Don't give in to the dark side

It dawned on me today that I am the same age that my father was when he committed suicide. 

Before I go further, do not message me to chastise me for saying committed suicide. I know that a lot of people now say died by suicide. I refuse to say that in this case. This was an act carefully planned and thoughtfully undertaken and meant to hurt others - I have the letter to prove that. It was not something that randomly happened. He did not die by shark attack. He committed to the act. 

Anyway...

In my younger days, in some very dark times, what kept me from committing suicide was knowing what it would do to my family. When I was in a dark place in my teens and 20s - and there were many times I was - the idea that I would be responsible for destroying my paternal grandmother, in particular, was enough to come up with another way, ANY way, to get through the day. My Dad died just after I turned 30, and that year became one of the worst, probably the worst, of my life, both because of what he did and a lot of other circumstances - yet, by then, suicide was no longer an option to consider, as it had been when I was far younger. 

So much of depression is biological - there's no question of that. If you don't believe that, just look at all of the successful people who kill themselves, and all the people who are facing unbelievably difficult circumstances and don't ever consider it. I also don't think depression is entirely biological and, absolutely, bad events can trigger depression. I don't think the biological underpinnings of depression or extreme anxiety can be ignored, BUT, I also don't think talk therapy and working to retrain your brain can be ignored either - it's not a one or the other debate. My father, in many ways, reveled in thinking about all of the ways he believed he had been wronged, or all the ways he believed he lacked what he thought others had - it was how he chose to define himself for decades. He wore it like a badge of honor. But he also never got quality therapy and he never got away from all the things that triggered his depression. 

My brain is different than it was in my teens and 20s. I can see it in reading my journals and thinking how I processed information and how I thought about myself. I'm not entirely sure why, on my late 50s, my brain does not work that way anymore - I don't get as upset or as resentful about things as I did then. I think that's from a combination of actions I've taken to change - to change how I spend my day, in changing where I live, in work to change how I think about things AND a change in my brain chemistry that's come from... I don't know what. Age? How I spend my time? Not that I haven't had recent dark times - I've had some hopeless months in my 40s and 50s. But suicide is no longer an option. I hope it never is. 

Years ago, Dan Savage and his partner, Terry, unintentionally started a worldwide campaign against gay teen suicide: "It Gets Better." I'm not gay, but I identified with their advice a LOT. I know that they were emphasizing to teens that, if you tough it out and get through high school and get out of that school and town, it almost instantly gets better. But I think some of their words fit a lot of people who are struggling with the darkest of thoughts: 

However bad it is now, it gets better. And it can get great. It can get awesome. Your life can be amazing. But you have to tough this period of your life out, and you have to live your life so that you are around for it to get amazing. And it can and it will. 

I believe that. And not just because of my own experience, not just because of all of the amazing things I've experienced in my 30s and 40s and 50s. I believe it because I've known people who have lost everything - their homes, their families, their entire towns, and in moments, their dignity and their bodily autonomy - and I have seen how they have created and embraced their post-trauma lives. I have seen how they value just walking down a street safely. I have seen how they relish food and music. These are people who have seen the absolute worst humans are capable of, and have had the most horrible things done to them. That trauma is still a part of them, a huge part of them - but it's not all they are. I am grateful to have had them in my life, to keep my faith in humanity - and myself - alive.   

Again: things aren't all puppies and sunshine now. I still have dark moments. I'm gutted over gaining all of the weight back that I worked so hard to lose - weight that came back largely because of perimenopause. I still sometimes spiral down when I think about how much I miss my career. But I've made a lot of adjustments in how I live life. I've been tenacious in trying to make things better for myself. I try to spend as many hours trying to improve things, trying to stay curious, as I do lamenting how much life can suck eggs.  

And I also know I'm lucky: I fell in love with movies. I have had amazing friends. I was able to move away from a place where I experienced my first traumas. I've had amazing jobs. I've seen and experienced glorious moments. I found a partner to face my later years with, who loves me but also challenges me. Had I stayed where I was born, I'm not sure I would have made it. 

My Dad chose to miss the weddings of all four of his children, the opportunity to have four wonderful sons and daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren and a great-grandchild. He chose to miss what very likely would have been the very best part of his life. 

