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September is Suicide Prevention Month. I’m not here just to throw a phone number at you. (It’s 1-800-273-8255.) I’m not here to overshare or lay bare all of my own stuff. (I will pass along some news.) I am here to ask for a favor. (Two of them, actually.) 1/
On Labor Day weekend, with fall upon us, I’ll call it: this was the most difficult summer of my life. A divorce. A move. Now teaching, again, in the midst of a damned pandemic when teachers, students, and parents bounce between worry, frustration, confusion, anger, and fear. 2/
Yet I couldn’t feel more grateful. I have my life, family, friends, health, job, and more blessings than I can count. Among the greatest of these are four beautiful kids and a partner in raising them that I respect and trust. 3/
This rotten year has conditioned me to expect things can get worse always, but I want to believe they can get better. I know life is a gift. I also know depression is real. It has stalked me for much of my adult life, and it will likely follow me in the days and years to come. 4/
I’m incredibly fortunate. I have the support and laughter of friends and family; an affordable health insurance plan which allows me to get medication and therapy; and the acquired experience to know which tricks and techniques help to keep my peculiar demons at bay. 5/
Books and music are good for me. Walking and running, too. The demons might follow me down morning streets, but they don’t get to set the path or pace. Booze, I’ve learned, doesn’t often have much that matters to to say in my lowest moments. 6/
I can’t begin to define depression for those who haven’t fought it. It’s not just feeling sad. It’s not just feeling bummed out for a day or two. It’s a snowflake of misery, able to assume as many terrible shapes as there are people to fight it. 7/
You might be right to think that it’s “all in our heads.” That bastard takes up residence, if only paying rent in anger, loneliness, and Lord knows what else, but even within the confines of our confusing brains, I can assure you that it is real. 8/
Right now I’m in a good place—really!—but I know I have to be as vigilant about my mental health. Sometimes depression shouts at me; more often it whispers. I don’t delude myself into thinking that I’ll wake up one morning forever cured of depression. 9/
If you’re struggling—and I’m inclined to think this includes more of us than are willing to let on publicly—I want you to hang in there. But here’s my first favor: don’t just hang in there. It’s trite to say keep fighting when each day is a bruising twelve rounds. 10/
At the very least, please don’t let yourself suffer alone. Mental illness pushes cruel and isolating lies, none worse than the notion that no one will know or understand, or worst of all, that you won’t or can’t get better. 11/
If you’re not struggling, I’m so happy for you. Life is beautiful, mysterious, and hard, but you’re still crushing it. Good on you. Be grateful. But remember that you have family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and people in front of you in the grocery line who aren’t. 12/
Everyone is fighting their own battle, as they say. If you know someone in the thick of it, trust your instinct to reach out. You might make a difference for that person you can scarcely comprehend. 13/
Or you might not. Mental illness is cruelly isolating, and depression is a particularly sneaky thief, robbing you not only of joy but also of perspective. 14/
Reaching out to help a loved one is a vital step to take within your personal life, but—here’s the favor that I can’t ask insistently enough—it can’t be the last step you take. 15/
Vote like you care about those folks who struggle, like you believe our society needs to do better by those suffering from mental illness. We’ve muddled through a season in which meanness, cruelty, and selfish indifference seem ascendant, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. 16/
We can make the world a more humane place. We have the means to make mental health care available to those who need it. We can start to help those we know in our families, community, and churches, but that’s it: just a start to confront the enormity of this problem. 17/
I count myself lucky to be here with y’all. I want to keep y’all here with me, too. 18/18
