Richer Reading Life Book #1

I'm opening the books section with The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, a book by a woman. I've dealt with depression for many years but I've done it pretty quietly since very few people I know understand the complexity of what that means. I wanted to dive into a book that was written by someone who understood that struggle. Despite dying several decades before I was born, Sylvia Plath gets it.

The struggle for Esther (the protagonist) is that there is nothing particularly wrong in her life but she can't read or sleep. She's deeply unhappy and no one around her appreciates what her ailment means. This was back in the days of shock treatment and a suicide attempt meant being institutionalized. While I squirmed hearing Esther talk about slashing her wrists, I'm glad there is something out there for ordinary folks to understand what this all means.

I love the quote explaining the title: "If Mrs. Guinea had given me a ticket to Europe, or a round-the-world cruise, it wouldn't have made one scrap of difference to me, because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air." Put us in the most perfect place in the world with the best people and our brain chemicals will prevent us from enjoying it.

She also nails the fear every person with a mental illness struggles with: "How did I know that someday—at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere—the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?" We live our lives knowing that if the medication changes or a big life event happens, we can go back to that dark place. We don't live in fear but can never forget that is an ever lurking possibility in our lives.

Plath died tragically young, by suicide, leaving this as her only novel. I have her collection of journal entries and her collected poetry on my birthday wish list so we'll see what happens. I want to explore more of her work because there's something beautiful in someone's words reaching across space, time, and death to make someone else feel understood.

Unpopular Opinion: Sweet People Need to STFU Sometimes

This was partially inspired by a reddit thread and a few actual events. Most people who know me don’t read this but just in case, I apologize in advance if I offend any of you.

I think the world needs kind people with sweet, sensitive souls. Life is hard and ugly and sometimes we need a reminder of its sweeter side. I especially respect these people if life has been hard on them and they are still this way. It’s remarkable.

That said, I have a hard time taking life advice from people to whom life has been kind. If nothing major has ever gone wrong for you or nobody has died on you, keep your life advice to yourself.

Both of your parents are alive, well, and happily married. Mazel tov. We spent the Christmas I was 13 trying to figure out my father’s funeral.

Your grandparents are alive? That’s beautiful to have so many generations around to spread love and celebrate. One of them has hints of dementia? That’s terrible.

I spent most of my twenties helping my mother deal with my grandfather’s immobility, dementia, nursing homes that stole his cookies, his total disconnect with reality, and failing health. I got a lovely preview of coming attraction for when it eventually happens to her. Did you know people with dementia can be very ugly and spiteful? I do!

I’m really glad your extended family can come together, stays in touch, and just straight up loves each other.

My mom’s sister was 12 sorts of useless when it came to caring for my grandfather. She didn’t speak to my mother for several years while we got to deal with the fun times. Did you know my grandfather’s wife slowly stole money from him and wrote all his grandchildren out of his will? Or that the son she stole said money for didn’t do a goddamn thing when his mother was dying? That fell to my mom. And by golly was he horrible to my mom.

Your secure career with excellent pay and benefits is stressful. Please tell me more.

I’ve never had one of those so I don’t know what it’s like. It’s actually quite fun to guess if you’re going to have enough money for bills when they come due. Who doesn’t love going on interviews and not hearing back? How about that delightful moment when you realize how much cheaper your life would be if you had benefits like transit subsidy, healthcare, and the extra income you’re not making as a temp?

Of course I want to hear about the problems in your romantic life. I’m very single so I get to live vicariously through you.

We all want to find someone to love us but it’s really fucking hard, for some of us. Hey, it’s not like I’m the ugly friend and most guys only acknowledge me to get to you. Oh, wait… It’s really reassuring to hear you tell me I’m pretty. No one else seems to think so but I’ll keep being in denial about popular opinion and hope that doesn’t eventually seep in and destroy my confidence.

You think depression is like being sad and don’t want to deal with the negativity? That’s cute.

I’m going to be in the corner hoping my crippling despair subsides enough for me to do laundry. Hey, who doesn’t enjoy routinely contemplating the pointlessness of their existence? I would love to ‘choose happiness’ but my brain will not allow that to happen. It’s really great when nobody around you understands and doesn’t particularly want to know you’ve got these problems. Maybe I can make it through the weekend without acting on the urge to kill myself. We’ll find out.

