Chapter 9
Dealing with depression
I’ve known for quite some time that I’ve had depression. I’d done the online surveys and tests over the last couple of years but even before that I knew something was wrong with me. In the first paragraph of my very first diary entry back on 25 June 2005 I wrote:
I don’t really feel anything … I feel like my life is portioned off into pieces, and each piece I share with a select group of people; and I have to keep each piece and each group of people separate from the other. And to maintain this separation, I have had to suppress my emotions and my personality, and become just a being of logic.
The main separation here of course was between people in the cult and people on the “outside”: friends, co-workers, people I knew through various social networks. It wasn’t just about not swearing in front of church members and then being able to relax amongst true friends – the division was much deeper than that. I became two, three, four different personas and the toll was heavy. I was just a man behind the scenes and the personas were my puppets. I had retreated from the world and many emotions I expressed were simulated. I laughed when I knew it was expected of me, I went through the motions of empathy when it was appropriate … even though I didn’t care about most people and rarely found anything amusing.
I had no one I could talk to. I couldn’t share my true thoughts with people in the church because it would mean disclosing things I didn’t want to share; things that would have seen me put out of the church. I couldn’t talk openly with my friends on the outside because that would mean telling them I went to church … and I absolutely hated talking about that. Very few of my friends even knew I went to church and only one or two knew some of the details.
There was not a single person on the planet I felt could understand me and help me.
In my diary on 17 June 2006:
I feel depressed. I cannot afford to succumb to depression – I know what that does to me. It’s bad for my mental and physical health – it’s a terrible place to imprison one’s self in. And it is self-imprisonment, because the cage is created by your own mind. Must break free – must do something. Even running a knife through my hand would help; pain is real, it would give me a reference point to the reality in which I wish to exist – a reality more lucid, sharper, clearer – not this fuzz that envelops me now.
I hated that I was stuck in the cult. I hated that I could not just believe in God like everyone else. I hated that I was free to go whenever I wanted and that I could not bring myself to do it. I hated my weakness. I hated that I did not understand the Universe. I hated that I did not know if there was an afterlife, if Heaven and Hell really existed.
It drove me to some really dark places. At a church camp over Easter in 2006 I wrote a poem accompanied by illustrations of Hell. How I felt that weekend and what I wrote scared me and every time I flip through my diary I quickly skip over that page because it reminds me that I stood at the brink of insanity, morbidly depressed to the point where I saw the world in shades of grey, lifeless. For the first time since then, I read that poem.
Two of the verses:
Why cannot I be told the truth?
Why must a choice I make?
Vague the clues, the facts … unbelievable.
I want to curl up and die.But die I cannot,
For even that
Is all wrapped up in this choice.
For to choose wrong
At the worst,
May see my soul
Forever ripped apart in
Eternal agony & pain.
Imagine being told to make a choice of this magnitude that affects how you will spend eternity – either in bliss or torture – and not having any reliable information to make that decision? I didn’t want to stay, didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to live and didn’t want to die.
My poem also referred to making a gamble … and when you’re making the biggest decision of your life that extends beyond your death it’s not really a decision you should be gambling over. I could not move … yet every day that passed was another day closer to the deadline of either Judgement Day or my death. Can you begin to understand why I was depressed?
After finally leaving the cult in June 2008 I stayed with friends for a few weeks until I found my own apartment. For a month I lived on my own … and I was terrified. I had no one to distract me from my thoughts. Every flash of bright light would stop my heart – I believed it was the flash of a nuclear blast signalling the start of World War 3, the end of the world and my life, and Judgement Day. This happened again and again.
Even now, nearly two years on this is still prominent in my mind. I’m happier that my workplace is away from the city center because it might just be outside the blast radius of a thermonuclear warhead. I hate the cult for putting that fear in me. Some days I have an absolutely homicidal hatred for my parents for raising me with that fear and fucking up my life … possibly permanently.
But now I have accepted that I am living with depression and after nearly breaking up with my partner a month ago I am committed to doing something about it.
I have been on anti-depressants for four weeks now and have been going through a depression and mood workbook Mood Mapping by Allison Miller. I am also about to head off for my first appointment with a psychologist for counselling. My partner has been trying to get me to see a psych for over a year now and I’ve obstinately refused. I didn’t want help, I didn’t want to open up to someone.
I don’t know what to expect. The only other time I’ve received counselling has been from pastors in the cult, some of whom never even went to college and none of whom had professional training in counselling … which resulted in some pretty confusing and underwhelming experiences.
I have now finally accepted that I need to address my depression and seek help – not just for my sake, but for my partner and for my friends. They deserve it.
This is another brave step you’re taking. It’s seriously hard to push yourself to go and see a psych, I know.
