Is Straight Talk on Depression Too Much for The Mainstream?

I like blogging on The Huffington Post, though as a satirist I'm really kind of a fish out of water there, and I don't know of any other "open" sites. I also don't get the four digit page views, nor have I built a considerable following, and the people that comment generally don't understand satire, but I post there anyway, when they'll have me, on the off chance that I'll get hired by somebody to write more of the same or that I'll sell a few books.

The post below, like "The Kick", is somewhat stark and some people might think it makes light of depression (which I address in the post). Suffering from chronic depression myself, I think I'm qualified to write about the approach I use to avoid acting on the uglier thoughts that bubble up from the cauldron of bad chemicals. Huff Post would probably agree, but something is causing them to shy away.

So I lob the question out to the three or four people that might read this: why don't they publish this post?

The Cure for Depression. Really?

The other day I read a blog by Les, a “youthful” UK self-help blogger - it was his personal epiphany, really - where he claimed to have discovered the secret to eternal happiness. The secret? Live in the moment. The past and the future do not exist. Sound familiar?

He didn’t really elaborate on the nature of that happiness if you might be getting whomped upside the head with a baseball bat in the current moment, but the instant any given whomp is over, it is in the past. It doesn’t exist anymore and all is well so long as you’re not too anxious about the whomp you know is right around the corner.

I know somebody that would say “no wonder you’re so miserable all the time, Mr. Limboman. You’re so negative. Somebody says they’re happy living in the moment and you immediately go to gettin’ whomped upside the head with a baseball bat. What’s wrong with you?”

What’s “wrong”, I guess, is that my experience has been that not all moments are created equal (eg: “whomped upside head with baseball bat”). However if you surf around a bit you’re likely to find that high percentage of very popular blogs (Les has several thousand followers, Marc & Angel are in the millions, I have about 60) are geared toward learning how to string together as many blissful moments as possible and thus lead a life of 24 x7 happiness. You might also characterize these words of wisdom as “baseball bat avoidance tactics”.

I read this stuff myself pretty regularly because when it comes to black dog* attacks I need all the help I can get. I can also attest that when the black dog has you in his slobbery jaws no amount of living in the moment is going to call that puppy off. Why? Because you have a vicious dog’s teeth in your neck and it hurts, that’s why.

In my famously irrelevant opinion, we more mature folk that are stricken with bad chemicals, misfiring synapses and rotten neurons (chronic pain is optional) have had to learn to ride the black pup (or we’re not around by now to talk about it.) It isn’t about this moment, or the moment a moment ago, or the next moment; it’s about sheer tenacity, perseverance, and an ability to get as far away from the current painful moment as possible by going to the past, or the future, or someplace else that has a no dog policy.

Dog management also entails a certain amount of self control. Probably the most important piece of advice I’ve ever read in any self help book anywhere was in Richard Carlson’s “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (And It’s All Small Stuff)”. His advice had to do with recognizing “low moods” and being extra vigilant, extra careful not to act on the impulse of a low mood.

For those of us that periodically wrestle with very large, stinky, and dirty black dogs with very sharp teeth, this advice is directed at the impulse to aerate our heads with a bullet hole. Big dog wrestlers know that when we’re pinned to the ground by those big paws and  getting blasted in the face with fetid dog breath, it’s not the best time to decide whether to get a divorce, or a vasectomy, or to submit our resignation (I offered to “step aside” in a misunderstanding recently - I was depressed - and dismissed…) or get a tattoo.

Another thing I like to keep in mind when scavenging for dog repellent: none of us are writing blog posts or books or Hallmark cards when Blackie is in the house. Or, we may be writing all sorts of odes to our four-legged tormentor, but it’s not stuff we’re likely to share. Misery may love company in the analog world, but a blog post entitled “10 Most Popular Suicide Techniques” isn’t not likely to stimulate a lively online discussion (though it is certain to spark some morbid curiosity.)

I like Les. It sounds like his heart is in the right place. And he’s absolutely right when he claims that a surefire cure for depression is to live in the moment. After all, nobody knows better than a boomer that mindfulness is the almighty elixir for the tired and wayward soul, and that fighting bad chemicals with more bad chemicals is just one more way to distract us from the proverbial now.

But when that hundred pound black cur is sitting on your head it’s just not the kind of moment you really want to be living in for too long. Best perhaps to substitute a moment from our imaginations, leave the current unpleasantness in the past, and pray that the dogcatcher shows up in the near future.   

