Stephen Ilardi,
a clinical psychologist at the University of Kansas, has a thesis: as a
species, we’ve lived over 99% of our existence as hunter-gatherers, and our
body is designed for that experience. But what’s happened? Well, several
millennia ago, we started agriculture. And then eight generations ago, we all
cooked up the Industrial Revolution—and that’s completely screwed us up. Why?
Because our DNA, and thus our bodies, hasn’t had time to adapt to the
change—we’re still in the jungle, ready to fight or flee at the sound of a twig
snap. What do we get instead? The morning traffic jam, the eight hours of
computer screen, and fast food on the way home from it all.
I knew even at the time
that the life I was living was unsustainable. In my brief sojourn into
corporate America—hey, I’ll try anything once!—I could see what it was doing to
me, and my coworkers. I would arrive at 6:30 in the morning, caffeinated but
unfed. I would scrounge for food, and then go down to see my students, who
would tell me they were “stressed.”
This struck me as
curious, since all of the physical signs of stress—flushing, narrow eyes,
hyperventilation, etc.—were absent. In fact, my students more closely resembled
zombies that an animal about to fight.
But, in fact, the
students were right—they were so stressed that they could no longer respond to
the adrenalin that was coursing through them. Just getting the kids up, fed,
washed and dressed, and dropping them off at school had been enough stress for
the week. And so they had shut down.
I took fifteen minutes
for lunch, which was often “food” from the vending machines. I worked until
4:30, when the decision had to be made: sneak out “early” or wait for 5PM? It
wasn’t quite stated, but the official times for management were 7:30 to 5:30. I
had done my nine hours plus given up my hour for lunch, virtually, but still it
felt, somehow, like cheating.
That I was thinking this
way—that working almost ten hours a day wasn’t enough—is to tell you how sick I
had become. I discovered, after a year or two this, that I couldn’t see movies
on Saturdays: I was still too wrought up from the week; I was emotionally a
train wreck. I forced myself to get off the bus a mile before home, and walk by
the side of the ocean. But many times I couldn’t—I was too tired.
And so, when the ax
fell, I was already exhausted. But there was a twist—as toxic as the
environment had been, there had been one huge benefit: I was deeply loved by
many people. People who surrounded me, people I saw constantly. And then, the
Monday after the lay off, I was alone in my apartment.
I knew what I was going
to do, and I did it, hard as it felt.
I went to the beach. I
listened to Bach on the way, Beethoven on the way home. I smiled and said hello
to every stranger I met. I did it because I knew—if I sat down on the couch, I
would never get up.
I had read—guys who lose
their jobs gather in coffee shops, because they’ve gotta see somebody. My
coffee shop is a block and a half away.
Without knowing that I
was doing it, I essentially adopted Ilardi’s six-step treatment program:
- Exercise
- Sleep
- Omega-3 rich diet
- Social connections
- Sunlight
- Meaningful work
Yesterday, I had done
two posts, I had fixed the leaky faucet, and I had played a Bach suite.
Right—time to trot to the beach, which I did. And noted, as I was floating in
the water, a group of people in bad new clothes who were clustering around a
woman wearing Khaki pants and a navy blue polo. A photographer, obviously
professional, was setting up his equipment.
It hit me—it was a group
of Wal-Mart associates from the stores; Wal-Mart has the habit of picking
associates to “model” their clothes for the shoppers. Ostensibly, it’s to give
employees a boost in morale; cynics suggest that Sam Walton was too cheap to
pay for models.
And so they had been
corralled and taken to the beach, and were staring glumly out at me. I, of
course, was considering the rich irony of it. They had jobs but couldn’t frolic
in the water—no, their job was the beach, or at least to stand and look
attractive by it. And I? No job, no problem.
I wrote recently that
after two days of not taking a medicine for depression / anxiety, I was a
quivering wreck. So why, since I am essentially following Ilard’s treatment
plan, am I not “cured?”
Well, I read the answer
to that several years ago. Chronic depression,
or depression that has gone untreated too long, produces hippocampal volume
loss—a fancy way to say that the brain has been permanently scarred.
Or has it? All of the
work in neurology nowadays is suggesting that the brain is remarkably plastic—things
that we thought were hardwired and unchangeable can be rewired and changed. So
it may be that, after 30 years of healthy living have balanced 30 years of
unhealthy living, I can cautiously attempt to get off antidepressants.
I was lucky—the medicines
worked for me, and on the first try. And I have no deep-seated dislike of
medicines, and no burning wish to get off the drugs. What I do have, fiercely,
is one simple, overriding wish…
…never to be depressed
again.
