'I spent 30 years searching for secret to happiness - the answer isn't what I thought' - Voice of Asia

In a deeply personal narrative, Fergal Keane reflects on his experiences living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression, and how he sought balance in his life. He discovered a deeper understanding of happiness in the process, one that is relevant not only to those facing serious mental health challenges, but also to those who simply need a lift.

The moment of inner change was particularly intense for me about two years ago. I was walking with a loved one at the eastern end of Curragh beach in Ardmore, County Waterford, a place that has been a warm sanctuary for me since childhood. We stopped by a river that flowed into Ardmore Bay. I listened to the different sounds of the water – the rush of the river, the waves crashing on the shore. Suddenly, the sound of dozens of wings cutting through the air arrived. A flock of Brent geese flew past the cliffs, rising on the wind. I felt a lightness within and laughed with gratitude.

“So this is what happiness feels like,” I thought at the time. To borrow and slightly adapt the words of the novelist Milan Kundera, I felt a beautiful “lightness of being.” That moment came back to me this week. I was thinking about “Blue Monday” – supposedly the saddest day of the year. Anyone who has experienced clinical depression or PTSD will tell you that sadness has no specific day. Even on the brightest day, in the most beautiful place, you can still feel your mind trapped in permafrost.

But “Blue Monday” did prompt me to reflect on happiness. What exactly is it? What does it mean in my life? Not long before that beautiful flock of geese appeared, I had come out of an emotional breakdown. It was March 2023, and I felt like I’d gone 12 rounds with a heavyweight boxer. But the opponent I was fighting was myself, as I have done for decades. I have been hospitalized many times over the decades, going back to the early 90s. I had been fighting a relentless battle with shame, fear, anger, denial – all emotions that are the opposite of happiness. Those days were dark and terrifying. Even in the height of summer, every tree branch was bare. I would wake up at night, drenched in sweat, tormented by compulsive rumination and nightmares until dawn.

Add to that recovery from alcoholism in the late 90s, and I’ve done a lot of research into the dark night of the soul. By the time of the 2023 breakdown, I no longer expected happiness. By then, I only asked for a little peace within. I resigned from my job as BBC Africa editor in 2019 due to struggling with PTSD. Two years later, I wrote a book on the subject and made a television documentary for the BBC. Yet, even after that, I experienced another breakdown.

Professor Bruce Hood of Bristol University talks about the human tendency to be “catastrophising… focusing on our own faults or failings.” He runs a ten-week science of happiness course in Bristol and talks about the need to find balance, because as he puts it, “our minds tend to interpret things very negatively.” This resonated with me. But a note of caution: Professor Hood’s area of research is about addressing general low mood, and he makes it clear that focusing on the science of happiness will not necessarily cure people with conditions like PTSD.

I have a clear diagnosis. I was first told by a doctor that I had PTSD in 2008, the result of multiple traumas experienced as a war correspondent, but also rooted in a childhood in a family environment damaged by alcoholism. Depression and anxiety are major components of this condition, as is addiction to alcohol. I also escaped into the exhilarating energy, camaraderie and sense of purpose that reporting conflict brought. I would also stress that what I have done to seek happiness may not necessarily work for others. Some specific mental health issues require equally specific treatments. For PTSD, a combination of therapies has helped me enormously, as has the company of others with similar experiences.

Medication has also eased the physical symptoms of anxiety and hypervigilance. A dropped plate, a car backfiring, could turn me pale, trembling and sweating in seconds. Likewise, nightmares could make me toss and turn in my sleep. I am lucky to have access to the best treatment. There are many others in our society who do not have that opportunity. According to the British Medical Association, over one million people are waiting for treatment. It is also important to recognise that there are many social, economic and cultural factors that affect our ability to experience happiness.

There is ongoing research into the genetic predisposition to depression and addiction. The World Wellbeing Movement (WWM), a charity that promotes wellbeing in business and public policy decisions, says that one in eight people in the UK are living below what they call the happiness poverty line – this is measured using data provided by the Office for National Statistics annual report and is based on the question: on a scale of 0 to 10, how satisfied are you with your life overall nowadays? The WWM describes the one in eight figure as “shocking” and says “worrying issues relating to mental health remain unaddressed and underfunded.”

