personal Archives - Page 6 of 15

Jennifer Lawrence Lets People See Her Naked!

…but you’re not one of them.

The big hubbub this past weekend, as I’ve sure you’ve heard, had to do with leaked photographs of Jennifer Lawrence. Some other celebrities (only one of whom was male, as far as I can tell) had photographs leaked as well, but the attention has been mainly on Jennifer Lawrence.

It’s easy to see why. She’s at the height of fame. She’s popular with both critics and audiences. And she is — this is a fact; there is no room for argument — an incredibly beautiful woman.

Wait…did I forget to mention that she’s naked in the photos?

Because she is. Sorry, that was probably important to bring up.

Oh, and…actually, did I refer to the photos as leaked?

Ugh, sorry. I’m not paying attention at all today. I meant to say “stolen.” And that’s absolutely crucial to bring up.

I like Jennifer Lawrence. I’ve never seen The Hunger Games or, well, most of the stuff she’s been in. If I hear that she’s going to star in a film, that doesn’t make me much more likely to see it. And, really, if she retired from acting tomorrow, I can’t imagine my particular future as a movie-goer would be impacted at all.

But here’s why I like her:

She’s real. She’s humble. She’s down to earth.

She’s a charming human being. She has a natural wit and warmth. She’s intelligent and, by all accounts, friendly to a fault.

It’s rare that I’ll catch an interview with an artist (of any kind) that I don’t already follow and find myself won over. And yet, I hear her speak…I listen to her engage with her interviewers and fans…I see an honesty in a smile that has every right to be forced…and I think, “I respect you.”

She’s also beautiful. I’m positive that if we met in real life and she fell in love with me, I’d have no qualms about engaging in a sexual relationship with her.

…but that hasn’t happened. She doesn’t know me. The odds are very good that she will never know I exist. And so it’s irrelevant how attractive she is. It’s irrelevant how many people would like to sleep with her. It’s irrelevant, because we don’t get to choose whether or not we get to see her naked. She gets to choose.

Which is why those photos exist. Those were taken for somebody that she wished to see them. That person wasn’t me. That person sure as hell wasn’t you. They were taken because she chose to let that person — that specific person — have them. That is her choice. She is famous, and she is gorgeous, and she is a human being. It’s the third thing that matters here…the first two are only details.

This is also why it’s important to distinguish between “leaked” and “stolen.” A “leak” implies that somebody involved — deliberately or not — released into the public something that wasn’t scheduled to be released. Sometimes it will be an early cut of a film, a draft of a script, a record album that won’t be in stores for another month. In other words, things that eventually we would see, in some form, at some point, anyway. Other times it will be somebody’s private letters. A sex tape released by a jilted — or money-hungry — lover. A surreptitious recording of a politician quantifying the precise number of people in the country he doesn’t actually give a shit about.

Leaks can be noble, leaks can be selfish, leaks can be problematic. But, strictly speaking, a “leak” needs to occur somewhere along the chain of custody. Somebody involved takes a look at what they’ve been handed and says, for better or worse, “I’m supposed to do A with this, but I’m going to do B.”

Theft is different. Theft is overtly taking what you are full-well aware does not belong to you. And that’s what happened with these photos.

The distinction, I think, is important. Had Jennifer Lawrence taken nude photographs for a boyfriend who later, embittered, released them, that would be a leak. It would not make their circulation much less troublesome, but there’d be an element of accountability there. Charges could be pressed, for instance. Jennifer Lawrence could step back and think twice about the kinds of guys she trusts with these sorts of things. While the end result might seem the same to passive observers like me and you, there is still a degree of corrective action that can be taken. A chance to reflect upon the decisions made that caused something like this to happen.

Instead, somebody just took them. I don’t know the specifics, and I wouldn’t understand even if you laid them out for me, but, essentially, these photos were retrieved from data accessible through the cloud. Not directly, and not openly. Somebody sought these out, identified the things they would need to do, break, and exploit in order to get them, did those things, got them, and distributed them.

No breach of trust, no apology, no lesson to be learned. Unless, of course, you count the lesson that the world is full of assholes.

We can fingerpoint. We can say that she shouldn’t have stored those photos in the cloud to begin with. But…did she? It’s possible, but I doubt she deliberately stashed them there. More likely, something synched in some way she didn’t expect. The hacker who stole them, however, played his part in this game will the full knowledge of what he was doing. There is very clearly somebody at fault here. And it’s a thief.

To circulate, to save, or even to seek out these photos is an act of cruelty, and it’s one that dehumanizes an innocent woman.

You have every right to decide who does and does not see you naked.

Think about that. Imagine, now, a world in which that was not the case. That somebody, with enough work, could retrieve photos, videos, transcripts, phone conversations, love letters…or anything, really…that you shared with somebody. With one specific somebody. Somebody you trusted and cared about enough to share them. And that once those things were retrieved, that’s it. It’s over. From that point forward, you no longer have any control over who could see you naked. (In any sense of that word.)

To deny Jennifer Lawrence that basic respect is to reduce her to sub-human status. It is to say, I am in command of who I am. I am also in command of who you are. My decision to see you naked overrides your decision to not let me see you naked.

And that’s pig-headed. Disgusting. And a pretty easy way to perpetuate the horrific rape culture we’ve so successfully built up around us. Sure, a woman might say she doesn’t want us doing this…but, really, how’s she going to stop us?

The disconnect here — preventing us from seeing this for what it really is — seems to be facilitated by the fact that she’s famous, as though that’s actually the key factor here. But it’s not; the key factor is that she is a human being who is now being exploited.

