Originally written the week of Robin Williams’ death by suicide.
The thing about depression is that it really is not very funny. That’s what makes it difficult for someone like me who relies on humor and wit to deal with every problem that attacks in life. Sometimes you have to stand toe to toe with the devil and look him square in the eye.
Robin Williams’ death is one of those things that can send you on a downward spiral into depression and darkness. Whenever someone loses the battle, you are reminded how hard it is to pull yourself out of the old black oubliette, the dark hole that is depression. I had to take some time this weekend to mourn and be alone. No one else can really do anything to help, other than to be there and be willing to listen. People think you have to say something to help someone with depression, but, in truth, talking makes it worse. If you tell the person you know what they are going through, or you know how hard it is, they might become violently upset. Nothing is more personal or individual than suffering depression.
Now, I know some skeptical sorts of know-it-alls out there are going to immediately think, “What the hell makes this guy a so-called expert?” And they are probably right to question it. But here is what you probably didn’t know. Of the five members of my immediate family, two of them have been hospitalized for depression a total of four times. One incident involved self-inflicted injury. We reacted quicker than is financially sensible the next three times. Two members of my family suffer from bi-polar disorder, though only one of those has been diagnosed by a doctor, and only one of those was ever hospitalized. We don’t get many visitors in our home any more. My wife is rightly embarrassed by all the holes that have been punched through the plaster of the walls. I have been thrown down the stairs once. I have had to hide all the knives in the house three times. One of my children had to dodge a knife that was thrown at them. We have called the police on at least one occasion, and been called in by child protective services once. Through it all, I have been the one faced with talking down the sufferer. You look them in the eyes and see their pupils dilate, and sometimes the eye-twitch, and you know, “uh-oh, it’s time for the hurting again.” There is nothing I can say. There is nothing I can really do. I just have to stay there (you can’t leave the sufferer alone for obvious reasons). I have to keep the sufferer safe, and hopefully calm, and wait it out. And I have to be ready to listen. No jokes are allowed. If you haven’t stopped reading this yet because it is too hard and ugly to consider, I can offer a little bit of light and hope. I have gotten so good at doing this, that when a girl in one of my classes had a suicidal bi-polar meltdown, I was the one who knew what to do. (All those hours spent with psychologists and therapists count for something.) The principals and the counselors helped to keep her safe, but I’m the one who allowed her to vent and have her say, who took the time to listen and assure her that she really was being heard. I’m also the one who got the thank-you and the apology for having to listen to how much she hated me and hated the school when she was at the bottom of the dark hole. I never asked for any of this, but I have come away with a rare set of skills. For now my children are safe and happy, and for now my worries seem to have come to a close… well, a temporary reprieve. These problems never go away. You get to keep them for a life time. But they are not 24/7.
So, you would think, with my ability to help others, I might not be totally without resources when battling my own depression. You would, of course, be wrong. You cannot beat back the darkness by yourself. Long hours of staying in bed and hating your life do not help. They are easy, but they do not help. So, I have to take to the keyboard and write. I fight back with words on paper. And more than that, I have to write for others to read, even if I have written personal things that really aren’t other people’s business and will probably be used against me if I ever try to do something totally stupid like run for public office. And from being a wordless wonder suffering in the bedroom yesterday, I have transformed myself into an eight-hundred-plus word fountain today. To get through life I have to sing and dance and tell jokes and write and play harmonica and write and spend time with my kids and write and write some more. Those things help when even the depression medication has no effect… when your favorite movie comedian loses his own battle.
Catch a Falling Star 
Giving and Taking Stupid Advice
Let’s begin with some stupid advice. I don’t have time to write a lot today because the Princess is ill and must go see the doctor in Plano. So the advice is; Set aside time for writing and always allow plenty of time for it. You will probably notice already that I am giving you advice that I am not taking myself this morning. So don’t follow that advice. It is stupid advice. I have given it to creative writing classes for years and thought I meant it. But looking back on real life, I realize, it has never been true for me. My best ideas, my best writing, always seem to come in the middle of the pressure-cooker of daily struggle and strife. I have battled serious illness for most of my adult life. I have the luck of a man who tried to avoid letting a black cat cross his path by crashing his bicycle at the top of a hill covered in clover with only three leaves each and then rolling down the hill, under a ladder, and crashing into a doorpost which knocks the horseshoe off the top. The horseshoe lands on my stupid head with the “U” facing downward so the luck all drains out. Bad things happen to me all the time. But it makes for good writing. Tell me you didn’t at least smile at the picture I just painted in your mind. You might’ve even been unable to suppress a chuckle. I am under time pressure and misfortune pressure and the need to rearrange my entire daily schedule. So it is the perfect time to write.
This essay, however, is about bad advice. And I am a perfect person to rely on as a resource for bad advice. I am full of it. Of course, I mean I am full of bad advice, not that other thing we think of when someone tells me I am “Full of it!” So here’s another bit of writing advice that is probably completely wrong and a bad idea to take without a grain of salt, or at least a doctor’s prescription. You should stop bird-walking in your essay and get to the damn point!
I know a lot about the subject of depression. When I was a teenager, I came very close to suicide. I experienced tidal waves of self-loathing and black-enveloping blankets of depression for reasons that I didn’t understand until I realized later in life that it all came from being a child-victim of sexual assault. Somehow I muddled through and managed to self-medicate with journal writing and fantasy-fixations, thus avoiding a potentially serious alcohol or drug problem. This is connected to my main idea, despite the fact that I am obviously not following the no bird-walking advice. You see, with depression, Bad advice can kill you. Seriously, people want to tell you to just, “Get over it! Stop moping about and get on with life. It isn’t real. You are just being lazy.”
I have been on the inside of depression and I know for a fact that not taking it seriously can be deadly. In fact, I have faced suicidal depression not only in myself, but in several former students and even my own children. I have spent time in emergency rooms, mental hospitals, and therapists offices when I wasn’t myself the depression sufferer. One of my high school classmates and one of my former students lost their battles and now are no longer among the living. (Sorry, have to take a moment for tears again.) But I learned how to help a depression sufferer. You have to talk to them and make them listen at least to the part where you say, “I have been through this myself. Don’t give in to it. You can survive if you fight back. And whatever you have to do, I will be right here for you. You can talk to me about anything. I will listen. And I won’t try to give you any advice.” Of course, after you say that to them, you do not leave them alone. You stay by them and protect them from themselves, or make sure somebody that will do the same for them stays with them. So far, that last bit of advice has worked for me. But the fight can be life-long. And it is a critical battle.
So taking advice from others is always an adventure. Red pill? Green pill? Poison pill? Which will you take? I can’t decide for you. Any advice I give you would probably just be stupid advice. You have to weigh the evidence and decide for yourself. What does this stupid essay even mean? Isn’t it just a pile of stupid advice? A concluding paragraph should tell you the answer if it can. But, I fear, there is no answer this time.
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Tagged as anxiety, depression, life, mental health, writing, writing advice