Mental illness such as depression can happen to anyone. You can be on top of the world and have no real problems and yet still have some very serious issues. Remember Stéphane Richer? Of course you do, he's the last Hab to notch 50 goals in a single season... After he was moved to the New Jersey Devils, he won the Stanley Cup with them, finished second in scoring that post season and wasn't happy, he was clinically depressed. Like everyone who's been through it, he now talks openly about it. I won't pretend to know the ins and outs of his issues but on this #BellLetsTalk day, I feel like telling you a personal story...
My sister and I were alway good kids, good teenagers, straight A students all the way through university both of us. She was involved in music at school, I was playing on every single sports team possible and that's basically how we both steered clear of trouble. Until she got into her 30s that is... At age 35, she decided to try weed on a work retreat with some colleague. It's only weed, there's no risk right? Wrong. That night, my sister experienced what was her first paranoid psychosis. The retreat was basically a small cabin deep in a national park's woods and in the middle of the night, she woke up convinced that someone was coming to kill them all. She ran out in the woods, in her pyjamas and ran, ran for ages shoeless. The park guard found her about 3 AM and took her back to the cabin. She wasn't making any sense at all and her co-workers took her to hospital, she didn't want to go but they had no choice. She would end the night in a straight jacket and my parents would be called in the wee hours of the morning to come to the hospital. Back then, I still lived in London, England and my phone rang at 3 AM (there's a 5 hours time difference between Québec and London) I was fast asleep so I woke up and answered to hear my mother cry in my ear while saying: "Your sister's gone mad, she's in a straight jacket right now" and that's all she managed to say before sobbing in an incontrollable manner. I'll never forget that morning, and all the episodes that came after.
Fast forward a few years and my sister who's by then a single parent with 2 kids calls my parents on evening saying she feels weird. My dad goes over and spends the night there. At breakfast the next morning, my sis tells him:
-"He (her ex) drugged them this weekend! Look at them they're not normal! (talking about her two boys)" .
-What are you talking about? They're fine, can you pass me one of those bananas please?
-No! The maid poisons them, you don't want to eat that. I'm gonna call the cops!
-What about?
-Everything!
And yes, she called the cops saying that her kids had been drugged and her maid was poisoning the whole family. They told my dad to take her to the hospital and he did. Shortly after he called my mother to tell her that it looked like another psychosis. I was back in Québec by then and my mom called to ask me to take her to the hospital. When we showed up, my sister, dad and the two kids were in the waiting room and she was talking to herself saying absolute non sense. She was not in a state that her kids should have seen. I approached her and said in English: "How about mom and dad stay with you and I take the kids home? The don't need to see this?"
-Why are you speaking in English? Oh you don't want them to know you're part of the plan! Well, you won't steal my kids and take the organs!
She grabs both kids by the hand and starts running out of the hospital. Of course, I go after her, I catch up to her, overpower her to take the kids who are freaking out by now, they're 5 and 2 back then. I run back in the hospital and request help getting her back in. That's how we finally saw a psychiatrist and how she ended up in the psych ward for quite a bit. During her stay, she told the doctor about my evil plan to steal her kids' organs and the fact that I was importing drug. Yes you see, I lived in England for 8 years working for the Revenu and Customs Prosecutions Office prosecuting drug importers and that was the perfect cover! I now knew how to do it all...
Go forward another 3 years and my mother calls me at 6 AM: Karine, can you come home please? Your sister's here and I think she might be having another episode. So I went there to speak to her... She proceeded to tell me that the government had her under investigation, that her new boyfriend was a mole working for them and had bugged her cell phone and stolen her finger prints. Needless to say it was clear that we were in for another ride...Took me 2 hours to convince her to get in the car so that we could go to hospital. Mom stayed home crying while dad came with us. Dad was an electrician, he's not a big talker and he's not the one you want talking to doctors saying what's going on so I stayed with my sister in the emergency room for 9 hours. We saw a nurse, then 2 hours later we saw the ER resident, then another couple of hours later we saw the psych resident, and we finally saw that psychiatrist at 5 PM. She asked to speak to my sister alone. When we were invited in, the doctor told us: I think you guys might be panicking for nothing i don't detect any loss of contact with really. Really? I said, mind if I ask her some questions? The doc said go right ahead. 5 minutes later she looked at me in disbelief and finally said to my sister: "Ok I think the situation is much more serious that you were willing to let me know, your family did the right thing bringing you in and we'll have to keep you for a stay". She was in the psych unit for another couple of weeks.
This is our story, but there are thousands of similar ones out there and the thing is, when someone suffers from that, the whole family suffers. You have to keep an eye on her, make sure she takes her meds, make sure the kids are safe and take them when she has to go in for a while. Turns out that some people are genetically pre-disposed to suffer from paranoid psychosis and that if they take drugs, it can flip a switch in their brain and there's no turning it off...ever. Even if she doesn't take anything ever again, she's still at risk of other episodes.
During her latest episode, I wasn't doing too well, I was down in the dumps, was having issues at work and pretty much everywhere and that day spent in the ER was the final drop in the bucket. I went to see my doctor and I couldn't stop crying... She told me that I was clearly severely depressed and had waited much too long too say something. She gave me antidepressants and wanted to signed me off work but I refused. As my sister was in an episode, I knew that if I was home, I'd be dragged into it the whole time and I needed time for me. So I kept working, the dose kept being upped until eventually I just couldn't work anymore. 6 months after first being given antidepressants, I accepted to stop working and I was off for 3 months and a half. I saw a psychiatrist, I saw a social worker, I did a lot of introspection and realized that sometimes, you have to look after number one and that being the rock of the family is not that easy... A rock can break and I was broken.
I'm doing well now but it was a complete nightmare..if you feel like you are braking and that your head is just too full of too many problems and you're trying to help everyone but yourself stop...stop before you start wondering what the point of life is if all you're good for is help people. Stop before you start wondering what would happen if you took all your tablets in one shot or if you just drove to the bridge in the middle of the night and just jump. Stop before it's too late, have the strength to say: "I need help" and go get it before the darkness wins.
Sorry for the rather long winded and personal post but if it can help just one person to reach out and get the help they need, it will have been worth it.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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