Monthly Archives: February 2010

Marie Osmond’s son, Michael Blosil, died by suicide

February 28, 2010

Today my thoughts are with Marie Osmond and her family after the suicide death of her son, Michael Blosil. Apparently Michael left a note outlining that he felt he no friends and would never fit in…

I remember Marie and her siblings, The Osmond Brothers, as teenage pop idols. They sang songs I liked to sing along to. I was sad to her name in print reporting a tragic loss, the Osmonds were always recognisable by the mega-watt smiles. I know Marie as a happy smiling singing person, until today at least.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the media did not report deaths by suicide. Suicide is serious issue and it should be reported, with sensitivity and in a considerate way. It is a complex issue that needs to be reported.

I am sorry I didn’t know more about the treatment and the risks of depression before Mottsu died. I am learning and sharing and, in my own way, raising awareness.

By admin | Posted in Reported in the news | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Meds or no meds?

February 27, 2010

What do you do if you are depressed?

I read some advice in article just published: Head Case: Can psychiatry be a science? Louis Menand, The New Yorker, March 2010

For a start the article suggests that you “…do not read the psychiatric literature. Everything in it, from the science (do the meds really work?) to the metaphysics (is depression really a disease?), will confuse you. There is little agreement about what causes depression and no consensus about what cures it.”

Do seek advice from a trusted source, try the recommended remedies and actions and if there is no relief please try something else, talk to someone else.

Mottsu must have been ravaged by depression by the time he sought support. He was not sleeping, had dropped in weight. I don’t know why but he was determined not to take medication. He did take natural sleep remedies, to little effect. He started exercising more, stopped drinking alcohol. He saw a psychologist twice and pretended to go another two times. He kept working, kept functioning and fooled many about his state including the psychologist, me, and probably himself.

In other posts, I have noted that depression is treatable if not curable, so is sadness, and sleep disorders. I am sorry I didn’t know more back when I needed to know more. I trusted Mottsu and his decisions, he was strong in tackling his depression. He did find his own answer, I might have taken him in another direction, had I known more.

Again from The New Yorker: “Some people feel an instinctive aversion to treating psychological states with pills, but no one would think it inappropriate to advise a depressed or anxious person to try exercise or meditation.

The recommendation from people who have written about their own depression is, overwhelmingly, Take the meds! It’s the position of Andrew Solomon, in “The Noonday Demon” (2001), a wise and humane book. It’s the position of many of the contributors to “Unholy Ghost” (2001) and “Poets on Prozac” (2008), anthologies of essays by writers about depression. The ones who took medication say that they write much better than they did when they were depressed. William Styron, in his widely read memoir “Darkness Visible” (1990), says that his experience in talk therapy was a damaging waste of time, and that he wishes he had gone straight to the hospital when his depression became severe.”

By admin | Posted in Depression experiences | Tagged | Comments (0)

“My son took his own life…” Walter Koenig

February 26, 2010

was said to have undergone “periods of depression” prior to taking his own life.The body of the actor, activist and comedian, Andrew Koenig, was found in Stanley Park in Vancouver. He had been missing for over a week.

Apparently Andrew sold or gave away many of his possessions and moved out of his apartment in Venice, California, before travelling to Canada, where he died by suicide.

It seems that one’s suicide can be so carefully planned and executed, it is hard for those of us not in the grip of depression, to comprehend. The determination to escape the domination of depression provides only a hint of the severity of the affliction.

He had a history with depression and had been despondent. I still struggle with how invisible depression can be, even at it’s most unbearable.

My heart is heavy for Andrew Koenig’s family and friends.

By admin | Posted in Reported in the news | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Mottsu and me

February 25, 2010

This blog is mostly about the loss of Mottsu, the circumstances his depression and suicide, my struggle to come to terms with the trauma of that loss, my complicated grieving. It is hard to live with a person suffering depression. He said he couldn’t feel anything, that wasn’t always how it was. Way back, as early as our shared history stretches, we had been out for dinner with a group of mutual friends and a couple of stragglers were sitting in my kitchen close to midnight when the floors and walls shook. Each looked only at the other, both wondering if the other had felt the tremor. The earth moved when we met.

We soon learned the Turkish consulate a few streets away had been bombed that night. So it was a bomb rather than emotion that moved us. Even so our lives were changed when we met, as a couple of me people became a we.

