Having a Nervous Breakdown.

Aside

That’s what we called it when I, aged 10 couldn’t stop crying. F Scott Fitzgerald called it ‘The Crack up’ and wrote in 1936:

‘Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work –the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside- the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don’t show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within –that you don’t feel until it’s too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick –the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but it is realized suddenly indeed.”

http://epigraf.fisek.com.tr/index.php?num=1163 you can read the whole piece here.

Last Sunday Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s spin doctor called it both cracking up and a nervous breakdown in a television programme where he gave a frank and honest account of his experience. Eight years before he worked for Blair he crashed after habitual heavy drinking. He found the crash terrifying and was convinced he was going to die. He also suffers from bouts of depression and thinks it is important to say openly he suffers a mental illness. The shame and stigma made life for him a waking hell but he gained strength from hearing about other’s experiences and he hopes his story may shed light on the problem.

Being in Fleet St there was a culture of heavy drinking – it wasn’t recognised as a problem and pubs were all around. Two of his friends didn’t realise there was a problem but admitted he was obsessive and would smoke over three packets of cigarettes a day. His partner Fiona agrees he is obsessive, and gets bored very easily which contributes to mental instability.

Alastair sees the breakdown as a positive experience but realises it was horrible to live with and wouldn’t have blamed Fiona for walking away. He changed his job which was a mistake and increased his drinking to relieve stress and tension. On a trip to Moscow he was very hyper and was drinking vodka for breakfast. The pressure made him drink more which made him work harder. He became irrational, refused to accept criticism and said it was like the Cresta run – down hill all the way. He would fly off the handle and go berserk. He was picking fights to escape criticism.

He flew to Scotland to do a profile on Neil Kinnock and began to lose control and behave abnormally. Patricia Hewitt remembered he was like a mad dog; she found him very hyper with his mind not stopping and getting masses of ideas. Pat had a sister who had had a series of breakdowns, became an alcoholic and died in 1990. She recognised some of the signs in Alastair. When Alastair was driving in a car he would notice signs which seemed to give him messages ‘ Head quarters’ ‘Private car park’ He felt his head would burst and just wanted to speak to a loved one. He couldn’t reach any of them by phone which increased his feeling of isolation.

His mind felt like a plate of glass and trying to get it on an even keel only made it worse and it shattered. A dinner for Kinnock was going on, pipes were playing and he felt everyone was looking at him oddly. He thought he was being tested to survive without any support. He could hear voices in his head and thought he was going to die.

He had feelings of persecution and paranoia and could hear every fragment of conversation which was telling him to get rid of his worldly goods – money and passport. Two men approached him – one of whom was a police officer. They asked him why he was here and he didn’t know. It was a mystery to him how his mind and memory worked- he heard he was banged up and in a fight.

He was put in a police cell and Fiona was told later he was close to having been taken to Barlinnie- the infamous prison. He revisits the cell and remembers the noise and music he heard and the fear and panic as he tried to think rationally. He had been asked if he wanted a drink and asked for their finest champagne. When he was asked if he was alright he saw it as a political question.

Patricia Hewitt vouched for him, Fiona was phoned and realising there was something terribly wrong went with her father to Scotland. The word on the street was he’d gone bonkers in Scotland. Friends were allowed to take him as long as he was hospitalised. He had never had private health insurance as he didn’t believe in it and when he saw the BUPA signs tried to leave but was persuaded they were just advertisements.

He remembered it was room 115 and when he revisited it a nurse remembered him. They had given him something to calm him and he was worried by the red and blue buttons near his bed; red was good but blue was bad. – more right and left - politics. When he saw Fiona and her father he burst into tears. He was close to his parents but they ‘had stuff going on’ and he didn’t want to bother them.

Asked by a doctor how bad was his drinking he said about 16 pints a day and a bottle of scotch which in his environment didn’t seem excessive. He then realised that drink had played a part and that he had a drink problem and he would stop drinking for 6 months. Alastair was looking for a solution so blamed the problem all on drink. After the episode he was very subdued and fell into a deep depression. He couldn’t face returning to London so went to stay with friends in Cheltenham.

He found the depression less frightening than the breakdown. In an act of friendship he was offered his old job back but at the lowest level which increased his depression. Even his nearest and dearest couldn’t understand his depression and it just maddened him trying to explain. They went to France for a holiday but he found the depression just goes with you; he said it’s like being dead and alive at the same time and takes a toll on your loved ones. He resisted getting help and wouldn’t admit he was mentally ill

He found the maxim ’one day at a time ‘ helpful and visualised it as the cricketer Geoff Boycott hitting the ball ’Thwack’ one day over, ‘Thwack’ another day over. A doctor told him he was like a pressure cooker where the steam had not been allowed to come out- there was no safety valve and he had used drinking as a safety valve. He had never been happy about taking drugs but sometimes took anti- depressants and they ‘did the trick.’

He spoke to journalist Sally Brampton who found she was waking up each morning at 3.20 precisely. When her doctor prescribed anti- depressants she was outraged – she didn’t do depression, but the pills didn’t work as she had resistant depression and sadly she was still suffering. Alastair said re alcohol he had the occasional drink but had never got drunk since the breakdown. He was told by a psychiatrist that he was surprisingly guarded and difficult to fathom.

Alastair re-assessed his way of life – accepted his obsessive ness and learned to live with it. Since he and Fiona had children he has known real happiness. He feels he has been through hell and back.

When he went to work for Tony Blair he told him all and Blair said if Alastair wasn’t worried he wasn’t.

‘What if I’m worried?’ Alastair asked

‘I’m still not worried.’ was the answer.

Pat Hewitt thought he had found ways of coping – without drinking and with all the physical exercise he does. She had found that nothing could be as painful as dealing with the death of her sister but the experience had made her stronger.

A psychiatrist said he wanted to be loved and sought perfection and that perfection was kinked to depression

Fiona worried when he was faced with the stress of the Iraq war and the tragic death of David Kelly – it was a horrible period but his family who adore him, got him through it. He still gets depression but knows that it will end and his hope is that other sufferers will gain comfort from his story.