Persistent Depressive Disorder

This little bag of delights is my medication bag. That's lofepramine, which is an antidepressant to take at night. That's temazepam, which is pretty heavy sleeping tablets. And I'll count that if I'm nervous. And that's fluoxetine, Prozac, which I'm going to take now. Even though I'm not ashamed of my illness, I don't tell a lot of people. It's a bit of a private thing.

Depression is actually viewed in two ways. Firstly, it's viewed as just, oh, it's not a real illness. You've been just a bit sad. You're just not very happy. You've had a bad day.

Or secondly, people think it's a mental illness. And that's it. They just think of nutters, and tabloid headlines, and maniacs, and things like that.

People are just racked with disbelief, mostly. Shake yourself up. All you need is a kick up the ass. That's what you get. You know, it's not a real illness. You don't really need tablets for that. In a little bit, I'm not mad anymore.

Well, it's Wednesday night. I've just got in from working a [? longer. ?] I actually had a really good day today. And I'm certainly, at the moment, out of the deep depression that I seemed to have been in for a while.

And I find it hard, really, to see any future on a lot of occasions.

So things seem pretty black, huh?

Yeah. Sort of, what's the point? What's the point of doing anything?

I think I feel constantly exhausted. Everything I do always exhausts me. And I feel just exhausted mentally rather than physically.

Oh, I've got a badge. Downhill from here, it says. It's all downhill from here. It's all downhill from here. Probably right.

Three decades. That's not a bad cricket score. There have certainly been times when I never thought I'd get this far. So in some ways, I'm quite pleased.

Why is that, Steve?

Well, I believe it's down, in the most part, to my illness, to the depression. It's a very debilitating illness. It's not just about being a bit sad every now and again. It actually takes over your life. And you can't-- it sounds strange, but it's just impossible to do things. It just is not possible. You don't have the will power. You don't have the motivation.

When I was 10 years old, my mother, she committed suicide whilst on a family shopping trip.

It's probably very difficult to trust anybody ever in that life ever again. I tend to have gone through life either trying to build myself up into this thing I'm not in order to get people to like me and need me and want me.

I was sort of out of it. You know that anyway.

Happiness just isn't a part of my life that I can keep going for very long. And I know that sounds stupid. And I also know that sounds completely crazy. But it's not.

It didn't just affect him. Like it was always a part of our marriage, really. It was always there in the background.

Steve quite often said that I was his miracle cure. The back of your mind, you know that it's not true, really. And he was by no means better. One day he'd be fine. And the next day, he would be quite depressed. Sometimes when you walked through the door, you didn't know what you were going to find.

I'm just grateful for the time we did have together. And certainly, if he asked me again, I'd get married again tomorrow. I wouldn't do anything any different. And I don't think he would either.

I've been a loser all my life. And it's not changing now. I still can't do the basic things in life. I still can't build and hold onto relationships with people, real people, not people like me whose head's all over the shop all the time, and can't help crying and going on one minute, and can't deal with things the way other people deal with them.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

Thanks, Vic.

Me and Victoria are separated.

Steve is like the nicest man I've ever met. And I think we had two really happy years together. And I don't regret a second of that. I just wanted to be there for him.

Thanks, you shouldn't have done it.

What?

You shouldn't have done it.

Don't be silly.

When I'm relatively well, you know, I just don't need the confines of a relationship. And when I'm depressed, I'm too clingy and too-- need it too much. And that's not healthy for anybody. It's certainly not healthy for Vic.

Moving forward when you have depression, when you have real clinical depression, it's like you're fighting against absolutely everything. You know, you're not just fighting against all the other things in the world that general people have to fight against. You have to fight against yourself as well, fight against your own feelings and emotions that aren't really based in reality.

I wasn't diagnosed until three years ago. But with hindsight, I can look back on my whole life and my childhood and know that I was suffering very acutely from it.

--are all characters from which children's book?

I can feel the sleeping tablet kicking in now. Sometimes I just wish I'd never wake up again. It would just fucking be easier. I wouldn't have to deal with all this shit. And people wouldn't have to deal with me. I hope there is a heaven out there somewhere because this place is hell.

Whenever I come out here, it makes me feel better. It's very quiet and very lonely. I think about the things like what happened with my mom almost constantly. And these are the things that weigh upon my mind. And coming to a place like this just stops me thinking about those sort of things.

My mother really loves the countryside and this kind of place. Sometimes it feels like the entire problems of the world are on your back. Then coming out here makes you realize that your own little world isn't really that important. And there are things of much more majestic beauty that it's always worth waking up for the next morning.