Madness

I remember when my father went mad. I was seventeen years old and I came home from school to find him in a terrible state. Today, I would call it a psychotic or manic episode. But at the time, I didn’t know what was happening except that he was pointing at the wall talking about a trail of ants that I couldn’t see and muttering about being evil.

I found out later in life that this was not an isolated episode. My father had struggled with depression and mania for his entire adult life. He had tried to end his life on several occasions. As medications improved he found some relief from the darkness that tortured him, but I don’t think it ever really went away.

Mental health concerns are everywhere in contemporary society. Almost everyone has either experienced mental health problems or knows someone who has. I often wonder about this. Is it an ‘epidemic’ - a massive rise in the incidence of depression, psychosis and mania in our societies? Is it an artefact of diagnosis - one small change…