The sharper-eyed readers of USR may have noticed that my column, Exhibit A hasn’t run a new entry in… I don’t know how long. I could easily look up the exact amount of time, but I haven’t the heart or energy. A nervous breakdown will do that to you. I do know that my three regular readers have given up on me. One because he died, another because she got angry at a piece I wrote, and the last because he got tired of waiting. It is for the latter that I am attempting to rearrange the electrons on my screen again. I have no illusions that I was missed in the digital ocean that engulfs your daily lives. But I have to write anyway.
When I published my first column in March of 2015, I promised readers a weekly dose of my skewed perspective on daily life. For three years I kept my promise. Then my oldest son died and everything went to shit. As therapy, I managed a few columns before I stopped writing. I didn’t run out of ideas. I just ran out of caring. To the outer world, I seemed to be handling things well. Even to my wife and therapist, I was doing okay. But the truth is that my reality fractured and depression has become my daily companion.The only feeling I recognize is anger.
Nothing cheers me up. I mindlessly play thousands of games of Solitaire on my son’s iPhone. Like most Millennials, he spent a lot of time on his device. Staring at its screen became a wordless connection between us. His name and picture are still in my contacts list though his number belongs to someone else now. Don’t ask how I know.
While taking my periodic walk at lunch, I found another hundred-dollar bill while picking up trash. Instead of being happy, all I could do was imagine someone else’s loss. I went to see comedy shows, first Christopher Titus and then Sinbad. But laughter was as hard for me as finding a MAGA hat in a mosque.
Anniversaries came and went: his birthday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day. Then the day I dreaded the most: the first anniversary of his death. The dread dissipated, however, when the day turned out like any other. It sucked just as bad… no better or worse. Or maybe the alcohol dulled my perception. It would be nice if it did. If drugs or alcohol could take away the ache. But they don’t really change my reality, so mostly I stay away and only drink with select friends. Drugs are absolutely out of the question. They would only make matters worse.
Mental health issues run in my family. Hell, they don’t just run, they practically parkour (apologies to Kesselring). I don’t know if this is my 19th nervous breakdown, but between myself and everyone who is important in my life, there have been at least nineteen and we’re not done counting.
Depression is part of grief. And though many people think that Kubler-Ross claimed in her book that the stages of grief run consecutively, she did not. Grief is not a series of predictable timed events. I can testify that they aren’t. In fact, I can go through all the stages of grief in one five-minute meltdown. But overall, depression has been my default mode.
Christopher wrote about his bouts of depression here in USR. It was one of the last things he did before his death. There is nothing I can report about my struggle with this illness that is new or revelatory. Being human, my maladies are similar if not identical to every other person’s. Writing a column just became impossible. Even grocery lists and grading papers became a burden a camel couldn’t lift. Hopelessness, helplessness, and uselessness were the trinity my psyche prostrated itself to. Nothing could bring me up or out.
When confronted with such impenetrable darkness, the word suicide, something no one around me will utter in fear of planting a seed, hovers like a mosquito waiting to strike. But I am blessed or cursed with a Stoicism that makes me immune to that Siren call. In Army basic training, I once had to carry a 125 lb. pack on a fifteen-mile forced march. I only weighed 119 lbs. at the time (0h for a return to yesteryear!). I made it all fifteen miles, even though bigger stronger guys didn’t, because I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and refused to give up.
My wife, my son, and my students need me. Therefore, “service before self” keeps me going. I am writing this, and will strive to put more words into the ether, because I have been told other people need to know they are not alone in their darkness or their loss. Trust me, you aren’t. And while I can’t give you a purpose or goals to keep you going, I do know that they exist. I am no better or worse than you. If I can find a way to keep going, then so can you. I won’t write my column as often as I used to. But my journey is not over even if joy seems a luxury. Consider this the one hundred millionth bottle “washed up on the shore.” To read one person’s story is to read all. To not read all is to miss your own. To read none is the worst, because then you miss being human. And losing your humanity is the worst loss of all.