It could be your significant other. Your spouse. It could be one of your children. It could be your niece or nephew. Your colleague. Your best friend. Your neighbor. If any of them were being exploited in the same way, would you be just as quick to dismiss it? Would you seek out the photos yourself? Would you send them to your friends?

Everyone has — or should have, and needs to have — this basic right: the right to their own body. You don’t lose that right when you become famous. You don’t even lose that right if you choose to become a porn star or anything else extreme; you are still making the choice of who gets to see you naked. Maybe that choice is “everyone.” That’s a perfectly valid choice. So is “no-one.” And “I will decide on a case-by-case basis” is more valid still.

I haven’t seen the photos. I don’t want to see them, because that’s unfair. Jennifer Lawrence is one of many thousands of women I’m sure I’d enjoy seeing naked. But if they don’t actually want me seeing them naked, then that’s their choice, and I’m compelled to respect that.

I’ve never met her, and likely never will, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t — or can’t — respect her as a human being. Think of all the people you don’t know that, in the blink of an eye, could suddenly cease to respect you as a human being. What a cold and frightening new day you’d find yourself in. Could you willingly do that to somebody else?

Here’s my thing:

Jennifer Lawrence managed to be wholesome. Maybe not personally (I wouldn’t know) but in terms of her image. That’s what I liked about her in those interviews; the sense that she was a person. Not a body. Not cleavage. Not veiled entendres and teases. Her body was not her language. She was a young, attractive woman in Hollywood who managed, against all odds, to build and maintain a career based on something other than sexuality.

That’s valuable to me. The moment a beautiful young woman enters the public eye is the moment that the clocks start ticking down until we successfully drive her to abandon all self-respect for the sake of our entertainment…at which point we chide her for being a slut, and move on to the next one.

Jennifer Lawrence has sex. Big deal. Jennifer Lawrence lets people see her naked, in the privacy of the bedroom. Who cares? Jennifer Lawrence is the kind of star we need more of; stars with dignity, with talent, with a personality that refuses to be crushed by the machines we’ve built to crush it.

If you want to see a woman like Jennifer Lawrence naked, work on making yourself worth her time. She dates. She flirts. She fucks. She’s a human being.

The least you can do is treat her like one.

So Long, Stinktown!

Well, Serious Week (as friend of the website Ridley and enemy of the website Rachael Ray dubbed it) is at an end. Maybe you’d think I could use a break after that.

Maybe you’d be right!

But either way, it coincides with my move back to civilization! As of this morning I’ll be in Denver proper again, and I have strong intentions of kicking butt on this blog, now that I’ll have a place of my own and — presumably — more time to write and / or eat sad nachos in my underpants.

I don’t know when my internet will be set up, so if this week is quiet, that’s why. There will be a new ALF review on Thursday at the very least, so if you want to make fun of me behind my back, that comments section may be a good place to do it.

In the meantime, as ever, thanks for reading.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where the ads went…I felt bad “profiting” off of the things I was posting last week, so I removed them. I could put them back, but, frankly, I’d like to be able to post things like that now and again without feeling guilty. So for now, at least, they’re gone. I may reconsider in the future, and I appreciate all of your support and feedback on the subject, but I think it’s a story for another day.

You guys are awesome. Be good while Pappy Chatters is gone!!

The Voices of Depression

I would like you to think about some of the people you love most. It doesn’t matter how many, or how few. What matters is that you care about them. And now, with that person, or those people, in mind, I would like you to read the below.

These are excerpts from some very brave and moving pieces of writing that were sent to me. They are presented anonymously, and that’s important, because these are not things that should be attached to a specific identity. That would make it easier for you to push them away. You don’t know these people, after all.

But you do. Because something like what you will read below is affecting, right now, somebody you care about deeply. I was surprised by a lot of what was sent to me, and I know it only scratched the surface.

What you are being given here is a tremendously important gift: you are being made privy to the things the people you love most are too frightened to say. I promise you that more people than you realize are dealing with precisely the kinds of thoughts you are reading below. As you’ll see, some of them managed to pull out of it. As you already know, so many don’t.

Let those people you love know how much they mean to you. And that you will listen. Not answer, not advise, not guide…but listen.

You’ll never know how many lives you might save by doing only that.
–PJR

I’ve been trained to not try to get attention. It just makes things worse. If they never see you crying, they can’t ignore it. […] As I’ve read more and more posts about Robin Williams on Facebook, the attention he gathers reinforces exactly what it shouldn’t. It shows how many people are willing to crawl out of the woodwork to announce how much they loved the deceased. It also reminds me that if I died, my family wouldn’t be willing to take the trip for my funeral.
–CG

When I say I’m okay, I’m begging for you to help me. […] Every day that I think I’m not worth anything, I’ll remind myself with everything I see. Words like failure and worthless run inside my head and try to chip away. Why can’t I just get rid of it? Why won’t it go away? They told me I can just get over it. Why can’t I? Nobody in this position can choose to get over it, because it’s a sickness. It can be put at bay but it doesn’t end. We just want people to understand and love us in spite of all of what our mind tells us. If we try to push away just pull us closer, because we just need proof that we’re worthy of love. No matter what we try and tell ourselves.
–JB

Looking back, there were a ton of symptoms that I ignored: Trouble getting out of bed at all? Check. Mood swings? Check. Secret crying in the shower for no reason? All the time. At some point, my body gave in and I didn’t function anymore. My doctor (I will always be grateful for that) sent me to a crisis intervention, and I admitted myself to a hospital for some time. It was the best thing that could have happened to me, really, and I will always be grateful to her. […] You don’t have to wait until the very lowest point to get help. Don’t do what I did. I wish I’d gotten help much sooner, and I know now that I could have.
–LK

I don’t suffer from depression, I live with it. I tried to commit suicide when I was 12, and knew it wasn’t the way out since then. I used to cut myself to be able to feel but I replaced that with music and poetry. […] People who have depression have to fight themselves to get out of bed, have to argue within themselves to stick it out at work and keep going even though you’d just rather give up and go home. If I do find something or someone that subsides the feeling I tend to attach to it or them, sometimes unhealthily.

