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Two Stories, Big ‘D’ and Little ‘d’

In this chapter I will discuss two Depressions: a very serious mid-life one which came apparently out of the blue, and another where an otherwise happy man failed to keep his childhood trauma locked away. In both cases I illustrate the significance of family involvement, both in causation and in healing.

Penny’s story

Back in the sixties, barely out of our teens, my best friend Val and I were training as mental nurses (as they were called then) in a massive Victorian hospital on the Eastern edges of London. We were keen students, in our second year now, and we arrogantly assumed that we’d seen it all. Penny was to teach us some humility.

Val had recently met Brian at a jazz club and regaled me endlessly with his wonderful qualities. Soon she was invited to meet his family and afterwards told me every detail. Brian had a married brother in BBC radio. A first baby was on the way. Dad was in insurance, “a bit of an old woman but a sweetie”. Mum, mid-fifties, was “warm and cuddly”, taught ballet and tap to children. Her name was Penny and she had been married to Harry for thirty allegedly contented years.

The relationship with Brian progressed smoothly; we were able to talk about other things for a change. Then one day Val reported that Penny was unwell, couldn’t even manage her usual slap-up Sunday roast that Val always looked forward to (Val and I were daily subjected to terrible hospital food). Penny’s hands had developed an intermittent but distinct tremor, her lower lip wobbled when she spoke, and her feet were unsteady. She “rested” on the settee all day, while Harry brought endless cups of tea she didn’t want, puffing and patting her cushions, constantly urging her to take it easy. This of course had the opposite effect, made her more agitated (much to Val’s disgust – she bullied him into phoning the GP, amazed he’d been too reluctant to “bother” him before now).

That same day the young doctor arrived after his surgery (yes, they could in those days), gave her a thorough examination and took some blood samples. Val and I mused about diagnosis, clearly something neurological. Could it be Parkinson’s, one of the epilepsies, some sort of wasting disease? Later on she was bundled into taxis for X-rays and neurological tests at the local hospital, but nothing was found. The poor doctor was at a loss, muttered about viruses and tropical diseases, talked to his superiors, but got nowhere.

The symptoms got worse and worse, the doctor increasing his visits, clearly frightened and out of control. On her and Brian’s weekend visits, Val now spent more time at Penny’s bedside, the settee having been abandoned. Dad kept proffering food from which she turned away, though Val managed to get her to sip some fluids. She seemed increasingly vague and tottery, always wanting sleep though she only dozed. There was a bedpan for weekdays, but Penny let Val escort her to the toilet at weekends, leaning heavily on her arm. She would sit on the toilet a-tremble and incoherently muttering for a long time, pale, thin, exhausted yet agitated, before she could summon the strength to return to bed. With “old fusspot” out of the way, Val took the lavatorial opportunity to do what she had never so far dreamt of doing – asking nosy questions.

As Penny’s facial muscles fought to get out “b-b-b-” and “c-c-c-” from between her slackened, drooping lips, it struck a rather desperate Val that there might be some clue here. “Penny, are you trying to say something?” Penny sat staring at the frosted toilet window, apparently lost to her own world. The gibberish seemed a conversation – if it was a conversation – with herself rather than any attempt to communicate. Dreading she might do damage (we had had it drilled into us: if you can’t do any good for heaven’s sake do no harm), Val urged: “Penny, look at me, look at me”. And she did. “B-b-b- baby” she said, perfectly clearly. Val saw on Penny’s waxen face what she had never seen before – tears.

Frail and shaking, Penny finally got out her story, a single word at a time. The “c-c-c” turned out to be “k-k-k-kill”. She had killed her first baby and wanted to die. She was evil. Nowadays we would refer to it as a cot death, but a sleepless young Penny had taken the crying infant to her bed and in the night it had suffocated. The doctors said she must have rolled over on top of the child and killed it. She was a murderer.

Val was shocked. How could she have missed it all these weeks and months? This was some kind of massive Depression. Bodily, Penny was almost at the point of stupor. If she slowed down any more she would die, her suicidal wishes granted. (Poor Val was in tears of self-reproach when she told me all this.) She phoned the doctor at once.

Penny was admitted to the acute ward of our very own hospital the next day. She was given eight E.C.T.s (electro convulsive therapy) within six weeks, rehydrated, pumped with vitamins and other supplements, and then nothing but rest and more rest for a further week. She returned home right as rain except for some patchy memory loss which didn’t seem to trouble her.

The dead baby was not mentioned again and normal life in the household resumed. Val completed her training, before marrying Brian and having a lovely baby a year or so later.

Penny remained well, though according to Val her husband sometimes irritated her, treating her like a Ming vase.

Around five years after the breakdown, now working in different hospitals and rarely able to meet, Val and I finally got together for a proper weekend break. I asked after Penny. Apart from the mother-in-law connection she had become an important figure to us in our professional lives. She it was who’d brought us face to face with what we scoured old text books to find – “involutional melancholia”, or midlife Depression as we would say today. She was still well and seemed happy, though was thinking about cutting down on the dance classes and doing a history course at the local college. She enjoyed her grandchildren – Brian’s brother now had three to add to Val’s two.