A LONG WALK WITH THE BLACK DOG
Interview with Max Edwards (not his real name) about beating depression
Max is the 30-year-old director of a prominent think tank, helping companies deal with the pace of technological change, strategy and creativity. It’s a dream job for him, and I admit to being just a little envious at what he describes as his job description.
Life hasn’t always been so good for Max though. His long journey to self-esteem was chaos for a number of years. Without being melodramatic, it was a do or die battle. Max fought for seven years with bipolar disorder and tried to take his own life three times during this period. At the time, he saw it as his only escape.
However it wasn’t. Max’s endured a quest to regain his life, shine light on his shadows and overcome his depression.
I asked Max what sort of help he received over the years of dealing with his mental illness? “I went to hospital six times, maybe more. Numerous times I wanted to kill myself. I was in such intense pain, needing to escape but there was no other option. I tried 3 times. I went to live with Hare Krishna’s on a farm in New South Wales for 3 months. If you wanted an appointment with the Black Dog Institute, you needed to live in the state. I was so determined to get in, so I could get a proper diagnosis. The Black Dog Institute was the start of my recovery. They helped set up my doctor and a mental health nurse. My mum though saw the worst of it. I got so bad I had to move back home and she saw that I stayed in my room for three weeks at a time, I would sleep all day and only get up between 2 and 4am. I wouldn’t eat.”
And now? “I get really emotional talking about it because I never thought I’d get out of it.” I can hear the pain in his voice. “I just thought I was destined for ups and severe downs for the rest of my life. Its surreal to me but I just don’t get down like that anymore because I’ve got the cognitive software – I had six shrinks over the years and they worked with me in different ways and then I would spend my own time studying this stuff. The benefit of being depressed for 7 years is I had so much time to read.” Max laughs. Over that time, he underwent Acceptance Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Dialectic Behavour Therapy, amongst others.
What stands out as helping you effectively fight depression? “It’s not that there is one ‘easy’ answer to depression, but self reflection really helped me and before you’ve learnt it, you’re blind. When the ‘shadow’s voice’ comes up in my psyche now, I can hear it and dialogue with it. When I experience an emotion, it’s now an object I can interact with rather than being lost in it. It’s like I can see it coming towards me on Google maps. I’m so amazed how powerful self reflection is.” A lot of people are stuck in depression according to Max, because they don’t dialogue with it. Max explains the reason self-reflection is important to him is he’s an emotional person. But aren’t we all? Some of us are comfortable to express our emotions, some express them in unhealthy ways, some of us suppress them and some of us battle them.
How is it that you learnt to hear it so clearly? Max says, “Journaling, self talk (capturing/listening to what you say to yourself) and mindfulness are all examples of self reflection. Journaling can be simply writing in a diary. A pen and a piece of paper can take you far. In the depths of my depression I would write in my diary, I would go for a walk and record everything on my mind – walking and talking. And it’s not always an exercise in solitude. Reflection is also talking with people out-loud. It’s important to talk with others when you’re by yourself reflecting and stuck in your own little bubble. We all derive energy from others to some degree.”
Max adds, “I need to write it down, which gives my mind space – it’s externalized. I can then let it go and get back to work. It’s like perpetual reflection.” A lot of the processing continues on your subconscious I suggest to him. “True. But most importantly, the shadow’s voice isn’t as intense when you shine some light on it.”
“I meditate semi frequency, whenever I feel the yearning. Now I just do it. And I now do it because I want to do it. But it didn’t start off that way – I remember it being amazingly hard. I do it sporadically now, in pockets: I do it for 2 months, then stop. I do a quick 5 min meditation when I feel I need a top up. It certainly helps. When you meditate, you can think and reflect more clearly. You can then write it down more clearly. You can talk to people more clearly and help them understand. It creates a cycle. If it’s a wheel, they are spokes helping the wheel turn. A lot of my insights and slow epiphanies come from that place. It helped me to understand the shadow’s layers.”
Knowledge empowers you, its important to recovery. The great thing about the web, is you can find so many resources. I would look up all these different modalities such as Japanese Morita Therapy. I really liked it because the essence of it is stop fucking thinking so much and just do shit. Sometimes you just have to shift the energy. Because I had the shoulders of giants, to borrow that famous quote, to step onto, I could use that knowledge and wisdom and test it on myself to find what worked for me.”
Max’s hypothesizes, “The psyche is inherently wise, and you just need to give it space to emerge. If your pathologies, shadows and demons are dark, we say that’s a bad thing. But you have intelligence and wisdom. It’s changing the context. I used to beat myself up for being too sensitive. Why can’t I be stronger? Am I broken? Will I have this for life? Freud said we are all fucked up because of our childhood and we have to fix ourselves like a car. But maybe it’s not like that. Maybe we don’t have to fix ourselves, maybe we can just accept ourselves. Our psyche wants us to blossom like a flower. It doesn’t sit around saying why am I blossoming late, when all the other flowers have blossomed early. It depends on the sun, conditions, where it is planted, what shadows over it. We are nature. We come from the earth. We are nature doing its thing.”
Max’s proposes the following strategy to help you through hard times:
• Build a habit of reflection in order to learn to dialogue with your psyche. We only learn how to do this when we are down, feeling like shit;
• Don’t do it alone. Max comments, “I was just so lucky. Hundred’s of people helped me and I am really grateful. Especially now that society talks about it more, there are more and more people to help. Stigma with bipolar depression comes most often from the people suffering it rather than outsiders. There is a self hatred. It’s crazy, we beat ourselves up so much.”
• The every day things – behavioral changes often happens slowly. The only way to do that is daily practice. “Go for a walk in the morning. I would write in my diary every night. I would make sure I read at least 2 pages mental health related subject matter, every day. My depression happened over 7 years and I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then a year ago, something clicked. I hit the 51% point – I did all the work, then finally stepped over the 50% point and there was no going back. It was the little things.” To which I would add, never give up. Max didn’t and his life has turned 180 degrees.
Max surmises, “I still get down and I am susceptible to depression, but because I’ve done the work, it won’t get into the severe depression; the suicidal times.”
This Week's Self Esteem Story:
http://www.schoolofselfesteem.com/…/a-long-walk-with-the-b…/
Submit Your Own Self Esteem Story:
http://www.schoolofselfesteem.com/your-story/
areudirty
andulkaphoto
dailybridgerton
annaxmalina
origamiaround