Constantly feeling disassociated and disconnected to people around me, I tend to just want to be alone. Happiness is fleeting and only lasts in moments, so I don’t “fake” it as that would cause more depression. 32 going on 33 and I’ve really just come to the point that it will never change. […] If it weren’t for my kids I’d probably be much worse off. They are literally my reason to keep going…
–SR

There comes this moment, when you’re staring into the abyss, and everything just goes quiet. It’s like suddenly, all of your thoughts quietly silence themselves into nothing but expectation—live or die. Depending on your aim or trajectory or knowledge of bodyweight vs dosage vs nausea vs a stomach pump, you either wake up to the noise and the pounding and the chatter and the fear — or, I suppose you don’t. And then, there is nothing. But if you do, you’re left to sort through, told to cheer up, told to deal with it, told to stop looking for attention, while you struggle to ignore how inviting the darkness feels, how blessedly comforting the idea of the silence in nothingness seems to you, the relief it would be to just…end.

But I never think thoughts like that. Because I’m the funny one, the optimist, fucking delightful at parties and a damn good cook, the poet who writes about hope and change and beauty, with a life that’s been enchanted by fortune and a modicum of fame, because everything goes right for me and I am the luckiest girl in the world—I have no right to feel this despair that comes from nowhere, I have no right to cry or hide in my bed, the world is a beautiful place, and after all, I am so very pretty, I’m just grumpy or in a bad mood or I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or maybe I’m on my period. I don’t have depression.

Depression is some shameful secret reserved for Lifetime movies, not me– the scars on my wrists are burns from that summer I worked at a pizza place, because there is nothing sinister in my life, nothing to complain about, no deep dark secrets, no real, serious problems so how could I possibly be depressed? I’m just being overdramatic.
–CO

I started seeing a therapist for depression and anxiety when I was 13. I’ve lost count of the number of therapists and medications I’ve tried now over the past 20 years, but it’s safe to say I’ve been dealing with these issues for a long time. […] Depression for me has been like…thinking that your feelings must somehow be wrong – you must not actually feel that way, because John and Sally and Rebecca all seem to have it together and they do all of the same things you do. So, you make the decision to just push those thoughts down, down, down and lather, rinse, repeat until it goes away…that’s better than asking for help, right? […] I am relieved Robin Williams is no longer in pain, and I am also grateful that he was in a position to get so many people talking about depression and mental illness in general. The more people talk about it, the better chance we have at letting everyone know – you’re not alone. You are not fucking alone.
–MR

The feeling of depression is akin to being stuck in quicksand. You can struggle all you want, but you just sink further and further down. The conflicts, the insults, and the challenges thrown at you are just rocks, stones, and spears being hurled at you. And you’re defenseless. Sometimes, a good omen will happen your way and that’s your rope to grab onto to pull you out. However, the rope is slippery or it breaks and you’re back to slipping further into the muck.
–DS

I’ve struggled for years with psychological issues. […] When I was 12, I drank laundry detergent, thinking it would kill me. Obviously, it only made me vomit a lot and I am still here. I’ve been beaten, I’ve been raped. These things add to my daily struggle. Until recently, I didn’t know what true happiness felt like. My life is finally falling together the way it should. But I still frequently have suicidal ideations. I routinely think about jumping in front of a train, or into traffic. Every time I drive, I consider ramming into the median or off a bridge. It’s a daily struggle. […] Very few people know. Everyone at work tells me they love how I am always so happy, so positive, and always have a smile. If only they knew the real me.
–EF

I’ve never been diagnosed with depression, either because I’ve never been clinically depressed or due to the fact I’ve never sought medical diagnosis. In my case I take support from family (with whom I’ve shared a sugar-coated perspective of how I often feel) and primarily distract myself; my daily life is a relentless quest to keep my mind busy, which is probably why I struggle to sleep and why, if I make the mistake of slowing down, I fall into a melancholic, perhaps depressed state. So I keep going, even if it means I approach 30 with a lot of lingering regrets, missed opportunities, failed relationships of various kinds and a career that’ll be lucky to last more than a few years. I distract myself, get bored, dive off into another tangent and keep recycling myself, because slowing down is too hard.

That makes me a bit of a coward. I know it does. I should confront how I am rather than run in the opposite direction. Maybe I’m just a narcissist, or bipolar, or depressed. I’m too chicken to find out. My advice – the hypocrite that I am – is that the best way to deal with depression, crippling doubts of self-worth or whatever keeps a potentially great life out of reach, is to have the courage to get help. Talk to someone. I’m sure I will too, just not yet.
–TW

When I was depressed I felt that the lowest piece of dirt on the ground was a million million times better than I was. It was like there was a crushing weight inside my head. I could barely muster the energy to tie my shoelaces and I could only walk to the church at the end of the road. […] I used to lash out at my parents and beat my forehead with my fists to get some release. There was a period of time when I was afraid of sunlight and I used to sleep in the day and use my dad’s computer at night. I thought that I was protected by the night being dark and not many people being around at that time. One night I went downstairs, got a knife from the drawer and placed it on my wrist with the intent to slice my wrist open. I was unable to do this because I knew that if I sliced my wrist open I would die and I didn’t want to die despite how I was feeling.
–DW

Mental illness should be treated like physical illness. The stigma should be removed and people who need help should have that help readily available. No one should feel embarrassed and too scared to reach out.
–AW

Every day I battle what at times can feel like crippling sadness, at its most extreme. […] With me, it’s a negative cycle filled with the various negative thoughts constantly telling me that I’m pathetic, or too weird, or too stupid, or not good enough, or a terrible person, or worthless and will never amount to anything. I have been told that I’m a good or lovely person. I’ve actually had quite a few nice, wonderful, positive things said about myself. But my brain can easily come up with a million reasons why it simply isn’t true.

