In a powerful testimony published in the “Daily Mail”, James Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge’s brother, said he had been struggling with depression for several months. Through his story, he hopes to change mentalities.
People stop stigmatizing mental illness. This is the goal of James Middleton, brother of Kate and Pippa, who has just revealed to the whole world that he has been fighting depression for months. “It’s not just sadness. It’s a disease, a cancer of the mind,” he wrote in a moving testimony published in the columns of the DailyMail Friday January 11.
“During the day, I would drag myself and go to work, then stare glassy-eyed at my computer screen, ready to let the hours pass so I could get home. I couldn’t communicate, even with those I loved the most: my family and my close friends”, begins the younger brother of the Duchess of Cambridge. “It is not an emotion but an absence of emotions. You exist without purpose or direction. I didn’t really consider suicide but I didn’t want to live in the state of mind I was in either. I also felt misunderstood, like a total failure. I wouldn’t wish for that feeling of hopelessness, isolation and loneliness, to my worst enemy. I felt like I was going crazy,” he continues.
“That’s why a year ago, in December 2017, after letting my mental health gradually deteriorate for a year, I put my dogs in my car and without telling anyone I drove off. I went to a region that I have loved since childhood”. Having just come to terms with the idea that he was depressed and needed help getting out of it, this retirement in the North of England allowed James Middleton to do the sorting through the tumult of his mind. “That acceptance led to a kind of calm: I knew that if I accepted help there would be hope. It was a little spark of light in the darkness.”
Despite the frequency of the disease, depression remains a societal taboo
Today, in order to stay afloat, Kate’s brother follows a routine. “I’m starting to put some order in my life. I write down a list of ten things I want to do every day. If I know I really need to focus on a task, I might take the medication my doctor prescribes. to control my symptoms,” he notes.
And if he decides today to tell his story publicly, it is to change the ideas received on mental illness. “I have to talk about this openly because that is precisely what my brother-in-law Prince William, my sister Catherine and Prince Harry are encouraging to do with their charity Heads Together. They are sure we can come overcoming the clichés about mental illness by having the courage to change the national debate, to erase the negative associations. That is why it would not be honest to keep my story silent.”
Of course, it’s not just in England that depression remains a societal taboo. In France, while according to the National Institute for Prevention and Health Education, in 2010, 7.5% of 15-85 year olds (6.4% among 15-19 year olds, 10.1% among 20-34 years old, 9% among 35-54 year olds and 4.4% between 55 and 85 years old) had experienced a major depressive episode during the previous year, many people prefer to remain silent for fear of the judgment of others .
“Depression is not the cause of lasting disability”
Indeed, despite the high incidence of the disease, only 22% of employees would talk about it with their colleague, 19% with their line manager and 17% with their human resources manager, according to a survey. a survey conducted by Odoxa in April 2017. Even more worryingly, the vast majority of respondents think that a person who has suffered from a depressive episode is likely to be psychologically fragile (78%), to experience new depressive episodes (74%) and to require superior attention (73%).
“However, depression is not the cause of a lasting handicap, it is a pathological episode and not an intrinsic state of the person. Like a broken leg, a depression is a break in existence, with its care and its temporality.As after a leg fracture, beyond a period of consolidation there is no reason to consider that a fragility persists “, analyzes Raphaël Gaillard, psychiatrist at Sainte-Anne hospital, in the survey.
Among the symptoms that are unmistakable, we find continuous sadness, perpetual fatigue, recurrent black thoughts, loss of appetite or, on the contrary, a compulsive relationship with food, difficulty concentrating and remembering things, permanent feeling of guilt, physical disorders of all kinds (insomnia, stomach aches, loss of libido, etc.), psychomotor slowing and weariness with things that before made you happy, note Inserm and the High Authority of Health on their website.
If you recognize yourself in at least two of the first three symptoms defined above, immediately make an appointment with a doctor who will be able to make an accurate diagnosis. For people representing between five and seven of these characteristics, depression is considered mild and moderate. Beyond eight, it is said to be severe. It is therefore essential to clinically assess the level of severity of the depressive episode in order to be able to treat the patient in the best possible way (support therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, anxiolytics, antidepressants) and to direct him towards a suitable specialist.
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