The Written Word
for August 11,1999

Last month I had an article published in Elm Street magazine on my personal war against depression. To my considerable surprise I have been inundated with responses right across the country. The nature of these responses has made it very clear that depression is a very serious problem for a great many people.

The tragedy is that so many depressions are treatable yet so may do not get treated. There are, I suppose, many reasons for this but the biggest by far is the stigma attached to all mental illness. It seems so strange when you think of it. The human body is pretty complex yet it’s like a tinker toy compared to the brain whence flows our mental health. Yet we spend millions fixing the body and, with the exception of sexually transmitted diseases, we think nothing of telling all and sundry, often in excruciating detail, about our body ailments. Yet we hide in a closet when something goes awry in that hugely complex computer we all carry on our shoulders.

What is also not helpful is the misapprehensions society propagates. We use, for example, the word schizophrenic to mean a "split" personality whereas it means nothing of the sort. To use the term so, especially in a joke, is hugely hurtful to those who suffer from this serious but treatable mental disease and to their friends and families.

Wags will advise someone in an agitated mood to "do and take a prozak" as if that were some kind of a tranquilizer which it distinctly is not. Prozak is one of several medicines which help those who need it supply the brain with seratonin, a chemical usually provided naturally.

We refer to medicines like prozak, or in my case, elavil plus as tranquilizers which they are not – they do no more than make up for a chemical deficiency in the same way that the glucophage I take for diabetes provides me with the insulin my body no longer produces in sufficient quantity.

Even doctors will refer to the medicines taken to make up for chemical deficiencies as drugs – they are not drugs in the sense that opiates or tranquilizers are – they’re medicines.

Much of the forgoing may seem all too politically correct but some political correctness is necessary if people are to seek help. We don’t call physically handicapped people cripples or gimps any more. And that’s for the good. And I don’t think any amount of political correctness will eliminate words like "crazy" or "loony". But what we must all do is understand mental illness and accept it the same way we understand and accept physical illness.

I "came out" as a person suffering from depression while doing a show with a wonderful person, Dr Teresa Hogarth, a family physician with a deep interest in mental illness. We were taking phone calls and I heard person after person, mostly male, crying out for help. Quite to my surprise I found myself telling the audience that I was clinically depressed and was under treatment. I wanted people to know that for the majority of sufferers there is help and often that help comes in a very short period of time. Moreover, often the help amounts to a cure, albeit one provided by medication. Since that time I cannot begin to count the letters, faxes and emails I’ve had asking for more information.

Most of you reading this will be saying "that’s all fine and dandy but it doesn’t apply to me." I’m willing to bet it does apply to someone you know, probably in your family or close circle of friends. We now know that often heavy drinking is a way people cope. Enlightened employers know that poor performance or a dramatic change of attitude or moods is indicative of depression. My own depression manifests itself in uncontrollable anxiety.

My suggestion is that you look around you. There is almost certainly someone you know or love whose behaviour makes it clear that there is a mental illness involved for which there is almost always help often amounting to a cure.

Not all depression is clinical depression, of course. We all have quite normal and natural depression with the loss of a loved one or the loss of a job. But when the ability to cope becomes chronic, it’s time to get help. And to do so requires courage in today’s atmosphere because of the lingering stigma.

All of us can and should remove that stigma so sick people can seek the help they need.