I think sharing or talking to someone about it is the hardest thing for me and for a lot of people. For me personally, I find that what stops me is this constant feeling of guilt I have every day. That feeling that always tells me that I’ve basically done something wrong and that by trying to tell a loved one what I’m really going through, I’ll be burdening them or putting them in a very difficult position. That guilt-inducing voice will then convince me: “Stop being so selfish, stop being a baby. You’re just gonna worry them over nothing! Just man up, deal with it and keep it to yourself!”

It’s a vicious cycle filled with many harsh words and it’s frightening to think that it’s all just coming from your own head. I think what this recent enormous loss has taught me is that just keeping it all buried inside is really the worst thing you can do. No good can come from it. I know I sound like I’m stating the obvious, but it’s just so hard to fully realize that. It’s just so hard to open up to someone and tell them how much you’re suffering. Again, my brain can come up with a million reasons as to why it’s not a good idea. And the fact that there will be people who don’t understand – or even worse, have a judgmental point of view – will always be one of the biggest reasons not to.
–SF

I have suffered from depression. All of my life. Even when I was little I didn’t feel like everyone else did. My parents got me a fantastic camera and I felt nothing. I was 13. Before that I ate so much because I didn’t feel anything. By 14 I was 180 lbs., I had also been cutting myself for 2 years. Now at 22 I have been cutting for 10 years. Not everyday. Never enough for anyone to notice. All though high school I was the one that my friends leaned on, they came to me. No one noticed me. At 22 I am on antidepressants and a mood stabilizer. I have not cut myself in 7 months. I am still fighting. There are some days I don’t want to keep fighting. I am going to have to live with this all of my life. There are days I don’t know why I should have to keep trying. I can’t pay for therapy. I can barely pay for the appointments to see the doctor who manages my meds.
–SB

These mental illnesses that I struggle with are just like other diseases. You’ll go in to remission. Sometimes for months or more, but then suddenly out of the blue, it slams in to you and you find yourself struggling just to breathe. At the onset of my current battle, I reached out to many people, grasping for anyone to help me stay afloat. All I received in return were responses such as “you really need to get a handle on this” or “well, I hope you feel better soon.”

Finally one person reached out to me. Someone whom I haven’t seen since high school and just occasionally chatted with on Facebook. Through talking, we realized we had a common bond. We both had these same illnesses. She encouraged me and listened to me when I needed someone and felt like I had no one. I will be eternally grateful to her. She was there for me when I had reached my lowest point.
–KS

I didn’t have friends at school (only bullies), but because I had nowhere to go, I spent that intervening time at various classmates houses being tossed from one home to the other like they were playing keep away. Alone, scared and trapped, it was somewhere during that time that I first remember having a sincere and urgent desire to die. […] The desire to die has never been fully extinguished. […] I am not here to compare stories or worry about who has a more difficult time getting up every morning and facing themselves in the mirror, because when you suffer with depression, we are all the same. That is the moral of my message.

I am here to say that you don’t have to hide behind your grief, and if we were all a little more honest that we are merely talking animals on a giant rock hurtling through the universe, and none of us know what they fuck we are doing. We are all scared and lonely and didn’t have to feel the pressure and burden of putting on different masks to gain favor and approval; if we could all, for just one fucking moment, be ourselves and announce to the world that we are petrified of life and existence and success and being loved as much as we are of failure and rejection–because the former is far less common–that these joys and frustrations and the pointlessness and absurdity to work and family and everything we see and touch is all temporal. If we could just accept the fact that most of us feel those things and let go of the fear of realizing it, the stigma that depression is something to hide would go away and the healing might be able to begin.
–JS

Our society has taught us to be strong and not show weakness, so here I am putting up a strong facade to make sure no one knows. If I tell someone I feel like I am put in a box with fragile written on it in huge red letters. If I tell someone else they ask me why, your life is perfect. Extremely high expectations, perceived and real, lost friendships, social awkwardness, the fear of failing, the fear of ending up alone, the fear of success. It weighs and weighs and weighs and some days I just can’t take the pressure, but still I smile and grin and bear it so no one knows. If I open up then it becomes someone’s burden and I can’t do that to them. […]

I want to show the world that our minds can be our biggest weapon, our biggest ally, and that the monster inside isn’t going to win. We can fight back, each day, to take back our lives and create our own enjoyment. Create something beautiful where there used to be darkness. I want to help show people that the world isn’t collapsing, it is merely bending and bowing with the times, and we can strengthen the material to make the bends a little less severe.
–KD

