Odd Observations from a Skewed Perspective
Follow suit. Especially bathing suits.Archive for life
Why can’t I be angry at Robin?
Let his gentle smile guide you into that good phone call and find the help you need!
It took the death of an icon to put create a poster child for Capital-D Depression.
He was a hero to so many, kind in myriad ways, and yet so very troubled. The pain and sadness and outpouring of support and awareness for people living with depression has been astonishing.
His death struck a symphony of heartstrings, and now heads turn and ears bend to hear what depression has been like, is like, and should be like. It is Mr. William’s smiling face that remind us that there is a number that people can call.
I am angry. Yes. Normal part of grief. How can anyone say that I, or by gods, his daughter, could not feel cheated out of lives we’d lost when those we loved took them from us? How could anyone dare call this kind and generous man, Robin freaking Williams, ‘selfish’ at the darkest point in his life?
I’ve been there.
I could come up with a million ways to say how impossible it is to convey the constant ache that living with depression is. There aren’t analogies that really express the true exhaustion that comes from struggling day after day. The very dangerous and easily tipped cycles that are often the result of a damaged time in our lives.
There are the lies that forever and with Hitler-esque charisma say that I am not good enough. The echoes of memories that I’m not worth the trouble to decipher the darkness I’ve got rolling around in my head. All the dialects, of all the languages of the world cannot capture the enormity of this whirlpool. Some days I can stay the wheel and try to keep an even keel.
Some days I can’t.
Some days I’m crushed under the weight of all that I want, what could be, and how responsible I am for it all. I didn’t ask for this. Like a boozed up alien raccoon bemoaning his freakish existence, I didn’t ask to be made this way. I don’t try to do it. It’s just suddenly there, occupying every available space of my brain like the popcorn at the end of Weird Science. Then comes the guilt from not being able to ‘get over it’ as I’m told, or, “feel better’ ‘smile’ et cetera, ad nauseuam, sit vis vobiscum.
Robin’s head sure had a lot of popcorn.
He gave us such immeasurable joy, of which the world will continue to recount in their various ways. Each post, each tweet, each mention and rewatching of a favorite film is an homage to a great fellow.
But what about the rest?
Depression hasn’t been faceless before now. Too many lost souls have been raged at from beyond, victim shamed in the grave as selfish: Lonely, stricken, frightened, and believing their doing the world a favor. Wives, sons, friends, lovers, all of them with names and faces and people they’ve left behind.
I couldn’t leave mine behind.
I had the method. I had the carefully laid plan. I had the opportunity. But I couldn’t leave mind behind.
I was strong enough then, at that moment. Strong enough to survive a night in the Ward and make damn sure I wasn’t going to do that again. I made it then, and got help.
Not enough people do. They look like Mr. Williams. They look like soccer moms and smiling mail carriers. They look like kids, bullied or not. They look like soldiers. They are successful. They are not. They are every end of the spectrum. We’ve let them slip through the cracks for so long. For that, I’m angry. It took the loss of this sweet and hurting gentlemen to get Depression the awareness that the tragedies that came before him could not.
So yeah, I’m a little angry at him. How dare you, Patch! Pan! Moon King! Dearest Robin, friend on the screen. I’ve watched you grow through your art and your medium and granted me laughter even through tears. How could you take so much from us, we that loved you?
I’m the selfish one. I don’t want you gone.
Depression doesn’t discriminate, and is a condition perpetuated by disconnection. Easy answer to that is reach out, without judgement, to the people who have shut themselves away. It’s a lot easier to do these days. Show these people they are worth your time for a call, or a message.
Silence of the Salaams
I’m so horribly stuck on you,
Said the Dragonfly to the Amber.
Why then does that make me weep?
I tried so hard to set down
my expectations
But find still
disappointments as I
give and give
and you take and take
Swallowing me whole
While I wait for
snatches of a touch,
a taste of your lips
the honey in your kiss
tastes like time
Froz-rnmmmnnff …
Dormancy, et al.
There’s something to be said about hibernation.
While I might balk at the lack of scientific legitimacy to the saying, metaphoric Ostriches may just have the right idea. Simply put, the head in the sand might keep the ocean out of your ears.
Ok, that was simpler in my head, which is now covered in sand. I live in Florida. That’s not too surprising.
Having had said metaphoric avian skull submerged in macroscopic shell and mineral particles, I have gained an interesting perspective. It too is full of sand,
A little hibernation, burrowing in the sand, is good for the soul. Sometimes. Perhaps you may not understand my need to coccoon myself in blankets (physically or not so physically), but the need is there and signifies the necessity for recouperation.
What am I recouperating from, you might ask? Or you might not. Go back to your jelly donut.
Life. Little word, big meaning. According to some opinions, stress in the contemporary society has increased over the last forty years. Have perceptions changed? Likely. Are there significant changes to the stressors? Not much. Babies, friends, jobs, love, loss – haven’t changed much in the 130,000 years that anatomically modern humans began migrating out of the Cradle.
All of the above, and more. We are still hunting and gathering, be it pixels or digits, the pursuit of which consumes us. We rear our young (hopefully without eating them, no matter how tempting that might be), the conquest of which progresses us.
Down at the bottom of the hole, there’s no where else to look but up. From there, I examined. Babies, friends, jobs, love, loss – Stress and I dug a foxhole and hunkered down.
Yes, I am armed. I have daughters, after all.
“I balanced all, brought all to mind. The years ahead seemed a waste of breath. A waste of breath the years behind. In balance with this life, this death.” – W. B. Yeats.
It took a while for me to not see the battle. Everything had to be fought. Every word, every issue, every conflict (real or imaginary) was hailed at the perimeter and shaken down, TSA style.
Even my writing had become adversarial, with the blankness of the page mocking my empty brain. My own empty brain mocking itself in a cyclicly spiraling cascade of time paradoxes and Dr. Who references. Wibbly, wobbly.
Love and Loss had figured in there pretty heavily. I won’t lay into the details, unless you’ve got a lot of time, and can make communicative leaps that might follow my disjointed theories. The voices in my head had nowhere to go but inward, where they did the most harm. Worse yet, I didn’t trust anyone else to tell me otherwise.
So I sank. There was no keeping my head above the waves. I built a nest of blankets and periscope, and then watched from a safe distance. Recon, as it were, sans gilly suit. I let myself feel and heal until I didn’t hear my laptop laughing at me anymore.
OK, really, don’t call the Asylum. I have my own jacket, thanks. I just have an “active” imagination.
Trust was reserved for the very precious few. They were the ones who jumped in the hole, not because they’d be stuck with me, but because they knew the way out. They extended hands and waited until I was strong enough to reach for them.
It wasn’t long ago that the voices in my head started telling stories again. After several years of torment, self doubt, shame, and grieving, I gave all that the middle finger and listened to bards and the witches and magic flying bananas that populate my thoughts (You probably don’t want to know).
Kevlar is zipped. Guns are loaded. Big girl panties are on.
Let’s do this.
Odd Observations from a Skewed Perspective 