Illuminating the dark

By Carolyn Sloan

Spectator



There was a time when she had to remind herself every day why she needed to live.

Pamela Corscadden was 13 years old when she started to experience the symptoms of depression. Often unable to get out of bed in the morning, she would sit at the kitchen table and cry for hours, experiencing an overwhelming sadness that seemed to come out of nowhere. Eventually, Pamela stopped going to school and attempted suicide by taking an entire bottle of aspirin. After leaving home at the age of 16, she started having panic attacks and felt utterly alone.

“I really just felt like I was surrounded by a big black cloud that I couldn’t get out of,� she says. “It was the most horrible thing I ever felt. I just wanted to run until I could find someone to make me feel better. And there was no one in the whole world.�

Like many teens who go through depression, Pamela had no idea that she had an illness. Because she could not account for these feelings, she cultivated a view of herself as completely abnormal.

“I thought I was a freak, like I was possessed,� she explains. “I thought, ‘Why was I the only one who feels this way?’�

After the birth of her first child, Pamela experienced severe post-partum depression and decided to go see a psychiatrist for the first time. He prescribed the anti-depressant Prozac, and after only a few days of taking the medication, Pamela’s world changed.

“From the first week I took it, I could feel like my insides were healing,� she says. “I felt like I had just woken up… He (the psychiatrist) literally saved my life. I know he did.�

With a newfound clarity, Pamela now works with youth-at-risk as a teacher’s assistant and tutor at the Suspension Centre in St. John, New Brunswick.

“What I would like to tell kids is that you can get through it,� she says. “There is help out there and hope.�

On September 29th, Pamela shared her story with a room of primary care providers, mental health professionals, caregivers, and youth educators as part of a panel of guest speakers at the Anxiety and Depression in Children Conference, held in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Also attending the conference was Dawn Scott, who works throughout Annapolis County as a community facilitator for the Canadian Mental Health Association. One of the goals of CMHA is to reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness, such as depression, by offering educational opportunities on an ongoing basis. The organization is currently working on forming a strategic framework to address suicide province-wide. They are also developing a housing initiative for mental health consumers to provide them with safe and affordable places to live.

The conference was an opportunity for Dawn to gather information about adolescent depression and suicide that she can bring back to home to share with her colleagues and the community. It’s an issue that concerns her both personally and professionally.

“We know that 20 per cent of Canadians suffer from mental illness at some time in their lives,� she explains. “I thought it (the conference) would help me in my work and family life. Depression and suicide have affected by family in a personal way and peaked my interest even further to learn as much as I could about this prevalent health condition in our society.�

According to Dr. Amy Cheung, the keynote speaker at the conference, major depressive disorder is common in adolescence, with a lifetime prevalence of eight per cent in youth. Among those adolescents with depression, 50 per cent are missed in primary care settings. Of those few diagnosed, only half utilize the services that are available. In cases of adolescent depression, suicide is the most significant complication, and is often overlooked in primary care settings. Cheung explains that while most primary care providers think it is their responsibility to identify depression, family physicians are often afraid to talk about suicide and suicidal thoughts with their patients, as they do not know what they would do if an adolescent were experiencing these feelings. In order to respond to this problem, conferences, like the one in Fredericton, allow health care professionals, educators and those who work in the mental health field to network and share information.

“There are a lot of health care professionals, including doctors and teachers and psychologists who are very interested in working collaboratively to improve the lives of people who are suffering with mental illness,� Dawn explains, “to offer help and encouragement to people who are struggling in their families and relationships and to remind people that they don’t have to suffer alone… that there are supports in the community and to encourage them to reach out.

“Depression is considered a mental illness, one that people can recover from with help and encouragement… Mental illness is a largely invisible illness and it’s because it’s stigmatized, people think they have to suffer silently… The more we as a community and as a society can talk about it, the easier that can get.