Three
adjectives, or maybe—he might say—two adjectives and a stigma. Because that’s
what mental illness is, he argues in his TED talk—there’s still a lot of shame
and blame about being sick in that part of your body behind the eyes….
Well, as
someone who swallows 20 mg. of Lexapro and 15 mg. of Remeron daily, I was more
than prepared to listen. Also to consider the question: has anything good ever
come for me from my long years of depression?
Change a
life—I had never known those many, many dark days when it was only habit and
custom that got me out of bed. I never sat in those toilet stalls at Wal-Mart
weeping silently, never canceled classes and sat in my classroom and stared at
the walls, trying to banish the thought, “I want to kill myself,” which had
become the mantra echoing through my mind. I woke up every morning, felt happy,
and went about my business.
In short,
the forty years of depression
never happened—they felt as good as I feel today.
First
reaction?
God, do I
wish!
Breel
argues that one of the benefits of depression is that it allows you to see the
bright side of life, and that you have to know the valley to appreciate the
mountain. Yeah? I’m not sure; would I appreciate walking more if I had spent time
wheelchair bound? Don’t think so….
The
depression may have made me more sensitive to others—that’s true, I think. It
also gave me a certain strength—if I survived those years, I’ll probably get
through today.
And yes,
I’ve read Thomas
Moore’s books and I think they’re
good—and I don’t buy in. Sure, if you’re going through a divorce, or a
significant loss, or a major life change—you may experience the dark night of
the soul. But there is one hell of a difference between a major life event and
a major depression.
Consider
it—I was in a stable, long-term relationship; I had a job, a home, pets, and a
loving family. I was also excruciatingly depressed. Yeah, you could argue that
the job wasn’t the right one, that a creative side of myself was unexpressed.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the depression. The only
answer was medication.
Sorry—but
to say anything else is just more stigmatization, another way of saying, “oh
just buck up and adopt a positive attitude.” And so, by the way, is the recent
spate of articles saying that antidepressants don’t work.
Yeah? Let
me tell you what doesn’t work—exercise, music, writing, time spent in
contemplation, meditation, talking with friends. How do I know? ‘Cause I do all
of these things on a regular basis, and guess what? If I miss two days of
Remeron, I start to feel shaky and anxious. That happened to me two weeks ago,
but I was smart enough to go to the pharmacy, explain that I had run out of the
pills two days before, and that I had an appointment with my doctor in a couple
of days.
They know
me, nodded, and got me the pills. I took the Remeron immediately, though my
hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the glass. And I felt perfectly
fine forty minutes later.
I feel now
that I’m spinning my wheels—that I need to write something and I don’t know
what and it’s scary. I’m not undisciplined, I’m not a coward—but something is
blocking me. So I may do the dark night of the soul—why not?—and sit down and
confront myself. But trust me—no depressed person could do that. That takes
every molecule of mental health—a depressed person doesn’t have the strength
even to think of it.
That said—I
wonder if there really is a stigma today about depression or admitting to a
mental illness. Part of it is having come out as a gay man—after you do that,
admitting to depression is a sort of snore. But it may be true—for many years I
could not get help, and it took a screaming brother and a panicky husband to
drive into the arms of a psychiatrist.
“I want to
die,” I once told a student, who popped back with, “that just means you’re not
listening to God.”
The fury
that surged through my body was liberating—perhaps nothing she could have said
was more beneficial. And so we come to the theory that depression is simply
rage or some other negative emotion suppressed.
Maybe—but
can we just do whoever-it-is theorem? Remember—the idea that when there are two
or more competing explanations, go with the simplest? Here it is, then.
We’re gonna
have to go back to the idea that there are two major types of depression—one
situational and reactive, the other biochemical. And we absolutely have to get
through our heads—asking anyone with a biochemical depression to do anything
except take medicine is like asking a diabetic to adjust his blood sugar
without insulin.
The other
thing we need to do? Interventions—because a depressed person cannot get help
by himself. I robbed myself of forty years because I couldn’t reach out and
couldn’t get to a shrink. Until the crisis came, I was stuck. So it’s simple—we
ask everyone close to us if they’re depressed. If the answer is yes, we call a
shrink, make an appointment, and tell the person, “I’ve made an appointment for
you, and I’ll go with you.” It’s the only way to do it.
Was it
really 40 years? Were there really no good times, happy days, smiles, light
moments?
Yes and no.
Of course there were good times. But depression is a psychic pair of sunglasses
that seem to get brighter and darker on different days, but never seem to be
taken off. Change the metaphor—depression is the movie in black and white, when
all the rest of world is watching in color.
And if the
medium is the message? In other words, was I watching a different movie because
I was seeing it black and white?
Don’t know.
Think so.
Don’t
know….
