Well that was unpleasant!

It seems for all our self aggrandisement the human race are not nearly as clever as we think. My recent experience of this involves the medical profession who continue to treat the symptoms without finding the root cause of the illness. They attempt to control the symptoms with chemicals that produce the horrific side effects but never once try to cure the patient, to remove the cause. To make the person well. It does not make good economic sense to cure sick people because then they don't need a constant supply of new medications. Each of these medicines, that cost billions of dollars to research, develop and test must be sold as fast as possible to recoup the huge investment before the companies patent runs out and others can produce the drug for much less and sell it at a price that more people could afford. By then the new wonder drug must be ready for market and teams of sale people convince medical practitioners that the old type is now obsolete and that their new offering is better.

This past week I have become intimately involved in this process. Since being diagnosed with depression in January of 2011 I have been on three different anti-depressant medications and recently an anti-psychotic as well. The reason for all the different pills, me being bat-shit crazy taken as a given, is that I have not tolerated the drugs well. That is doctor-speak for it made me worse, in the last case much worse. In fact it was not taking the drug that caused me to blow a foo foo valve, apparently I came off it too quickly which can just as bad, or in my case, worse. When I talk about these medications^[1][2] I want you to understand what they do, they mess with my brain chemistry. Now I don't know about you but I'm pretty sensitive about people conducting a science experiment inside my body. I sometimes visualise mad doctors in research labs cackling as only mad doctors can, rubbing their hands with glee and adding another dried frog pill^[3] into the pot just to see what will happen. For me, what happened was that I had an "episode". Such a benign little word to describe true horror. The exact cause of my episode is being attributed to either coming off one medication too quickly or starting another drug too soon or that Pluto's up Uranus and we are going to need a bigger bucket nurse.

So, what happened to me?

Buggered if I know:

I had a bad day at work, are there any other kind?
I worked a bit late but that happens plenty often in IT.
I had no lunch, again so what?
I had just weaned off one anti-depressant,started another and added an anti-psychotic for flavour.
I have a major depressive disorder <== BIG CLUE HERE!

The trigger seemed to be the interaction of some or all of these conditions with the slurping, sloshing alchemy experiment that was going on in my brain. It caused me to get angry. Now everyone gets angry from time to time, you should hear some of the rude words my wife says when a cyclist cuts her up. "Oh gosh oh darn oh deary me!" says she, or words to that affect. But this was different. The anger was unfocused. Sure I was angry about what had happened at work that day and I was venting to my wife when it changed from being "angry about..." to just angry. I tried to calm myself I tried to walk it off, only the walking became pacing and the anger continued to build. Now the pacing wasn't enough I was clenching my fists, grinding my teeth the pacing was more frantic. At some point anger turned to rage. I didn't know what the difference is between those two words^[4], but I know what it feels like now and it is very, very frightening. Of everything that happened to me this night, this is the one that scared me the most. I could have, probably would have hurt my wife had she been in my way. I wanted to punch holes in the walls, break windows, kick the furniture but deep deep inside me I had enough control to not do the unthinkable and lay a finger on my Rachel.

By all accounts I am not an aggressive person, I certainly don't think of myself that way, but that night I could have killed. In fact I planned on it. While this maelstrom of intense emotion was roiling around inside my head, a small, calm seemly rational bit of me started planning. The plan was to wait until Rachel, my beautiful, wonderful, brave, wife, phoned for help. I figured that with a potentially violent man roaring around the house smashing things the ambulance personnel would request police assistance. I had about a 50/50 chance that they would not have a taser available in a local squad car but could and would have to deploy firearms to protect themselves and the ambulance staff. My plan was to attempt to assault the ambulance officers as soon as they arrived and not give the Police any time to calmly assess the situation. I'm a big lad... no I mean BIG, I am 6ft 4" in old money and weigh in at an impressive 170 kg. With the rage in me that night I would be terrifying coming at someone, a police officer would have no recourse but to shoot.

I do not like that small calm bit of me very much.

As it turned out the rage quit, just melted away. What it left in it's place was grief, disgust, shame, horror and a terrible terrible sadness. I stopped pacing, I stopped everything and devoted myself to purging the pain through tears. There weren't enough tears.