You are not alone.
Do not let that thought take hold
You are fighting something
that is not simply conquered.
Do not let delusions of a dark granduer fester inside.
Do not let this darkness take hold…these chemicals in your brain.
Being brave doesn’t mean you simply have no fear
It means you fear but you advance on.
You are not a coward if you have already attempted
Suicide is not a coward’s way out
because you are ready to step into the unknown to get
far away from the known.
No God in Heaven
or this Hell to call your own?
That simple fact that we don’t know
is why your life is cherished.
You can get through this, I promise it now.
The journey is what makes the ending so much more.
Out of everything you could be, you’re a human being.
Life is beautiful, special and grand.
You just took a breath and your heart is beating.
That’s enough to go on, believe me.
We only have this one life to live.
So live it.
Please seek help not for your family, your friends or me
but yourself.
Be selfish and seek that help.
You deserve it and need it
You will get through this
so just remember always
that you are precious
Let your loved ones know that you need them.
–AO

I’m a relatively young, white middle-class male, and the cards are stacked in my favor. And yet there I was, with the cord wrapped around my neck, thinking that this was the only possible way out. And yet there I was, calling the suicide hotline. And yet there I was, years earlier, cutting myself with a shaving razor for reasons I’d myself forgotten. […]

Clinical depression is not sadness, and I’m extremely fortunate that mine is not as severe as others who I’ve known. Clinical depression is a chemical imbalance that results in a lack of vitality – you literally feel dead. […] Sad thoughts and other triggers can take us to that place, but once we’re there, there is no sadness, only a feeling that we are just going through the motions. Which, of course, makes us wonder “why bother?” Why go on when we don’t feel like we have a living soul?

[…] I’ll never know if I could have gone through with it, but I tell myself that I could not have, that these were not serious attempts. Because my sadness does not seem as important as that of others. Because I have so much that should make me happy. Because I did not need to pull myself up from my bootstraps, and I have a lot for which to be thankful.

It is that type of thinking that gets people to commit suicide in the first place.
–ZK

You just can’t understand the struggles of chronic depression unless you are a victim of it yourself.

I suffer from chronic depression. I have for almost all of my life. Some days are better than others but the highs are fleeting and the lows can be shattering. Every day is a struggle mentally. It’s not that I don’t have energy, it’s just that I use a vast amount of it keeping my mental demons at bay. I am plagued by suicidal thoughts almost every day. Logically I know that these thoughts are stupid and that to even entertain them is the height of lunacy.

I can’t just brush them away though. My head knows I should not even think of these things much less do them but the mental compulsion can be overwhelming. It is an exercise in willpower and it is so draining to fight it off every day, but I do.

For too long mental illness has been treated with disdain. It’s not something we can just get over. It’s not a fucking Mary Poppins singalong where we can just sing happy songs and be cured. […] It is dismissed, ridiculed, and treated as some bullshit make-believe condition where we are just sad and all we need to do is just cheer up. You can’t take a magic pill and make everything better. Hell, I have been to therapy for over five years and it doesn’t cure it, it just helps you identify what is going on and makes you more aware. It gives you tools to arm yourself with for the battle but it does not end the war. The war never ends.

The thing is admitting you have a mental disorder comes with associated crippling stigma. People treat you like a freak, like you are some psychopath that could come unhinged at any second and murder their entire family. […] The truth is you most likely have someone very close to you that suffers from mental illness but they are afraid to let anyone know because they don’t want to be treated any different. It is possible they tried to feel you out for help and it was dismissed with a wave of the hand as you told them to just get over it and think of a happy thought and they would be fine. It doesn’t work like that. We need more education disseminated and a social shift in how we treat mental disorders and how we treat the people who have them.
–JH

I had my first panic attack when I was 18 years old. My grandmother was living with us and had recently begun to descend into her dementia. Her diagnosis terrified me. Up until then I lived a very sheltered very privileged life. I grew up rich with love, affection, opportunities and financially we were well off too. Then my grandmother’s insanity revealed itself. She scared me. I was terrified to the bone, thinking I might lose my mind when I get older. I felt what it must have been like to not know anyone around you, to have medical professionals hold you down and sedate you. To have your own children and grandchildren be afraid of you.

I panicked. My heart raced, my stomach dropped, cold sweats, and thoughts and images that entered my mind like a freight train. I honestly thought I was dying. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t scream, I thought I would suffocate. My mother came into the room and literally had to hold me for hours until I felt better. Then I would become physically sick, that lasted the rest of the night into the next day. Then the exhaustion. I would sleep for hours during the day. I didn’t know what the hell was going on or what it was that triggered it. So since I didn’t know, I refused to leave the house. I felt like an infant. […] Everyone else was going out, having fun and I was absolutely terrified of life.

I tried to go to dinner with a friend but I started to panic again. For no reason. I felt nauseated again, my heart was racing. She asked if I was okay, which put me right over the edge and I vomited. In the restaurant. And then I cried and all the panic spilled out. Thankfully, my friend was able to help me. She said she got panic attacks too. I had no idea what these episodes were. She was able to describe them to me exactly the feelings I was having. The rush or wave of fear that would cascade over you, felt like your brain was ignited. As soon as she named my demon, I was instantly beginning to feel better. So I talked about it again with another friend, and another, and another. Soon I was able to joke about it. The less power I gave it, the less power it had over me.
–OB

Apparently, it’s uncommon for someone with my spectrum of psychological disorders to live past adolescence. At the time, I’d been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Mood Control Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. […] My life was being dictated by a series of mental complications that centered around making me feel hopeless, desperate, worthless and that constantly compelled me to “check out early.” And I mean constantly. Every voice in my head, every emotion I felt, made me hate being alive.

I actually tried to take my own life at least three separate times that I can remember. These all involved overdoses of OTC drugs. Thankfully, I didn’t do any research beforehand and the dosages (or choice of pill) didn’t do anything beyond making me really, really sick. I was hospitalized three times. The second time, I was in a bed for three days and forced to drink some horrible charcoal cocktail that saved my kidneys from failing.

