The Helpers

Today is just another day.

I got up, fed and watered the dog and turtle, washed last night's dishes, and put a load of laundry into the washer. After the chores, I made eggs and cheese for breakfast, took my pills, and gave myself my morning injections of insulin. Once my sugar looked good, I went out to the garage and worked on the big sort. I’ve been doing piecemeal since the end of the summer. Hopefully, it’ll be done before the snow falls, but if not, well, I like the snow. It invigorates me.

Later I’ll take a shower and get ready for my eleven-year-old daughter's birthday party. (ok, this isn’t normal, but maybe the abnormality is the cause of this). Then I’ll come home, spend a few hours with my wife, and go to bed. Right before I go to sleep, I’ll think the same thing I think every night. If tomorrow is unbearable, I can always kill myself. There’s always a way out.

The whole time I’ve been very depressed.

So, it’s a day like any other in the life of Josh.

I’ve learned to accept my depression, and I’ve even managed to pick up a few tricks for dealing with it. Notice I didn’t say ways of stopping it. When you suffer from severe clinical depression, there is no stopping it. There’s only coping with it.

I was diagnosed as bipolar in y teens and really started feeling it in my mid-twenties. My doctor says that’s pretty normal, so at least I’m not a freak in regards to how my depression manifested.

You’ve all heard the highlights of my depression before. The three suicide attempts the not leaving my bedroom except to go to work when I didn’t call in for almost four years. The near disintegration of my marriage because I just wouldn’t let her in, and the broken relationship with my dad and his side of the family.

That last one is mostly, as in 85%, on me, but it is what it is.

So yeah, a normal day ended in a not so normal thought.

Do you want to know something that really makes me feel awful?

Something that I have no control over?

It’s how the people who don’t suffer from clinical depression act.

No, I don’t mean the people who say some version of suck it up, or just power through it. The people who think depressed women are whiny bitches who are probably on their period. The people who think depressed men who speak up are whiny pussies and probably faggots to boot. And of course, they think we are all in love with the drama that surrounds that depression

Hell, my own son once called me a drama queen because the idea that I wasn’t in control was asinine. That he himself was most likely undiagnosed, severe bipolar, and borderline schizophrenic That his untreated mental illness had a lot to do with his death just leaves me feeling bereft and borderline suicidal even six months later.

No, don’t worry, I’m not contemplating suicide today. Remember, this is a normal day, and I’ll only think of it when I go to bed tonight to help me sleep.

Those people, the ones who shame and bully people who suffer from depression, are assholes. They are patronizing passive-aggressive abusers of trust and the worst kind of so-called friends and family. They won’t be anything else unless it affects them directly.

No, what I’m speaking of are the people who mean well and try to be sympathetic and not in a patronizing and passive-aggressive way. These people want to believe you. But no matter how hard you try to explain it, these people think they understand just as well as you do, if not better.

These are the people who keep offering “Solutions” without understanding the problem.

I KNOW these people mean well and are just trying to help. I love all of you, and your support means the world to me, but I think you need a broader understanding.

If you are one of these people, please take no offense as I mean none.

So, in the spirit of helping, let me explain how it affects me as best I can.

Please close your eyes and imagine someone you love with all of your heart dies, and the depression that follows that.

Can you do that for me?

Thank you.

Now imagine that feeling clobbering you at random and not so random intervals. Imagine it staying for days,  weeks, and even months at a time.

That’s how it is for me.

That’s how it is for A LOT of us.

Thank you for listening.

- Josh (10/25/2020)