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When I was 36 I made a phone call that changed by life

When I was 36, I made a phone call that changed my life…

by Rona Maynard

When I was 36, I made a phone call that changed my life. I'd been putting off the call for weeks. (What was I, a wimp? Shouldn't I beat my petty problems on my own?) At last I couldn't wait any longer. I picked a moment when no one could hear me, then dialed a mental health clinic and blurted out my confession:

"I can't go on. I need help. How soon can I get an appointment?"

On the face of things, I had it all: a newly renovated house, all the magazine cover stories I could write and a healthy, happy family. But how happy can a family be when mom collapses, weeping, on the parquet floor of her snazzy new kitchen, or explodes over trifles like a misplaced lunch bag? My husband and son were witnessing such scenes almost daily. At least they didn't know about the suicidal fantasies that endlessly played in my head. I felt as if I'd pulled myself together with bits of string and masking tape.

I had a reason not to die-my family would miss me, sad sack that I was. But that's not the same thing as a reason to live. I was going to be around for a while, so I was going to have to change what passed for my life.

Within a few months of starting therapy, my outlook brightened. Since then I've had my share of losses and setbacks, but no further bouts with depression. The illness takes many forms, and mine was a recurrent malaise dating back to childhood. In my first years of freedom from anguish, I mourned what depression had cost me-the risks never taken, the dreams never spoken. I've put those regrets behind me. I'm just grateful to be living with joy and purpose. After decades of habitual gloom, I've become-to my amazement- an optimist. If I can do it, surely others can, too. That's why I speak and write about depression.

"You're so brave," people tell me, their voices tinged with well-intentioned fear for what less enlightened folks might say about me. But I grappled with my demons more than 20 years ago, so it doesn't take courage to speak about them now. What it actually takes is a hard-won sense of life's hidden complications-the cargo of pain and disappointment that is part of every family's history, and that burdens untold numbers of apparently healthy, competent people right now.

In my 10 years as editor of Chatelaine, I came to know some of those people. Because I told the truth about my history in a number of editorials, they trusted me with their stories. A friend once called to thank me for speaking out. A formidably verbal woman, she struggled to explain why I hadn't heard from her in many months. Then it came out in a choked-up rush: "I had . . . I had . . . I hadwhatyouwroteabout." She couldn't even say the word "depression."

A primary school teacher sent a vivid, wrenching letter that she begged me not to publish. "If the parents knew I had depression, I could lose my job." A reader told of being hospitalized more than once for depression. No one ever came to visit. When she tried to kill herself, a friend said, "Everyone has troubles. You just caved in."

Depression will strike one in five of us at some point in our lives. It's an illness-potentially fatal but treatable. Yet people tend to suffer in silence because, unlike physical illnesses, depression is viewed as a moral failing. People ask why you don't pull up your socks. They accuse you of wallowing in misery. After all, you don't look ill.

At Chatelaine I once had a letter from a father of two young children. He was on sick leave for depression. While flipping through his wife's magazine, he came across an article on how to help a friend with cancer. The suggestions in our story applied perfectly to him and his family: "Be there. Don't treat me differently. Please do ask me how I am. Take my kids out. Bring food. Be patient with my work habits. Listen to me. Do unto others."

When someone is stricken with depression, the neighbours don't bring lasagna. Friends don't volunteer to take the kids tobogganing. When depression kills, the obituary hides the truth behind the blandly respectable "suddenly." Meanwhile those who succumb to cancer are praised for their "brave struggle."

Metaphorically speaking, depression is a cancer-cancer of the spirit. Those who have this invisible illness need all the courage they can muster just to slog through one more day. More than any other aspect of my own depression, I remember the sheer, grinding effort of keeping up appearances. There are lots of more upbeat stories I'd prefer to share, yet I feel compelled to keep telling this one- to speak for the silent until, at long last, they can safely speak for themselves.