[…] I honestly feel like the worst platitude that ever arose out of the realm of politically-correct bullshit is “there’s nothing wrong with you; you’re fine just the way you are.” If you find yourself living the kind of life that I was living (suicidal, perpetually unhappy except for when you’re manic and self-destructive, hopeless, helpless, angry to the point of violence) then there is something wrong with you.

The thing to remember is that there’s nothing damning, shameful or permanent about it. I didn’t turn my life around until I finally said, “Fuck all of this I’m-Okay-You’re-Okay nonsense…I want to get better!” I accepted the fact that every human being is different from the next and that sometimes those differences are flaws that need to be fixed. Then I set out to fix the flaws.

Any other approach is like standing at the prow of a sinking ship and saying “my ship is just as good as all of those other ones…there’s no way she’s going down.” Good luck, captain.
–JR

I don’t process emotions well. It’s very important for me, for whatever reason, to at least appear as though I Have All Of My Shit Together. Emotion doesn’t figure into that. I am cold and logical and prefer it that way. But past experiences have told me that grief doesn’t work that way. You can push those feelings down, swallow them whole, and never look at them again, but they don’t disappear that easily. No, they live under your skin, just out of sight, but always there. Scratch too hard at the surface, and there they are: messy and omnipresent, and patiently, patiently waiting for you to deal with them.

I lost my school funding for what would have been my senior year of my bachelor’s degree, ten years in the making. I called my father to ask if he might co-sign on a loan for me. He could not. “Keep me posted,” was the last thing he ever said to me. A few days later I got the ubiquitous Midnight Phone Call from Mt Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles. He had had a heart attack at home, and rather than spend the money on an ambulance, put himself on the bus to the hospital. Some Good Samaritan called 911 when he began coughing up blood. My father died surrounded by strangers.

I still have old emotions from years ago that I have not dealt with, and I know that the burden becomes heavier over time. I would spend stretches of time alone, sobbing for good reasons, bad reasons, or none at all.
–SH

Depression and anxiety have been a part of my life since I was a child. First, I want to say I have a wonderful life. I have been blessed with the most amazing, beautiful, perfect, supportive family that anyone could ever ask for, I’ve never needed to worry about food on the table or a roof over my head, I’ve been given just about every advantage you can be given in life.

But still, almost every day, I have to battle with feelings of negativity, inadequacy, and feeling on edge for no reason at all. “I’m fine; I’m just tired,” is a saying those with depression know all too well. We are constantly apologizing for things that we have no control over; our feelings, our worries, our stupid random freak outs.

Having depression and anxiety at the same time means wanting to stay in bed because you don’t want to face the day, but panicking because you don’t want to be a failure. Wanting to go see your friends so you don’t lose them, but staying home because sometimes, the mere thought of a social situation is too much. It means seeing everyone else living their lives and making something of themselves, and you feel like you’re stuck in a hole that you can’t get out of (even if it’s not necessarily true).

Sometimes it means feeling perfectly okay when you’re alone, and completely lonely in a group of people.

I think what people without depression fail to realize is that it isn’t just a bad mood. Especially when coupled with anxiety, it isn’t just something you can talk yourself out of. Of course, there are days where I wake up, realize my potential, and feel like I can take on the world. But then there are days where even though there is nothing “wrong,” I can’t bring myself to get out of bed. Or do the things I love to do, or hang out with the people I enjoy hanging out with. Some days, I just feel exhausted and a four hour nap in the middle of the a day where I have tons of obligations seems like the only answer.

For a long time, I tried to avoid taking care of myself. I poured all of my energy into other people, took care of them, worked two jobs, took 18 credits in school every semester, closed at a bar/opened at Starbucks (essentially operated on 2-3 hours of sleep a night for a semester), and substituted stimulants for sleep and food. I still don’t know how I made it as long as I did living that way.

But one day, something happened. And people ask “why?” all the time, but I honestly can’t give a reason to this day. Except that I guess I was just tired of living the way I was. I woke up one day, logged on Facebook, and saw that my friend Wally had been tagged in a weight loss transformation photo by a place called 4Ever Fit. I e-mailed them, and after my now-trainer, Mike, called me two or three times, I finally agreed to go in for a consultation. The rest is history.

I fell in love with fitness, and through building my physical strength, I transformed mentally. I’ve been on medication, I hated it. I’ve tried different therapists, I never found one that I was comfortable with. Losing weight and getting in shape saved my life in more ways than one, and for once in my life, I have a feeling of accomplishment and while there was a time where I couldn’t even envision any sort of future for myself, now I find myself looking forward to the future because I can’t wait to see what else I can accomplish.

But that doesn’t mean every day is all of a sudden easy and full of sunshine and rainbows. When you have anxiety and/or depression, it’s always there, lurking.

It means that somedays, I couldn’t care less if the person I’m seeing texts me throughout the day, because I’m too busy focusing on myself, working, going to school, training, etc. But then another day, I don’t get a text by noon and I’m assuming the worst.

Every day, I wake up and wonder if this will be the day that everything falls apart, and when it doesn’t, I go to bed relieved. But then sometimes… and I never blame the other person, but sometimes my emotions get too intense, and everything does go wrong, and I blame myself. To a ridiculous degree. It means that sometimes, I just want to lay on the couch and have someone tell me “it’s going to be okay”- but usually I’m too busy apologizing for being in a bad mood, or too scared of what someone might think if I tell them I feel like shit- to vocalize my need for comfort.

