An Israeli expat describes living with his wife's clinical depression.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHdepressed 224.88(photo credit: Courtesy)
Michael Lurie didn't know what he was getting into when he proposed to his beloved Kate about six years ago. Months into their courtship, the Scotland-born Kate confessed that she suffered from clinical depression and was on psychotropic drugs.
"I was dumbfounded, paralyzed with shock, yet desperately wanting to convey a nonchalant attitude to the matter.
"'It doesn't bother me. I love you for the person you are, and we will deal with it,'" he said he told Kate, who said she would understand if he decided to break up with her.
"What did I know about depression?" wrote Lurie frankly in his 140-page personal account, My Journal to Her World: How I Coped with My Wife's Postnatal Depression (www.mypartnersdepression.com).
The young American Internet executive and Israeli citizen who met Kate in London after suddenly moving to England, writes: "Did I realize what lay ahead? At the time, my love for Kate was absolute, and I wanted no barrier to come between us," he continues. "This book is my story of how I came face-to-face with the devastating illness of depression, and in particular postnatal depression," he told The Jerusalem Post before sending a copy of the memoir.
"Being a male, I found it difficult to express my innermost thoughts. Help in the form of documented experiences was largely unavailable for men, so the idea of sharing my own story was born. I hope to enlighten the reader by offering, unusually, the male perspective on postnatal depression, and in a wider context, help sufferers understand the plight of their partner."
His book has caught the attention of Fox News as part of a feature on the male perspective on post natal depression, and national British television has expressed an interest.
ALTHOUGH IT WAS new to Lurie, depression is amazingly common. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that in any two-week period, one in 20 Americans over 12 experiences depression. Medication and talk therapy help, but these fail with up to a third of all patients.
Even though it affects so many families directly or indirectly, this mental illness still bears much stigma. According to this study, 29 percent of depressed people seek help from a psychiatrist or psychologist, and of those with serious symptoms, only 39% ask for treatment. Although depression can have biological causes such as an improper amount of neurotransmitters in the brain, many regard it as a symptom of flawed character. Patients and families try to hide the symptoms because of the resultant stigma.
Lurie, who now lives in Manchester with Kate and their daughter Maia, discloses all in his book so that depressed people who are undiagnosed and untreated can realize what is wrong and patients' loved ones can understand how it feels. Not only does Kate's clinical depression flare up several times before and after their wedding, but immediately after she gave birth to their beautiful baby daughter it morphed into the postnatal kind - and then Michael developed his own case of depression that gave him first-hand experience.
"Depression. Medication. Images of violent mood swings and visits to psychiatric units suddenly flooded my mind," he wrote in the beginning of the book when Kate first disclosed her problem. "Prozac. This was the medication of loonies; normal people had no need for this. The most shocking thing was that I could not associate my stereotypical views with the person next to me. They just did not match. Depression was akin to mental illness, intangible, stigmatized and misunderstood. I knew nothing of its symptoms and side effects or how to detect its advent and respond to it."
Kate had suffered a breakdown a few years before they met, and had even been hospitalized in a luxurious facility where group therapy and a strict schedule forced her to get out of bed and get treatment. "I was humbled by Kate's experience, as it had clearly changed her life," Lurie writes. He began to understand the difference between "feeling low" - as when he had broken off with a previous girlfriend - and being depressed. "Generally," he writes with much hindsight, " 'depressed' is used rather flippantly, and most have no idea of the symptoms a clinically depressed person suffers."
THEY WERE bound together by a similar past: Michael's parents divorced when he was five; he was raised by his mother and had only a strained, distant relationship with his father. Kate's father died of cancer when she was eight. Thus both were brought up by strong, dedicated women. But Lurie avoided telling his mother back in the US any details about Kate's past - something he later regretted, because she was shocked by what she saw when she came to visit.
He proposed to Kate as they sat with their feet in the waters of a Venetian canal. She immediately accepted, and they married after a six-month engagement. Kate worked as a project manager for a London health research company, while Michael - fearful of and unable to get a high-paying job in business - worked as an "learning-support assistant" in a special education school. His salary was much lower than what he was used to, but he had a respite from the corporate rat race. Kate's work was very pressured, full of internal politics and demands.
