Two black dogs (pt. 3)

Trigger warning: This blog post includes reference to Mental Illness, Depression, and Suicidal Ideation. If you are struggling with mental health there are a list of numbers and resources at the bottom of this article. It's ok to not be ok. Support is available, and you are worth it.

When we left our black dogs at the end of the last episode, Freya had just had an operation on her front legs and I had survived college after a breakdown in my freshman year saw me walk away from lacrosse before an improvement in my mental health saw me return to the team and graduate.

Freya has been a lot more consistent since she moved on from her early anxiety and her leg operations. A recent move of house saw her anxiety uptick a little and she's reverted to a bit of a whiner of late.

Freya has been a real rock for me in the three years I've had her. She's pretty consistent (she's the same moron most days) and while it can be frustrating that she does dumb stuff, it's also mostly endearing. As I get to the third and final episode of Two Black Dogs, one of them has settled and become a bright light in a tumultuous world of mental health. She's obsessed with carrots, won't use her dog house, and walks into doors very frequently. When the days are long though, or when the students have driven me up the wall, I love getting home to Freya and her big dumb face.

It's hard sometimes knowing that Freya's breed means she won't have the longest life. I've had an amazing three years owning her, but she could well be approaching her middle age. I look after her, keep her healthy and all the rest, but mortality is an interesting thing and knowing that Freya won't be around forever can be hard.

Our second black dog, the one which I have less of a positive relationship with, reared its head for the next time in the middle of 2022.

It was my third year of teaching (the journey from undergrad through post grad, and then into teaching wasn't very depression laden despite the world closing down for two years) when I realised the rollercoaster of my mental health was going off the edge. I was struggling to enjoy teaching one of my classes, the kids weren't engaged in a subject I didn't want in the first place. My other classes were a mixed bag of good and bad but they were just classes. None of the stuff going on should have been enough for me to have a negative reaction.

It got worse when I had a bout of COVID-19 and found myself struggling with everything and it was straight off the edge into a full blown depression without my usual warning signals.

Over the years I've gotten fairly good at spotting when things are going downhill, and most of the time I can steer myself out of the rut when I see it coming. 2022 I had none of the warning signs. I woke up on a Saturday morning feeling like shit, Sunday I was morose, by Monday I messaged my boss to let them know I wasn't going to be in for at least the week as I was considering killing myself and needed to get help urgently.

Support from work was immediate, the acting principal at the time (now the head honcho) had a wellbeing background and I felt the support immediately from that side of things. The daily organiser was great and my classes were covered as needed. I'm extremely lucky that everytime I have ended up in a mental health crisis I have had amazing supports around me. Family, friends and colleagues have been the difference between crisis and tragedy.

I ended up missing a couple of weeks of classes and coming back to feeling like I was massively behind was a whole other challenge. I told my more senior classes what had happened, for my juniors I just told them I'd been unwell. I've always tried to be extremely open with my mental illness and on more than a handful of occassions I've been the person someone has disclosed depression or suicidal ideation to, and they have quoted my openess as being the reason they felt safe to do so. It wasn't too long before a healthy number of colleagues knew some of what had happened, why I had dissappeared and reappeared with no other fanfare or forthcoming information.

The psych I had seen during high school was no longer around, the psych I saw in the US was... in the US and I was set to once again begin the journey to finding counselling which would see me through the current bout with the black dog. I went and got a mental health plan from my GP (amazing resource, if you are in the position to do so, I suggest you find a GP who can be the person you go to about mental and physical health). I do realise I am in a privileged position to have access to the assistance I do, and there are many issues which as a white dude, I don't need to worry about. There may well be a ranticle coming in the future about women's healthcare. Eventually I found a psych who would be able to see me in a timely manner (we have too few, the demand is outpacing the supply and people are struggling and/or dying because of it) and I started with weekly rounds of visits. This went on for a while before weekly became fortnightly and then monthly.

The rest of the teaching year was a struggle. I was back to "normal" but far from good. I am a teacher, and five years is as long as many teachers make it into the profession. I misdiagnosed a horrendous bout of depression with career fatigue and feared I had made a dreadful mistake when entering the industry. But what if I was wrong? What if I hadn't misdiagnosed the career fatigue, what if I did hate teaching? What if? What if? What if?

I requested a year of leave. I worked as a CRT (casual relief teacher) through that year and focussed on getting my brain right. I remembered I love teaching. I wrote a lot. I financially ruined myself, or there abouts, but here we are.

Now, to the grand finale of Two Black Dogs...

There is no grand finale to mental illness. There is no ending necessarily. I am in an ongoing battle which continues. I have my good days and bad days and I doubt that I have faced the last of my suicidal episodes. The roller coaster keeps on rolling, and getting off is not the option I want to take, even through the scary bits.

I've pulled through each time when depression has nearly gotten the better of me, so far. Yes I've had supports in place, and yes I've worked hard on those, but honestly a bit of it is luck. I've been lucky to find the right people when I've needed them. I'm lucky to have a mother who was a doctor and knew what to do at each turn, and knew who to contact.

The moral of the whole story is, you, like me, deserve to be alive. You are loved, you are valued, and you add value. No matter who you are, you are you, and that's enough. Below is a list of resources for mental health support (unfortunately only good to you if you are in Australia.

Service	Focus	Phone number	Operating hours
Emergency	Emergency assistance	000	24 hours/7 days
NURSE-ON-CALL	Expert health advice from a nurse	1300 60 60 24	24 hours/7 days
VAHI mental health services directory	For people seeking a specialist mental health response that will identify the urgency and nature of response required	Phone numbers are available in each area	24 hours/7 days
Beyond Blue	Depression, anxiety and related disorders	1300 22 4636	24 hours/7 days
Lifeline	Crisis support, suicide prevention and mental health support services	13 11 14	24 hours/7 days
SANE	People affected by complex mental health issues	1800 187 263	Mon – Fri 10am – 8pm
ARAFMI Carer Helpline	Carers and families of people affected by mental illness	1300 554 660	24 hours/7 days