How the light gets in
Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in ~ Leonard Cohen
We now know that the incidence of depression following a cancer diagnosis is high. While most people will understand that dealing with a chronic illness like cancer causes depression, not everyone understands that depression can go on for many months and even years after cancer treatment has ended (one of the most frequent searches that comes up on my blog analytics is “depression following cancer”). What is even less well understood is the depression that seemingly comes out of nowhere for no apparent reason and there is less support and understanding for this.
Depression is an isolating and lonely place and people are reluctant to talk about it for fear of being stigmatised or just plain misunderstood – which of course adds to the feelings of isolation and loneliness. Like Eleanor Rigby (with a face that we keep in a jar) we put on a mask to face the world, because it isn’t socially acceptable to wear any other face. This is particularly true of those in the public eye and that is why it is so powerful when they speak out about their struggles with depression and mental illness.
Irish readers will be familiar with actress Mary McEvoy, who will forever be synonymous with her character, Biddy from Glenroe; but what many viewers of the rural soap didn’t know was the actress has struggled all her life with crippling anxiety and depression.
In May this year, McEvoy released a memoir How the Light Gets In, detailing her experience of depression and the personal philosophies she formed to help her cope. I have read a lot of books about depression over the years, and this frank and highly personal book resonated with me in way that none of the others have. It’s not a book about how to cure depression; it’s about how to live with it. McEvoy doesn’t believe you can “cure” depression, but she does believe that you can find ways to live a full and meaningful life with it.
Apart from tracing the roots of her depression to her childhood, McEvoy also looks to the modern obsession with perfection and youth as a possible reason for the seemingly increasing depression among women.
I just felt there had got to be some way of making people like me feel alright. Forget perfect, with or without depression, we all just muddle through.
As a down-to-earth, unflinchingly honest and true to life account of dealing with depression, this is the best book I have read on the subject and I highly recommend it to anyone – whether dealing with depression, or loving someone who is – as an insight into this illness.
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I finally got round to reading it a few weeks ago and finished it all in one sitting, so engrossed did I become in her frank, moving and highly personal story.
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Thanks for all you do to shine a light on the subject of depression after cancer. Friends and family understood when I was going through treatment that I felt down and sad, but now a year after my treatment has finished and I am on the road to recovery physically, their patience and understanding has worn thin with my continuing depression.
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Hi Alan, I identify with what you say because I am in the same position with my treatment over a year and a half now. In fact my husband frequently reproaches me for my lack of will power and motivation in not overcoming my feelings of anxiety and depression.
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Books like this play an important part in dismantling some of the stigma that mental disorders carry – I would like to see a more open discussion of depression and mental illness in society..but will we ever see that day I wonder?
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Marie, thanks for all you do to highten awareness of this link between cancer and depression. I was quite unprepared for the onslaught of emotions which hit me after my treatment but then I started reading your blog and realised i wasn’t alone in these feelings. I stilll struggle, but honestly knowing I am not alone has made me a big difference to how I perceive things.
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It has taken me a while to come to a place where I can say that depression is not something to be ashamed of and people like Mary McEvoy and others coming out into the public arena in this way about their mental health, has gone a long way to making me see that.
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I read and loved this book too. I particularly like and agree with the author’s belief that we are not cured of depresssion but with the right way of dealing with it, we can learn to live with it in a way that doesn’t cause us terrible despair and hopelessness.
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It saddens me so much to see how much social stigma is attached to mental health here in Ireland. Depression is something that has left barely any family in this country untouched but still many people never come forward for help and struggle alone sometimes to devastating consquences. There IS help available and i would like to appeal to any of your readers struggling alone with depression to seek that help.
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I am one of those who suffered quite severly with depression following my treatment for cancer. I cannot stress enough that you seek help if you feel this way – Thomas is right – there is no need to suffer alone
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I too experienced some quite debilitating depression during and after my cancer, which lingered for many months. It was a while before I sought help and I am only sorry I hadn’t done it sooner and saved myself some months of needless suffering
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Great post and great to read the comments of readers and to see this a discussion on mental health out in the open like this!
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It is so true that without an obvious cause for your depresion – a bereavement, an illness – people have very little understanding for you. That is the most isolating and lonelinest place to be.
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Claire you are so right. I have been dealing with depression most of my life and friends and family pretty much treat me as it it is all down to being too self-absorbed or looking for attention. It is a serious illness and we need more recognition of that fact.