Lurie was surprised to get a job offer in Manchester that would combine his two interests of education and marketing, but had doubts about moving away from London and leaving his teaching job, while Kate was enthusiastic despite her current bout of depression. Her psychiatrist advised against the move. When no immediate decision was made, Kate suffered a serious anxiety attack. She had trouble sleeping, became withdrawn, cried and had a vacant look on her face. Nevertheless, they decided to leave their London apartment and settle down in slower-paced Manchester. Kate was able to commute to London three days a week and do the rest from home.
"SOMETHING INSIDE made me feel uneasy about ignoring the psychiatrist's advice. I tried to rationalize our decision. We were united, and this surely must count for more," Lurie wrote. "This decision was to haunt us later."
Abusive and demanding behavior by her boss in London led to three of the most difficult months in the couple's lives. Michael received a call at work - "a deep howl and whimper" in a voice he could hardly recognize. It was Kate, saying: "I can't take it anymore." She was scared to be alone, suffered from nightmares and was unable to get out of bed for weeks. Michael was afraid she might try to end her life, and sent friends to be with her at all times when he couldn't be home.
"When I married Kate, I had hoped the depression would take a back seat in our lives," Michael writes at this stage. But he became certain that "depression was the third partner in our marriage" and would continue to be so for a long time. He took her to a psychiatrist for medication and counselling - and she very slowly improved and regained her self confidence. She got so much better that, 18 months after their wedding, the couple decided to have a baby, even though they knew she would be at higher risk for post-partum depression. When she became pregnant, she was glowing and in a positive frame of mind. But past her due date, Kate had not yet delivered and again plunged into depression. The baby, Maia Hettie, was born near the end of April 2005. Leaving them in the hospital, he "gave both a kiss and walked into the corridor. As I left, I glanced back to wave at my two ladies. I will never forget that moment. All I could see was a pair of pleading, terrified eyes starting right at me. I knew she was trying to be brave and not say too much. I had seen that look before. This was a cry for help as she felt herself slipping into the dark abyss she had fallen into before."
After the initial joy dissipated, and disrupted by lack of sleep and difficulty breastfeeding, Kate found it hard to bond with the baby. They switched to formula, which allowed others to feed her but made Kate jealous.
She started to have hallucinations of imaginary brown insects crawling over her body and up her esophagus. She scratched her neck intensively, and her throat was marked as a result. Lurie felt he was on a rollercoaster always plunging downhill. Kate said she "wanted to die." Lurie notes that unlike physical illness such as a heart attack, where the patient is rushed to the emergency room and the medical staff know what to do, in the case of mental illness, "symptoms and pain are all too often not recognized and acknowledged with the same gravity. Often it can be a silent killer, as without diagnosis, the condition can become too advanced to reverse. The injustice and disparity in our society induced me to start writing this book."
He took her to the doctor, who prescribed antidepressants that took time to take effect. The first sign of improvement was when Kate asked on her own to hold Maia. They were able to go off and enjoy themselves while leaving her with a baby sitter. A new family doctor who showed more understanding helped further improve Kate's condition.
But then Michael suddenly faced his own depression. He started eating junk food, gained 10 kilos, abandoned exercise, suffered from insomnia and was physically and mentally exhausted - perhaps as a delayed reaction to all he had been through. A fortunate visit to their compassionate GP led to treatment. Kate felt guilty for his condition (which he insisted was not true), and was constantly afraid he would leave her. Finally, after a family outing with Maia, things began to improve.
"I have come to terms with the fact that there are no 'quick fixes' for depression. However, many, many people overcome it and lead productive lives. The most critical coping mechanism is communication," he writes. "Ultimately, this book is a tribute and salute to my wife for all she has endured," Michael sums up. "She is the heroine of the story... I am immensely proud and honored to be her husband, and could never have married anyone else... She is my soulmate and my world."
And both of them are an inspiration for people who have reached the depths of depression and want to climb out.
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
