Hi. My name is Phil. I have a mental illness.
It just struck me as I was typing that line that mental illness is often the punchline of a joke or having a mental illness is played for laughs in some circumstances. I know some people would be upset or indignant about that, but I don’t care.
Not caring is a symptom of mental illness, in my case, depression. It takes feeling and a certain level of self actualization to generate outrage and moral fiber and the will to do something, even if it is to say “hey, maybe there really are mentally ill people and they don’t like being made fun of or something”. Also, I find mental illness jokes funny. A consequence of my long association with depression is a very dark and subtle sense of humor. Mental illness jokes appeal to me on a very wrong level. Well, not wrong so much as abnormal.
Anyway, today is World Mental Health Day. I started writing about my experiences with depression a long time ago as a way to help myself articulate what I was feeling to everyone who knows me and bothers to read what I write, and also as a way to destigmatize mental illness. It is a condition anyone can have, just like anyone can break a bone or get cancer. I am an otherwise normal person who is depressed.
I am not sad because of life circumstances, although I do have plenty of those to feel pretty sad about, the reality is I am sad even when everything is great. Case in point: it is currently October, and I am a baseball fan, and October is the time for the MLB postseason. Usually this is my favorite time of the year. It has magic, wonder, the best teams in baseball, and exciting high stakes games. I have to force myself to enjoy my most favorite thing in the world outside of Star Wars. And I haven’t watched Star Wars in over a year, either. And I love Star Wars most. Most people enjoy what they enjoy. They don’t have to try, they don’t ever think about it, they just enjoy it. I have conversations in my head: “Hey, Phil, look: Star Wars!” “Oh, that’s cool. I guess. I mean, it isn’t not cool.” “What?? That is a salt shaker shaped like a Darth Vader PEZ dispenser on a super fluffy blanket that is also a Jedi cloak!! That is mega-Star Wars-awesome!” “If you say so. Hey, is that the ground? It looks like the ground.” Er, something like that. My point is: depression robs me of my chance to feel and to enjoy.
I am on medication, which is why my depression no longer completely debilitates me. I used to live in a black fog where nothing ever was anything other than a painful haze. Now, sometimes, I do enjoy things. Sometimes the sun breaks through and I have a good day. Those days are still rare. What is worse, I have absolutely no control over when I have sunny days or when I have hazy days. They happen when they will.
Because of this I cannot hold a job, most days I cannot bother to look for a job. A month ago I did look for a job. I found a job. I got excited about a job. I even got called to come and interview for the job. I then emailed two days later and turned the job down. In the space of two days I went from feeling like I would be able to engage in an awesome month long job (it was working in a haunted house) to feeling like it was the biggest mistake I could make and there was no way I could handle it. Ever since I have gone back and forth over anger at myself for turning down work when I need the money, disappointment over turning down a cool haunted house job, or being so glad I did because I can’t bother to take a shower much less get out of the house and into makeup and feel any sort of enthusiasm for scaring anyone. Although the reality is most of the time I feel nothing one way or the other about the job.
And the struggle with mental health goes deeper than me. I lost all of my close, emotional support because of my mental illness. My wife left me, being completely unable to understand or cope with my mental illness. I don’t blame her, usually because, like with most things, often I don’t have the ability to be mad or sad about losing my wife. In my few moments of clarity, I acknowledge that living with someone who is completely debilitated by something entirely in their head is not easy at all. It takes a supreme amount of patience, love, and self-strength. I should know, most of the time I hate being me. I wish I could get away from me. But I can’t. I never will. And nothing I do can change that. She could leave, and the truth is: I envy that she could.
So I do my thing. I struggle to get out of bed, to do something on any given day. My dishes go unwashed, my house goes uncleaned, my hair goes uncombed. Then, every so often, I get a breakthrough, a surge of energy and of feeling and I can do some or all of those things. Right now I struggle to pay bills and afford what I need because I have no job and employers aren’t eager to hire people with mental problems, even if I could find a job I could con myself into applying for. Life is tough and you would never know it because I seem so normal, I can write well, when you ever see me I am putting on a terrific acting performance to hide from you what I really am. I smile, I converse, I do things, I seem completely normal. It is entirely an act. I rarely feel anything I emote. And the act so completely exhausts me that I spend the next few days in a fog.
I am strong, I am resilient, which is why I am still here, but being that takes everything I have on any given day. And that is why I am a twenty-six year old man living with a dog in an apartment that I rarely leave and struggle enjoying the best sport in the world at the best time of the year: I have a mental illness, and it is crippling.
Today is World Mental Health Day. Remember that not everyone is obviously ill, but many are suffering in ways you cannot imagine because you are normal. Be the best friend you can to everyone you know, because you might not always know who needs that the most. Don’t try to fix a mentally ill person. You can’t do it. Just be their friend and never stop, no matter how hard that seems. That is the only thing that works. Spread love as far as you can. Some of us need it more than you could possibly imagine. Above all, know this: mental illness is real, and it is just as damaging as cancer or any other human condition.
Search my blog for “depression” to find other posts about my struggles.
a simple man 