On Depression

This past week a friend of mine committed suicide.  The week before that, one of my relatives lost her boyfriend  to suicide as well.  Along with all of this, another man I know lost his close friend to illness, and when he reached out to me for support I ignored him, because I didn’t understand what he was asking of me; I didn’t know that he was hurting.

So I posted a short video yesterday imploring anybody who was feeling down to reach out to somebody, to take action, reminding them that there are people who care.  Great advice if you can take it; the catch-22 is that when depression hits, taking action is the last thing you’re able to do.

I don’t like malingering; and I don’t like excuses.  You can always find a dozen different reasons why what happened was inevitable, but that doesn’t move you forward, and it doesn’t change the outcome.  I don’t like the victimhood culture, whose members sit and navel gaze, while using their problems as an excuse to treat others poorly; as if they were the only ones with problems, when it sucks all around.

I do not like dwelling on problems.   I like to acknowledge them, deal with them, and move on.  But the problem with depression is that you can never truly escape it.  Sir Winston Churchill referred to it as a black dog, forever hounding at one’s heels.  All you can do is try and keep it at bay, with the understanding that every so often it’s going to catch up to you and drag you down.

Artist unknown.

They say that when someone’s drowning the warning sign is that they aren’t struggling.  They’re so exhausted and desperate for air that they don’t have the energy to flail or call out, and their only hope is that a life guard will see the odd mix of calm and desperation written across their face.  Depression’s a lot like that.  You do everything you can to hide it, to get over it, and when you’re at your worst is often when you appear to be at your best.  Reaching out feels impossible.  You’ll sit for hours just trying to muster the energy to get out of the house.  You’ll kick yourself for being pathetic, hate yourself for being useless, and chastise yourself for disappointing your loved ones; meanwhile you continue to dwell on the past, and miss deadlines.  The thought of trying to fix it fills you with terror.

Depression is a black dog I know all too well.  Maybe by sharing my story, I can help you live yours.

My Story

Sometimes I feel like a darkness got into me at a young age; or that something was ripped out of me, that there’s some part of me that’s missing, and that the black dog knows this, and will forever be on my trail.

The depression isn’t me; it was never meant to be me.  I was born happy and excited to see the world, I didn’t cry like so many newborns do, I stared in wonder; and I don’t recall any such bouts of darkness from my early years.  But somewhere along the way there was a piece of me that got ripped out; a capacity for a certain sort of joy and optimism.  I can still understand joy, and experience it vicariously in others – but within myself it seems to have gone numb.  I wonder if this is how an amputee feels?  They were born whole of body, and yet a piece of them was stolen, sacrificed to war or illness… I feel guilty for even making this comparison; and then I wonder, do amputees in North America feel guilty over the amputees in the third world who never receive a prosthesis?

This is why I don’t like the Victimhood Olympics; you’re both a winner and a loser whenever you play that sport.

When I was in 4th Grade, my family moved from Hamilton, Ontario to rural Alberta; I went from having a large group of friends, to being the odd man out.  Shortly after moving my father got laid off when his company folded, and was forced to go from working as a Professional Engineer to driving a taxi cab in Calgary.  This not only added financial stress onto the family, but emotional stress as well; how would you feel if, as a Professional Engineer with a family to feed, you were required to go back to square one?  Mix in the general lack of support for married couples in the 90s, and it wasn’t long before my parents were divorced.  Chaos in the home, and misery at school.  I had few friends, and even some of my teachers hated me; they tried to claim I was retarded, to force me into Special Ed, but my parents (bless them) demanded an IQ test.  After three days of testing, it became clear that my “learning disability” was due to the fact that I was so far ahead of my peers.

An aside; this may have been when I started to lose faith in all institutions.  The failure of my parents marriage; a hostile school system; the venal shallowness of social groups.  As the years would go on this lesson would be affirmed.  The Universities, the Military, the Justice System – they all claim to practice virtue; that if you follow their rules then you will be repaid in fair measure, and then when it comes time to collect your dues…

Middle School and High School were some pretty terrible times for me; but at the same time I don’t want to paint too dour of a picture for you.  The children who bullied me?  They were children.  The teachers who failed to mentor me?  They were nothing but kids in their twenties (and for the record, a few of them were great).  And as for me?  Well, I can’t claim that I didn’t bring a lot of it on myself.  Between the turmoil at home, and starting off behind the eight ball at school, it was an uphill battle from the start – but it was a battle that I fought.  By the time High School was done, I’d graduated with honours, played first sax in the Jazz Band, been a member of the football team, got into a couple of fist fights, and attended my share of parties.  I even dated a couple of girls…

…and yet…

And yet I feel as if something got torn out of me during those early years.  That I came to know evil when I was too young, during a period when the stability of my earlier years was ripped away, giving me nothing to cling to.  Those who were supposed to protect me either couldn’t or wouldn’t, and I saw just how cruel and cowardly people can be – including myself.

