I used to have a friend named Ben. He’s lost in time, one of the people who I lost track of when high school ended.
But one day, circa 1994, I was sitting in the journalism office at my old high school, the place where I spent most of my time because as a senior I was almost out of classes to take, so I had 3 of my 7 class periods in journalism and spent my study hall there, too.
Ben walked in. He said “how are you?”
I was listening to Alice in Chains, the song was “Got me Wrong.”
I’m sad, I said to him.
He asks me, in classic Ben style “Are you sad, or are you ‘Down in a Hole’ sad?”
I chucked, but seconds later, the lyric:
“That don’t last forever/Something’s gotta turn out right”
I grew up in the 90s. As the quote from Fight Club goes:
I see all this potential and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars, advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of the history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, we’ve been all raised by television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won’t and we’re slowly learning that fact. and we’re very very pissed off.
When I was in high school Kurt Cobain shot himself.
I had a friend who was part of a suicide pact. His roommate killed himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to follow through, so they found him sitting on a floor with blood all over his face staring at his dead roommate.
I had to talk one of my friends down from jumping off a water tower.
I had to rip a third friend loose from a noose he made from a bungee cord, damaging the ceiling of his almost fully finished basement.
My generation was suicidal.
I, myself, only felt suicidal twice, both over love (ah, love!), and it was always fleeting.
But I saw suicidal thoughts all the time.
I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder when I was 15 years old. I’ve had it, it turns out, my whole life. And in spite of that I’m a teacher and manage to lead meetings and speak to crowds in the hundreds, etc. I rarely talk about it because I know that the academy, where I work, uses such things as a blunt instrument, and that if I confess to feeling social anxiety people will question if I can do my job. I can. I just get a little tired sometimes. 😛
I think I was never more suicidal because there’s always been my mom, and my pets, and I felt a sense of duty. It’s a coward’s way out to leave people who needed you behind. But I’m beyond feeling that way now. I still fall into bouts of despair at times, and I’ve mentioned here on this very blog that I’m often angry. Sometimes I can’t figure people out and it just befuddles me.
I work with young people on the regular, though. It’s my job. And I see that depression is still front and center.
This week, amid personal sadness, one of the other musical voices of the 1990s took his own life. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Don’t You Dare Say They Were as Good as Rage super-band Audioslave strangled himself.
This is what people from my generation didn’t get about suicide, and I think it persists.
- It’s not noble or artsy. Killing yourself is a shit move.
- It’s not NORMAL to actually feel the compulsion to kill yourself. It’s normal to think about death from time to time, and being so sad you wish you didn’t exist is depression at its worst, but it’s never normal to want to actually end your own life.
- It IS okay to talk about it.
We live in a world that adds more and more stigma to difference by the day, thanks in no small part to the bigots that run our government right now. And I know as someone who minimizes my own depressive state that it’s probably weird for me to get on the soapbox, but I do know how to get help and I do get the help I need.
You need to talk to people if you’re depressed. You need to get help.
There’s a fine line here: I’m not saying that everyone who is depressed or suicidal or bipolar or suffers from any other mental illness needs to tell everyone. You don’t need to announce it. You don’t need to let it define you.
But if you are hurting, talk to someone. Get the help you need. Don’t be too proud to take medication, and don’t think that getting help is a confession that something is wrong with you and that you’re less than.
Everyone is fucked up. It’s a sliding scale. Some people hide it very, very well.
But look at the two of us– me and Chris Cornell. I would never say my life is bad, because it’s not. Parts of it are, but I’m doing pretty well. Over the last 20 years I’ve had some serious trials and tribulations and have accrued a small city-state budget in student loan debt. I went through at least one health condition that might have killed me and numerous battles with my anxiety. At one point, I think I would have probably stepped away from life had there been no one counting on me.
But here I am, happy with my life and rolling on.
By all appearances, Chris Cornell had life by the neck. He’d been in 3 legendary bands. He had great solo musical success. He was in good physical shape and was by all accounts an attractive man. He could buy and sell my student loan debt with his walk-around money. He probably bet the value of my house on a hand of cards at least once.
And he killed himself, presumably because he was miserable.
He needed help more than I did. And his life looked perfect.
Because we are ALL fucked up. I’m not trying to claim I’m better than Chris Cornell. I just happened to find the help I needed.
Forget the stigma, though. If people on top of the world can end their lives, wanting to end your life in and of itself is not a shameful thing.
Doing it. That might be.
Ask for a hug when you need it. When someone says “how are you?” answer honestly if you need to unburden yourself.
Get help. Anyone who claims you shouldn’t need it needs help, too. Take them with you.