For the “happy people” that suffer from bouts of depression

Recently, Anthony Bourdain, a “larger than life” celebrity, committed suicide. Just before, Kate Spade, another person known to be a generally happy person, did as well. Interested in learning about Depression, I recently read David Foster Wallace’s “The Depressed Person” — a short 8-page first-person portrayal of Depression.
Wallace also committed Suicide. I read this essay because Wallace was known to be brilliant. His work has brilliantly captured the complexities and nuances of everyday life — covering topics like depression, loneliness, and mundanity. He was an exceptional writer and won many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize.
I was interested in his portrayal of depression, and the essay did (in my opinion) an excellent job of displaying a certain type of Depression. One that is obviously manifest. Where a person is constantly low. Where they constantly exhibit, fight, and are overcome by fear, anxiety, anger, and self-hatred. I imagine that these are very real feelings for many people.
But I think this portrayal of depression is somewhat normative and representative of how we stereotype Depression and Depressed People. And I fear this might obfuscate other forms of Depression. And even more so, have people with other forms of Depression not feel like they can express and seek support for their struggle.
I suspect that Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, and others don’t necessarily follow this form of depression. To provide more perspective and help nuance what Depression looks like, I argue that success can ironically make people more susceptible to depression and offer my own battles, which are very different.
The difficulties that can come with success
Consider a man that starts a business with the goal of making $200,000 a year. He works hard. Very hard. And within 2 years, he accomplishes this goal. And he feels empowered. Excited. With hard work, he was able to accomplish his goals. He continues to work hard and steadily increases this to $5 million a year. His life is amazing; he can accomplish anything.
Now imagine that one year, despite all his hard work, he now only makes $200,000. The excitement and happiness he originally felt from this profit are now replaced with massive feelings of disappointment, failure, and self-scrutiny.
This is somewhat the story of Sam Polk, an investment banker that found that his continued success made it harder to find happiness in it. “I’d gone from being thrilled at my first bonus — $40,000 — to being disappointed when I was paid ‘only’ $1.5 million.” I imagine that the higher a person’s expectation for their salary, the more they’re devastated by falling short of it. I can’t imagine the devastation someone would feel if they expect $10 million but only gain one.
Polk found that many of his colleagues were disappointed with their successes and themselves. While wall street earners make vast sums of money, Depression is a very real thing there and Suicide is not uncommon. Many people, despite achieving nominal success — fame, wealth, prestige — can feel overwhelming sadness and despair.
A life of ebbs and flows.
For long stretches, I live life in ecstasy. Happy. Optimistic. I can conquer the world. Life is Magnanimous. I can take risk because life works itself out in my favor. Everything is wonderful and I constantly notice reasons to be grateful.
But every so often, it’s all too much. And I’m certain that I can’t make it. I’m overwhelmed by myself, those around me, and my responsibilities (both those placed on me and by me).
And those are the moments I fear. Because those are the moments where I want to escape. A few years ago, I wrote a poem, “Abyss”. In it, I describe how sometimes I feel like my life is overexposed. There’s too much observation, too much scrutiny. And it blinds my psyche. Disables it from clearly looking at anything including the future. And this is when I seek somewhere underexposed where I can just escape from the world for a moment.
I suspect that feeling like this isn’t uncommon. That generally feeling like the world is too much isn’t uncommon. For those that share these feelings, please know, you’re not alone. And it’s okay.
Sometimes, I feel like I don’t have the right to have these feelings. My life is so wonderful after all and I have so much to be grateful for. And I fear that those around me won’t be able to empathize that despite the “goodness” and “potential for greatness” in my life, that I feel deeply discontent with the world and hopeless about a positive future in it. A sense that society won’t understand. That people won’t believe that such a “happy”, “positive” or “privileged” person could be facing such emotions.
A few years ago, an NYU Professor, San Roweis, committed suicide. He was another person known to be very happy. He was an energetic and engaging person. I don’t know the full history but one night, he got into an argument with his wife about their premature, recently born twins. All of a sudden, mid-argument, he jumped of the 16th-floor-balcony. He seems like a person that rode extreme highs but when overwhelmed dropped to extreme lows.
Roweis was successful. Bourdain was successful. Spade was Successful. Robin Williams was successful. I have my own modicum of success. I intern at large, coveted companies. I get paid many times my fellow students. I win awards and have traveled around the world. But that’s not how my brain measures happiness or if I have the right to be sad. Likewise with these brilliant and wildly successful people. Ebbs and flows can hit us all.
I fear that as my life gets larger, as things get “better”, something in my personality, maybe in many or all of our personalities, will lead me to experience a low my brain thinks it can’t recover from. But I try to remain cognizant of this and keep a strong support group for the days when I’m low. People that understand that despite the immense amount of positivity and “success” in my life, that I, too, can feely deeply sad and discontent with the world.
While this piece was meant to show empathy, it does not replace professional help. Please seek it out if you are fighting any form of depression.
