessation effects of anti-depressants they never would have taken them in the first place Also listen to the minority that are thankful for anti-depressants and how in some cases they prevented their suicides. Based on the conservative medical literature and the advice of my psychiatrist I advise your readers to take the tapered approach when anti-depressant cessation is considered.”

There is also consensus that the severity of adverse reaction to anti-depressant cessation depends on the length of time you are on the anti-depressant and the dosage amount

How long it takes the medication to leave your body depends on the drug and the dosage you were on. Then it becomes a bit of a guessing game about how long it takes your brain to adjust from being off the medication. How much to reduce your medication, by how much and for how long is something you will have to work out with your psychiatrist.

As Jones concluded,” I really can’t tell you whether the anti-depressants worked. It might have simply been a matter of rest, time off work and the mindfulness course and the mindfulness follow up sessions I attended. The result is that I no longer feel depressed. The only problem I have is that I have been depressed for so long I really don’t know what normal is. I also believe that mindfulness really helped me fight back depression but in a sense it kind of neutralized me in that the lows in my life don’t drag me down like they used to but the highs are also dulled. You might say I am a man on an even keel and I’ll take that over depression anytime. I kind of lost that Iggy Pop “Zest for Life”.

In terms of anti-depressants my thought and experiences were identical to those of Kennedy Jones.

I found it somewhat amusing that Up Up and Away had me toil in a toxic work environment that was largely responsible for causing my depression yet my medical plan had Up Up and Away paying for the anti-depressants!

Poetry Corner: “Bruno the Barber’s spoilt moment”

Bruno the barber’s spoilt moment

For years while toiling in an office tower
Bruno was my barber

full of stories of wonder
being the consummate barber requires both cutting and conversational skills

On vacation to Nova Scotia
a stop for lunch
of clam chowder and crackers to munch

Such clam chowder Bruno had never ingested
but after leaving while driving and his chowder was being digested
in a panic he realized he had left his camera behind
and his carelessness jostled his mind

Rushing back to the eatery to recover his precious apparatus the front doors were locked
so off to the rear and a knock on the door and his camera was recovered
but by the garbage dumpster he hovered
and from the shock he barely recovered
that wonderful clam chowder the feast served to a hungry man
was from a Campbell soup can
Bruno gave a deep moan and blurted out “What a scam!

Robert K. Stephen

Poetry Corner: “Hysterical silence”

Hysterical silence

Canadian Rocky Mountains with majestic craggy mysticism
awe inspiring
timeless
proud
towering over Ken and Barbie dwarfs
with mobile phones assaulting the peaks with pictures

Soon their blind eyes tire
such strenuous activity
they can see the damn things on their screen at home
so it is off to air conditioned retreats
of polyester and synthetic leather
deodorized compartments of the living dulled

Down the road another scenic lookout
more corrupted little chocolate smeared faced children
stuffed at the simulated logger’s camp
“all you can eat buffet”

Belly protruding leader of the family pack
Bermudian shorts brain a member of the Senior Management Team
hunter of the high dividend
bought wife with gold and diamonds
that mean so much
and even more to the neigbours

Again all gather at another lookout
object of mockery that they are
the silent massif roar
in hysteria
kings and queens of it all

Robert K. Stephen


Poetry Corner: “When New York City wasn’t such a friendly place”

When New York City wasn’t such a friendly place

At first what appeared to be a menacing glance
late at night you can never tell
but there is more
as the steel rips through your soft belly

Mocking Thanatos
has conquered Eros
who
weeps
in silence
amidst the red flashes

Robert K. Stephen

Poetry Corner: “Behind the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall”

Behind the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall

Being a party member is a responsibility
We serve the people with our utmost ability
So to say we obtain the privileges of an aristocratic nobility
is sheer and scheming capitalist naivety

We serve our mighty land and people
merely a gunshot (as Beria would say) away from the Kremlin steeple
we labour night and day in offices located anywhere from Georgia the wonderful land of Comrade Stalin
to cold little towns like Aldan

Just because we have a five star flat off the square
shows how much for the people we do care
why then your sarcastic stare

I’m nothing but a hard working man
so why the comments over my Black Sea tan
and that expensive Swiss electric fan?

My suits from France
are needed for an occasional diplomatic prance
not for my personal prestige to enhance

My Zil with a chauffeur
is provided to me as I am not a loafer
in fact I am in it now to visit Iraqi foreign minister Soffer

Being so busy it is imperative we have our own stores
not because of corrupt mores
that you suggest make us rotten to our cores

We are still members of the proletarian kind
and your unfounded accusations are but a product of a capitalist roader mind
to suggest that to bourgeoise lifestyles we have fell
and I respectfully say to that you can go to hell

Ask any of our folk
and suggest to them we have privileges and they’ll take it as an ill joke
and perhaps to you deliver a warning poke
we are no different than them
our happy and content comrades would heartily agree
if not you probably think I’d expel them to the cold Siberian degree

It’s this Solzhenitsyn chap who has caused such a flap
with his groundless crap
but our censors were on the rap
and he was liquidated from our map

Every citizen is free like me
oh why can’t you see through all this propaganda of the CIA
and for once agree with me
all we do is administer
and if the skilled like me become a Politburo minister
what in the hell is no sinister

Poetry Corner: “Hope”

Hope

You-
held me spellbound
freshness
not of plastic concocted standardized perfection
your smiles in my direction were of courtesy
civility
and cultured background
I tried to touch but you needed everyone
those surly and ugly butchers of your beauty
oblivious to you

they thundered over you
leaving their hoofprints on me
ripping and agonizing torture

I tried to heal
you pushed me roughly aside
but you knew
didn’t you?

Poetry Corner: “The hunters”

The hunters

Ladies and Gentlemen they say
Kill at the office
or in the factories all day

it really matters they say
to show them you are the boss of the way

like the sheep they hunt there must be leaders or the flock will stray

is it really this way
for them animal and man is eaten off the same tray

But
they
proud self proclaimed hunters are crawling parasites
sucking the blood of the innocent
but virginity is made to be given away
as innocence is in its dying day
the façade of peaceful co-existence will fade away
and the angry will rip the leader parasites off their backs
and hurl them
under the wheels
of angry tricycles