We were a fabulous we, particularly he:
*we went to the supermarket together after gym
*he played eye-spy while we were horse riding
*we held hands at the movies
*he was a punter
*I loved him
*sometimes I was horrible to him and other times I just didn’t think
*he was a journalist and writer, who briefly kept a journal about his depression

This is my own journal. Suicide is hard, hardest on those left behind, that’s the story of Mottsu and me.

Left behind and on my own I am keeping it together. Sometimes surprise myself and I just as often disappoint myself. I keep on talking, writing and dreaming…

By admin | Posted in Mottsu and me | Tagged , | Comments (0)

…and his dog died

February 23, 2010

From the time Mottsu died, I began to dread the time Wally, his dog, would die. I wonder if others do that, after someone close to you dies and the mortality of all living things is reaffirmed, do you anticipate a further loss as unbearable? If that apprehension is a shared experience it isn’t one that has with shared with me, or by me until now.

I feared the loss of Wally would be a grief too great, not on it’s own but compounded with the already bewildering loss of Mottsu, a grief to great to navigate with a sound mind. That sounds a bit theatrical. I didn’t want to be melodramatic and when I voiced my fears my friends brushed me off.

“Wally won’t die…” they said “he is healthy” I was told.

My head and heart knew otherwise, Wally was healthy and even so he would die one day. He was already 10, and the vet referred to him as a ‘senior pet’. The denial of existential reality distressed me, kind though the intent of friends was. I felt demented by my fears when no-one else heard them, and everyone refused to validate them.

Walking with Wally and Shortbread in the park one-day I bumped into Bill, walking his dogs. Bill was a friend and colleague of Mottsu’s, it was always good to see him. Bill asked how I was and I told him about my anxiety, my dark concern about how I would bear Wally’s death.

Bill spoke with calm and authority, “Anne” he said “Wally will die one day and you will be sad, you’ll be OK”.

Wally did die, I was there with him. I miss that little dog and it comforts me to imagine him reunited with Mottsu. Not floating on clouds together or playing fetch but the spirit of one consoled by the essence of the other.

Do you think that’s possible?

By admin | Posted in Dogs: loving and losing dogs | Tagged , | Comments (0)

…and his dog cried

February 21, 2010

The summer heat was oppressive this week, tropical, humid, and uncomfortable.

I say ‘was’ because Shortbread and I were in the park this afternoon as the weather started to break. The afternoon was disturbed by thunder which exploded across the sky. In between rumblings, I could hear a further agitation as the unsettled dogs across the neighbourhood lifted their heads and bawled at the clouds.

Big drops of rain percolated and plopped to earth, damping the crackle of the air, quenching the dog chorus. Shortie and I hurried home, she was hyperventilating when we got to the door, breathing more rapidly and deeply than normal.

Shortbread is unsettled by storms, panting and tail down.
Wally was unsettled by Mottsu’s disappearance.

Wally was Mottsu’s dog, it was unclear who owned who. A perfect coupling from first sight. The day we went to see the puppies to chose one, the smallest dog, the runt of the litter, threw himself onto Mottsu’s foot, straddling his shoe and clamping puppy teeth to the man’s lace. Tenure was assured for the terrier we named Wally. Ten years later, on Wally’s 10th birthday, Mottsu left.

The weather in our house changed when Mottsu disappeared. The air was fractured with mishap and disbelief, it rained inside day after day. Wally couldn’t have known what was unfolding but he certainly sensed something, and it was confirmed by his best friend not coming home.

Abandoned by meaning Wally, Mottsu’s dog, sat in our hallway and howled. His unbridled release of distress, his canine lament, further split my already ruptured heart. There is a saying that only a dog loves you more he loves himself. It’s true.

Wally wept.

Yesterday I wrote about grieving for our dogs. Our dogs grieve too, I know because Wally wept.

By admin | Posted in Dogs: loving and losing dogs | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Don’t die Max

February 20, 2010

I wrote about dogs yesterday and one of the stories is incomplete so I’ll say a little more about dogs, and the love of dogs as well as the loss of dogs.

I saw Mabel in the street recently, she was standing on the train tracks having crossed half way, she looked a little disoriented. This was the first time I had ever seen her unaccompanied by Max. I said hello, and asked where her dear old dog was.