In contrast, I don't think for me, at 57, that the years ahead of me are going to be the best of my life. That's because my life up to now has been rather spectacular. However, I have so much I'm looking forward to and working towards and learning. I hope I can keep this outlook - it's taken a while to get it, and I'm going to do all I can to keep cultivating it. 

Also:

Travel, food and pain

In mourning

Failure and Triumph

Articles telling you how to deal with depression are bullsh*t

Have you been a bully?

 

Lovin' the Bard

It was 1981 or 1982. I was in the 9th grade, in a public school in Henderson County, Kentucky. I was in an English class. It wasn't an advanced English class, nor an honors English class. Just the normal, regular 9th grade English class. And our ordinary, normal, not-advanced public school teacher had us read and study Romeo and Juliet.

There we were, reading aloud in our thick Kentucky accents, sometimes struggling over words, sometimes laughing over phrases (especially the sexual ones). We read the play aloud, we read the play on our own, and we watched a slide show, an abbreviated version of the Zeffirelli masterpiece, accompanied by portions of audio from the film (I guess our school couldn't afford the rights to show the movie). The teacher asked us what was meant by this or that paragraph, why a character did this or that, what another character was feeling, and how we felt about what was happening.

And we got it. We understood the play, every bit of it. We understood that these were young people every bit as thoughtless and passionate as us. We understood that these were adults every bit as stubborn and closed-minded as many adults we knew. We understood that it was a tragedy, not something to aspire to. We understood the intensity, we understood the sorrow. The play was completely accessible. The teacher fully expected us to get it, and we got it.

Around the same time, I saw Twelfth Night at the University of Evansville. I admit that I didn't understand everything: I didn't get all of what was going on among Viola, Olivia, the Duke and Sebastian, but I most certainly got the set up and fall of Malvolio - and, oh, how I laughed. And laughed. And walked around for weeks saying, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." (emphasis from the actor from that production, complete with rolling "R"s).

In the 10th grade, my English class - still not an honors class, and also in public school - read and studied Julius Caesar. And, again, we go it. We understood what was going on. We understood the conniving and the politics and the egos. Same for in the 11th grade, when we read and studied Macbeth.

I went on to read Hamlet in college, and to see, and thoroughly enjoy, probably a dozen productions of various Shakespeare plays over the years. Most productions were great. Some were mediocre. But all were completely accessible to me and everyone else watching.

I bring this up because Ralph Fiennes is running around the talk show circuit (and he can feel free to run around here any time) talking about his latest movie, Coriolanus, and the interviewers keep saying things like, "Wow, it's so accessible. I didn't think I would understand Shakespeare. Most people don't get Shakespeare."

Most people do get Shakespeare. It's why his plays have lasted this long. It's why they keep getting performed on stage and keep getting filmed. The real issue: most people don't ever see a Shakespeare production. More and more schools have to teach kids to take tests, more and more English classes aren't talking about Shakespeare anymore, except in passing. Most people don't go see a Shakespeare production because they have heard, again and again, Shakespeare is so hard to understand - from people who have never seen Shakespeare.

And THAT is a tragedy, every bit as anything Shakespeare wrote.

I not only enjoyed those early readings and study of Shakespeare; reading and studying the Bard also taught me quite a lot. In addition to greatly enhancing my vocabulary, reading and listening to Shakespeare has taught me how to concentrate on phrasing, how to read subtext, how word choice can affect understanding, how complicated humans are (just like all humans now), and how so many human activities and feelings are universal. All of those lessons have helped me throughout my life, at home and at work. How many times have I had to quickly adapt to the language and phrasing of some new industry I'm finding myself working in? And I didn't see or experience anything in Afghanistan I couldn't also find in Shakespeare, and that's probably why I was able to find a way to process the tragedies all around me there - and everywhere else.

Last week, I read A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now, I'm reading Twelfth Night. I read every word, and often re-read sentences. Is it an easy read? What is an easy read? No, I don't get a passage at a glance - I have to actually read everything. But do I get it? Do I understand what's happening? Do the jokes make me laugh? Sure! This public-school-educated, public university-educated, non-English major gets it just fine.

What's next? I'm not sure. Maybe something I've never seen a production of but always wanted to, like King Lear. Maybe something I've seen many productions of, like Tempest.

But I'm lovin' the Bard. I wish more people would give him a chance.