Everyone has been writing about Robin Williams,
and compared to the absolute beauty of some of the things that I’ve read, I’ve
hesitated to say anything. However, today thoughts have been swimming around in
my skull and as usual, it’s going to bug me unless I get them out.
It deeply concerns me how so many people run from
these tragic events. Not literally, but in trying to process them, they manage
to distance themselves from the feelings and the possibilities in their own
lives. I’m still haunted by what happened in Newtown and Santa Barbara. So much
of what has been reported involves finger pointing and why these boys weren’t
caught and stopped before they did these horrible things. It’s easy to
characterize these boys as monsters, because it allows us to separate ourselves
from them. But they weren’t monsters. They
were deeply, deeply sick, and in reality, probably misdiagnosed. If we characterize them as being inhuman
creatures with nothing but evil inside of them, it’s easy to say it could never
happen to us. But what if we talk about them in terms of illness? Could any of
us become ill? Of course we could. I suppose it’s freeing in a way to separate
oneself from all that dark sticky stuff. It can feel so exceptional to be able
to say “I’d never do that! I’d never harm someone else. I would never take my
life and do that to my family.” That may
be true, but it’s not because you are superior and able to safely curl up and
tuck into a little comfy corner of perfection. It’s because you’ve been
extremely fortunate.
We
Are Not Immune.
I can’t spend my time judging other people’s
struggles and how they should have been handled. And as far as mental illness
goes, I can always use a tune up. I have experienced depression first hand and
it sucks. “Sucks” isn’t even an appropriate
word to describe it, it’s debilitating and it feeds on itself. I have had
several bouts of depression in my life, probably never serious enough to be
categorized as Major Depression, but they still kicked my life’s ass. Probably the worst one was the year between
college and grad school when I was 23-24.
I lived with someone I couldn’t stand, had a boyfriend I didn’t love,
and was using my BA in Developmental Psychology to be a receptionist at a
software company in Silicon Valley. My understanding of developmental stages
was used to wash other people’s coffee cups and answer the phone. Looking back
I can say it was the worst year I’ve experienced in my life. I was still
drinking back then, quite a bit actually. I got to a place where I was calling in sick
to work every single day, and every day that I stayed in bed it got worse. I
started crying and could not stop. My close friends from college had all moved
on and away, I didn’t have anyone I fully trusted in my midst. I finally called
my mom who immediately drove up from LA and made me get out of my apartment in
Burlingame and walk outside. Things slowly got better and I began applying for
graduate school, but MAN. I would not
relive that year for anything. Since
then, I have had little bouts of it but I know what to do when I feel like I’m
sliding back in. You know that scene
from Poltergeist where the mom is outside in the rain in the swimming pool that
is still under construction? There are
corpses down at the bottom, drifting around in the nasty, filthy water. She tries to climb out but with all the mud
and the rain, she slips back down into the horror and there is nothing she can
do to stop it. I think about that and visualize it all the time because that
is what it feels like. I can find myself on the top edge of that pool, not fully slipping yet but close, if I have too much
time and nothing to do. It sounds insane to so many, I know. But if I have no plans and no structure for a
long period of time, I start slipping. I sleep too much, I stare at the TV for
hours, I never get out of my pajamas. Those kinds of days are fabulous once and
awhile, but when too many of them are strung together it becomes dangerous for
me.
The period of time after my father died was also really
tough, and I was depressed for about a year and a half. I don’t remember a lot
from that period of time, it was as though I were living under water. I was
working but not totally coherent, parenting but not feeling, hearing people but
not listening, talking to my husband but not loving him. I truly couldn’t enjoy
anything for awhile, and it was a terrifying feeling, I thought I would stay that way. I didn't, but you can't see that when you're in the thick of it. It’s all kind of a blur
now. I did write some during that period of time and rereading it is difficult
because it doesn’t even sound like me. Grief is brutal, and you have to just
let the time pass, as cliché as that it. There is no shortcut or fast forward
button, believe me, I tried to find them.
