I always figured I could work through whatever came my way on my own — I turned out to be wrong.
Late in 2004, I met the love of my life, my now husband. We were both coming out of marriages at the time, with kids on each side. So, I knew this wasn’t going to be straightforward. But I wasn’t prepared for just how difficult it would be.
We had moved to a rural part of England, and the countryside was isolating. Between that, leaving my friends behind in London, and merging with my husband’s family who had just been through a painful divorce, I found it difficult to cope. I gradually descended into a severe depression.
Had I known anything about mental health at the time, I would have caught the signs: anxiety, uncontrollable emotions, hopelessness. I found I wanted to be alone most of the time, I drank more and more alcohol, I started having panic attacks, and many mornings, it felt like it took a Herculean effort to get out of bed.
Along with loss of hope and a feeling of being trapped, I had lost my sense of joy in things I’d previously loved doing, such as cooking, reading, and listening to music.
I even attempted suicide one morning — which shocked me, as I hadn’t previously had any suicidal ideations. It was as if my brain abruptly flipped from one moment to the next, and I found myself huddled on the floor of my laundry room in tears swallowing one Tylenol after another.
Fortunately, my husband found me and took me to the hospital.
I was seen by a mental health official who, surprisingly, didn’t diagnose me with depression. He recommended I see a general practitioner, who saw my suicide attempt as merely a result of marital problems. His advice was to give it a few months and see how I got on.
I was baffled by this. It occurred to me later that this doctor — who was in a rural part of England where there are few, if any, Black people — had no cultural competency nor a deep understanding of depression.
So, I went about my life trying to minimize drama and keep the pain to myself. But it didn’t go away.
My emotions shifted between deep sadness and anger. I struggled just to keep my eyes open at times. Even talking, actually moving my mouth to utter words, often felt like too much. It was all overwhelming, and I had no idea what to do about it.
I finally started to see a therapist on a friend’s recommendation, but by that point, the depression was in full swing. After hitting another emotional rock bottom a few weeks later, the only solution I could think of was to ask for a separation from my husband.
I checked into a hotel with my kids and cried the entire night. In the morning, I found I couldn’t physically move to get out of the bed, and this scared me. I called a friend who, after reaching out to my therapist for help, got me to the Capio Nightingale Hospital in central London — a psychiatric hospital.
I had moved to London without thinking twice, built a successful career in public relations, traveled the world, and ostensibly had a life others dreamed of. But there I was, sitting on the side of the bed while the nurse checked me in, wondering how it had come to this.
The nurse then asked me a question that at first I thought was odd: Did I feel safe? I was in a clean, sterile room that looked like it belonged in a Holiday Inn. Of course I felt safe!
But then it dawned on me how safe I actually did feel, and I understood what she was asking. These people were here for the sole purpose of helping me and caring for me. That was when the penny dropped.
My life had become this consistently emotionally unstable world that I could no longer navigate or tolerate. In retrospect, I believe that many of the family dynamics I experienced when I first married my husband triggered trauma from my childhood and unhealthy family dynamics I hadn’t yet addressed.
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