Hamlet, 2.2:
The spirit that I have seen May be the devil: and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me: I receive push notifications from NPR onto my watch so that breaking news can be more easily shared with me. Normally, what NPR considers "breaking" is, at best, of trivial interest. Occasionally, it's important: This morning, it was shocking. It took me a little longer to get out of bed than usual, as I scrolled through Twitter, trying to wrap my head around what transpired in Las Vegas. The perpetual bloodshed of America at the barrel-tips of guns is so common place that, unless we see something truly shocking, we don't recognize that we suffer from mass shootings almost daily. I know there are a lot of different things to be said about gun rights, gun control, and gun fetishization, but that isn't the point of this essay. This essay is to explain how a personal choice not to purchase a gun has likely saved my life. I suffer from depression. It's a recurring thing that I've fought against since I was little. My earliest suicidal thoughts (that I can remember) were plans I laid one night as I curled up to go to sleep. I must have been ten years old, snuggling the stuffed Dalmatian (named, obviously enough, Pongo) when I devised that I would take that toy (not even my favorite, but, somehow, the best choice for what I was thinking) and play on 400 East the following morning. At ten, one doesn't have intricate plans about how one will end one's life. I remember being given an article from The New Era (a youth-oriented magazine published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) by a concerned mom who had dealt with depressive episodes throughout my earlier childhood and noticed a melancholy that frequently haunted her second son. I want to say it was this article, but I could be wrong. If so, my mother gave it to me during my first year in college. At any rate, I remember reading it and not really caring about what it said--a typical thing for me when I'm in one of my "moods": Apathy. But what I did take out of it--and one of the things that I have always wrestled with--is that there's something wrong with me, something that makes me feel, in some ways, insufficient or sinful as a person. See, in Mormonism, there's a scripture--one of the crystalline truths of the Church that helps clarify centuries of confusion, one of the tear-inducing triggers of many a fast and testimony meeting--that has, either implicitly or explicitly, said to me that I have failed at understanding the purpose of life. It's almost a couplet, and though I don't disagree with it from a doctrinal point of view, it's one of those scriptures that doesn't seep deeply into my heart--at least, not as it once did. The scripture is simple and comes from 2 Nephi 2:25. "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." Being an infrequent visitor to the sensation of happiness--or joy, though the differences between the two are murky to me--I believe I have gained a sense of inferiority about my own worth. That is, if I can't have joy, then perhaps I might not need to be. This isn't to say that I blame the Church for my depression--that would be silly. Instead, I think it may be why, when I get into these dark places, it becomes so easy for me to disassociate from...well, everything, I guess. And the fact that there are layers of complexity about how I feel about my depression--layers that come from my religion, my politics, my home, my upbringing--shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Life is complicated, as is how we traverse it. For me, though, I struggle to feel spiritual when an apathetic tendency underscores what's supposed to be a feeling of guilt (or, more often, shame) and makes me want to ignore it all together. This means that bad habits of mine get more expansive sway--shorter temper, darker, less generous thoughts--more often, and that often drags me down again. The cycle can be...draining, to say the least. I should also point out that, when I'm in moods like the one I'm in now, there are precious few things that I cherish and, in some ways, anchor me to the world of the living. One is my wife. Another is the understanding that this, too, shall pass--until it comes back again. And again. And then again. And I don't know how long I can hold on. It might be until natural causes take me--I may last so long. But I know that if I were to "exercise my second amendment right" and purchase a gun, I would be stupid. The vast majority of gun-related deaths in America are suicides, not homicides. A gun in my home would, statistically, make me five times likelier to end my own life, and that's probably higher, given my own "weakness and melancholy". Keeping guns out of my home is how I keep myself, and my family, safe. So when I look at the news and I listen to the debate rage and wonder at a government that will allow its people to be killed but refuse to find ways for them to be healed, I find myself slipping into the comfortable ice of sadness--comfortable because I know it so well, like the ruined shirt that you thought you threw away, but you find it in your drawer and, despite its gaping holes and embarrassing stains, you put on again because it's laundry day and you've nothing else to wear and by the time you're out the door you realize that it's what you've come to expect, so why worry about wearing it? I'm depressed. A lot. I take solace in the areas that I can, including hearing the words of a man who never existed, written by a man who died four hundred one years ago: I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me. This brief piece sums up, in words far beyond my paltry ability, the experience of being depressed: Recognizing the beauty of the world, its warmth and happiness, and being unable to touch it, like a child looking at doughnuts through a glass display--seeing the sweetness and remaining forever aloof. This is the water I swim in. This is how I've lived my life, luckily and blessedly prolonged despite some more-than-passing interest in cutting it short. Indeed, I worry that, out of my own melancholy, the darkness inside of me seeks to abuse me, to damn me. There is so much in the world that I recognize as good, great, and beautiful. I don't want to miss out on that, either, despite the feeling that the clouds all too often loured over me. I'm grateful that I haven't slipped into the undertow of the sea of troubles yet, and I hope I never do. ----- Note: I'm not writing this because I think I'm going to kill myself, but instead because I want to be a part of the destigmatization of discussing mental illness, depression, and suicidal thoughts. It's a small contribution, and I'm grateful that I don't have a worse time with my own shortcomings as I know others do. Nevertheless, I have a small platform off of which I can express my thoughts in the hopes that it helps someone understand me (or people like me who are closer to them) and expands sympathy outward. I'm also not writing this as a plea for sympathy or intervention; I have my coping mechanisms, including writing, that helps me to continue. Feel free to share this essay if you think it'll help someone. |
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