Don't know....

Kevin Breel is 19 years old, a standup comedian, and depressed.

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….

Remeron 15 mg PO HS

Taí asks how I am doing.

Which person is she asking? For while most people have two personae, I have three: the waking, the sleeping, and the up-at-three-in-the-morning.

Up at three in the morning is nothing unusual, I know. Guys who worry about their mortgages, their jobs, their teenage kids—they all get up at three. And in this life, who’s not worrying about something?

My getting-up-at-three is slightly different. I take a pill, Remeron 15 mg PO HS, that is something like a date rape drug—it knocks me out, only to wake me up at three. And then, I am sacked with a craving for sweets. I’ve done coffee ice cream (Haagen-Dazs, $5.99 at CVS), jelly beans, (Jelly Belly, 30 flavors, $3.49 at CVS), mozzarella cheese (not a sweet, I know, but diabetes runs in the family, so I forced the change) and last night, pineapple chunks (so does high cholesterol, so I’m trying this).

The other unusual thing is that while up, I’m not in that three-in-the-morning worry state. I’ve done that, I know that; no, I’m quite happy, though I’d rather be back in bed, asleep. But I munch on, and sated, frequently fall asleep in my chair. I awaken (marginally) just enough to (usually) lurch back to bed.

This is not a problem—what is a problem is what this drug does remarkably well to avert. And that is depression, which is the worst disease possible in terms of the quality of life.

Nor is that me—that’s the word from an article I read years ago. It seems that you can have anything, diseases as terrible as Lou Gehrig’s Disease or Huntington’s Chorea and still have a better quality of life. Not having any major diseases to date, I can only trust the authorities.

But at three in the morning, I am frequently trawling the Internet, stumbling on interesting webpages, and emailing them to myself. This is my only clue, when I wake up four hours later, of who and what I am and have been doing. It’s my one glimpse into my shadow self.  And last night, apparently, I was listening to “Sure on this Shining Night,” by Samuel Barber.

It’s a song that is impossible not to love. And it comes with a story, which I must have read last night:

No doubt the popularity of "Sure on the Shining Night" was amplified by Barber's frequent retelling of an anecdote that directly involved the song. In 1979, Barber had just moved into a new apartment in New York City and needed to call home. He was trying to reach Gian Carlo Menotti, whom he knew was visiting the apartment. However, upon trying to dial the number from the telephone booth, Barber realized that he could not recall the newly established phone number. The composer contacted the operator for assistance who initially refused to provide Barber with the number, but confessed that she possessed a "weakness" for "Sure on this Shining Night" and requested that Barber sing the song's opening phrase to confirm his identity. Barber complied and was rewarded with his telephone number!

Right—a nice image, the composer singing his most famous song in a phone booth in New York.

Oh, and by the way, Gian Carlo Menotti was visiting? If so, Gian Carlo had been visiting for half a century, since the two met at Curtis as students, and they had been life companions ever since.

From Barber, I must have drifted off to Rockwell Kent, because I found that I had sent off the following illustration:

Nice, hunh? Then I sent on this:

Hmmm—pretty erotic; was Kent gay? Right, so I looked him up, and the answer is no—he had three wives, five kids, and was sexually promiscuous.

But his work must have reminded of another artist, Paul Cadmus, and boy, was he gay. Take a look at this:

Mmmmm. How about this:

All that and he can read, too! Now then, where’s that famous one, you know, the guy on the bicycle…. 

You talking about this?

Well, I must have been falling asleep. But why was I even up in the first place?

Because of this….

More waiting….

Well, it troubled my day and vexed my night, that question of mine. So I asked Mr. Fernández at the dinner table.

“Where are the readers? I wrote a post today and left myself stranded on the side of the road, waiting for a público that might never come. And then I sat down with my cell phone in hand, expecting the calls of concern to come flooding in. And guess what! Not one! Nobody, but nobody, called.”

Mr. Fernández was patient, he frequently is. He explained that readers—more intelligent than I—would assume that if I were posting blogs (or blogging posts, don’t know which), I must have found my way to safety, or at least Wi-Fi.

Oh.

Well, the Remeron may not fully have kicked in. Or maybe it was just remembered dread. Let me explain. Getting off the island of Culebra was a breeze. For 2.75$ I got a ferry ticket, and sat in wonderful comfort and watched the ocean drift by. Culebra does that to you—puts you in such an alpha state that whitecaps become compellingly interesting.

Landing in Fajardo smashed all that!

Here’s the deal. The públicos are supposed to be just that—public. They’re not taxis, which are private. However, there are no taxis—just públicos. So guess what! There were all these públicos and about six of us who were not parked 500 hundred feet away. Right—six of us, five of whom saw the logic of paying ten dollars for a now-non-public público for a private ride to wherever they were going.

