MY HUSBAND'S HEROES

One of our family’s favourite heroes is ex-All Black, John Kirwan. We’ve never met him, but John’s public acknowledgement of his depression has been life-saving for us. Another favourite of ours is the actor Owen Wilson – movie star, good-looking, young, talented … and just diagnosed with depression after a suicide attempt last month. The Black Dog has bitten another sufferer.

It was Winston Churchill (another of my husband’s heroes) who invented the nickname, "Black Dog," to describe his depression. As is true with all metaphors, it speaks volumes. It implies both familiarity and an attempt at mastery. It says, while that dog may bite every now and then, he's still only a dog. He can be cajoled sometimes and locked up other times.

Yes. My husband also lives with that Black Dog, as do Drew Barrymore, Billy Joel, Harrison Ford, and now Owen Wilson, to name but a few. All of them are highly intelligent and creative people who happen to suffer from recurrent depression. Their illness often acts as a spur. Aware of how low they can sink, they propel themselves, when well, into activity and achievements that the rest of us can only regard with awe.

In his book, Churchill's Black Dog, Kafkas's Mice & Other Phenomena of the Human Mind, Anthony Storr talks about the way the demons of the mentally ill can become angels for the rest of us, since they impel their sufferers to rise above themselves – taking those of us who live with and love them along on their peculiar and soaring rides.

Storr takes the approach that a "depressive nature" and feeling unloved go hand in hand. Often they take compensatory steps, i.e., "If I can't be loved, I'll find a way to be admired." Another name for this is ambition. Churchill's was apparently legendary and laden with fantasy – which, oddly enough, may have been exactly what was needed in that particular time, place, and circumstance.

Another bit of fall-out from feeling unloved is hostility, and Storr suggests that never has any depressive had such a wonderful opportunity for venting his hostility as did Churchill. He had an enemy worthy of the word, an unambiguous tyrant whose destruction occupied him fully and invigorated him totally year in and year out. It makes me wonder – if all depressives could battle obvious and external wickedness in this way, would they cease being depressed?

Some time ago, my husband posted these words on his blog at http://idiggraves.blogspot.com/
“People do not handle the insane very well. Support workers in doctor's offices don't look you in the eye when they talk to you. Pharmacy staff lecture you publicly about taking the cocktail of medications that keep you going. Family members resent the constant attention you require and begin to compete for attention with their own drama. Work associates avoid you, or bother you with questions like, ‘How are you today?’ Of course you lie and say, ‘Capital. Any better and I couldn't stand it!’ The insane have become the pariah's of our culture. We have closed down mental institutions to save money. We medicate the poop out of nuts and hope for the best.”

When my husband is unwell, we do often meet with misunderstanding – even hostility or fear. It comes when people, who are totally ignorant of the Black Dog’s fangs sunk deep into his psyche, think he’s being over the top and react to his behaviour in ways that feed the illness. We don’t blame them. When we can, we tell them about it.

That’s why my husband’s heroes are people who live with the Black Dog and talk openly and honestly about the mongrel. Heroes, like John Kirwan, who increase everyone’s understanding and acceptance of mental illness. Heroes, like Doug Graves, who make it possible for this column to be written.

Hei konei. Hei kona.