Holiday Blues

It is a typical dreadful autumn day here in Backwell. It is cold and blustery, the skies are leaden, and drizzle lashes fat middle age people in waxed macs and oversize wellington boots as they slip across the rotting leaf mulch caught in the broken pavements on the way to the old village hall where the locum psychologist holds court. How far they seem to have fallen from the heady baccardi breezer nights of last month, when beautiful young people writhed with their partners on the dance floors on the seafront all the way round the mediterranean.

Perhaps a fall too far, at least for this morning's patient.

Alison had been coming to see me since the start of the month to help her cope with depression following her return from holiday last august. Everyone experiences those holiday blues when the plane touches down again in Gatwick, and understandably. Its not just an end of fun and a return to work, but its also a return to the responsibilites that we have either been temporarilly relieved of (eg feeding, housing and employing ourselves), or have simply ignored (eg finances). This depression affects us not just mentally, but in terms of a real chemical reaction too.

For most people the depression passes in a couple of days with the return to the usual routine and our bodies chemically isolate us from these euphoric experiences so we can cope with everyday life. But after a month Alison was still suffering, and showing the clear chemical imbalances caused by depression. For Alison a depressive state was beginning to become the routine.

If Alison was expecting a course of positive re-inforcement therapy and a free handout of prozac she was to be sorely mistaken. I have lived abroad for many years, and travelled widely (not always entirely by choice). I know what it is like to socialise in the cafe societies of the continent, to belch in time to a brass band, to collapse unconscious in a heap on a sandy beach and wake up with the sunrise next morning. I know that there are many countries with warmer weather, lower taxes, lower crime rates, better healthcare and education, that make better cars and have a more sustainable approach to the environment. I have seen outside the box so what to suggest.

For a plump depressed 43 year old single mum, who worked parttime in the Co-op in Backwell the answer was simple.

I applied to the Local Health Trust to release funds for Alison to receive extensive long term treatment in a private clinic. Once cleared I used the cash to buy Alison a small apartment near Marmaris . This morning I finally waved her, and her son, (renamed Sakir after some bloke she met last august) off from Bristol airport on a flight to Turkey where she can start a new, and certainly less depressing life than would be possible for her in the UK.

Case Closed !