I cried, sobbed is probably a better word for what felt like hours. All the time my sweet, wonderful Rachel was trying to console, to calm, to just be there. I don't know how long I stood there bawling but then the nausea came. I guess I was in such an incredible state of stress that it was inevitable. A word of advice, do not try and cry and vomit at the same time. Choking on your own vomit causes you to panic and try to breathe in deeper, dragging the horrid stuff further down your windpipe. Just friendly advise feel free to disregard, just thought it might be useful during your next psychotic break.

At some point, I don't remember when, we ended up in the kitchen. Somehow I must have babbled a coherent enough sentence asking Rachel to feed our dogs as it was late and they were fretting. I sat in a chair, still inconsolable, the small calm seemingly rational bit of me watched and waited and plotted. While Rachel was preparing the dogs dinner I would stand up take a single step across the kitchen to the knife block and pull out the biggest knife we had and plunge it through my own heart.

Well there must be another smaller calmer even more rational piece of me that was on watch that night because as I went to stand up I found I was completely paralysed. I could still feel all my extremities but I couldn't move a muscle. I screamed! I have never felt panic like it before and I hope to never experience anything like it again. Once more my wife saved my life. She called for an ambulance, she stayed at my side while talking calmly to the operator. I screamed and screamed until I was sick. A word of advice, do not try and scream and vomit at the same time, choking on your on vomit causes you to panic and try to breathe in deeper, dragging the horrid stuff further down your windpipe. Did I mention that I was paralysed? If you are paralysed from the neck down and can't tilt your head forward to clear your airway, you die. Rachel saved my life a number of times that night but never more directly than by clearing my airway and allowing me to breathe. If we live to be 120 year old, and lets's hope we do, I will never ever be able to repay her for what she did for me this one night. But I intend to try.

Everything after that was a bit of a blur. The ambulance arrived and assessed me. I didn't try to kill them I might add - remember I'm still paralysed at this point. Seemed to them that hospital might not be a bad idea - no shit Sherlock! But now the problem of moving 170kg of paralysed lunatic, this was going to be a challenge. The bloke, Bruce, was an able enough fella but his partner whose name I either didn't hear or have subsequently forgotten was about 5ft tall and would have to jump around in the shower to get wet. My dear, sweet Rachel was also there to help but with a bad back herself this was not to be treated lightly. See what I did there? Go back read it again, it's quite clever.

Anyway the great lift, roll, kick and prod plan was hatched to get me into the ambulance and while the others went off to do whatever it is that ambulance officers do in the back of a parked ambulance, Rachel started to put a warm jacket on me and something clicked or popped or the evil little bastard in my head gave up and I could move again. Then I wished that I hadn't. It hurt! I had been sitting in exactly the same position for over an hour without moving a single muscle, imagine pins and needles, cramp and having your nads dropped into a coffee bean grinder all happening simultaneously. Sorry ladies you'll have to think up your own metaphor, giving birth might be too extreme but passing just an arm could be close.

So I'm in hospital. Actually I'm waiting in hospital. And waiting... It took three hours for a doctor to see me, another hour to be seen by anyone who was qualified to diagnose me. In that four hours I was calm and rational, anxious, then panic struck. Rinse and repeat about every hour. Finally I was seen by the Psych registrar and no surprises she diagnosed that I was probably a danger to myself or others, which only leaves one option, I was going into the loony bin. It was 03:00 am when I was admitted into the psychiatric ward of Lower Hutt Hospital. Eight hours after the initial anger/pacing had started. In that time my wife never left my side. She physically saved my life from choking and yet she stayed calm and rational through the whole thing. How she coped and what she went through I will never know. How much is has cost her personally we will have to wait and see. I love her and I thank her and I will always be in awe of her.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who have wished me well. I really does help I promise you.

Finally a HUGE thank you to Kay, my counsellor, the doctors and nurses at the Te Whare Ahuru Mental Health Unit of Lower Hutt Hospital. But once again I want to thank my wife for not giving up on me long after I had. I Love You <3

Quote of the Day

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.^[5]

sources
1: SSRI - a type of anti-depressant
2: SNRI - a different type of anti-depressant
3: The Dean of Unseen University - Discworld - Terry Pratchett
4: Anger vs Rage
5: Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5) - William Shakespere