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I too have dealt with depression from as far back as I can remember. I have had some very bad episodes including a suicide attempt and 2 spells in a psych ward. I now know, like this author, that I will never be cured of my depression – it will always be with me – but I have learned to live with it and to put strategies in place to help me cope. I take medication, I exercise, I eat a healthy diet and avoid alcohol and above all I look out for the tiny, signs of hope which surround us in nature every day – that first green leaf shoot in spring, the first rose to bloom in my garden, little signs like this I use as a reason to carry on.
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You mention the fact that going through depression is a lonely and isolating experience and I do so agree with you but I do think we need to fight against our urge to isolate ourselves when we are depressed. I don’t mean we should over do – parties and hectic socialising is counter productive – but going for a walk with a friend or meeting someone for coffee really does help to lessen some of that isolation and help you feel connected with the world again.
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I also found Mary’s book very helpful in dealing with my own depression- I identified so much with her when she said that sometimes it was all she could do to make it from the bed to the bathroom in the morning. I found that to be true for me and at my worst, i have to deal with it by breaking down in my day into half hour slots in which I tell myself I just have to get through the next 30 mins. If i think about having to get through the whole day, I freeze and would never get out of bed – but for me I can deal in half hours and found that helpful. Hope this helps other readers.
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I bought this book when it was released and found it very helpful. It was so refreshing to read an honest account of how depression can actually cripple a person. Depression is an illness just as devastating as any other chronic illness but because it’s invisible to the outside world, it is an illness very much misunderstood.
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As a a neuroscientist who has spent my career studying depression, I do believe that there is a highly genetic component to this illness – I hope that helps some of you who are dealing with the attitude of family and friends that you are somehow being self-absorbed, indulgent or lazy in not being able to “overcome” your depression.
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Delighted to see your post. In my experience as a Counsellor, I have always believed that some people just do not produce enough seratonin. I have often seen patterns in families that cannot be explained by “learned behaviour”. Our culture unfortunately blames people for an illness which is outside their control. Mary McEvoy’s book is very supportive for people who choose medication, either short term or long term. When properly prescribed, anti-depressants can literally be life savers.
We are all learning about the effects of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. I look forward to the day when proper testing is available to assess seratonin deficiency.
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Thanks so much Martine for your thoughful and informed comment.
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Thank you for raising this important topic, Marie. Having lived with a family member suffering from depression and having myself experiencing it after cancer, I will have to purchase this book. Depression is so misunderstood in our society, and particularly, as you said, if it comes out of the “blue.”
I know well the lyrics of Eleanor Rigby. That song, as well as the Beatles’ “Yesterday” was taped into the radiation room as ionic beams penetrated my chest to kill remaining malignant cells. I felt so depressed after hearing those songs that I filed a complaint with the hospital. (And this hospital was in the San Francisco Bay Area, not in a rural community.)
I so appreciate the information you provide your readers.
XOXO,
Jan
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Oh Jan, how awful. We are so sensitive to everything we hear, smell, taste and touch when we are going through cancer treatment, that your experience really resonates with me!
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SOunds like a great book – thanks for sharing the information Marie
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Marie, I grew up with two parents who suffered all their lives from different forms of depression. So, it was almost inescapable for me that I would have to deal with it, too. There were very few options for my parents, no SSRI’s, no SNRI’s, not much of anything. And not even much decent talk therapy either back then. I am so grateful that I have managed mine as well as I have & have had more resources to do it with. It continues to be so poorly understood by the general public. And it is much more treatable than it ever was, but still a real challenge to get it properly diagnosed, or even recognized for what it is. I have so many patients who develop it after some life-altering health event — cardiac bypass surgery, cancer, serious car accidents, strokes, chronic back pain, you name it. I am glad that at least I can help people recognize it and teach them that it’s not a “character flaw,” but a set of symptoms that can be helped with treatment.
I’ve blogged about this indirectly, but one of these days, I really need to write more about this, too. Thank you.
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Hi Kathi, I really appreciate your comment and I also think that I inherited my depression from my mother and grandmother, who looking back on it now, I realize suffered all their lives from undiagnosed depression. How sad for them that they lived in an age where it was not talked about or treated.
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That sounds like a great book, Marie. Thank you. I loved this line:
It’s not a book about how to cure depression; it’s about how to live with it. McEvoy doesn’t believe you can “cure” depression, but she does believe that you can find ways to live a full and meaningful life with it.
Katie
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I find that a most powerful statement too Katie – something liberating about it don’t you think?
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