The things that help me are other people, but it
can be hard to reach out when I feel that way. Having things to look forward to
helps a great deal as well, specifically going to concerts and spending time with
my best friends. Being outside helps a ton, and exercise always does even
though I rarely do it. Music is one of the main things that makes me feel alive,
so my ipod is almost always on. I was
put on an antidepressant years and years ago and switched to another because of
the side effects. I still take it. I have no idea if I still need it or not,
but there’s this weird thing with meds like that…if you feel better, oftentimes
it’s because it’s working. If you decide to go off because you’re feeling
better, there is a very good chance that you will do a full cannonball dive
into the corpse pool. Why risk that? If
it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. There shouldn’t be a stigma with
anti-depressants, but there is. I will simply say that I know a number of
people that take them and you would never know it, you’d be shocked at who they
are.
We
Are Not Immune.
About Robin Williams, much has been said about how
much he made people laugh and gave so much of himself. So many seem surprised
that someone so beloved could have such demons, but that doesn’t surprise me at
all. I think fame these days is a tremendous burden, one I’d never want to
have. I imagine having to be prepared to be on stage every moment of every day
out in public and that pressure must be suffocating. Today I saw a lot about
how people who are in pain use humor as a defense mechanism, and how that was
probably the case with him too. Yikes. Yes, I absolutely, unequivocally do
that, and those who know me well would agree. It’s a lot easier to see things
in my life through my comedic lenses that are always within reach. I probably
do it too much, and that's something I’m conscious of. I have a hard time being
super emotional around other people, so it feels like a safe alternative for
me. Is it totally healthy? Probably not, at least as much as I do it. Humor is
how I’ve made sense of a lot of things in my life, and that’s been positive.
The key seems to be allowing myself to be sad or hurt, and letting people I
trust see that side of me and not always feeling like I have to make a joke.
Psychologists are human too!
We
Are Not Immune.
My experience with suicide was minimal until a few
years ago. I never seriously considered it myself, although it has crossed my
mind from time to time, especially in the young teen years. When one of the
closest people on earth to me lost someone close to her to suicide, I got
pretty damn close to it, a proximity I truly hope I will never have again. I
attended the memorial with her and I have never been in the presence of so much pure anguish in my life. Years later, it’s still raw and when it pops into my
mind, I try to push it out. Suicide triggers so many crazy intense emotions in
all of the people it affects, and it’s horribly painful to see. The fallout
lasts a long, long time and changes the lives of the people in its wake
forever. It’s hard not to be angry, and I believe that it’s natural to feel
that way. How could they do such a thing when so many people loved them? What a
vicious, selfish thing. I’ve felt that way about it too, but in the time that
I’ve had to think about it, I’ve realized something else. The extent of the
pain and desperation these people feel is far beyond anything we are capable of
comprehending. It’s insidious and overwhelming, it’s like hearing screaming in
the brain 24 hours a day. Everything hurts, and they can only think about
making it stop. Anyone who is in major pain of any kind can’t think about
anything but making it stop! So the notion of “how could they not think about
their spouse/children/friend?” argument has this answer…because they couldn't. Not
in that moment, not in that amount of pain. All they are focusing on is ending
their pain, and my heart goes out to anyone who has had to deal with this. It’s
nothing less than devastating.
We
Are Not Immune.
If you are struggling, please ask for help. It is
not weakness to go into counseling, it’s the exact opposite. It’s a sign of
self-awareness and incredible bravery. Counseling brings up all kinds of slimy
little things that have been buried a long time. Having those things bubble up
to the surface is incredibly unpleasant and it hurts. But, like I’ve told students that I have
worked with, “You have to claw your way through the jungle in order to get to
the beach. There is no way around it.
You must go through it.” It’s not a crutch to take an anti-depressant.
If your child were suffering from asthma, would you tell them that their
inhaler was a crutch? Everyone’s body needs different things.
Depression is not a result of poor faith, or
weakness, or cowardice. Depression is
not simply being sad or bummed out. Depression is a medical condition, and it’s
as real as cancer. Please be kind. Don’t point fingers and remove yourself by
distancing yourself from people who need help or who feel things differently
than you do. You are not stronger or smarter or better than anyone else if you
haven’t experienced it. You’re lucky. I don’t believe that any of us are
absolutely in the clear, not knowing what the future holds or what challenges
are waiting. It can happen to any of us, and life is too beautiful of a thing to
miss out on.
