What the attitude "men don't cry" can bring: a personal story

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

About the years of depression and what helped to rise from the bottom.

Today I turned 30 and I am celebrating a big event in my life - I won over depression. I am writing this post because I believe it is right to share such stories. In our society, it is not customary to speak out loud about your personal problems, especially to entrepreneurs with a certain level of publicity. But it is precisely because of these cultural norms that I ended up in the place where I would not wish anyone to be.

It all started about four years ago. After working half a day on Sunday, I arrived home in the evening, and I suddenly felt bad. So much so that I had to call an ambulance. After the examination, the doctors summed up: "Your blood pressure has increased greatly due to the nerves." So suddenly I became hypertensive. After a while, I decided to study this problem by being examined in two hospitals. In both, they gave me the conclusion that everything is fine with the vessels and I just need to be less nervous. Doctors also recommended fighting pressure by swimming, cycling, or running. "Can you do all these sports at once?" - I specified.

After these diagnoses, I began to convince myself that I shouldn't be so excited about problems, and decided to invest even more time in triathlon. This suggestion helped surprisingly, but did not solve the problem. About once every 2-4 weeks, I still had problems and I always tried to have a supply of pills with me for these cases. I lived in this mode for another two and a half years, until the end of 2017.

In 2017, I took part in two serious endurance competitions at once. In April - a 240 km race across the Sahara, and in October there was the fourth IRONMAN race for me, which finally discouraged me from continuing to participate in many hours of endurance tests. Since I no longer had any sporting goals, my workouts dropped to about one per week by the end of 2017.

In 2018, I decided to invest all the time that I used to spend on training in work. The first six months it bore fruit, I started several new interesting projects and decently increased the turnover in the company. And by the summer the fun began.

Pressure problems came back to me with even greater intensity and frequency. Attacks came at crucial moments, for example, during interviews and public speaking, or when just watching an action movie in a movie. Realizing this, I began to drink the sedative again, but already ahead of the curve, before strenuous tasks. In addition to hypertension, new sensations appeared - wild discomfort in the body before going to bed. I felt very anxious, it was getting hard to breathe. It’s such a strange feeling that if I fall asleep, I’ll never wake up again. Going to bed became a torment for me, and in order to somehow weaken this feeling, I began to drink 100-200 grams of rum every night before going to bed.

By the middle of summer it became even more "fun": I started waking up in the middle of the night screaming.

About once every two days, I had nightmares, and, what is most unpleasant, after them the feeling of anxiety returned, which did not allow me to fall asleep again. Because of this, I began to sleep worse and wake up later. By August 2018, my energy began to drop dramatically. Every time I woke up, I felt that I had 10% of the "battery" charge. Now for me it was a torment not only to go to bed, but also to get out of bed. In order to somehow distract myself and cheer up, I started my day with online games. Training was out of the question. Often I put on a jogging uniform and, before reaching the door, I just fell on the sofa and lay there.

In September, due to constant fatigue, I started to get sick once every two weeks. It was a joy for me to lie at home for the day and not go anywhere. The charge level was already 3%, and every day I forcefully forced myself to go to work or to a meeting with friends. In October, among other things, my digestive system stopped for two days, and this was the second time in my life when I had to call an ambulance to restore normal functioning. After this strange incident, I went to a gastroenterologist and got tested. The doctor diagnosed pancreatitis. It was strange for me, because I didn't have any particularly bad eating habits.

In November, I was already consistently unbearably bad and I absolutely could not do anything with myself. I realized that something was wrong with the nervous system, but I just could not get myself back to normal.

The only thing that calmed me down on those evenings was watching documentaries about drug addicts in a doomed state. These films helped me to look at myself from the outside and reiterate that "I am doing well in life."

While watching these documentaries, I came across a video in which one of the drugs said that it is not harmful, not addictive and can help a person deal with their mental problems.

It became interesting for me to experience it myself. Although I had been wary of drugs all my life, I began to think that it would help me deal with my strange mental state. But during the appointment, I felt that I had lost control of my thoughts, and it was a very unpleasant sensation. In general, I do not recommend repeating this experience.

But as negative as it was, there was one small change in my thinking. I realized that I do not know, which I do not know. This understanding brought back a long-forgotten natural curiosity, and I began to ask the question “Why?” Very often. So, this question led me to the decision to make an appointment with a psychotherapist. But unfortunately, the first session was constantly postponed and I again returned to the old problems.

In early December, after the next postponement of the first visit to the psychologist, I went home and engaged in a very unusual research. I was in a devastated state, and I realized that I couldn't take it anymore. I no longer saw the point of suffering from life, forcing myself to go to bed every day, get out of bed, go to work, communicate with people. The pain from the very idea of my existence was so intense that I began to look for a suitable way to end my life. I, with my usual scientific approach, began to study suicide in order to understand the methods that have the highest probability of death. Then I began to analyze which of these methods would suit my character. Having dealt with this problem, I finally experienced a strange pleasure that I had found a way out.

But, having closed the laptop, I looked at myself and asked questions. Why did I come to this decision? Maybe the reason for everything is depression, because it is because of it that people go to suicidal thoughts? Two days later, I finally got to see a psychotherapist and immediately asked these two questions.

After the first session, I realized that I had been in a state of severe depression for a long time.

All these years I didn’t want to understand this, because being depressed is “not like a man”. And I was taught to be strong and to cope with my weaknesses on my own.

