A TRUE DEPRESSION STORY
Rob
Rob's lifelong battle with his 'secrets' came to a traumatic conclusion when he was shot by police. His journey to wellness was both a mental and physical one.
my story
Kia ora, my name is Rob Mokaraka and I’m an actor and I’m a writer for stage and screen.
I didn’t know I had been suffering from depression, I thought it was normal to think how I’d been thinking over the last 25 years or more and everything came to a head for me in my life around 2009. The past was catching up with me after suppressing and denying years of secrets, so to speak. I had an explosion – a very public one – where I got shot by the Police because I was acting irrational and actually wanting to die that day ‘cos I was probably grieving in my head and unable to define what it was. So, I wasn’t myself that day. That changed my life for the better, so to speak.
The thing that I’d noticed, not then but over the year or so after the shooting, is I’d been building my basis of living on shame, guilt and failure and that’s not very conducive to healthy living as I found out. I was feeling really down, really dark, probably drinking more than just socially because I didn’t realise I was trying to escape from something but something was nagging me. I was also touring a show internationally as well as nationally which I was co-acting in and co-wrote. A successful show and still feeling down and having amazing accolades and responses from international audiences but still feeling like everyone was a liar, I’m not good enough, just feeling down and I wasn’t sure what this cloud was. Then slowly that was building over the year of 2008/2009 and then 2009 July that’s when I ended up trying to get dead, so to speak, to escape all this pain in my head. I’d been in that washing machine of thoughts and feelings for a long time. I thought it was normal so I didn’t know anything then about what triggers were. I didn’t know what patterns of thoughts were, so it had been happening for a long time on and off, some very dark moments.
When I was 21 years of age, I tried to take my life three times in one day. So, obviously, that’s a cry for help and yet my family didn’t know how to deal with it and I had to go see a shrink and I lied cos I’d been burying secrets for so long, to let anyone know this the world would end, in my mind. The world end and then everyone would call me every curse word under the sun if they found out, which wasn’t to be the reaction anyway when all the crap went down.
my way through
The thing with that, I think from the moment of this bullet entering me and having surgeries, it was like physically I was being opened up but emotionally I was being opened up so I had to release all these things and professional help helped me out and gave me tools and showed me options - basically gave me a whole kit of equipment that I never knew existed cos I didn’t know what this thing was. It helped me because I found out I wasn’t the only one who thought like this. All of a sudden it gave me a relief: a) that people didn’t hate me for all the secrets which were never that big, really, to some people. They were – most people, family, “Is that all? Oh, my God, if you’d just told us at the time.” I was, “Man, I’d made it so huge,” and that’s how my depression worked – it just kept getting bigger and the ocean got more and more.
The things that helped me in my recovery was professional help and over the period from me being in hospital for a long time to getting out, I saw probably four shrinks all up. Two were very helpful – the first one and the last one. Two in between weren’t and that’s okay, I suppose it’s trying to find the right fit. When I found the right fit it was easier to slowly open up this Pandora’s box of my own dark thoughts and feelings and helped normalise it for me. Also, family and friends – the real friends stayed and the pretenders left so it cleared the decks of any fakeness in my life and it really helped me be more open to them and still to this day they still give me a text or a call and, “Are you okay? Just checking.” I think it’s great, I feel like somebody’s looking out for me as well as still having the number to my shrink if I wanna chat about stuff. It’s been really helpful.
Unconditional love, like I said, it was great – the real friends stayed and then other people I didn’t know shared this thing called depression and they went, “Man, don’t worry, you’re not the only one. I tried this and then I had to and find ways to help myself.” Great, I’m not this alien, crazy anomaly that needs to be put away in a nut house. It was great to know things were universal.
staying well
Sometimes I feel like I’m leaping five steps ahead and just so bouncy and full of life. Then I might go back three steps now and again, I have to reassess where things were going a little bit astray. Like I said, when I got these tools I can go back and what am I not taking care of myself and the stressing. So, talking is huge but also, like I said, it’s great to have a shrink, man. I love my family and I love my friends, (but) sometimes I need people who are not going to have their own emotional baggage to try and get help ,cos it muddies the water. So, I like talking to my shrink, I just ring up sometimes, just a quick chat or go see them and it’s great.
I work in the arts and entertainment industry and sometimes the work is pouring through and there’s no rest and sometimes there’s a big drought. And it’s probably that’s an interesting metaphor for my moods and trying to maintain the stability of self, of mental health throughout those dry times. If I’m not feeling useful to helping something or someone or doing something productive then I can really start to play games with my head and go, “Hey, hey, hey, come on, come on, come on, come back into line, just go and find something or do something.” There’s so many things to do but I sometimes talk myself into a corner then have to talk myself back out! It’s okay, let’s go and do something and whether it’s writing or helping other people do their projects or going on this bike ride called Out of the Blue.
The writing for me – my writing – whether I’m writing for myself, especially on what happened to me, has been very therapeutic, it’s been hard. It’s been really hard, that’s why it’s taken so long to get it to a point to have it read out last year before I started putting it on. But also I’m writing a short film based around that event, not so much on me but it’s a great way for me to investigate my depression or depression in general.
It’s just how people operate, how we’ve got to be protective of ourselves but just to know that everyone’s got something going on to varying degrees. It’s been a great journey for me and learning.
