Peggy's Story

She doesn't seem to fit the mold. A best-selling author, successful salesperson, traveler, mother, and grandmother, married thirty years, Peggy describes herself as always having been a joyful person. Certainly she had everything to live for. But in mid-1996 the darkness began creeping in. Then, one day in 1997 she was taken to the hospital with what the doctors thought might be a heart attack. It wasn't, but nevertheless it turned out to be something nearly as deadly - depression. Peggy tells her own story:

My first experience with depression came in 1985. I used to work at a bank, and I can remember not being able to add two plus two and get four. It was like my brain was in a fog and would not work properly. I handled it by simply getting through it, and ended up being off work for three months.

My next experience came eleven years later, in July of 1996, and lasted until early 1999. It was a doozie. I had moved to Toronto to start a business with my brother. He ended up having a massive heart attack and needing open heart surgery, and the business didn't work out. There were so many things happening at the time that I just got overwhelmed. My single daughter became pregnant, my mother was dying, my mother-in-law had just died, and crazy things were happening.

I usually handle things well, but not this time. There were nights I was not able to sleep, and then there were days when that's all I did. The most frustrating thing was that all the tools I had been using for years to deal effectively with my life just didn't work. I tried to tell myself that, "this too shall pass," or, "look, you've handled worse than this." But to no avail. Then we came back to my home town, and my brother and I started a tea room/kitchen shop.

It was a disaster. I began to exhibit all kinds of symptoms, and in the summer of 1997 I ended up in hospital with chest pains. They thought it may have been a heart problem. I had suffered through a year of no help of any kind because the doctors (and me, also) were still not thinking in terms of depression.

I just kept getting worse and worse. I had absolutely no energy, and I sometimes would have a hot flash that lasted all day. The doctors began thinking menopause. First I'd be hot, then freezing, then hot again. I was also having night sweats. We just kept focusing on this menopause thing and I just kept getting worse.

I finally got to a place where I was seriously considering suicide, not because my life was so terrible, but because I did not have enough energy to get through the day, lots of days. It was like I was in this huge black hole and there was no life and no hope.

My granddaughter was born in April, and much to my surprise, I loved being a grandma. I think Jenny (who just turned two) was what kept me going. I kept thinking that I wanted to make a difference in her life. Nevertheless, it was a most unreal situation: I was not unhappy, but I was a walking corpse. In her book, Anatomy of the Spirit, Carolyn Myss talks about coming back from Alaska without her soul. She says it took months for her to reunite her soul and her body. Well, that's exactly how it was for me. I knew my soul was gone.

Finally, it got so bad that I decided to try a new doctor. I walked into her office and told her what was happening, and she said: "Peggy, I don't think this is menopause. I think this is depression."

I really believe she saved my life. She explained that depression is brought on by the drastic drop-off of the serotonin levels in the brain. She started me on Zoloft to help restore the balance, and within about three weeks I slowly began to get better. This was in June of 1998, and it took until February of this year for me to be able to say I am almost totally back to myself. I am gradually weaning myself off of the medication, but will stay on it if I have to. I wouldn't want to go back there again. But yet I learned so very much from it.

I learned that I am responsible for the choices I make, and that I had chosen to allow everyone else to come first always. So I decided to be more judicious. I came to realize my life (and everyone else's) was like a bank account, and that I had been making too many withdrawals. So had all my family. I had given them my AIM card and PIN number. I realized I had to take back my card and start to be very choosy about where my energy went.

Then I started to be ME. Not who my family and friends thought I SHOULD be, but ME, the real, honest-to-goodness ME. That was amazing and life-giving; probably the best thing I've ever done in my life. And it's fun and, amazingly, the other people in my life are surviving my "real self" just fine. I also needed to figure out what I really wanted to do in life, and then just do it. I've always wanted to do work that would support women, and I'm doing it now in my writing. I'm also in training to be a personal and business coach, and love every minute of it.

I look forward to every day of my life now. My joy is back and I feel my old energy. My soul has returned, and, although I would not ever go back to where I was, it has made me appreciate the good times even more. It may sound odd that I arrived in this place through the darkness of a severe depression. Yet I can appreciate the experience. I am reminded of that Dickens novel, Tale of Two Cities, which begins: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Having been through the worst, I can now fully appreciate the best.

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Discussions

Christine (Dec 31, 2002): Peggy, I read your story on New Year's Eve. Your words "reunite her soul and her body. Well, that's exactly how it was for me. I knew my soul was gone," are the best description of this disorder that I've ever read. My own words are "The illness no one understands, save those who have experienced it." Please know that you have one of the best tools to effectively deal with depression--writing. I, too, am a writer, with one book published so far, a 37-year veteran with depression, and a woman who considers herself quite successful and well. Thank you for sharing.

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