Guess who didn’t see that logic! And who, in the blazing heat of Fajardo Playa, forgot the words he had written: “arguing with a chofer is like arguing with a cat.”

Well, I was rescued, as I always am, by an old man who took pity on a ridiculous man and told me he would take me wherever…

…free!

The universe provides—though on its own timeframe.  

So I was sitting in comfort and listening to two other gringos practicing their Spanish and then I turned and saw it—a público marked Farjado to Río Piedras! Just what I wanted, I told my driver / friend / rescuer. 

No, that was Indio, and he’s going home for the day.

But then he saw another público. And that was the one for me.

But it was just going to Río Grande.

And that, Intelligent Readers, is how I came to be stuck in Big River.

Waiting on Highway 3—well, beside Highway 3—for a público that might never come.

Fortunately, I had company. The guy had lived in New Jersey for nine years and loved it. It was clean! It was orderly! You had a broken light on your car? Well, get ready, ‘cause the first cop you meet is gonna pull you over, take your license, and you’ll be at the station, next day, with your car repaired and your license back in your wallet! But here! Look at that car!

OK, it was more duct tape than car, but the guy driving it?

Wow!

And what about the status issue! Do you think this referendum is going to settle that? What do you think!

Puerto Rican readers will know, and will have tensed. Others won’t. Here it is: a group of Puerto Ricans favor statehood, a group favors independence, a group favors something called the Free Associated State, our current status.

This had puzzled me, those twenty years ago when I came unSpanished (I see you, you little red squiggly line, but I like it, it stays!) to the island. But even I could figure out Estado Libre Asociado.

But what did it mean?

“IT’S A LIE, A VICIOUS LIE!” screamed Mr. Fernández over the dinner table. I became alarmed—I had never seen him violent before. I removed trajectables (sorry, computer!) from reach.

Then I figured it out. The status issue had to be somewhere close-by.

“You’re a cultural genocidalist,” said Harry’s father to me, years ago. “It’s nothing personal. But your country has practiced genocide on my country. You therefore are responsible. And though I have nothing against you, I have to tell you that you are personally and individually responsible for the great wrong that has been done to my country.”

He was quite calm, but it seemed best to agree.

And he taught me a great lesson, which I—added value, as we used to say in Wal-Mart—will now teach you.

You are paying attention, right?

Never talk status.

The trick is to inquire what your interlocutor thinks, and then nod your head, appear thoughtful, and agree.

Were I in a classroom, I would have you practicing—it’s conversation / conversación 101.

Right, wow, good point / claro, estoy de acuerdo; muy buen punto.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” my buddy of the bus stop was saying. Look around you—Walgreens, Sears, Wal-Mart! Statehood is already here!”

And then, we spotted the público. Instantly, we dropped the question and stood jumping by the road and flailing our arms—they were still sore the next day.

But relax, gentle reader. It slowed, we opened the door, we plunged our bodies through to our seats.

You can sleep easily tonight—I was rescued.

To the edge once again

It’s the reason so many psychiatric patients eventually exhaust all but the most devoted of their support system.

Come clean—I stopped taking one of my meds.

But be fair—I told my doctor, my psychiatrist that is, and though skeptical, he agreed.

It’s called Remeron and it has two faces. The first is to lift the spirits. I looked it up on a great website—crazymeds.org. OK, maybe not the most reliable, but definitely more readable than the drug-sponsored sites.

This guy’s take (site is obviously written by a manic)?

Remeron is legalized marijuana.

Might be. Because it does exactly what dope did to me, those many years ago when I was young and experimental.

Remember the munchies?

“Coffee ice cream!” I shouted over my shoulder at Raf, who was puzzled—why was I going to CVS at 11PM? And why couldn’t I stop and answer, so urgent was the craving?

Oddly, I don’t actually like coffee ice cream—but four hours after taking Remeron 15mg PO at HS (that's for Ruthie, to remember her nursing days) I would commit armed robbery to get it.

Well, it wasn’t doing my blood sugar any good—to say nothing of my cholesterol. And my other antidepressant—Lexapro—had worked fine for two years, until Wal-Mart sacked me when I was working my way through the death of Franny. 

I convinced the psychiatrist. And I tapered off the drug, as instructed.

First days were fine. Actually, almost better than fine. I was in Culebra and had an exalted moment. I was on the morning trot, listening to The Creation, when it hit me, how uncannily apt the music of my journey had been. Starting with Winterreise as I went into the bottom of death and despair. Then Beethoven, the Heiliger Dankgesang—as I moved through sickness to health. Lastly, The Creation, as I gave birth and set forth a Franny—a new Franny, my Franny—into the world again.

The Creation—get it? The gods aren’t subtle around here....

We came to a hill, Franny and I—she was trotting alongside of me—and the Haydn came to a long, achingly beautiful ascending—acsending, catch that word?—passage.

Right, so we were three: Franz Joseph, Franny and I.

