Tony

Tony McLaren is National Co-ordinator at Breathing Space the free, confidential phone-line for people experiencing low mood and depression. Here, Tony talks to Suzy Johnston about the car crash that led to his decision to leave the Church, and the dark times before he found his new vocation. This interview appeared in the December edition of Mental Health Today magazine.

There was a car accident. This was 15 years ago. I remember it very clearly – I was lying on the hospital bed in a state of disbelief that this male nurse was picking glass out of my head. I was trying to joke with the nurse, and he was laughing with me, but the things is, I felt a real sense of peace. It was something about having stopped, having actually stopped.

Up until then I had been running around trying to be all things to all people. As a priest, I was a bit like that: doing baptisms, marriages, funerals, spending a lot of time with sick people, being a chaplain to a secondary school – and suddenly I’d been, literally, physically, made to stop. I’d wrapped my car around a tree and I couldn’t move or get out the bed, so I had been given this time to reflect.

During those five days in hospital, I spent a lot of time contemplating my future. I was still in a priestly role; I knew I had to speak to the bishop about my future, and I realised that I really had to change my circumstances.

And then what was I going to do? I had studied for six years at seminary but I had no idea where I would work and had no trade to turn to. I also had no where to live, so I ended up moving back in with parents. When I went out I had to go with someone because I was in a wheelchair for several weeks and crutches for months afterwards. So that was quite strange, being dependant on other people. I think that was an issue for me because it made me feel ‘less’ in some way.

I also felt at this time isolated and alone, as many people I had known didn’t contact me. Mum and Dad and family were there, and a couple of good friends, who would come and take me out. O felt, though, that I was avoided, and this was hurtful. I was making a decision that people did not understand and furthermore did not agree with. I think people are ok with physical pain, but if you start to negate your whole essence, your whole way of being, by saying I’m not going to do this anymore’, particularly within the Catholic community, then that was an enormous decision to make, and perhaps difficult for people to accept?

Now I know that I was very low – my lowest ebb ever – but I didn’t see that at the time; I just didn’t recognise it. It was easy to concentrate on the physical side – my leg’s hurting, my head’s sore – but ultimately everything I had studied for, everything I had lived for, commitments I had made, the idea of my vocation, everything was being questioned, which ultimately made me state categorically that ‘I can’t do this anymore’.

I knew I had to get a job, I had to do something again. Eight months after the accident I gained employment as a trainee geophysicist of all things. I had to prove to myself, and perhaps to others, that I was recovering. The way I proved that was the only way I knew, to go to a place of ‘doing’. I felt valued. I was once again needed and had a role. I was there for six months before I left to get a job in the addictions field, which was a better fit for me. I had always wanted to work with people in their journeys. So working in the prison with drugs education and pre-release work and in a city centre drug setting helped me focus and gave me back my dignity and sense of worth. I was not going to be the giver on answers but just there to listen in a non-judgemental manner. If I could just be there, not the expert but just metaphorically holding their hand and be a listener that appeared to work – that was sufficient. Although I realised I also had to fine tune my skills, so gained some more formal qualifications at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities.

Breathing Space, which I know co-ordinate, has seemed like another natural progression. In working with a team of skilled people who are able to offer listening and signposting to many individuals, it feels that I have found a role that complements my previous work. To stay with someone in their stuckness and darkness and allow them to express their hurt and depression seems a great privilege and challenge.

That dark night of the car crash, it was life changing. I went down into a place, and after a time came out at the other side. What keeps me now in a ‘good enough’ place? For me the answer is relationship. Relationship with self, which then, like concentric circles, ripples out to affect other people and other circumstances in my life. At times when my own mental health is not good and needs care, that is when relationship with self and others has faltered. It is foundational for me.

To contact Breathing Space call 0800 83 85 87 between 6pm and 2am everyday or
>View more information online at www.breathingspacescotland.co.uk

>Read more information about Suzy Johnston and her recently published book on living with bi-polar disorder, The Naked Birdwatcher, online at www.thecairn.com

> View more information about the Mental Health Today magazine online