Now I’m not in the ugly depressed place right now but that has been my reality before and may very well be my reality again. I’m also not single anymore but if I was out with my friends, I was the grenade the guy had to jump on to get to the hot chick. Forever alone folks, your pain is not alien to me. A lot of this is in my past but it has toughened me up.

When life has been a bitch to you, getting life advice from someone who hasn’t been there but thinks they know what they’re talking about is remarkably condescending. People with kids don’t want to hear advice to someone without them. Dog people don’t want to hear suggestions from people who have never owned dogs. Tourists don’t give directions.

I don’t want to offend the softies out there but I’m not the only one thinking this. If you want to be supportive, by all means do it. People in hard situations need all the support we can get. Just keep your audience in mind before you talk and respect that you don’t know their experience. 

How Did I Get to Alone?

I have struggled with depression off and on for most of my life. Sometimes it's worse than others but more people need to talk about what ails them so that healthy people can better appreciate what we're going through.

Regular people don't understand how much this illness does to people. It's more than just a 'bad day.' It robs you of the ability to feel joy. It saps your energy and puts such a spin on your mental state that you're not in total control anymore. Because it's such a personal feeling and experience, it is a very isolating illness.

Depression is isolating not only because of how it makes you feel but how it makes the people around you feel.

A lot of people don't want to get that close. They know you have a problem but if they acknowledge it, they might have to deal with it. They don't want to know what you're dealing with.

If you try to tell the wrong person, you figure it out pretty quickly because they shut you down. They deny what you're trying to tell them, dismiss it, minimize it. They jump through a lot of socially acceptable hoops to ensure this doesn't become something they have to deal with. They want no responsibility for your mental health.

Of the few who don't happily leap toward denial, you have to decide how much you let them see. What can they handle? What can you count on them for? Did you make a mistake picking them?

Getting support from people who can't see the depth of your struggle often makes it worse. They offer suggestions but they're the suggestions of people who don't understand the bad days can last for weeks at a time. Positive words and kitten videos don't cut it when you're contemplating what's tying you to this earth. How do you explain to someone their off bad day is sometimes the best you can hope for?

What happens if you let someone see how deep the rabbit hole goes and they can't or  won't deal with it?

They've never 'casually' contemplated suicide. Which method hurts less? Which has the easiest cleanup? How do you make sure you're found? Ridiculous reasons to ignore the urges like a new movie, unread book, or upcoming holiday. How can you make them understand?

You can't.

They can't handle your negativity in their life. They don't believe you really want to get better. They get sick of the impotence of being unable to help. Worst of all? Some just don't care.

Rather than risk adding all of this to your burden, you keep it to yourself. You get burned by the uninitiated enough times, you eventually stop asking for their help. Why ruin a relationship by giving that person the chance to do something you won't be able to forgive or forget?

You already feel alone in your experiences. Sometimes it's easier to try to bear it alone than feel abandoned by your supports.

What Depression Really Looks Like

People who have never been depressed like to call suicide "a permanent solution to a temporary problem." What they don't understand is that it doesn't feel temporary while you're living it. It feels like it will never stop. 

Steven Fry says the depressed "get overwhelmed by the monstrosity of being" and looking into "a futureless future." He is exactly right.

You feel so remarkably pointless, like the world would be wholly unchanged without you in it. It is not a better place for having you in it and might be improved without you. 

Would anything be different today if you didn't get out of bed? Would any major crisis happen if you failed to leave the house? Would there be any consequences at all?

You seriously doubt that many people would miss you. After 6 months, you assume most everyone would be fine.   You do not doubt how replaceable you'd be. Frankly, you think some people might be happy to be rid of you.

You don't understand why these thoughts aren't normal.

The 'futureless future' is just a continuation of the existence that brought you to this dark place. You are incapable of imagining any improvement to your situation. It is almost literally more than your mind can fathom.

You just want to curl into a ball of misery and be left alone, hoping it goes away. Sometimes, you even enjoy the misery at its worst because at least it means you're feeling something. It's a change of pace from the numb exhaustion of pretending to be OK.

You can even be OK, at least for a while. You can smile, you can laugh, you can enjoy things but depending on how close you are to the edge, it doesn't take much for it to all disappear.

Nobody likes dealing with a depressed person. Talking to us about why, on a global level, our problems aren't that bad doesn't register anything but guilt. If you can't talk away cancer, why should you be able to talk away a chemical imbalance that takes away our ability to feel joy?

