Put a Smile On!
My Journey to Embracing the Help I Needed
CW: Depression, anxiety, mention of suicide
“Yo, suicide doesn’t work like that, bro — you gotta wait for the cars.”
I was J-walking across a quiet neighborhood street when someone spewed this idiotic phrase in my direction; a half-ditched effort to impress the two girls he was walking with. They laughed. He laughed. And I didn’t have the energy to respond. I was deep in the thick of a months-long (if not years-long) Major Depressive Episode.
When asked if I’ve ever had suicidal thoughts by a doctor, a therapist, or close friend, I’ve always answered “no.” And that’s true; an answer justified by the fact that I know, firmly, that I would never do it. But, every so often, that ‘no’ has come after a half-second of hesitation; hesitation that I have admitted to said doctor and therapist; hesitation that has come from the knowledge that I have had, from time to time, what I refer to as the Jimmy Stewart-isms — the moments where one wishes they had never been born in the first place. And I’ve found myself asking, “Well, does that count??”
I think, perhaps, I’m not alone in experiencing those intrusive thoughts. During moments of self-sabotage and loathing, many of us have pictured what the lives of our friends and family would be like without us — if even for a fleeting moment. And, unbeknownst to that stranger on the sidewalk or anyone else who passed me that day, I was battling such intrusive thoughts on the regular. They were clawing at me and eating me alive from the inside with a ferocity that made me feel crazy.
Here’s the thing about “high-functioning” depression and anxiety. It comes with the added baggage of Imposter Syndrome. If, like me, you can get up, go to work, put a smile on, and act as though everything is not only normal but great, admitting that you are in fact struggling (whether it be to family, friends, or yourself) can feel disingenuous, petty, and straight-up wrong. After all, you don’t fit the bill of the stereotypical depressed person. You shower daily, brush your teeth, and even socialize with friends a healthy amount. It’s cliché and has taken me some time to fully understand, but mental health really is on a spectrum, and how it affects everyone can be completely different from one person to the next. That doesn’t make your journey any less valid no matter how it may look from the outside.
Falling into the Swamp
“I think my depression is coming back,” I texted a friend in the summer of 2019. I could feel it; that old familiar pang in the depths of my gut, like wading into a murky swamp that’s beginning to take hold. I was in the midst of a summer performance tour; a comedy show in which I exuded energy, charm, and manic slapstick on-stage for ninety minutes. No one would have guessed I was beginning to fall down that dark depressive hole — something I had done before, but not to the extent I soon would.
Indeed, no one was the wiser. I was at my comedic best, meeting patrons after the performance, shaking their hands, and laughing with the band and my co-stars over post-show drinks. When the run ended, with no sign of when it would pick up again (a global pandemic would soon put an indefinite plug in that), I was left with nothing to mask what I had already been feeling — a stark and numbing emptiness.
As the leaves changed colors and fell from the trees, and the crisp autumn wind ended the summer definitively, I found myself unable to escape that nagging feeling. I was in denial about it. I had experienced depressive periods in the past and gotten through them; nothing a bit of exercise and comfort movies couldn’t fix. I was in hustle mode, working my day job and securing performance engagements for myself into the New Year. There was, frankly, no time to be depressed.
As a way to mask how I was feeling, I began drinking with co-workers after shifts with a frequency I never had in the past. That soon transitioned into pouring drinks for myself at home, alone. I was having trouble sleeping and drinking what I considered to be a classy nightcap of scotch while watching a show or two helped. That nightcap turned into a double or triple (this is after already being out with my co-workers) and was soon being poured into one mighty tall glass. I had never struggled with alcohol in the past, being well aware of my limits and having the discipline to abide by them. But my relationship with alcohol was changing. My limits seemed more like guidelines that lost their meaning with each sip and my reason for drinking (once a strictly social thing) was changing completely. Rather than address why I wasn’t sleeping, I merely made sure that I slept. And going to bed “just a little tipsy” felt so much better than the dark, numbing abyss that awaited me otherwise.
