It’s been a while since I’ve written something unrelated to school, work or trying to figure out how to pay our homeowner’s association fees, so I figure I may as finally tell you all the story of how Animal Kingdom ruined me – or, depending on how you look at it, helped me get better.
On balance, I’m an incredibly fortunate guy. I have a decent job, a nice home, a loving fiancé, a caring family, and great friends. I have the ability to spend my off time getting my Master’s degree to advance my career into a field I have a genuine passion for. I’m getting married to the love of my life in less than eight months. I have my health, my nightly smorgasbord of pizza and beer in college be damned.
And yet, for the past few years, I’ve dealt with bouts of depression and anxiety. To a lesser extent, this dates as far back as high school, when I’d get bent out of shape for days, sometimes weeks at a time over petty drama, minor quibbles, and perceived slights and arguments. You might be familiar with this condition as first-degree “being in high school.”
But through college and my first few years as a young working professional (does identifying yourself as “Card Services” on the phone 100 times a day count as being a professional?), the issue never really went away for me, and over the last two-plus years, it’s gotten worse to the point of interfering with my day-to-day life.
Like any life, even the most blessed one, some really shitty things have happened in mine. But depression – or at least the form that manifests itself in me – is a funny thing. For me, it’s rarely the big, catastrophic event that knocks me into a funk, but the ticky-tack stuff.
One bad e-mail or quality check at work? Bam, two hours wondering what I’m going to do when I get fired.
A minor spat with a friend or family member? Four hours questioning whether I’m a good friend or if I’ll ever have the same relationship with them again.
An e-mail reminding me of a school deadline? An hour of contemplating dropping out.
Two minutes of bickering with my fiancé because the fifth Ikea dresser we’re trying to build didn’t go as smoothly as the first four? There’s a day of me pondering whether I’m a terrible partner and if I deserve her, or anyone.
It’s affected my work life, occupying my attention for hours at a time when I could be, you know, working. It’s affected my social life, as I drop fully out of conversations and engagements because I’ve decided at that moment to take stock of what I believe everyone thinks about me. It’s made me terrified of taking on big projects like my Master’s project because of the complete panic that has set in during previous semesters – the moment halfway through an assignment where I just think, “You know, what if I completely fail this? I could completely fail this. What’s going to happen then? What do I have then?” It’s frankly made it hard to get out of bed some mornings, or made me consider just blowing past my exit for work and just driving all day to nowhere in particular.
And yet, all at once, I’ll start feeling better, like my endocrine system has just run out of the “worrying” chemical it’s been pumping through me for the last two hours. A reprieve where I feel like my old generally happy, dick joke-making self again.
But anyway, this was supposed to be a story about Animal Kingdom.
A little over a year ago, my then-girlfriend, now-fiancé and I went to Disneyworld for a week. It was without a doubt the best vacation I’ve ever been on. Nevertheless, on the fourth day of the trip, I had a complete internal meltdown during our day at Animal Kingdom. I’m still not sure exactly what it was that set me off; Animal Kingdom’s my least favorite Disney park, but no specific event comes to mind. Maybe a monkey made a face at me or something.
Regardless of whether it was a long line, a bad sunburn, or a pebble in my shoe, all at once I had a change in emotional state about halfway through the day: I didn’t want to be there anymore. I didn’t know where I wanted to go or why, but I just needed out. I didn’t ask to leave right away because I didn’t want to ruin the day for Jenna, but I grew so sullen and quiet that it was hard for her to ignore. We eventually left. When we got back to our room, I finally told her how I’d been feeling.
“I think I’m bipolar,” I said, before laying out exactly how I’d been feeling for a while, especially for the better part of a year at that point.
Jenna listened, hugged me, kissed me, and said that I was probably not bipolar, but should go see someone when we got back home. She had my back. More importantly, she’d listened. I wasn’t alone. Someone else knew.
For the past year, I’ve seen a therapist every couple of weeks, and for the past three months, I’ve been taking a small, prescribed dose of citalopram every day – not enough to interfere with my usual recreational activities, mind you, but enough to keep the lows from getting too low when they do come about. The stress-reducing exercises have helped me immensely, but even just articulating my thoughts to an objective, empathetic and helpful therapist is worth it.
Therapy and medication aren’t “light switch” fixes. Even after months in therapy, there were still days I came home from a benign afternoon with friends burying myself in a pillow for no real reason. I don’t spend each day in a depressed, medicated fog, nor do I spend it strolling around like I’m Andy Samberg on a cocaine high in the “Great Day” Lonely Island sketch. But I feel more like me than I have in quite some time.
I’ve only told a couple people about this, in varying levels of detail, because I didn’t want to burden many people with my issues. I think that’s a big reason more people don’t talk about this sort of stuff, in addition to the persistent stigma about therapy and mental illness despite the fact that 18% of Americans experience some degree of anxiety, and 6% have had a "major depressive episode" in a given year. I don’t want to saddle you with my problems.
But as I’ve wrangled my emotions to an extent, I believe keeping all this to myself would be dishonest. It’s a huge part of my life, for better or worse, and to omit it like it’s a minute detail is to conceal something that has occupied an inordinate share of my time and thoughts. Additionally, as corny as it sounds, there is real value in knowing others are dealing with what you are. For the lion's share of the past few years, I wondered what was wrong with me: most of my problems seemed to be tied to normal, adult life (work, school, relationships), and nobody else seemed to be having the struggles handling it that I did. A big reason I felt as comfortable as I did seeking help is because I knew of friends and colleagues who visited a therapist and swore by it.
I can't emphasize this last part enough: as far as depression and anxiety go, there are a million different degrees, and I know there are others who go through much more than I do. If you’re going through a rough week, a rough month, a rough year, or what have you, I’d be happy to talk to you as a friend if you’re comfortable and willing to. We all deserve to have time for self-care, time to address us and us alone, because if you’re not at your best self for you, you can’t be your best self for anyone else.
Thanks for listening, guys. Trust the process.