*a metaphor for depression

Now, if you have time go read "The Kick" to see what similarities there are, if any. Is the subject matter just too morbid?

The Great Unbecoming Part. I

Of the several dozen epiphanies I had today, one was so disturbingly profound as to be downright epiphanous.

No it wasn't the ephiphany y'all have been so patiently waiting for: the realization that chronic cleverness will be the ultimate undoing of civilization as we know it. I've been patiently waiting for that one too, as it will be major relief to be freed from the compulsion to be the clever one, the one who must continually disguise simple, straightforward information in an inscrutable coat of arcane language and overworked metaphor. No, I've yet to come to such a realization, but I sincerely hope that soon the clever cloak will fall and simple naked honesty will prevail. Meanwhile I guess we'll just have to settle for the usual unabashed and tasteless silliness. Oh well. 

Some of you may recall a Limboland loony toon entitled "@ Fifty Seven" where I faithfully listed my various failing factory parts and the efforts made at installing replacement equipment. There's the successful and unsuccessful surgeries, the arthritic joints, the irreparable brain damage, failing eyesight, sleepy pee pee and on and on it goes, clear evidence that I am not, nor will I ever be who I once was. In other words much of what I had become was now becoming undone, or unbecoming. Physical and mental capabilities have not simply evolved into a different state. Instead, it's all unraveling into a state certain uncertainty, coming apart bit by bit until my atoms will ultimately be dispersed into the cosmic soup to perhaps become rearranged in some other form. A lemur, perhaps. 

I received an instant message from Cosmic Headquarters the other day that warned me against fighting this great unbecoming. "Resistance is futile" it said. "You will unbecome like a flower drops its petals, one brain cell and body part at a time. But don't despair, as you unbecome who you were so shall you become who you are." And I'm thinkin' what? I don't get to keep anything just the way it is? If not a flower then what? A weed?

Seeing that Cosmic Headquarters offers a "live chat" feature, I posed my questions to the resident subject matter expert. 

"What about the skiing, the body surfing and boogie boarding?" I asked. "What about the golf, the backpack trips, the frisky marathon sex, the wild tequila dancing, the loud rock and roll, the devastating effect my gap toothed smile has on the opposite sex? And what about the supreme confidence of knowing I am indeed a chosen master of the universe and can solve any problem no matter its size or importance, and the knowledge that I can beat Larry Ellison in a spelling bee if not a sailboat race? I don't get to keep any of these things in a state of Billy Joel-ness; that is, just the way they are?"

The chat reply was instantaneous, so I figured it must have been a cut and paste from the Cosmic Headquarters knowledge-base. "Not exactly," the chat box read. "Think of it as adjective adjustment: you were once an aggressive, expert skiier who hiked into the out-of-bounds for the deepest powder, sought out the Volkswagen-sized bumps on the steepest runs, and avoided turning in traffic. You are now a conservative, mature skiier who likes to cruise the groomers from approximately 11:30 to 3:00. Even this will cause you great pain."

After a few more answers from the chat support desk I decide I am not liking the sound of the great unbecoming, but at least it is not the complete cessation of physical activity. I googled around for snow-walkers and other aids, prosthetics and potentially useful drugs. Discovering there is a abundant cornucopia of such aids to the great unbecoming, I now look forward to the possibilities of the new becoming: the softer, mellower perhaps even acoustic renditions of "Let it Bleed", "Not Fade Away" and "Midnight Hour"; the afternoons picking blackberries and pedaling our bicycle made for two down to the wine bar/art gallery; the hours spent directing the gardeners in their care of the sensitive succulents and fruit trees that adorn Coon Hollow, our coastal home; the long and tender bowel movements and parallel literary explorations; the bemused expressions of young women and their soft, sensitive requests "you're cute but would you please stop smiling at me like that?"

I can accept the idea that in the face of the great unbecoming one must be open to considering all likes of revisions, some foreseeable and some lying in wait. Reality may appear fleeting between middle age and post-middle age, sometimes willing to negotiate and sometimes not. Perhaps, in ponderment, it is possible to unbecome without entirely becoming unbecoming, at least to those that have either officially or unofficially agreed to stick it out through thick and thicker. We can only take this one fallen petal at a time. 

Perhaps it is impudent to share such uncooked thoughts, such silly word play in the greater, grander scheme of things. But, this is Limboland me hearties, and anything goes!