Commentary: 'Depression made me rest and reset' - Former NMP Anthea Ong on her brush with depression

SINGAPORE: The shame I felt waiting for the psychiatrist in the open lobby of then Adam Road Hospital was piercing. How could I, a CEO, be here with “them” (the other patients)?

This self-stigma and misguided hubris compounded the deep distress from a perfect storm of a shattered marriage, a broken business and a depleted bank account that led me there. 

Now, almost 20 years later, I often cite that seemingly nondescript experience as one of my most cherished achievements in life - not just for the courage and humility I mustered to seek professional help but also for the compassion and acceptance that I truly gave myself for the first time.

To be clear, I am not here to dismiss the gravity of my or anyone’s lived experience with mental health challenges, nor am I saying that depression is a blessing in a New Age twist of turning lemons into lemonade.

The human mind is a lot more complicated than that, and clinical depression is a real phenomenon where help must be sought.

My brush with depression, however, led me to explore what got me to that deep dark place in the first place, and helped me in ways I didn’t expect.

Were there upsides to my being down?

DEPRESSION MADE ME REST AND RESET

I didn’t know how empty my tank was until the perfect storm hit me. Alongside the immense grief, I distinctly remember feeling this strange sense of relief.

My depression made me rest and reset from an autopilot mode of a meteoric rise since becoming a managing director of an international company at the age of 26.

Shame derives its power from being unspeakable, according to researcher Brene Brown. Finally sharing my mental health (and financial) challenges with family, friends and colleagues dissolved the “imposter syndrome” I hadn’t realised I was carrying as a leader.

“Losing face” by being vulnerable allowed those near and dear to show their love by coming forward to help. “I can now help you back and do something for you”, said more than a few. Losing face gains love, a worthy exchange no one told me about.

Yes, I cried loads but I also let myself be taken care of.

In his 2008 book How Sadness Survived: The Evolutionary Basis of Depression, psychologist and psychiatrist Dr Paul Keedwell argued that depression not having been eradicated by evolution suggests it must have benefits. According to him, “experiencing feelings of sadness can often provide the motivation for self-scrutiny and behavioural modification”.

Indeed, the profound sadness and humiliation from the complete loss of this “invincible self” at 38, and its attendant social value, compelled me to confront what no longer served and defined me - and what did. So I guess depression also made me honest. 

To be clear, the idea that depression might be a biological adaptation to a complex problem is not the consensus of the mental health community. And even if the hypothesis is correct, it's likely incomplete and doesn't explain all facets of depression.

But my own experience rising from this belly of the whale to a better, not bitter, version of myself may lend some credence to the adaptation theory; I evolved from chasing to contentment.

PERMISSION TO ACCEPT MYSELF

Down the slippery slope I would go every time the broken tape recorder played in my head of all that I had lost. That day, when I had only S$16 in my bank account and even contemplating a fleeting moment of unsafe thoughts, I asked myself “what do I still have?”.

What was a rhetorical cry of despair unintentionally brought on gratitude as the mind answered the question literally. I did still have much: Family, friends, experience, connections - and most of all, values.

Studies have found that feelings of appreciation release dopamine and serotonin, the brain’s “feel good” chemicals. Some suggest that the brain cannot respond to gratitude and depression at the same time. I don’t think so from my personal experience - I began a gratitude jar and committed to writing a daily one-liner about something I was thankful for, no matter how insignificant. As the jar began to fill up, the tape recorder slowly faded out until it stopped playing altogether. I still keep the daily practice of gratitude (minus the jar) today.

Whilst I used to support charities with the occasional cheque in the past, I began to volunteer and serve earnestly in different capacities, including initiating community projects and social enterprises. This includes Hush TeaBar, which brings silent tea sessions led by deaf facilitators to workplaces, launched exactly 10 years ago this month. It was “self-serving” initially as this allowed me to feel useful despite all that brokenness but I soon found that this was my “ikigai” all along.

Sadness is not much valued in our culture; we are always in such a hurry to get over it. Yet without sadness, would happiness have any meaning?

Perhaps, the biggest upside of being down for me was the awakening that I need not be happy and okay every moment of the day. I can choose to be human instead with the smorgasbord of emotions that is available to me - to feel and understand, to accept and regulate.

My personal well-being model called EGO (with a healthy dose of irony and pun intended) reflects this: Managing Energy (not time) to keep my tank full and not pour from an empty cup; practising Gratitude so I always feel enough to serve and contribute; and taking Ownership of my well-being by letting go of who I think I’m supposed to be and accept who I truly am.

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami once said: “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in”.

By embracing my depression with its debilitating pain, seeking help with the searing shame and taking helpful actions, I came out of the perfect storm embracing other parts of myself that I’d rejected and missed for too long.

Maybe life is not always a problem to be solved in being up or down; maybe it is about living the mystery at every point through the ongoing narrative of good, bad and ugly moments that is the fullness of me. There is no shame in that.

Anthea Ong is a former Nominated Member of Parliament, social entrepreneur (Hush TeaBar, WorkWell Leaders, A Good Space, SG Mental Health Matters), ICF Professional Certified Coach and author. She is working on her next book, The Upsides of Being Down, an anthology of stories of well-known and ordinary people living and thriving with, and through, mental health conditions.