Having expressed my caveats, I hope that something of my experience, and the recovery tools I have been generously given, might help those struggling with the loneliness of depression or the turmoil of PTSD, or just the normal pain of life from time to time. In my experience, the secret to happiness is… that there is no secret. It is there, all around us, waiting to be discovered. But it is not permanent. It is not the natural everyday state of human beings; any more than depression or anger is.

As Whitney Goodman, an American psychotherapist and author of Toxic Positivity: How to Embrace Every Emotion in a World Obsessed with Happiness, says: “To me, anyone who is obsessed with getting you to feel happy all the time is selling you snake oil. It’s not real. It doesn’t work… Telling people that they just need to be happy, to manifest different thoughts, I think that ship has long sailed.” I’ve sat in a therapist’s chair for years, sometimes looking out of the window of a psychiatric ward, hoping for some perfect cure that would fix my mind and battered spirit.

For me, loneliness has been the defining feature of my mental health problems. I looked deep inside and found nothing worth loving or admiring. I closed that door. The answer did not come in a blaze of light. If I could pick out one thing that has made the biggest difference – after I was stabilised by therapy – it is work, and always work. Not the kind of work that kept me almost constantly exhausted in the pursuit of news and awards, those things that were so crucial to my insecure ego. A word to all those who get validation from work: the workaholic is the most acceptable of all addicts. Indeed, they are lauded. Why would you change when bosses and society are applauding you? Work is a permissible addiction.

The work I am talking about is very different. No-one will tell you how brave, how talented, you are for the work you do to find genuine happiness. But you will feel it in the reactions of those you love, in the gratitude of waking up without fear, in the perception of beauty around you. And in the knowledge that you are keeping promises and living as a person who not only talks about caring for others, but tries their best to live that talk. One night in 2023, while in hospital for PTSD, I watched a documentary in which the American psychotherapist Phil Stutz talked about three fundamental truths that needed to be accepted by those struggling with mental health issues: life can be full of pain, full of change, and living with those things requires constant effort. I was exhausted by the pain. But I was also willing to do anything to find inner peace. Happiness came later.

What did I do? Simple things at first. I write a gratitude list every morning. I take a daily inventory of the good things in my life. I read more poetry, because it calms me. I take walks with the dog along the Thames and in Richmond Park. I even started meditating – a miracle for someone who rarely sits still for more than five minutes. I go to the cinema more often. I do simple household chores. Not the occasional cameo in the kitchen for the past few days, but regular cleaning, washing, cooking, paying bills. Miraculously, I can do it! I make more time for friendships. More time for love too, for those who matter most to me. I listen, where before I might have talked over. I try to shut up when someone wants to express a grievance, instead of allowing childhood defensive habits to take over.

I actively help those who are struggling. Those in recovery from addiction will know the adage about sobriety: “To keep it, you have to give it away.” The same is true of happiness. The Finnish philosopher Frank Martela of Aalto University suggests acts of kindness as part of the solution. Finland, by the way, is ranked number one in the World Happiness Index. “Connect with others, connect with yourself,” he says. “Connect with others through social relationships… do good for others, contribute through your work or small acts of kindness.”

I have a great old friend, Gordon Duncan, an addiction counsellor, who first alerted me to the fact that I had a lot of anger bottled up inside, which contributed to my alcoholism and depression. We clashed a lot in the first few weeks of knowing each other, but over time we became the closest of friends. I went to visit him one day when he was in hospital and found him in a coma. Neither of us were particularly religious, but I whispered a prayer in his ear that we both cherished: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

I don’t know if he could hear me. I suspect not. But I remembered something he used to say to me when I was in a bad place. “You’re stronger than you think, kid. Stronger than you think.” I pass that on to all who suffer in spirit. For me, I know that things can change quickly. There are no guarantees. Not for happiness or anything else. But I accept that. The American writer Raymond Carver, who survived alcoholism, wrote some of the most beautiful poetry about sadness and happiness, and left a short poem before he died of cancer at the age of 50. It was his epitaph, and I think it sums up the whole pursuit of happiness. “And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.”

I will wake up tomorrow, glad to draw back the curtains, have a coffee and think of those I love, near and far. And then I will get back to work, the real deep work that goes on every day. _Additional reporting by Harriet Whitehead_