I knew Pandemonium at a young age.

The black dog’s been chasing me ever since; and every once in a while he catches me.

On Suicide

Suicidal ideation is nothing new to me; there’s even a certain romance in dwelling on your own depression and self-destruction; but I’ve never truly been tempted in that direction except for one time.

It was in my early twenties, shortly after moving back to Hamilton, prior to joining the military.  I can’t for the life of me remember what triggered it; probably some stupid girl breaking up with me, or something equally ridiculous.  What I do recall is being wracked with psychic pain, so much so that I seriously considered throwing myself off the balcony of my 19th story apartment just to make it end.

And then a song came on the radio that put things in perspective: Spinning Wheel by Blood, Sweat, and Tears.

This too shall pass.

I don’t know what I would have done if that song hadn’t come on the radio; that song just might have saved my life.

Living with the Darkness

There are times that depression hits you like a bad case of sloth, and everything you try to do to get out of it only makes it worse.  Other times times it can be a case of charismatic exhaustion; I put a lot of myself into my work, too much of myself at times.  Writing the script for Charisma for Introverts left me cross-eyed and incoherent.  Finishing my novel saw me passed out drunk on the kitchen floor.  Hitting render on Immersed in Subversion – particularly after all the hate and anomie from both aGGros and GamerGate alike – left me semi-comatose for a week.

I put myself into my work.  As much of myself as I can.  Sometimes it takes days to recover.

Other times depression acts like a companion.  The black dog sits by my side, keeping me company during the late hours.  We go on journeys together, through the underworld, where we confront evil first-hand.  We dissect it.  Sometimes we weep over the cruelty.  But we always return to the surface world unscathed.

There’s something cleansing about walking through the vale of tears, naked and unafraid.  I have learned more about God and Goodness by studying Demons, than by studying the scripture.  Maybe the scar was a blessing; the wound that taught me to understand pain.  The sickness that taught me to feel mortality.  The heartache through which I learned empathy.

Coping with Depression

When evil touches you – when its cold, bony finger reaches into your chest and touches your heart – a part of you dies.  Your capacity for love and happiness withers.  Your excitement and optimism fade.  You lose a part of yourself which can never grow back, but-

By understanding how much things hurt, you learn the value of kindness.

From kind, from kin – you learn to treat others like your brothers and sisters.

Sometimes this means speaking the harsh and blunt truth, whether they wish to hear it or not – but more often it just means treating people like human beings.  I try and look at them and see who they are.  See the worth in them that others ignore.  I try and smile at them, joke with them, and raise their spirits, even if our involvement is nothing more than a short transaction at a convenience store till.

There are so many people, dropping so much cruelty, for such paltry, egoistic ends, every day – I want no part of that.  Nasty jockeying of position over social media.  Sarcastic ignorance in comment sections.  So many empty people dropping meaningless cruelty.  I don’t want to play that game.

But neither will I play the game of appeasement.

The flip-side of the coin; sucking-up to those above you, crawling over-top of those below you – crabs in a bucket, Machiavellians on the open market – No!  If so, then depression and suffering mean nothing.  Nothing more than a coin flip.  I will do all that I can to crush and destroy those who believe that treachery and lies are a convenient strategy, I will have no brook with such monsters – I have known them too well; and I will not play their game.

I will remain good to those who are good.  Just to those who are fair.  Charitable to those who are in need.  And I will happily crush those who seek evil.

Kindness is all we’ve got, folks.  Be generous with it; and try and hold your tongue when you want to say something cutting.

Other reading

http://romanfitnesssystems.com/articles/depression/
http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/05/06/how-to-commit-suicide/
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/03/09/leashing-the-black-dog-my-struggle-with-depression/
https://vesnanox.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/life-is-not-like-gloomy-sunday/

ͼ-Ѻ-ͽ

If you have enjoyed my writing, please consider donating to my Patreon Account.