Mabel told me she was looking for Max, he had run away. The fact that Max’s top speed was a lumbering walk, and he had probably not run for years, was a moot point as I empathised with her dismay at the loss of Max.

A truck rattled over the railway lines and Mabel turned to watch it travel down the road. “Was that barking ?” she said, “Max might be locked in that truck.” I hadn’t heard a bark. We talked about places where Max might be, I promised to keep a look out. Mabel imagined punishments to administer on his return, no biscuits for bad dogs.

We crossed the tracks and said farewells on the next corner.

I couldn’t help but recall the refrain “Don’t die Max, don’t die”; Mabel’s plaintive pleading with Max to stay with her, a few weeks earlier. It is a bitter sweet thought that Max couldn’t die in Mabel’s mind. It is heartbreaking too that she might still believe Max ran away, leaving her to walk alone.

Today I was thinking about the experience of losing a dog, the loss of Wally. The weather in my stomach changed – a deep churning. Even now. I also know a little of the agony of waiting for someone, who is not coming home, to come home. Max would not have chosen to leave Mabel to wait for him.

By admin | Posted in Dogs: loving and losing dogs | Tagged , | Comments (0)

R.I.P. Dr Frankfurt Longbody M.D.

February 19, 2010

My friend’s little dog died today, he was hit by a car. She said ” … it was quick though, he’s so little. it’s so quiet in the house now.” Dr Frankfurt Longbody M.D. was “the bestest ever“.

I’m sad, I’m always saddened by the death of a dog, my friend is sadder still.

This post is a tribute to the dear pets we love and can’t bear to lose. We carry a heartfelt grief when our dear dogs die, not everybody understands that your dog is not just a dog. I remember reading an article about Peter Alexander, the pyjama guy, he described his adored dachshund, Penny, as “…my heart wrapped in fur”. That’s what it is like to own a dog for some of us.

There is a lady in my street, whose heart is wrapped in fur, she has a big old Golden Retriever, Max. They walk the streets together for hours each day. They don’t go fast and they don’t go far and I never see one without the other.

In the hot spell before this one, they were out along the local shopping strip. They weren’t walking. Max and his owner Mabel were on the footpath outside the corner convenience store. Max was sprawled across the path and Mabel knelt next to him.

“Don’t die Max, don’t die.” she said over and over again. It’s a haunting memory, I knew it was important that Max not die, not on that day, not yet.

Max did make it home that day, Frankie didn’t today.

By admin | Posted in Dogs: loving and losing dogs | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Not so not-miserable since childhood

February 18, 2010

I have written about depression being a disorder of mood, one that you might not realise was affecting you.

Today Dora told me a story about her friend Polina who had been depressed for a long time without recognising she was ill. Polina was getting by with sheer force of will and then something took her further down. I don’t know what happened…

It was Dora who noticed the change and felt that treatment was important, she encouraged Polina to see a psychiatrist. In her despondency Polina knew what she needed to do but she could not manage it herself. With Polina’s permission, Dora made an appointment, and then gently supported Polina to keep the appointment, driving her there. Sometimes people who can not stand on their own can lean on another.

Polina has been taking medication for depression for a week. Polina says that she is not feeling so miserable now, in fact she “…has not felt so not-miserable since childhood.” That is what Dora told me.

There are different types of depression with slightly different symptoms that may require different treatment. There is division about whether depression is curable. Some say depression is curable because it can be lifted, and some say depression is not curable as it can return. Curable or not depression is treatable.

I am the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be a cheerful face on earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell; I awfully forbode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better. Abraham Lincoln

The story Dora told me affirms that depression is treatable, it is possible to be better.

By admin | Posted in Depression experiences | Tagged | Comments (0)

The day after St Valentines day

February 15, 2010

If you believe the research (and I do), money and acquiring doesn’t make us happy. What does?Gretchen Rubin spent a year researching what makes us happy, her work is published in her blog the Happiness Project, and her book of the same name. On the day after Valentine’ Day I am reflecting on her 12th commandment of her personal guide for happiness: There is only love…

I need to balance that with what the President of the Association for Psychological Science in America Professor John Cacioppo, observes in his new book, Loneliness: at any moment, one in five Americans, or 60 million people, feel so isolated they are deeply unhappy.

Maybe there is only love and at the same time it is only part of the story.

By admin | Posted in Life after loss | Tagged | Comments (0)