Most days, I’m strong enough to push through work, school, and training, but some days I am defeated and I cry hours on end because I’m certain the world is ending.

But… the good days far outweigh the bad. And even when I have a bad day now, I tell myself that that’s all it is, and I’ve gotten through it before, and I will surely get through this one, and the next one, and the one after that.

And if I can tell anyone, whether you struggle from a mental illness or not, anything, it is this: put your energy into something that makes you better, not worse. It’s so easy to turn to things like drugs, or drinking, or sex, but at the end of the day, you’re just numbing the pain and pushing it aside for later.

It’s true that when you numb the pain, it just makes it worse when you finally feel it. Whether it’s religion or fitness or volunteer work or cooking or helping others in similar situations, find your passion, and be proud of yourself for doing it. We are beautiful, flawed, incredible human beings, and we are capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for.

Do not write yourself off. Do not diminish yourself to nothing. Do not underestimate yourself. Do not dismiss your value or write off your feelings or apologize for who you are.

You’ve had bad days. You will have more bad days. On those days, it is perfectly acceptable to sit in bed and drink wine and cuddle with your cats. Or take a hot bath. Or lay on the ground and look at the stars and freak out about how big the universe is and feel incredibly small.

But you are not insignificant.

And in between the bad days, you will see how beautiful this world can be. You will meet people that make you realize that love is still good and alive in this world. You will find people, whether it be a family member, friend, or significant other, that see your broken pieces as cracks to pour their love into. You will realize that you are strong enough to overcome anything. Because you were born to be a fighter.

And you will be okay.
–AB

Reflections on Robin Williams’ Passing

I never expected I’d be writing one of these about Robin Williams. After all, I never really liked the guy.

I don’t mean that in a personal sense. I mean that his “identity” never did much for me. He was good at what he did — that much, it’s fair to say, was obvious — but what he did wasn’t what I was interested in.

And now he’s dead, and I’ve done as much reflecting and soul searching as I’ve ever done. The most since Salinger passed a few years ago. So why is it that the death of an actor / comedian I didn’t even enjoy hit me at least as hard as the death of the man who wrote one of the most important books I’ve ever read?

I know why: the dialogue that’s been opened.

I was out the night the death of Robin Williams was reported. By the time I got back it was all over my social feeds, and well beyond the point that people were wondering if it was a hoax. It was not a hoax. People listed their favorite Robin Williams movies. I went to sleep.

The reason I went to sleep was this: I was depressed.

That night, something happened. I’d prefer not to go into it. Suffice it to say that often when I feel depressed (and when most people feel depressed, I’m sure) there’s no distinct trigger. The dark cloud settles, and I want to shake it, but I can’t. It happens. Some creeping — and then seething — sense of hopelessness, worthlessness, and helplessness takes over. And, all at once, I’m powerless.

That night, though, there was a trigger. I know why I was depressed. But even having a specific point of focus for those feelings doesn’t help. It doesn’t stop them from spiraling further. If depression begins from a rational place, which it sometimes does, it never stops there. If it did, we’d just call it sadness. Instead, it poisons our perception of the world around us. That sunset looks hideous. This drink tastes like sawdust. It hurts to look people in the eye so I’ll look down and wonder why I was born if this is the way I’m passing the night.

Why bother? I am avoiding life. I am looking at the world around me and I am thinking, “I don’t want this.” I hear somebody laugh, somebody far away, and I wish I were invisible.

Why am I here?

When I’m depressed, I go to sleep. Nearly always, that helps significantly. I wake up feeling a little closer to centered, and a new day resets the routine. Alarm clock, shower, get dressed, instant coffee, hit the road, start working. Life on a rail. It sounds like it should be restrictive, but when you’re depressed it’s the most liberating feeling on Earth. It’s a chance to step away from yourself. From the lies your mind makes you believe. It might not be fulfilling, but it’s not destructive, and that’s progress.

I’ve even conditioned myself. So effective is sleep — for me — that I can just about will it. If I’m not tired but I’m already depressed by three o’clock? Good night. It’s easy. I’m asleep before I know it, because I think I realize, on some terrified level, that staying awake is going to bring me places I’ll regret visiting. So my mind, knowing no alternative, has learned to shut itself down.

The day after Robin Williams was announced dead, I did not feel better. Because now it was clear that he’d committed suicide.

The dialogue that resulted was devastating. I’m not referring to those who quickly dismissed it as a cowardly act. (Something else my mind has conditioned itself to ignore.) I’m referring to those who did the opposite: those who opened up.

Depression is the quiet killer. It destroys from within. It starts deep…so deep it feels like it’s the most important part of who we are. It’s not a core component…it’s the core itself. And every decision we make and every emotion we feel and every time we decide to stay in for the night, it’s informed by the core. The times that we get to laugh, or have fun, a real weekend of genuine connection with people we love…they feel like brief little vacations. That’s not the real us. The real us…that’s in the core. And at the end of every vacation, we know we have to go back.

People opened up about that. About a lot. They said it better than I ever could. Depression (and self doubt, and lack of confidence, and anxiety) is something I struggle with almost every day of my life…at least to some extent. Often I can get over it. Sometimes, unquestionably, I can’t.

Apparently, neither can others. That was no surprise.

How many others…and which others…well, those were surprises.

The sheer volume of people laying themselves bare, speaking openly about the things that pain them the most deeply, doing so in unpracticed ways that made it clear that these were things they wished they could have said a long time ago…it was humbling. It was the aftermath of a tragedy…you had the assholes on the sidelines, but nobody was paying attention to them. The truly compelling image was that of the stranger embracing the stranger, bonding, at once, over a shared horror.