After the first session, I began to study how depression can manifest itself in a person, and for the first time I learned that psychosomatics is a scientific concept. In Wikipedia, I read: "The patient has a motley picture of vague complaints that can affect the cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal tract, locomotor apparatus, respiratory system and genitourinary system." “Well, at least I didn't touch the genitourinary system,” I was delighted. All the diseases that I described above appeared precisely because of the failures of my nervous system.

In December, I continued my sessions with a psychologist, and practically every day I spent two hours analyzing my personality brick by brick. I realized that a lot of behavioral patterns go back from childhood. I realized that I imagined myself far from being the person I am. I realized that I have many qualities in which it is difficult to admit to myself: envy, excessive egoism, hatred. It’s like finding a cellar in a house that you’ve never entered, and seeing a mirror there, covered with a long-term layer of dust, behind which no reflection can be seen. To make the picture in this mirror clear, you start blowing off this dust, but it gets into your eyes.

Towards the end of 2018, I began to prepare for a long trip to the United States for work. It helped me get rid of old things that were bringing me back to old habits. So, I decided to sell my car, took hundreds of kilos of clothes to a charity store, and gave the keys to my brother's apartment.

In early January 2019, after working a week in Las Vegas, I finally settled in San Francisco. But instead of rejoicing in California, I felt psychosomatic symptoms again. Moreover, the problem with the genitourinary system has been added to the old palette of diseases - now I have collected an almost complete set of health problems that the brain can affect. This time I already understood what was happening to me. I made it a rule for myself to devote at least four hours every day to continue to disassemble myself and fight depression without the help of a psychologist.

I started experimenting with good habits. First I got back to running and noticed that it had a very positive effect on my mood. A little later, I read that during exercise, blood from the brain goes to the muscles, which helps to switch and distract from problems. Then I decided to see how much time I spend on my phone, and saw that I spend more than eight hours a week on online time-killer games. I removed all of them immediately. There was noticeably more free time, and I began to spend it on regular calls to loved ones and listening to audiobooks. Then I noticed that I pay a lot of attention to social media. First, I reduced my content consumption, and then I changed the content itself, unsubscribing from the profiles that create dopamine traps for me.

But the most important habit came to me a little later. In San Francisco, I began to meet more and more people who practice meditation. One evening I got into a conversation with the taxi driver, who finally convinced me to give it a try. I downloaded a popular app, tried to follow the guide and not think about anything for a couple of minutes. To my surprise, it turned out that this was an overwhelming task for me. It would seem that it is difficult to just sit down, close your eyes and not think about anything? But after each meditation session, I began to notice that my mood was stabilizing and fresh and original thoughts appeared. I began to gradually increase the practice time - from 10 to 40 minutes a day.

Meditation helped me come to one important thing that I did not understand before. I realized that a person is able to keep in his head only one thought at a time and he himself can decide what kind of thought it will be. I realized that absolutely anyone, including me, can not endlessly ponder my problems. On February 18 (I even wrote down this date) I was able to take control of my thoughts and no longer let problems dictate my actions and my mood.

From that day on, I got better very quickly. Most of the health problems have sunk into oblivion, energy returned to its previous level. I continued to instill good habits in myself by taking up a diet. I made the decision to lose the extra fat that I had accumulated in a year and a half without sports, removing dinner from my diet. So I started to introduce a small calorie deficit every day. Since there are no scales in my house, I began to record the results on the camera, and it seems that I still managed to “cut off” a couple of centimeters from the sides during the last month.

Then I gave up alcohol, allowing myself no more than a glass of wine at parties. Now I see no reason to drink, since I no longer need to calm down, and now I get pleasure from life even without external stimulants. In addition to alcohol, he also began to consciously approach other actions and desires. I began to appreciate the people around me much more and just live in the moment in which I am.

I also finally understood for myself what happiness is. I used to think it was in the outside world, in the results. That if I reach some new peak, then I will get that very happiness. But, as experience has shown, by conquering these peaks, you just get a set of hormones that raise your self-esteem for a short time.

Happiness is inside. When you accept yourself, trust yourself, value yourself. Oneself in this world and the world in oneself.

Now I look at this depression story as one of the best things that happened in my life. Because, unfortunately, people are so arranged that the most valuable lessons are drawn from problems. Because of this, I stopped treating problems as something bad, because learning from them gives us the opportunity to learn faster and make better decisions. Probably, if I had not reached this bottom, it would have been harder for me to float up without pushing off.

Now I have found a new hobby - awareness. I want to clarify that I did not adhere to religious movements associated with meditation. I remain an agnostic and just see this hobby as a great benefit not only for myself, but also, possibly, for others. After experiencing the effects of meditation, I began to study this phenomenon from a scientific point of view. A number of scientists have found that meditation not only helps to fight depression, but also improves the ability of the brain. Even a few weeks of short practice can have a positive effect on memory, attention, creativity and cognitive flexibility.

I overcame a lot of my fears and decided to completely open up to others and share my observations. You just finished reading the first observation. Why did I write all this publicly? My answer is because I believe that someone, after reading this story, can partly see themselves in it on their way to depression. I hope my experience will help someone to look differently at the "men don't cry" attitude. And such people will now have an example of a person whom this position has taken in the wrong place.

Happy day out of depression me! Which also coincided with the anniversary.

P. S. Thanks to everyone who supported me along the way. If it were not for close people, it would be much harder for me to cope with the disease. During times of depression, I often behaved incorrectly and some people around me also psychologically got sick of me. Therefore, I want to apologize to those who could be hurt by a depressed leader, partner, friend, son, brother.