Murtaugh: I endured the pain of depression then stole my joy back

On a Sunday, two days before the submission deadline for this article, I went to a coffee shop to start my writing process. I was really struggling with my depression. Because I was suffering, I had a need to use that time to journal. I needed to write down what I was feeling to try to get some relief. So, that is what I have to share with you this time.

Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019

This is the ninth day of this depressive episode. I am scared of continuing on. I am terrified that this is going to continue through the next week. I am in high distress and it is the weekend and I have not done any work this weekend. I just can’t find peace. I have been feeling panicky and have had anxiety in my chest most of the weekend. I am dreading work tomorrow because I am worried that it will be even more intense when the week starts. How could it get any more intense? This feels like it is not just depression. This feels like burnout.

My eyes have been burning. My heart has been burning. My legs have been on fire.

After all of my efforts to manage my condition, this where I am at today? It doesn’t seem possible. I am back at rock bottom. This is my reality.

I have tried everything to get relief. I am pushing back tears. I am overwhelmed. I am exhausted. I have learned that sometimes you just have to make it through the day. But just making it through nine straight days is exhausting.

Why am I back here?

The only reason I am back in this dark place is because of my condition. This is what we are up against when we talk about improving wellness in the legal profession. We are fighting a lot of monsters. It is different for everyone. But even when you do seek professional help and do work hard at managing your condition, the condition can still sucker punch you.

I am sharing this with you to remind you how hard it is for those of us who suffer. I have learned how to minimize the negative impact on my goals. I have found a way to be productive and successful. But the pain does not go away.

It is so hard to not run away from the pain. I have learned to just sit in the discomfort. I know I don’t need to react or make life changes. I have learned that the reaction to the pain can make things worse long-term. This is helpful for my career. I remind myself that I am enduring this to make my life easier someday.

I fully support mental health awareness efforts. But this is something that awareness can’t solve for me. I have all the knowledge. I have all the resources. I have all the love and support. But I still have an uncurable disease. Sometimes the disease steals your joy.

Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019

I didn’t have any time to write on Monday. I really needed a good night of sleep on Sunday night and I didn’t get it. I woke up at 3:15 a.m. and didn’t fall back asleep. I had a busy day ahead of me on Monday. I had to draft an operating agreement before a 10 a.m. meeting with a client. I had a 2 p.m. meeting out of the office. Then I had to get back to the office and finish two more drafting projects that I had promised the clients I would complete by the end of the day.

Somehow, I got it all done. I felt really calm and at ease the whole day. The depression had finally lifted. I was able to manage a day where I didn’t have a moment to spare from 7:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m.

It is now Tuesday morning, and I am in the office. I got a full night of sleep and still feel good mentally. It looks like I am on the tail end of the depressive episode and will be fully recovered in a couple days. Luckily, I don’t have any appointments today, and the article submission is the only deadline I have today. I will have a little more time to breathe today.

Before I let you go, I have one thing that I want to put out in the universe.

A couple weeks ago, I received a message on LinkedIn from someone who recommended that I should watch Episode 3 of “Modern Love.” My wife and I watched it this past weekend. The episode is based on an essay written by attorney Terri Cheney in 2008 for the Modern Love column in The New York Times. In the essay, Terri told the world about her bipolar condition.

Attorneys such as Terri Chaney and Dan Lukasik, who publicly disclosed their condition decades ago, are the true pioneers. Terri’s amazing story is about how she felt the need to hide the fact that she struggles with bipolar for so long before she publicly disclosed by writing an essay and a best-selling book. Now her story is an episode of the “Modern Love” television series.

Episode 3 is only 30 minutes. Anne Hathaway stars as Lexi, a lawyer with a bipolar diagnosis and little stability in her life. Angelica Jade Bastien’s Oct. 22 review of the episode on www.vulture.com states, “(W)e never understand Lexi beyond her illness. She’s tied her identity so fiercely to her diagnosis, and the filmmakers can’t see beyond it either.”

I am not qualified to opine as a television critic, and I am not saying this take is right. I can only speak to my personal experience. I have found it challenging to avoid doing things that tie my identity to the condition. For example, this article is 100% a depiction of my condition. I don’t want my bipolar diagnosis to be my identity, but the reality is that public disclosure has changed my identity to a certain extent. I disclosed because I thought it would be freeing. And it was freeing to put it out there. But I have also taken on this new role that is unfamiliar, and I am not sure it something I really want. I want the connections. I want people to reach out to me. But there is some of it that comes along that I could do without. I don’t want to feel pressure to keep up an image. That is what I wanted to avoid.

I do think Hollywood tends to make the condition the story. I think this presents an opportunity for us. There is nothing wrong with explaining the condition. There certainly is an educational benefit. But we don’t have to accept that as a limitation. That is a good starting point, but we can move beyond it. My hope for the future is that a television show or a movie about a character with a mental health condition can be more than a public service announcement that tries to depict what it is like to experience the condition. Why not tell the story of Terri Chaney being a pioneer in the legal profession by going public and finding stability?

To be honest, my big, hairy, audacious goal is to follow in Terri’s footsteps and be involved in the creation of a television show or a movie someday. Not a story about an individual. Instead, the story about the group of lawyers who made the decision to publicly disclose and how it took decades to finally get to where things are today. Why not tell the story of the pioneers, instead of the story of the pioneers’ illnesses? There is a whole world to explore that has never been depicted because it didn’t exist before. We would need much more than 30 minutes of screen time. One of the biggest drivers of public opinion is Hollywood. This could also increase the number of people who escape isolation and seek professional help.

Who knows, maybe putting it into the universe will make it happen someday. I am just glad that I stole my joy back, and I am back to a place where I can dream and have such audacious thoughts.•

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• Reid D. Murtaugh — [email protected] — is an attorney in Lafayette and the founder of Murtaugh Law. Opinions expressed are those of the author.