A couple of years ago my Dad died unexpectedly, then a few months later Mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I was working 80hrs/week, 24/7 on call, our first son was a couple of months old, and we’d just moved to a city where I knew hardly anyone. Sure recipe for disaster.
After months of my wife pushing me, and our marriage being severely damaged, I went and saw a psych. Unfortunately, it was pretty useless. Exercise more, sleep more, cut back at work. Yeah, like I didn’t already know that. So I just pushed through it as best I could.
When we moved back to Canberra I decided to give it another shot. Without the insane pressure of work propping me up I was finding it seriously hard to get up in the morning.
Luckily, this time the guy I saw was fantastic. Just having someone disconnected from my everyday life to unload on and get perspective from helped unbelievably.
So I guess my point is, if this first contact isn’t what you’re looking for, don’t give up. It’s a personal relationship, and if you don’t feel comfortable it’s not going to work.
Good luck. If you want the name of the guy I saw shoot me an email.
Ben
I’m glad you’re getting help & are open to it. I hope it goes well.
Mate, I hope you find the help you need and I know you’ll make it. You’ve already shown you’re gutsy and strong and resilient.
Hope for nothing but the best for you.
Good to see another entry Nate.
Wow, on being able to read and transcribe that poem. To me that seems a big deal. *thumbsup*
Good luck with the counselor. I’m sure you’ll continue to heal….
In hope,
~carol
An excellent step. You are well on your way to recovery! A psychiatrist said today in a training day that treating depression with meds alone is futile. She places great emphasis on the value of CBT :)
Thank you for continuing to share. I’m no good at commenting, or ordering my own thoughts, just here to let you know I’m reading and it makes me think and feel.
I found you through Carol on Twitter. you put into words so well what I felt when I left the cult that had dictated my every movement for so many years. I felt so lost!
I’ve been in therapy for a number of years. I started going in secret before I left the cult because of how devastating the cult leader counseling had been to me. living in the cult and the aftermath of leaving my husband caused crippling PTSD, which I’m finally in treatment for.
I wish you the very best and hope your journey to health and freedom brings you the happiness you’ve been deprived of for too long.
This is brutally honest.
My hope for you is that the counseling will really help you to heal & to deal w/ all of the emotions.
I so can see how depressed you would feel…been there…still kind of there in some ways.
The cult makes it a no win situation I think…they tell you that you are FREE to go, but the spiritual gun pointed at the head is “if you dare to think you can leave, you will be ________ (insert whatever terror the cult leader uses, cursed, killed, go crazy, etc. etc…)
That’s why people, who have not been where we have, don’t understand when they ask “why didn’t you just leave?” They don’t understand the, what I call, psychological terrorism of “God’s out to get you now that you left…”
Also, I think there’s a LOT of damage & betrayal as the hurt was done in a place that should have been SAFE & loving…a church. :(
Thanks for your honesty & I hope GOOD comes your way Nate.
Wow. Now I see another reason why I immediately felt you were the kind of person I would get along with when I saw you at EotW last year. We’ve had some similar life experiences.
I was in a different sort of cult, but it changed my life completely. Because my personality and perception of the world was so out of line with this cult, I began to feel convinced that I had died years ago and it was only my shell continuing on in the world. I had no close friends, just other members.
My family didn’t know how bad it was, although they tried to help me. I sunk further and further into the belief that I was no longer meant to be in this world, and it was only through the actions of one girl – one similarly broken, but struggling out of it girl – that rescued me.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. They really do help.
Best of luck on your road to recovery, Nat. Depression is such a difficult thing to navigate, for the person who suffers and for their loved ones, who simply don’t know how to help or what to do. I hope the counselling is helping.
Hello Nathanael…so good to hear you are on the road to recovery..I can personally relate to your experience..I was in the Revival Center for some years as a new & seeking christian..it wasn’t too long before I started noticing that what God said in His word was not lining up with what my then pastor was saying at times..novel idea hey..to actually read what God says..lol..it was very hard to leave at the time but I had prayed & asked God to lead me to where His word was taught in all truth & practiced…that was many years ago & now I can say that through the power of the Holy Spirit & His counsel..I’m now very happy..free..& definately know where I’m headed & why..Nathanel I hope you find the peace God truly wants you to have..I’m so glad your out of the place that caused you so much pain..dont give up..the truth is out there..if you truly want to seek God He is not far from you..just ask. Him…Jesus Christ has restored me completely …love & blessings Josie.
I’ve been through all of your chapters now and I can truthfully say I haven’t been this impressed by such an outpouring since Tiger Woods got busted… hahahaha, I’m fuckin’ witchoo.
Nat, this is amazing and you are a phenomenal writer. I’m sharing this with wife and she’ll undoubtedly pass it on to others.
I, for one, can’t wait for that book. So finish it, if for no other reason that it will make Judd happy. Heh.
Good stuff mate.
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