Month of the Sad Boy
I know this is tl;dr as heck but whatever, here you go.
In honor of #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth, I decided to have probably the worst breakdown I've ever experienced in my life. I'm ok now, but I feel compelled to share my experience, because as much as I appreciate all the memes saying "It's ok to take a day off" and "Being Bipolar isn't just moodiness", I feel like it makes struggling with mental health issues feel "cute".
It feels like struggling with mental health is a brand that's being promoted. Burger King made freaking UNHAPPY MEALS for Christ's sake. Your brain might not be able to produce serotonin, but it's generating some great marketable content.
My Mental Health Awareness Month® started with the death of my grandmother. I tend to handle death and loss pretty well, but this absolutely wrecked me. At first, I thought this was because I had lost my final grandparent. An entire generation of my family was completely lost. Cue a heightened sense of mortality and existential dread.
This was also the first time I was over a thousand miles away from my family; Outside of reasonable driving range. Air travel costs $700-$1000 for a last minute ticket. Cue resentment and helplessness caused by capitalism and class struggles. It's reasonable that maybe my anxiety and depression would be heightened by this predicament.
Thanks to some help from my parents, I was able to make my way out to my grandmother's funeral and spend some time with my family. It felt nice spending time with them. We cried and laughed in equal measure. A salve filled the wound left behind from the loss. Healing had begun.
But something felt off.
My foundation had shifted.
In quiet moments, I felt fear. Not "ooohhh it's kinda dark and creepy in this room" fear, but "Dear lord the specter of death has their (that's right, death is a they. I'm progressive) hand around my heart" fear. I have never felt this way before. It was terrifying. I truly thought I was dead.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. Every second all I could think was, "You've lost your mind. You're dead. You'll never stop thinking like this. You've lost your mind. You're dead."
It was like The Tell Tale Heart but I hadn't murdered anyone. My only crime was being alive and having a brain.
There would be moments where I could distract myself. I could get caught up in a conversation, or watch something engaging enough on TV, but these moments were fleeting. I'd feel myself get pulled back in, the demons inside dragging me, clawing and screaming, back into the endless abyss. I’m not being melodramatic here. If this were an UNHAPPY MEAL, it would be the Supreme Deluxe Family-sized XXL Jumbo Anxiety Box with a Large Cup of Depression and a tote bag full of Chili Cries (Sorry, it was too easy).
The thoughts went on for weeks. It was constant. Each passing thought a stone piling on top of the last one, slowly crushing me. I was trapped inside of myself. It was the opposite of an out of body experience. I was withdrawing deeper and deeper, sanity slipping further and further out of reach. I was plummeting like a rat that had been given a pair of brand new concrete shoes.
During all of this, I was seeking the help of professionals. I’ve been seeking help since I moved out to DC. My wife (who is a saint deserving of a thousand Michelangelo murals) and I left hundreds of messages with psychiatrists. A few have gotten back. Most of them weren’t available for an appointment well into the fall. Nothing really soothes an anxious breakdown like sitting and waiting.
We kept searching. I tried getting a teleconference with a psychiatrist so I could get at least some temporary relief. The app my insurance provided me hooked me up with some dude who was holed up in Alaska. He was an older gent who could only seem to get his wispy white comb-over in the frame of my phone screen. I don’t remember his name, but he was very warm and considerate. He recommended I double the amount of Welbutrin I was taking to help curb my anxiety.
“Isn’t Welbutrin an upper? Won’t that actually make my anxiety worse?” I asked.
“It is an upper but it will actually help lower your anxiety.” He said comfortably from his remote psychiatric ward/icefishing hut in Alaska.
One of us was right, and it wasn’t the person who has a license to be a psychiatrist.
I receded further. The thoughts of death and insanity looping tighter and tighter around me like dual anacondas, preparing to swallow me whole like Jon Voight in the movie Anaconda, only I wasn’t going to pop back out and wink at Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube. My wife consoled me as I sobbed in her arms, terrified I would never be able to enjoy another second with her ever again. This had been my life for two weeks, why would it ever stop?
My wife finally found me a psychiatrist who could see me immediately. A stroke of luck! She also found a therapist who specialized in CBT and sounded like a nice guy on the phone who could see me the same day. A two-for-one luck special!
The psychiatrist was part of a larger “mental healthcare group”. Whoa! Cool! It’s like they’re the Avengers of giving out happy pills!
Not really. It’s more like they’re brain farmers herding sad cattle into a slaughterhouse, grinding them into a bunch of manufactured Happy Paddies™. I got prodded into a cold, desolate office where a woman stared unblinkingly at a tablet, while she entered all my symptoms into some kind of program. The algorithm confirmed my medications were out of whack and suggested I #glowup the milligrams of my bipolar meds, while I cut down on the Welbutrin, which was not sparking my joy. The psychiatrist never made eye contact with me and the visit ended within 10 minutes. It was just like my wedding night, hey oh!
Next was the therapist. I thought I wanted eye contact until I saw this dude. He was 100 going on 100,000 years old. His eyes were bloodshot, his office smelled like soup, and his phone rang at least 20 times. It felt more like an interview to be his caretaker. I was so deep within my mind that I was about to fall down my throat and into my stomach.
The icing on the Shit Cake™ was when I mentioned that I did comedy (I can’t help but brag about myself, even when I’m completely collapsing. I’ll probably plug my Twitter page on my deathbed.). He stopped the therapy session and began plugging his side hustles. He mentioned that he did career counseling and could help me get gigs that paid upward of $40-$50 an hour. He also said I should bring by show flyers for him to look over. He dabbled in graphic design.
I was furious. Our session was 45 minutes in. I had opened up, cried, and begged for relief. He merely saw me as an opportunity. Someone he could upsell.
I had some choice words and stormed out.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I got in my car. They were bitter and hopeless.
At least I got a new prescription.
Turns out that was actually a decent enough solution. I’m 5 days into my new medication regiment and I’m close to normal again. The thoughts will pop up every now and then, but they’re faint and go away quickly. I’ve had two good days in a row. Feels like I’ll have a lot more.
The reason why I wrote all this is two-fold:
1. I like the attention
2. I wanted to show what the struggle looks like in all its ugly glory.
Depression, anxiety, bi-polar, etc. can be managed, fought back, and abated; sometimes for short periods of time, sometimes for years and years. It can be like a common cold or it can be full blown brain AIDS. You may need to take a mental health day; you might need to go to the ER.
Treatment can be as capricious as the sickness itself. You may feel safe, seen, and cared for. You might feel like a product on a conveyor belt, being inspected by an uncaring factory worker or gobbled up by an unqualified Lucille Ball (does this metaphor track? I think it does.)
Mental illness is hard because even the person suffering through it doesn’t really understand what’s going on. Sometimes all we need from others is to know that. Sometimes we might appreciate some effort, like going out and getting us an UNHAPPY MEAL™.