The most isolating feeling is when your friends are right there and none of them have a clue how much you're drowning in this. You pull yourself together because you don't know how to explain this feeling to people who have so little wrong in their lives, let alone in their own brains.

Telling them how you really feel runs the risk of finding out a truth you might not want to know: when your going gets tough, they will be the first to get going. 

You don't trust most of the people in your life to hear any for help as anything more than a shout in the void. Because the friends who do care can't make you feel better, eventually you start to make your friends feel pointless. You stop reaching out to them so at least you can pretend it's your choice when your alone. 

I've had some version of this existing within me my entire life, including childhood. It's severity fluctuates but it has never been completely gone. 

Destructive or harmful things are appealing to me more than ever. The people I want to talk to about these desires is the smallest it's ever been. 

I think the moment that scared me the most was when I had a dream where I took an entire bottle of prescription antidepressants with the intention of ending my own life. According to the Internet, killing yourself in a dream means a desperate desire to escape your waking life. Where do you escape when you have no where to go and the thing you're trying to escape is your own life, your own brain?

10 Year Reminder I've Failed To Do Anything with My Life

My 10 year high school reunion is coming up in less than 2 weeks. I said back when I first heard rumblings about it that I wouldn’t go unless I was working. I’ve had one interview in 2 months. I heard a little bit from the agencies today but I’m not optimistic.

My job search has been so abysmal this time around that my plan is to move to NOVA in August and try to get a job at Costco. One friend said "Well, it's just until something better comes along." I didn't have the heart to tell her that by doing that, I've admitted to myself that I've given up on better coming along. Four years of college and I can go back to working retail. I feel like such a wunderkind.

In addition to my complete lack of success as a member of the human race, tickets for the reunion are also $60 a pop. You get a commemorative wine glass and part of it’s a donation but that’s still a lot of money for not a lot of party. It’s at the high school from 4-6 cookout style.

My unemployment payment is at a record low. I think the woman deliberately screwed me because I forgot to mention I got one week’s severance much like she forgot to ask. When she came back to talk to me about it, she treated me like I was deliberately lying to her. I genuinely forgot because unemployment took their sweet time getting in touch. By the time I finally heard from someone, that severance was gone.

I’m not interested in spending $60 or $120 I don’t have. I can feel like just as much of a failure elsewhere for free. My depression is making sure of that. It’s not the worst it’s ever been but I recently had a dream where I deliberately took an entire month’s worth of anti-depressants with the intention of taking my own life. That was new and it’s not good. Something has to change and soon.

Funny Ha-Ha

I follow 8fact on Facebook and I saw a factoid today that I strongly believe in.

A research conducted on comedians and people generally perceived as humorous showed that funny people are usually more depressed than others.

In order to mock the world around them, funny people must first be clever enough to see it for what it truly is. Our world is a deeply screwed up and depressing place. You can’t put a comical spin on what you don’t see. When things are dark and awful, you can laugh or cry. Funny folks choose to have others laugh with/at us.

Lewis Black is considered an extremely funny guy but would you ever describe him as happy? Most of his specials are prolonged rants about what’s real in life. Christmas showing up Hanukkah? True. Starbucks inescapably out of control? Fact. Celebrities getting stupider? Totally a thing. His observational humor is hilarious but in order to get to funny he had to get frustrated at first.

Most people try to deal with their issues or push them down and ignore them. Comedians exploit them. Neurotic or OCD? Laugh at my oddities. Can’t sustain a relationship? Schadenfreude humor. Plagued by racial stereotypes? Comic fodder. Your family is a complete nightmare? Let’s hear a story about last Christmas.

One of my best, and oft requested stories, is about a date where I almost had a panic attack. It’s a great story but I can’t tell it more than twice in a night because I have to relive what almost drove me to the panic attack each time.

My friends would absolutely tell you I’m funny. I have a dry, sarcastic wit and a bit of blackness to my humor. You don’t get those things from seeing the world as a haven to rainbows and kittens. In the past I have been depressed to the point where I should have been talking to a professional but couldn’t afford it. I’m better now but I am no stranger to Eeyore days. I’ve just gotten better at spotting those days and trying to cut them off at the pass.

To paraphrase PostSecret founder Frank Warren, every person you meet is fighting a hard battle and if you knew it, it would break your heart. I believe every person who can make you laugh could just as easily tell you a story to break your heart. We choose to laugh instead of cry.

Music: I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight by U2