So I had Franz Joseph in my ear. I reached out and grabbed Franny by the shoulders and hugged. And we sailed up the hill together.

Right—all was well for the next couple of days. But then I stopped writing. Got off my normal schedule. And two days ago, had a very strange thing happen.

Hypoglycemia.

Well, it’s happened before. And somehow, it was 2PM and I hadn’t eaten anything. So I went to the café, and they made me a very good, very large tuna sandwich.

Oddly, the sensations didn’t go away. For me, hypoglycemia is about anxiety. I get desperate / frantic to eat.

You do, and it goes away.

Why wasn’t it?

Right—went to CVS and bought orange juice. Drank the full container. 

Still felt hungry.

Then Miss Taí calls—she’s sensing a rat, or maybe something fishy. I tell her about the hypoglemia. Call tomorrow.

By the time Raf arrives, I’m pretty much a wreck. Now I’m having muscle cramps, and I decide I need magnesium. And oddly, the muscles cramping are ones that never cramp—my fingers and the top of my ankle. Then I notice that I can’t really breath. Well I can, but not easily. And damn, what’s going on with my blood sugar?

Why am I so anxious?

And why was I still feeling strange the next day?

And feeling dammit it’s not fair why has my life been so fucking hard I’ve had to STRUGGLE FUCKING STRUGGLE for fucking years now and I’ve never had it easy and fuc kingf can fuqeiufam l;alcqm09rinf             p’

Phone rings. Miss Taí, wondering how my mood is? 

Can’t talk, I need to eat, call me tomorrow.

But she made me think. This couldn’t be hypoglycemia. Come on, Marc—you’re an old nurse. Think it through. What’s different?

I go into the kitchen. Why am I here? Why is a banana in my hand? Am I supposed to eat it…..

You can eat it if you want. Now go back into the kitchen.

Why am I standing in front of the sink?

Water—you need water.

And now the pill.

I see the pill in my palm. I take it and swallow it. It is four fifteen.

At five, I am doing dishes. I am telling myself, ‘you’ve also been given stuff many people have not. You are way talented in ways many others are not. You see things others don’t. You had wonderful parents, and have a long stable marriage. Yes, it’s been hard. But others have had it harder….’

OK—so Taí?  Call me at four—let’s figure out how to sell this book.

And thanks!

The Glorious Whatever

Is it a symbol or a symptom?

Everybody else has uncomplicated relationships with everything—or at least so I imagine. How would I know?

They live in normal houses and have normal wives and sure, the kids are probably smoking dope, but kids do, don’t they? I did. Still would if I could.

Auden wrote about it: “When there was peace, he was for peace. When there was war, he went.” That’s a rough quote—the damn Internet is still down. Can’t google it.

They drive their lives by me, standing at the bus stop, waiting for the achingly late yellow bus from Caguas. That’s fine. I’ve nothing else to do, and it gives me time to think. Anyway, I don’t have enough money for a car (not true, I have the money—I’d rather go to London….)

So I don’t have a normal relationship with anything. But today’s the Fourth of July—Independence Day! Should be able to get this right, right? 

Well, I could do a rough approximation. There’s a Walgreens up the street—they’d probably have the sparklers. Supermax certainly sells wieners. But Mr. Fernandez—would he eat them?

Yeah, with hollandaise sauce.

Well, I’d scarf them down, of course. But that’s only because of the drug I’m taking—Remeron. Two hours after I take it, I descend to the level of a seven year old demanding his Lucky Charms. There’s nothing I don’t eat—or crave.

But it does seem that the day warrants a serious piece. Think of it—a gringo living in OurIslands and Their People. Yup, I’m serious. That’s the name of the book—actually, it’s two books—that came out in the first decade of the 20^th century. (Hey, the 20^th century—remember that!  Sorry, digressive here….). Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands—all those lovely little gems that were gonna get stuck on the crown of American imperialism. It was meant to be instructive about their islands and our people, although that doesn’t seem quite right. 

I’ve lived almost more time in Puerto Rico than in gringolandia. Shouldn’t it be Their Islands and Us?

Well, well—it makes for jarring reading. Puerto Ricans are a friendly people, we are told.

True.

We / they are also…um….

Lazy.

Well, it doesn’t quite get put like that. I mean, post-Victorian manners dictate a gentler approach. But read between the lines. It’s right there.

I thought about this this morning, as I was annoyed by the construction / reconstruction / demolition / remodeling of the building across the street—nobody quite knows what’s going on there….

Point is—something was going on. And it wasn’t Puerto Ricans, but Dominicans. Working on…

…yup, the Fourth of July.

Not surprising—a decade ago, we had Dominicans working in the apartment above us on Christmas Day.

And the Dominicans lack the post-Victorian genteel manners of Our Islands / our islands. They have a word for us boricuas. Los mantenidos.

