I was once asked by a healthcare professional if I\u2019d ever had suicidal thoughts. At the time I thought it was a standard question (I don\u2019t really have a lot of experience with doctor types \u2013 other than the ones I\u2019ve encountered in my work experience, who mostly haven\u2019t paid much attention to me, except, maybe, to tell me how important they are). But I was forced to get an exam for some reason or other (work-related, I think) and it may be that I was just doing a poor job of hiding my disgust at being in this guy\u2019s presence (once you find out what they really think of the general public, it\u2019s hard to pretend to believe they actually give a shit about \u2013 let alone respect \u2013 you), and he mistook my disdain for despair. <\/p>\n
I mean, my mother once told me I looked \u201cmean\u201d (thanks Ma!), and my wife told me I look like a Klingon (hopefully a \u201cNext Generation\u201d version). I even had my ninth grade English teacher tell me one time that she didn\u2019t like having me in her class, because she\u2019d look at me sitting there and know I was thinking \u201cthis is bullshit.\u201d A bit of projection on her part, I think, but I assured her that she ought not to worry because I was rarely, if ever, actually paying attention to whatever it was she was saying.<\/p>\n
So perhaps I had a bit of a pissy look on my face. I dunno.<\/p>\n
Anyhow, my response to the whole thinking about offing myself thing was, \u201cyeah, I suppose everybody has thoughts like that from time to time.\u201d So naturally the follow-up question was \u201cdo you often feel depressed?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, shit. First you have to define \u201coften\u201d and then you\u2019ll have to tell me what you mean by \u201cdepressed.\u201d Sad, sure. Who isn\u2019t, apart from narcissists and sociopaths. I\u2019m no shrink, but I doubt any state of malaise I\u2019ve ever experienced has risen to the level of clinical depression. I once heard a now-disgraced podcaster talk about having anxiety attacks and saying that people think they get those, but they don\u2019t really know what that is until they actually have one. Which made me wonder, if that\u2019s the case, how you\u2019d ever know you actually had one. I guess it’s like porn – you know it when you see (or feel) it.<\/p>\n
But the point is, yeah, I\u2019ve felt shitty and unhappy and all that, but nothing out of what I assume is the ordinary (I mean, it kind of depends on your situation, no? And whether or not you ran out of beer and cigarettes and the stores are all closed \u2013 yeah, there once was a time when the stores closed and teevee stations actually \u201csigned off\u201d for the night). <\/p>\n
Anyway, any suicidal thoughts I might have had were certainly never serious (I mean, here I still am, right?), and, in any case, not as a result of depression. More like laziness. As in, there were things I really didn\u2019t want to do (write a paper, take a test, go to work, give a presentation, go to a fucking doctor appointment, etc.), and never being particularly bright or creative, the only way I could think to get out of doing them would be to wake up dead. Or maybe get in a serious (but non-fatal) automobile accident. Preferably something involving a relatively brief coma that would allow me to catch up on my sleep and not have to experience any pain (had an MVA resulting in a compression fracture of the T10 vertebrae one time and let me tell ya, that shit hurt. A lot. Still does, frankly \u2013 it’s something I highly recommend you avoid). <\/p>\n
Oh, and no catheter, please, because the thought of the thought of those things frankly creeps me out. <\/p>\n
Now that I\u2019m older, the car accident fantasy has been replaced by something a little more age appropriate \u2013 like, maybe, an acute cardiac infarction. Mild stroke. Something relatively benign, yet necessitating early retirement at full pay (and a prescription for medical marijuana \u2013 and not that NYS crap, either, but the real thing). Hey, a guy can dream, no? <\/p>\n
Which leads me to where I am today. I mean, not today, specifically, but today as in at this point in my life. For reasons I won\u2019t get into, I\u2019m really not digging the way life is working out right now. I mean, besides obvious things like a POTUS who is a Russian asset, a bunch of \u201cliberals\u201d who seem intent on eating each other because this one doesn\u2019t like that one, and that other one was mean to the one whose turn it was last time, and some billionaire asshole who seems intent on making sure the current fake billionaire asshole stays in office.<\/p>\n
