“The rational side of you is fully aware you’re not alone in this; the heart and the depression tell you’re the most isolated and worthless person on earth.”
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The subject of depression will obviously be kicked around a lot in the wake of Robin Williams’s death.
The people who see the surface image will say, “How could someone who’s rich and famous and sickly talented and widely admired—and someone with a wife and three kids—do this to himself? And his loved ones?” And pass all sorts of judgments about what a selfish prick he was, things of that nature. I commend them for their obvious, glorious states of perfection. For the uncanny ability to have figured out life. For never having to have had to question their existence.
For their lack of heart and compassion.
Most of one’s iceberg sits beneath the surface.
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Those who have been depressed, or have been around people who have been depressed, or have known people close to them who have taken their lives, or at least attempted to do so, know that most of one’s iceberg sits beneath the surface.
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I’ve never attempted to take my life, though I lost count of the many thousands of times over 40 years where I thought it would be a fucking great idea.
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I can only speak authoritatively for myself. I’ve never attempted to take my life, though I lost count of the many thousands of times over 40 years where I thought it would be a fucking great idea. I was never diagnosed professionally, but for about 35 years—from the onset of puberty to my first hormone shot four years ago—I knew incredible periods of darkness. Sometimes they would last weeks or months. An endless, 12-million-inch industrial dance mix thumping in my head and telling me how much I sucked, how much of a loser, a freak, a weirdo, how much of a piece of shit I was. No one could tell me anything. It probably was a factor in the end of at least a couple of my relationships. It was all-consuming. And while some people choose drugs, I chose food. It’s comfort material. It’s perhaps, I reckon, a slow suicide in chronic excess. And it was, and still is, an incredible struggle, even as I’ve finally started to emerge into a better state—this battle to wean myself off crap food and shed the weight that protected me from the world for so long, or so I thought.
The guilt that goes with having these dark thoughts and black spells is overwhelming, and it dogpiles upon the towering slag heap of negative feelings you already have about yourself.
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And the guilt that goes with having these dark thoughts and black spells is overwhelming, and it dogpiles upon the towering slag heap of negative feelings you already have about yourself. Especially when people near and dear to you are losing loved ones, or fighting cancer (sometimes more than once), or another debilitating disease, or, like me until recently, facing extended periods of joblessness and hopelessness and uselessness. The rational side of you is fully aware you’re not alone in this (and gets really, really pissed off when people tell you this in a scolding, schoolmarm tone); the heart and the depression tell you’re the most isolated and worthless person on earth. Even if you know a kazillion people. Sometimes the feelings that no one will ever understand you, or be able to keep up with you, or that you’ll never fit in somewhere or somehow, are incredibly overwhelming. Not to mention all-consuming.
Having navigated somehow between the Twin Towers of Anxiety (gender transition and prolonged unemployment), I’ve slowly come to realize at long last that it’s not all about me.
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I’ve slowly been coming around to a better place in life at last. I’ve been fortunate to have had friends who stuck by me, even when I didn’t deserve it. Even if they didn’t know what made me tick, or the things I was hiding from the rest of the world for so long. And I’m learning to be strong and available for loved ones who need whatever help they can. Even if just to listen. If anything these last few years, having navigated somehow between the Twin Towers of Anxiety (gender transition and prolonged unemployment), I’ve slowly come to realize at long last that it’s not all about me; it’s about we. And I still have my black moods occasionally, but they’re only hours long now, or maybe a day or two at the worst.
Just as I walk in the world with a lot of people who never had to question their identity, gender or otherwise, I walk in the world with a lot of people who’ve never had to question the darkness. It goes far, far beyond occasionally being sad or being moody. You always wonder if or when you’ll be sucked down that black hole again and have to spend days, weeks, months, years clawing your way out again.
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No one says “I want to be melancholy and kill myself when I grow up.”
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Depression is not something people choose. It’s a condition, a disorder. No one says “I want to be melancholy and kill myself when I grow up.” In my case, at least, there was a chemical element to it. But when it gets too much, some people just come to a point where they can’t keep fighting any more. I think what saved me from getting to that point are 1) I’ve always been afraid of death, and am afraid that, if I tried it, I would succeed; 2) the feelings of guilt, even if I’m now an estranged Catholic at best; and 3) I’ve been a pinball fiend since childhood, and the whole point of the game is to stick around long enough to put another ball in play, because it’s such a random game, a challenge, even if you know physics, and so many factors make that ball bounce at so many unexpected angles and speeds. That’s what every day is—some days, you rack up a ton of free balls, and some days, the ball drains down the side or splits the flippers before you even get a chance to play it. Just as long as you stay around to pull the plunger and place another ball in play.
At a certain point, the car can only take so much stress before it breaks down and possibly crashes.
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Anyway, I’ve never known of a brilliant comedian who was “normal.” (Think of it: Robin Williams, Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Paula Poundstone, Howie Mandel, the Pythons … ) I interviewed several, and met a couple, in my journalistic life, and read about enough of them, and believe me, their neuroses stand before you like Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic. They’re the fuel that drives these people. Robin Williams’ neuroses—and foibles—like his synapses, were there for all of us to see, and constantly fired on all cylinders. His mind was an Indy car that never stopped circling the track at 230, 240. And at a certain point, the car can only take so much stress before it breaks down and possibly crashes.
And finally, way below the surface, he crashed that one last crash. I always marveled at his talent and wished to hell I could be a fraction as funny and as rapid-fire and as goddamned talented as he was. Now, not so much. Not if it takes so much pain to cause so much joy.
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Even if you can’t begin to fix what’s broken inside someone, be supportive.
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You never know what’s going on beneath one’s surface, even if you think you know a person. Even if you think you know the meaning of life. Be kind. Be compassionate. Be not judgmental. And even if you can’t begin to fix what’s broken inside someone, be supportive. Know that no one in his or her right mind would want to leave loved ones behind like that. No one in his or her right mind would want to leave life behind in that manner.
It’s short enough, as I realize fully at 53, with an ailing mother and some friends who are going through some real wringers, with high school and college classmates and even a couple of friends in Fresno, the city I left two years ago tomorrow, who have departed all too young. It’ll end soon enough.
Time to put another ball in play.
Photo—r.f.m. II/Flickr
What happened to him could have happened to anyone. He was taking jobs he didn’t want and selling his house to keep the money coming in. He had two ex-wives and a family to support. After his heart operation he couldn’t do standup anymore then found out he had Parkinsons on top of the depression. If anyone was selfish it was the people who treated him like an ATM or appliance. How many other men in similar circumstances kill themselves? But that’s ok , since we are expected to provide and/or die if necessary.