Literally, the kept. As in a kept woman. 

Well, why not?

It was a frequent theme in classes—those days gone by when I had a job. What in god’s name were we doing to ourselves? Getting up at five in the morning and taking the sleeping baby to mamita’s and coping with the corporate craziness and going home and studying with the oldest kid while cooking dinner—ok, cancel, we stopped at KFC or ate at mamita’s house—and putting our tired carcasses in bed at midnight and God it’s only Tuesday and…

…driving twice a day past the caserío. 

…which had cars newer than mine in the parking and satellite dishes and they only pay 5 dollars for electricity and do you know what my last light bill was?

Right. Once you got on this bus, you stayed until the school bell rang.

Many times, past….

Sin vergüenza, raved the students—no shame. 

Well, we were paying a high price for our vergüenza—that was for sure. Because however much the Puerto Ricans—those people in our islands—didn’t work in the first decade of the 20^th century, we were busting ass in in the first decade of the 21^st.

Well, a third of us.

Other third works—here a good Puerto Rican throws up his hands and paints invisible quotation marks—for the government.

Hah!

And the other third lives in those caseríos….

Being kept.

And quite well.

It was a paradox as curious as a gringo living in their island.

When Beethoven Goes Bad

It’s not music you choose to listen to. It’s also music you can’t stop listening to.

At least I couldn’t. I woke groggy and hung-over, after being awakened by a craving for potato chips at 11 PM. It’s the effect of a drug—Remeron—that's meant to jolt even catatonically-depressed people into paroxysms of hilarity and gaiety.

Works, too. But it does have this little side-effect—fierce cravings for certain foods.

Most of the time, it’s coffee ice cream. Last night it was potato chips. Followed—not wisely—by rum.

OK—the world of the hangover. Know that territory. It stays for a couple of hours, makes you miserable, goes away. Fluids and sweat help. Also getting out of the house. So I took my walk, and listened to the final quartet of Beethoven.

Or so I thought. It turns out that the Emerson String Quartet, for no reason that I can figure out, plays Quartet number 13 after Quartet number 16.

OK, whatever….

What I should have anticipated was that the Emerson would finish the quartets with…

…the GrosseFuge.

Let’s get this out of the way. It’s not music. It is Beethoven applying every last bit of reason against every last ounce of anguish. The effect—especially when listening with headphones—is of being locked in a cell with four howling and violent jackals.

“Repellent” is the word most people used about it in the 19^th century. Beethoven himself wrote—if the blogger can be trusted—“when the instruments have to struggle with monstrous difficulties…when each has different figures to cut across each other…amid a host of dissonances…when the Babylonian confusion is complete, the result is a concert only the Moroccans can enjoy.” (talkclassical.com) It was so disagreeable that Beethoven’s publisher begged him not to use it—as he wanted—as the last movement of the Quartet number 13. And Beethoven—not famous for tractability—actually acceded. And then published the Gosse Fuge as a stand-alone piece.

Well, I’ve heard it, of course. Turning on the radio, it will crop up from time to time. String quartet concerts…obviously. And there are arrangements for string orchestra and double piano as well.

It’s as ruthlessly logical as a psychopath. It’s also as fiendishly desperate as a junkie seeking his fix. It’s wildly unpleasant music.

Which is what Beethoven wanted. Or so I think, at least. Because I have been locked into the last quartets for the last month now, and, my take? Well, I just listened to it again. It’s aural rape. Beethoven replaces the string instruments with razors. And it’s structurally a hurricane—starting with gentle winds, then picking up in ferocity, raging, howling, battering. The eye descends, and a stupidly classical theme is produced. Then the virazón— the eye wall cracks and you’re into the fiercest part of the storm.

And Beethoven doesn’t spare anyone. He takes this snuff film of music through every last gash, every scream, every jolt of terror. The look of terror in the victim’s eyes? He shrieks with laughter.

And he wills it on himself. He puts himself on the rack and begs himself—torturer and victim both—to flail harder, remorselessly, unrelentingly. He glories in the blood spewing from his wounds; he kisses the whip that lashes his exposed viscera—all skin and muscle shredded now.

And this from a student of Haydn?

“This work is drenched with sex,” said a conductor years ago, referring to Debussy. The Grosse Fuge? Make no mistake—nothing de Sade wrote is as violent as this music.

That said…

…why is it healthy?

There’s nowhere he won’t go. He never backs down. He willingly dons the executioner’s hood and wills him to work. He faces every fear.

“Do you like the Grosse Fuge?” asks the blog talkclassical.com.

The question is stupid. Do you like brutality, ferocity, pummeling rage?

No.

But it’s there. And when, like the hurricane, it descends on you, you can only batten down, listen in terror as the winds shriek, the door rattles, the flower pots sail through the air and hurtle against your windows. It’s not music to be liked. It’s music to be experienced.