I'm a big, fat cry baby ensconced in existential angst. For that reason, and since I have an actual diagnosis from a real doctor who says I'm bat-shit, I joined an online support group for equally disfunctional people. The group focuses on depression, which is by far the least interesting mental illness from which one can suffer. Schizophrenia and personality disorders are at least entertaining, and oddly compelling. When someone claims that the refrigerator is being used by the Department of Commerce to spy on the goings-on in their kitchen, you know you have the beginning of a story that is likely to heat up. Why is the DoC spying? Why the refridgerator? Is anyone in danger? Are any other appliances listening or giving orders?
The best part about being around a crazy son of a bitch is that the future is unpredictable. You may hear something insane, or you may get your nose bitten off like that guy in "Silence of the Lambs." Either way, your mind isn't likely to wander. It is the one virtue of madness.
Depression certainly qualifies as crazy. But the depressed person is very predictable, and has nothing of interest to relate. I say this as a bipolar fuck who knows depression, and has a personality disorder or two (or four). I'm not ranking on anyone here. Actually, that's one of the curses of depression. Your friends and family will run for the hills every time you emerge, disheveled and unshaven, from your flat. You radiate ennui and hopelessness and it's clear to everyone that you are a sad-sack who will:
1. Be unable to see the good in anything.
2. Think every negative thought, comment, and image is aimed at you.
3. Not stop talking about yourself and how much you suck.
4. Bore the life out of people, plants and animals.
Naturally, people will flee. And rightly so. Even when in a good mood, your average human (if he or she has any scruples) will have to suppress the urge to stick their face in the fan. A black-hole of a depressed fuck can only attract other people who are also walking insults to the gift of life. Therefore, a support group for depressed people is a place where unbearable people can join together and talk about what a suck-fest is life. Strangely, knowing that other people are going through this is actually a comfort. It really is. Conversations in groups like this, both on the Interent and off, go something like this:
Darren (that's me): I haven't slept for three days, and I can't stop thinking about trying to kill myself. I don't want to die, really, I just want to disappear.
Zeke: Oh, I totally know that feeling. I just want to disappear, too.
Barbara: Me, too. When I look my husband, I just want it all to end. All of it.
Darren: I'm such a loser.
Zeke: Me, too.
Barbara: Yeah.
That's how it goes for however long people can stand it. Group therapy in real-life is worse, of course, because you're sitting in a circle and staring at each other. The Interent takes the misery up a notch in a different way, because people are encouraged to explain their plight in fantastic detail. They can sit in front of their computers and stab out a litany of banal observations and mental health diagnoses. Every once in a while, someone throws something into the mix that is terrifying and/or strange, just to see if you're paying attention (it seems like). For example:
Jeff and I went to the Waffle-Hut on 5th and Amsterdam yesterday. I wasn't hungry, but I had some pancakes. Jeff didn't say much, but he seems to want to say something to me. I, too, want to communicate my pain and share it, but I can't. I just want to die. When we got home, he sat and watched football while I played, "Slingo" on the computer.
This could go on like this for pages, then suddenly:
After tea, I went into the bathroom and cut, "DIE CUNT DIE" into my right thigh.
What the fuck?! You see, depression rarely travels alone. Frequently, something else is in there. But even if that's interesting, it's not in a good way. It unbearably sad, and really awful, but what can be done? I'm searching, myself.
Every once in a while, the fog lifts and depression wanes. Life (cruelly) seems doable again. The very first thing a depressed person does when they have a reprieve from depression is to GET AWAY FROM DEPRESSED PEOPLE IN GROUP. Seeing other people like that is bound to get you down again. So the group is always cycling people in who are in the worst frame of mind. Online groups frequently get posts from people who are at rock bottom. They go on a tirade against themselves, and it's all death and emptiness and sadness. Then you don't hear from them again for 2 months.
I try to stick around my group when I'm doing well. Although this is sure to annoy some people. My advice is basically, "Don't kill yourself, take your pills, go to therapy, and wait around for it to get better." That plan usually works. If it doesn't, if you wait around long enough, you'll die anyway.
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