Hi, everyone. It’s August 24th and it is my brother Rick’s birthday. He would have been 56 today but he shot himself and died in 2007 due to untreated mental illness. So every year on his birthday, I talk about mental illness here on the Twitter.
I’m not here to preach or to be an expert. Like a lot of you, I’m just improvising and trying to figure out as I go.
I sometimes say “mental illness” instead of “depression” because depression rarely rides alone. It’s in a band, it’s not a solo artist.
When I started what became an annual tweet storm, the subject was mainly “Yes, Mental Illness Exists” along with urging people to get help before things get worse because it can be a horrible way to live and it can be fatal.
Since that time, I have gone on to make the discussion of mental illness and depression in particular my full-time job. I created and host @THWofD, I give speeches, I do what I can.
And I think that’s all been possible because society started shifting toward recognizing mental health and taking it seriously and jettisoning a lot of the bullshit myths and stereotypes that have gone along with it. Which is great!
We still have a long way to go. Mass shooters are dismissed by some politicians as insane, which is a convenient way to dismiss all the other societal factors that may lead to such horrific acts.
If you say someone is insane, then it’s the fault or at least the burden of that one person and not the cultures they live in. It also sends the signal that people with mental illness are likely to be murderers.
They’re not. We’re not. (depression + anxiety + trauma issues over here, on meds, in therapy, doing well, feeling good, no murders)
Those same politicians often then talk about the need for better mental health care and then do nothing to improve our shambles of a system. Or they weaken it further.
Just as there are people with chronic back pain or seasonal allergies all around you, there are people with mental illnesses all around you. At work, maybe in your home, on your block.
But not hiding under your bed waiting to murder you. They never assign that job to the mentally ill, it’s strictly a monster gig. Tough union.
In talking about mental illness, I often compare it to a toothache or a broken leg: you get one of those, you go get medical help right away. Do the same for your mind.
At the same time, the tooth or the leg are telling you something is wrong via pain. So you know to go get help. Depression can be more insidious by telling you NOT to get help. Depression lies, like my pal @TheBloggess says.
Here are some of the lies depression tells you: you’re not worth getting help, you are beyond help, you will waste that person’s time, you’re not ill you’re just being a baby, you can always snap out of it.
Rick believed he wasn’t worth it. And he died. He had been an addict for years. A user of people and a taker of things, as @andrewzimmern says. Depression told him he wrecked lives and would be better off dead.
No one is better off with him dead, especially his daughter who had not been born when he died. He thought his illnesses were a result of being a bad person. He was ashamed. Fatally.
I'm told his daughter’s mom wants her to never know that he died by suicide, to honor the shame that killed him. Here’s a gift for Google: Rick Moe died by suicide. Own the truth, drag it into the sunlight.
The truth about your mental health, your trauma, your past, isn’t always present. It can be horrifying. But you’re going to have to confront it anyway. And it’s better to confront an opponent you can see.
I’ve done dozens of interviews about depression, talked with tons of people, and one thing I know is that if you have a problem, it will wait for you. You can stay busy, push it down. It might wait, but it will come out.
The only question is whether it will come out on your terms or its own. In other words, do you want to fight it consciously, ideally with professional help, or do you want to let it drop out of a tree on you unexpectedly?
I keep imagining this kind of knights and dragons scenario for fighting your demons/illnesses/traumas. Not sure why. I’m not that kind of a nerd. I’m an arcane music trivia nerd.
I do these speeches all over the place now and I always tell the people who organize them to build in time after for people to come up and talk to me afterwards. Those people rarely have questions, though.
After my speeches, people want to tell me their stories. About their struggles, about children and parents and siblings they’ve lost to suicide, all kinds of huge stories. They don’t want my help, they just want to speak the stories out loud.
Speaking your story and owning your truth is not always easy. It can take SO much work and effort. And it might take a long time before you can do it. But I’ve seen up close the cathartic power it can have.
After Rick died, we had a service for him in Seattle. Lots of old family friends. Everyone talked about their great memories of him, which was nice. He was very funny, kind, smart as hell.
But no one was talking about his struggles, his pain, how he died. Which is also part of his honest story. And it occurred to me how odd this was since talking about it HELPS depression.
And I thought about how shamed it was everywhere and it struck me as the stupidest thing ever. We can TALK about this fucking thing and that will HELP? But we’re NOT? This is complete bullshit over here.
Not talking about depression is like if there was a forest fire in your neighborhood and everyone had fire hoses but they didn’t use them because they didn’t want to be rude or upsetting. IT’S BURNING DOWN HOMES. GET YOUR HOSES!
So that’s when I started looking for ways I could speak my truth and talk to people.
But speaking your truth, knowing your truth, doesn’t have to be in a conversation with some Norwegian dude giving a speech. It doesn’t have to be into a microphone. It can be much quieter and just as powerful.
I recently interviewed a dear friend for my show and he told me how after many years of dealing with depression and a host of things that go with it, he’s been able to trace a lot of his trouble to one specific trauma.
Naturally, I asked him what it was but he wasn’t willing to tell me (or my audience). He knows it, working on it, that’s it. And I couldn’t get over how... cool... that was. He was healing. He didn’t need to tell me because he told himself. That’s enough.
Though I am devastated that Rick could not be saved, I am emboldened by the conversations sprouting up everywhere that weren’t there even five years ago. A long way to travel but at least we’re on the right goddamn road.
So. Search for your truth about mental health. Get professional help in that search. Make appointments and keep them. As you learn the truth, say it! To a loved one, a professional, yourself, that’s your call.
If I’m making it sound simple, I’m sorry. It’s usually not. Our mental health care system stinks, dealing with cost and insurance and sliding scales can be a huge pain.
And for people with depression, it’s even harder because that bastard of an illness makes it harder to treat it. So goddamn insidious. But please try. Find strength, borrow strength from others. Try. Try again. Try some more. Keep trying. Thanks.