The death of Robin Williams was absolutely a tragedy of the magnitude necessary to bring out this desperate need for connection. He’s not the first celebrity death, the first celebrity suicide, or the first celebrity lost to crippling depression. But it hits us all — fans and non-fans alike — because who knew? How could it be him?

It needed to be somebody big enough for the shock to be devastating. It needed to be somebody unexpected enough that when the remarks of “coward” came out, one million voiceless depressed people would step forward and put themselves on the line for sole purpose of proving that it’s not cowardice. It’s pain. It’s agony. It’s day after day struggling to keep one’s self together. And when somebody fails — or gives up — it’s not because they were cowards. It’s because too much of the tide came in at once, and they couldn’t stay afloat. A man or woman who spends every day facing personal demons and eventually finds himself or herself outgunned is not a coward. If anything, they died courageously, fighting to the very end in the face of impossible odds.

My friends were sharing their stories. People I’ve known for years, in some cases deeply. Their friends were sharing theirs. Somebody I haven’t seen in ages, who seemed like she had her life together, at last. Souls were being revealed. Pain was being revealed. Everything that we tried so hard for so long to keep secret and keep quiet and keep inside was now — voluntarily — being laid out for everyone to see.

More people than I can count opened themselves up to me, directly or indirectly. And do you know how many of them I lost respect for? How many of them made me reconsider the fondness I had for them? How many of them I vowed to avoid, because I now knew they were crazy?

Zero.

Think about that.

I sure have.

All the stuff that I keep bottled inside. The stuff that at times has literally almost killed me to keep hidden. The stuff that I won’t let out so it fights its way out and comes out as tears or blood or vomit…that stuff that had to be kept hidden at all costs…was let go.

And there was no abandonment.

And there was no disappointment.

And there was no reconsideration of friendships or relationships.

There were strangers embracing strangers. And it was the aftermath of a tragedy that occurred because — and only because — these were things people were not supposed to talk about.

Seeing so much being posted openly, I asked people in general to share with me (anonymously) any words they wished to contribute for a feature that will run tomorrow.

Within minutes I received a submission from somebody I’m pretty sure I’ve never met. A few minutes after that, there was another. And another. And people were sharing the request. And they’re still coming in, as I type this. In a few cases, people have said, “I don’t even mind if you decide not to use this…I just appreciate the chance to get it all out.”

Think about that, too. If I don’t use their submissions, what did they do? Well, they just sat down and wrote. And felt better because of it.

What was to keep them from doing that in the first place?

We’re so discouraged about speaking honestly and openly about mental health issues that we don’t even want to do it with ourselves. We need a tragedy. We need a request. We need a shock to our systems so severe that we find ourselves reacting in ways we didn’t think we could. Some of us, I’m sure, need even more. Because exactly as deep as that depression is, there’s also the warning that we are not supposed to speak of it.

Because we never speak, we never learn. Those without depression don’t realize how pervasive it is, how many of their loved ones it affects, and how easy it could be to understand. And those with depression never realize how many people they know have faced very similar things, or worse, and are coping with them in their own way. When mouths stay shut, everybody — everybody — loses.

Tomorrow, you will hear depression speak.

And that’s important. Because however it may feel, not one of us has to do this alone.

Please be here.

Some Belated Thanks / Updates

This actually came a while ago, but I forgot to post about it, and only realized as I was boxing stuff up that I owed Phil Malkowski (who sometimes posts here as Another Phil) some genuine gratitude for sending me his copy of Project: ALF.

If you aren’t aware, this was the made-for-TV movie that tied up the loose ends from the sitcom. It aired a few years later on a completely different network, and aside from Paul Fusco it retains none of the original cast. Needless to say, I’m sure it’s fantastic.

I have actually seen this before. In fact, I watched it when it first aired…and may not have finished it. I certainly didn’t ever feel compelled to watch it again. I remember it being awful, and as a kid who liked the sitcom, the prospect of dusting this off after episode 99 is not an exciting one.

Regardless, this was the last piece of the puzzle, and I’ll review this in its proper place, after season four. I may break it into three posts, but we’ll see.

You can click the photo to see it larger, but I’ll point out that the Hollywood Reporter evidently claims this film contains “at least a chuckle a minute,” which both sounds like damning with faint praise and overpromising. I don’t think I laugh out loud 90 times at Dr. Strangelove. Is Project: ALF a better film than Dr. Strangelove? We’ll find out together!

I also want to thank Jeff, our resident curmudgeon / luddite, who chipped in for the German DVD set. He sent a check so it arrived a bit late, but is still welcome, and thanks to that the set was almost completely paid for by readers. Which is…humbling, to say the least. Thank you.

He did, however, see it fit to include a note with the check:

…and I have no clue what I’m looking at. I was an English major. You can’t do this to me.

Anyway, thank you, sincerely, to Phil and Jeff!

Also, you may have noticed something I said above about moving. This is good news. I’ll be in a great place with a champagne hot tub and supermodels and a rocket dog.

No, actually I’m just moving to a much nicer apartment in a much nicer area with a much better amount of roommates. (Zero.) It took a while, but getting back on my feet financially has been great, and I thank you folks for helping to keep me sane.

I really might get a dog, though.

The good news? It’ll probably also give me more time to write stuff here, for reasons that are too boring to list.

The bad news? I’m not sure when my internet will be hooked up in the new place. I doubt it’ll be a huge delay, but the week after next could be a quiet one. Your fair warning.

Anyway, thank you for reading / contributing / being all around incredible people. Onward and upward!