Don’t Call it a Comeback

And LL Cool J probably used the phrase to mean it as he had never left, but I’m going to be using the phrase a little differently.

I can’t believe that over a year has gone by since I’ve written in this blog. Between May 3rd, 2022 and today, here’s some of the stuff that’s happened:

1) My stepfather died

2) I worked in logistics for some good film festivals

3) I wrote a pilot

4) I drove from the American East to West

5) I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder.

The last number. Where do I even begin?

I would like to take this moment to get really, really presumptive and say that I am very nervous that any content I may post concerning the fifth number may cost me future jobs and relationships in the industry. But things have so bad and so isolating with regards to my current state of mind that I no longer feel I really have a choice in the matter as to whether I call this depression and anxiety out by name and write about it. I have no doubt that other creatives and humans, just in general, have gone through and are going through similar issues and mindsets, but may have very few people to talk about this with, if at all. And they may have possibly been looking for information on how to live, how to survive, so they can cope as their brain is lifting off from its hinges in some kind of great unbuckling, as they’re finding out what’s underneath the floorboards of neurons and synapses is nothing but sheer, dark terror.

I don’t know how honest I can be about this [honestly]. I’m thinking of William Styron’s highly rational article on his struggle with depression, Darkness Visible, which sounds so reasonable when you read it. He has the benefit of hindsight and is in a recovered state of mind when he’s writing it. Whereas I am in the midst/mist of this, this thicket of blackness that just consumes and won’t go the hell away.

I returned home after a terrible, terrible time doing a film festival gig because my brain had basically decided its only modes were one of the three:

1) Wildly depressed (would only activate in private)

2) Moderately depressed

3) Trying to pretend like I wasn’t depressed for the benefit of others (co-workers, the public, etc.)

My medication has stopped working. That isn’t to say that I stopped taking it, or that I did something wrong in the course of this. I took my meds, meant to keep the depression and anxiety at bay, regularly. And what’s been happening this week is that my body has likely gotten used to what I’ve been taking. These pills, which rocked me through July and made me feel like a human being for the first time in longer than I can remember, are somehow not doing their job. And for the devil’s advocates that would like to tell me “go outside and get some sun and just exercise for 30 minutes and clean your room and eat well and you’ll feel better” — I want to say that these things are temporary fixes at best, and getting myself to do them, to do anything, feels like I’m executing a function written by some distant coder instead of performing human behavior where I feel in the moment. I feel like there is molasses in my veins, moving through deep water anytime I do anything, and I can’t swim to the surface until I complete the task at hand, but oh my God, I’m underwater and I could drown while completing it, but if I swim to the surface and abandon the task at hand I won’t make it, and everything seems difficult and a source of agitation.

I’m writing all of this down for the only purpose of trying to chronicle and explain this for someone, for the person who understands, who maybe hasn’t had the words to articulate their experience, and also for the person who has never experienced anything like this. I feel like those who look for information on this sort of thing need to find it so they can be more empowered, so they don’t kill themselves, so they can be less alone. Someone needs to know what’s going on. Again, the above is not to be melodramatic, but to try and describe.

The last time I called 988, I was in a state of acute crisis, where no one picked up for a good twenty to thirty seconds that felt interminable in my awful state, so instead I called an acquaintance for help and screamed into the phone nonstop for thirty full minutes while waiting for my mom to arrive at the house, because I was afraid to be there by myself. I’m not really motivated to call the number again, because all it reminds me of is what happened that awful day. I had another fit of screaming within the past month, only this time I had the sense to realize that I couldn’t call the same acquaintance without being a tremendous burden and scaring the heck out of her even more, so I screamed and cried for an hour at my ceiling.

I am on a regiment of medication which is supposed to make me feel better. Because I’ve felt so good and more or less normal on it, I’ve been realizing that I’ve been depressed for probably twenty years, and never got the help I needed or deserved, for various reasons. Maybe I’d be in a better position to kick some ass by now if I had taken myself more seriously back in 2017, when I had a full time job and proper health insurance. Now I’m on the state’s insurance, and it’s so difficult to make an appointment, and I have to wait another two weeks before I can see a psychiatrist — but I should be so lucky I have insurance at all, right?

I am leaving up all of the above. I am leaving up all of the above because I ultimately want this to be a story of getting better. People going through their own hells need to know that someone else is going through their hell too, and is trying to get out of it. I feel it’s good to know what experiences look like that come from being in them. We need to start talking about these experiences more in the collective conversation. What’s currently happening — this is something that I didn’t ask for, that I would never wish on anyone. There is a part of this that isn’t my fault, yet the burden of dealing with these illnesses has been enormous. I can no longer keep silent about my experiences.

One more thing I’d like to say is that starting this blog again is an attempt to reclaim my identity as a filmmaker, which I’ve had since I was twelve and which I don’t think is an inherently bad thing. I understand that we grow and change and evolve as people, but there is still nothing else that has captivated my imagination quite like film, and I am still heavily interested in filmmaking, and if it wasn’t for whatever the heck is going on with me, I honestly think I would have made a lot more stuff by now and have a lot more screenplays written, but whatever. I don’t want to lose this part of myself to the despair that comes from having your anxiety turned on like a faucet nonstop for the better part of your day. I cannot believe this is happening. When I would sit down and write for the better part of this year, all I could think about is that I’d never make it. This terrible voice in my head wouldn’t shut up, and I’d start to question why I was writing, whether what I had to say meant anything. The Voice cuts through the fabric of my reality with its sharp tones and harsh voice and general nastiness, and I couldn’t shut it up until I got on medication. Now it no longer seems to be as effective, and I’m sitting here in bed at 11:43 p.m. after hardly writing anything at all today, wishing I were dead.

I need to reclaim my dreams, as long as I still want them. I need to reclaim myself.

Here goes nothing.