On a side note, I see that our beloved (yet terribly harassed, which has never happened to any other president) Commander in Chief keeps referring to the Amazon and WaPost dude as Jeff Bozo. I get that\u2019s a pretty easy \u201cjoke\u201d to make with the \u201cb\u201d and the \u201cz\u201d and the \u201co\u201d and all, but someone who wears harlequin makeup and a fright wig really shouldn\u2019t be making clown references. <\/p>\n
Anyhow, my angst these days is pretty much all work related. I\u2019m feeling overwhelmed and stressed and hopelessly trapped and just plain unhappy. I haven\u2019t really slept much in a couple of years (despite what my watch seems to think \u2013 apparently when you just lie there staring into the darkness, it considers it \u201clight sleep\u201d), I have a more or less perpetual headache, my jaw hurts like hell from constantly clenching my teeth, and I have to piss all the time. <\/p>\n
That last part isn\u2019t really related to stress \u2013 it\u2019s just annoying. <\/p>\n
So, here I am, too young to die (or at least too young to give up just yet), too poor to retire, can’t drink beer, pot\u2019s not legal (yet, at least) here in NY, the few parts of me that don\u2019t hurt are numb because I slept on them funny, it\u2019s only the beginning of February and I\u2019ve been sick of winter since before Xmas, the basketball team is having a shitty season, the lacrosse team opened up with a loss to fucking Colgate, for fuck\u2019s sake, and Trump\u2019s still president. If I wasn\u2019t at least a little depressed, I\u2019d need to have my head examined. <\/p>\n
And, yeah, I\u2019m aware that I\u2019m being just a wee bit melodramatic here (I get that from my mother), and obviously know that I\u2019ve been more than fortunate in my life and I really have no right to complain.<\/p>\n
But fuck that.<\/p>\n
Up until a week or so ago, I\u2019d been harboring this fantasy that I could retire at any point. I mean, I\u2019ve got enough years in to collect a pension and while I know that I\u2019ll take a hit because of my age (never thought there\u2019d be a drawback to being \u201ctoo young\u201d – especially since it never occurred to me that I\u2019d ever get this old in the first place), but I thought, you know, give up my addiction to Amazon, cut back on things here and there, and I could tough it out until Social Security kicks in (assuming the Republicans don\u2019t fuck that all up). In fact, I was pretty much convinced I was ready to pull the pin, walk in to HR, fill out the paperwork, and close out this chapter of my life. I mean, what\u2019s the point if you\u2019re just gonna feel like shit all the time?<\/p>\n
But then I sat down and looked things over realistically and, well, even if I eat the dogs, sell the truck and walk wherever I go, revert to dial-up Internet (do they even have that anymore?), fill in the pool (which I would love to do \u2013 I mean, a pool where there\u2019s nine months of winter? Whose bright idea was that?), and give up my phone (which, really, won\u2019t do me much good without Internet anyway, seeing as nobody ever calls me and I\u2019ve hated telephones since I got the call in the middle of the night that my dad had died), there\u2019s still no chance of me retiring. Zero. Zip. As John Lennon once sang, the dream is over.<\/p>\n
If I wasn\u2019t depressed before that, I sure as hell am now. <\/p>\n
But I\u2019m a guy, and while I am (under certain circumstances) allowed<\/b><\/i> to have feelings, I\u2019m most definitely not<\/b><\/i> allowed to express them. <\/p>\n
So, never mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was once asked by a healthcare professional if I\u2019d ever had suicidal thoughts. At the time I thought it was a standard question (I don\u2019t really have a lot of experience with doctor types \u2013 other than the ones I\u2019ve encountered in my work experience, who mostly haven\u2019t paid much attention to me, except, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10100,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099\/revisions\/10100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}