Digging Holes and Climbing Back Out of Them

Every year, I usually try to write something around my birthday. Maybe it’s the vanity, or the almost guaranteed perfunctory likes I’ll get, or maybe I just get introspective as I get older. But either way, it’s one of the few things that actually gets me writing again, so I’ll lean into it.

This year, however, the conversation I’m having with myself is a little bit harder. The gratitude I feel around my birthday is certainly there— I’ve got many good friends who care deeply for me and my well-being; I have a wife and children who adore me and that goes both ways; and I still have a job that I love, even if it gets increasingly difficult to live without any of the big markers of success I dreamed of when moving out here (I didn’t drive from Connecticut to Los Angeles with all my belongings in one car to star in pet food commercials, believe it or not).

But the gratitude has been overshadowed recently by the darkness.

I’ve been in a real hole lately. That’s usually what I call my depressive states. Either that, or I say I’m “down” or “low.” But really the best description is a hole. Something that swallows me that I don’t quite have the grip to get out of. Something that seems inescapable, but easy to dig into further. Something I find myself stuck in, feeling completely alone. It’s a particular enemy that I’ve wrestled with since I was fourteen, the age I lost my mother, with the help of many health professionals and people who love me. And to be honest, it’s been a pretty long time since one of these holes swallowed me for more than a day or two at a time. But that can’t be said anymore.

For the last two or three months I’ve been in a hole. I’ve been down. I’ve been low. I haven’t quite been myself. I certainly haven’t quite felt like the guy I used to be. Physically, that was to be expected. After recently tearing the ligaments in my wrist, I’ve had to essentially give up the multiple sports I relied on to keep me in shape. But mentally, too. I feel like a husk of the guy who always had a joke, or at least a smile, for my friends and family. I just have been so off that I’ve barely recognized the guy I share a brain with.

When I get into these holes everything feels hard. I mean everything. Getting out of bed, doing the dishes, checking the mail, or making space for my family. It genuinely feels so overwhelming that my brain starts to squeeze inside my body and push me into something I don’t quite recognize. That might be fine for a day or two, but a few months of that is hell on earth (for me and especially the people around me). I’m really only even game to write this now because, for the first time in weeks, I haven’t felt hopelessly despondent by the most mundane of tasks.

Writing for me has always been therapy (but don’t use that as a cop out, fellow creatives, because I’m also an active

participant in ACTUAL THERAPY, which is important), and I knew that I had to start getting some of the way I’m feeling down on a notepad.

Well, this is how I’m feeling: So overwhelmed I could cry just thinking about it. So tired that I feel like I’ll break if I can’t just sleep through the night for once. So bored by my very existence I look for distractions everywhere. And honestly, not to veer into politics too much, just so fucking sad to live in a place where no one seems to give a shit about anyone else. Kids die at school, shrug. Grandparents die from a new disease, shrug. Fish literally boil to death in the ocean, shrug. This country has twisted the idea of freedom so perversely that it now only means a strict individuality. I don’t think we’re meant to be that individual. I think I would call our idea of freedom, “loneliness.”

And sometimes I feel lonely. Really fucking lonely. Which is not a good sign for other people, because I have an incredible support system. Truly, I am one of the least alone people I know. But it’s there. And the guilt that comes with this perceived loneliness and these holes is there too. And the questions.

How does it feel to have three of the most perfect creatures to have ever existed living in your home while you spend all day wondering if you’ll ever be able to enjoy it again? Having daughters who make you light up in ways you never thought possible, but who still sometimes can’t move you from the couch because you’re overwhelmed by anything other than rote scrolling on your phone. Having to stare at that screen because to live any moment to its fullest ability would require a participation in life that you currently find completely overwhelming.

I put these daughters to bed, letting their mom read to them, just to stare at their pictures and wonder what I would do if I lost one minute with them. But I’m losing minutes by the handful, and even that realization spurs me to write words about it in the middle of the night instead of taking action. I’m pretty good at blogging progressively as the depressed but eager father who adores his children beyond measure, but I’ve twice avoided finishing a puzzle this week.

I also know that depression isn’t fair and it isn’t rational. That the things my brain tells me aren’t real truths, but distorted monsters of my own creation. That I’m a damn good dad, even if it sometimes takes all the effort I can muster to succeed at it.

There’s a reason why people are shocked by suicide. Rarely does something become unmanageable and take your entire identity from you. More often, the cracks appear in silence until the person is gone. And I’m incredibly fortunate that in all of my depressive episodes that’s rarely ever been even a passing thought, and hasn’t been at all since I’ve had children, because I know what it’s like to lose a parent and I wouldn’t give up one millisecond with them. I wouldn’t do that to them, I wouldn’t do that to me, and I wouldn’t do that to my mom, who never got that choice. I’m not going anywhere. But the way I’ve been able to work, and text, and participate in things while my brain has been on fire and underwater at the same time is scary. It makes me understand the smiling, beloved, charismatic person who couldn’t make it through another day. Not because I have those same urges, but because I often wear that same facade.

It isn’t like it’s been a very hard year, at least comparatively. All years seem hard nowadays, but we’ve essentially built our society to be hard for some reason. In fact, in the last six months, I finally made my dream book a reality and was one of the few fortunate people who could work in commercials during an historic double strike.

And have I mentioned the three girls I get to spend my time with? I’m the luckiest guy on the planet. But my gratitude for these things doesn’t make it any easier to take a shower. Or walk the dog. Or exercise the patience that people in my life deserve. I’m afraid my brain just won’t let me have that right now.

Some people may read this as the precursor to a suicide note, which it isn’t. With as open as I’ve been in these some-thousand words, you can trust me when I say that self-harm has never been something that has been very prominent in my struggles. If anything, writing this shows you that I’m not afraid of the darkness and I know it’ll get better. Some might read it as a cry for help, which I don’t think is accurate either. The cry for help came when I broke down in tears in my living room and came clean to my wife that, for some reason, everything has felt heavy and impossible for months, and I simply couldn’t figure out a way to get myself back. All this is really meant to be is a way for me to take these ideas and thoughts that are trapped inside my brain and get them out on a page, where they might help somebody.

Where they might help me.

When I started jotting this down, I never meant it to be a blog post. I never even meant for it to be coherent. It was only meant for my notes app at 3 in the morning while my insanely beautiful family slept peacefully down the hall. But it’s been a really good birthday weekend, and I’ve missed writing. I’ve missed trying. I’ve missed being creative.

I’ve missed feeling like myself.

Now that I’ve shared it, I think I’m on the way to getting that feeling back. I think I’m maybe even a little bit me again. And that’s a really great first step towards climbing out of this hole.

 

 

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Matt is a comedian and actor in Los Angeles. Don’t forget to buy his beautiful children’s book about loss and grief that is genuinely fun to read here: www.guderbooks.com