This type of denial only lasts so long. Those who were very close to me noticed the changes and in some cases confronted me. Aside from that, however, few were aware of how deeply I was struggling. For the first time in my entire working career, I was calling in sick to lie in bed in the darkness of my basement apartment. Still, I had some responsibilities that couldn’t be avoided. In January of 2020, I stood on stage in front of 400 people to deliver my first TEDx talk. I felt numb, completely devoid of any type of emotion and not at all present. I recited a word-vomit of inspiration and felt no nerves, excitement, or satisfaction upon doing so. Yet, to the untrained eye, I was my usual over-achieving, charismatic self. It was around this time that I realized I would not be able to fight this battle alone. It had gone on for too long and was showing all the tell-tale signs of getting worse.
Make no mistake, high-functioning depression is not simply “getting over it” or even forging ahead in some act of awe-inspiring strength and bravery. It is merely a different way of coping that can cause one to further deny and brush off their symptoms without getting proper help. Those with it suffer silently. They continue to accomplish every day and even extraordinary tasks while suffering internally. Many men who struggle with the outdated stigma of being vulnerable fall into this category. Our capitalist-driven society can also deny us the necessary time to check in with ourselves and see how we are doing. As a result, many don’t realize how badly they’re suffering until it’s too late. High-functioning depression doesn’t have an official diagnosis. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. The closest medical diagnosis would be PDD (Persistent Depressive Disorder), described as a mild form of depression (while no less debilitating) with a lower quality of life over an extended period of time. Self-treatment and self-management can help… until it doesn’t. Those with high-functioning depression or PDD can often struggle to convince others around them that they are suffering. “You seem so happy!”, “But you have so much going on. Your life is great!” Without proper acknowledgement and treatment, it can — as it eventually did with me — turn into a more severe (and easier to recognize) Major Depressive Episode.
My journey to seek out therapy made things feel more hopeless. I had trouble finding one I felt I could be vulnerable with and the price (at a time when I was unemployed mere weeks before a pandemic) made things worse. Still, my depression was beginning to heavily infiltrate the lives of those around me, fraying at my relationships. I was isolating myself, ghosting like crazy, and in general just not a joy to be around.
I had to find help. I had cut out alcohol, but the trade-off was a lack of sleep that affected my everyday performance. Eventually, I found a therapist on a sliding scale (flexible rate) and began the hard work of finding myself amidst the crumbling foundations of who I once was. What followed was months of it working, then not working, working, then not working. Before long, I developed symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (as many did throughout the pandemic) and was plagued by intrusive thoughts that manifested into Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). 14 months into unemployment, I was pulling myself together after all-nighters of intense, anxious episodes, and hopping online for virtual job interviews in which I smiled, sold myself, and made casual small-talk. Then I would shut off, curl back into bed and remain there for most of the day. At one point when I was still journaling (I eventually lost the energy and desire to do that), I simply wrote: I am in Hell.
That’s where the entries end.
What Lies Ahead
The last year and a half has made many of us reckon with our mental health and as we either remain or crawl out from our own personal Hells, it will continue to do so. We are facing a mental health crisis of mammoth proportions and the way to combat it will begin with removing the stigma. We need to be able to talk about it. We need to create safe spaces where people are comfortable saying they’re not okay. A year into actively trying to address my symptoms, I avoided medication — purely due to the stigma attached to it. It felt like losing the battle. In reality, medication, in combination with therapy and self-work, helped bring me back to my pre-2019 self. And for the first time in a long time, I’ve rediscovered who that guy is.
It’s not the same for everyone and there is no cure-all, cookie-cutter solution. But one thing that is unanimous is that we all struggle with invisible battles. There will always be those, like the man who called me out on the sidewalk, who are oblivious to this — who are likely struggling in some way themselves. But you, with your feelings of inadequacy, your self-loathing, your worries of the future; You, with your emotions that feel difficult to pinpoint, describe, or understand… if there is one thing I’m sure of it’s that you are not alone.
And never will be.
Originally published in: https://spkesy.ca/thought/10/2021/put-a-smile-on/
