The Writer

James was depressed. He had been depressed for over four years.

He had been around the world, lived in the UK as a fitter and turner, earning enough money to finance periodic tours of Europe, and Asia. He seemed pretty accomplished and articulate, and had, on one job, even taken over as resident engineer, on account of his troubleshooting skills.
After some years he returned to New Zealand as he said, to settle down. He continued to work as a fitter and turner, but life began to lose its glamour and lose its gloss. He would wake in the morning before going to work and contemplate the day. As he did so he would be filled with a nameless dread. He would ask himself “Is this all there is to life?” And, “ Am I going to spend the rest of my life like this?”.

He did not want to go to work and had to force himself to get up.
It was OK once he got there but sometimes in those mornings he would wake early, anxious and begin pacing the floor. He became increasingly apprehensive at work and would worry over minor matters. He felt he was stuck, his life had somehow stuck . He was stuck in a dead end job with no where to go. He felt his life stretching out into the future, every day the same.

At first he thought is was just a reaction to settling down, that he would get over it. People told him that all jobs were boring at times and he was expecting too much. They said he had a very successful job and would eventually get over it, but he did not. The situation became worse. He tried drinking but that made him feel even worse in the mornings. He had a hangover in the mornings as well as the dread. He would snap angrily at his workmates and friends over minor matters. They told him he “had a problem” and should see someone about it. By this time the penny dropped. He really did have a problem. He asked his GP about it and he arranged a visit to a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist was very sympathetic and understanding. He was very professional and seemed to know what he was doing. He asked a lot of questions about his habits his sleeping his concentration his energy level and his early history and childhood.
James parents were ‘lower class’. His mother did house cleaning to make ends meet and his father worked on the wharf. His father was a somber unhappy man who worked hard every day of his life. James could not recall a time he had seen his father happy.
His father repeatedly said to his son “Just you be thankful you’ve got a job you’re good at. You don’t have to like it.” The psychiatrist seemed to think this was quite important and suggested that his father had suffered from depression. He said that there was frequently an “hereditary component” to depression intimating that this somehow explained James current complaints.
He asked a lot more questions about his moods. Had there been times when he had felt really happy that ‘he could do almost anything’? Had he at these times gone without sleep? James racked his brains. Yes there had been one or two times. Were these times interspersed with not so happy or even depressed times. James had to admit they were interspersed.
The psychiatrist’s interest was aroused and James noticed that the conversation had shifted somehow. He would describe the details of his happy and unhappy life situations, whilst the psychiatrists would respond by referring to them as “episodes” and “mood swings”. Describing them in this way seemed to give them some special significance.
He was asked if there were there recent times when he was happy. Yes there were responded James. It didn’t have anything to do with being depressed or his job. He felt better when he wrote.
He had over the past year or so written three novels one of which was on the verge of being published. When was writing he forgot about his horrible life at work but whenever he returned to work he felt worse. The psychiatrist suggested to him him that this was in fact an escape mechanism to keep him from dealing with his real problems. It was a way James had developed to compensate for, or escape from, his depression. He was escaping into fantasy as it were. James had to agree.
At the end of the interview the psychiatrist said that the indications were that James had a Major Depressive Illness. He was informed that there was a hereditary ‘component’ but it was an illness like any other. In addition he said that it was highly likely that overall, he had a Bipolar Disorder of which his current depression was a manifestation. He thought that this was partly genetic and probably reflected a chemical imbalance in the brain that was triggered by the environment. The appropriate treatment was medication which he would probably have to take for an extended length of time. At last James thought, someone knows what is wrong.
The psychiatrist carefully explained that he would be taking lithium which was a mood stabilizer to minimize the ‘mood swings’, and an antidepressant to treat the depression.
The medication worked for a while. Each day James awoke hopeful that he would feel differently. This hope made him feel better just in and of itself.
However as the months rolled by, nothing much changed. His life kept bumping along and he became resigned to the fact that this was all life had to offer. He kept returning for repeat prescriptions but there was little respite from the unremitting gloom except when he was doing his writing or watching a screenplay or reading existential philosophy in which he had recently developed an interest. Because of his lack of response to treatment he was referred for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

He was quite interested in this but like the medication before it didn’t last. He got sick of writing down his thoughts and although he got to know about his core beliefs and his self image improved it made no difference to his feeling of dread in the mornings as he contemplated his future, and he eventually abandoned the practices altogether.

Finally someone thought that he might benefit from talking to someone else.

I have learned from long experience over the years to take nothing for granted so I asked him in this first session what he wanted and how I might be of some help.
He told me he had been suffering from depression for around 4 years and had been told that it might help to talk to someone about it.
I asked him what he would like to talk about, and he told me he had written a novel ready for publication and had two others on the go.
So for the next three quarters of an hour we talked about writing. We talked about fiction and non-fiction. We talked about science fiction, poetry and prose. We talked about thrillers and romances, and novels. How he wrote, on a computer with a pen or in pencil where he got his ideas from; did he write in the morning or in the evening. Writers he liked writers he disliked and why. We talked about the difficulties in publishing, artists and the artistic temperament. We even talked about mental illness and writing, including and Ernest Hemmingway and why he might have killed himself. We had odd sorties into film video and screenplays and ended up in his interest in existential philosophy. At the end of the session it was apparent that we had barely started on his interest so eager was he to talk. During all this time in the conversations we had, it was clearly apparent that he was not depressed at all.
I commented that that there was a lot more to talk about and wondered where the depression fitted in all this. He replied that that was just the problem. He was a fitter and turner, a good one at that. He earned a good living. This was just the problem. He couldn’t see a way out.
As a throwaway line as he left I commented that I was not surprised he was depressed trying to be a fitter and turner when all the time he wanted to be a writer. I said I’d be pretty depressed too trying to do something my heart and soul wasn’t really in to.
Next time we again talked about writing. We talked about books and writers, he might touch base with. Movies, screenplays, and education. Life and the artistic temperament, and what life might actually be about. The world of the artist and how hard it was to get ideas across. University courses, writing groups, the world of ideas.
In the third session he said he had applied to Otago University to do a course in creative writing with film video and screenplay thrown in. he had also applied to do a course in existential philosophy, to fulfill the requirements of a Masters degree. He had been visited by an old friend from California, a woman who had just finished a PhD he said proudly, who was wholly supportive of his endeavors.
I asked him about the depression. Funny thing you should ask me he said. After 4 years of anxiety and dread it had suddenly vanished. It had left him. I just feel quite different in the mornings. That’s interesting I said. When did it leave?
After the first session he said.
What was it I asked?

Something you said at the end stuck with me, he responded. What was that?
You said something like “I’m not surprised you are depressed trying to be a fitter and turner when all along you are a writer.”

“No one had ever said that to me before.”