October 13

Yesterday, I watched an HBO comedy special called The Great Depresh. It was stand-up comedy done by a guy named Gary Gullman. Gullman's style is mostly observational (he had some good takes, like one millennials getting dragged for accepting participation trophies in actual sports from Gen-Xers who give each other trophies in fake sports like fantasy football and another on how technology has changed tracking missing kids - we now have social media and Amber Alerts whereas when he grew up we used the side of milk cartons) and four square within what I would consider the Seinfeld line of comedy.

But the broader theme of the special had to do with Gullman's decades-long struggle with depression and anxiety, culminating in his spending three weeks in a psychiatric ward and being treated with electro-shock (convulsive) therapy. It was raw stuff and at times difficult to watch. Gullman, who is a year younger than me, put his finger nicely on the fact that when we were growing up, boys were not allowed that emotional vulnerability, that acknowledgement of weakness or struggle. We were told, in essence, to "get over it," and be stolid unfeeling capital M men. I am not sure, as Gullman says, the choice was quite as binary as Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons, but it was not that far apart either. 

I admired Gullman's willingness to discuss his struggles, the anxiety he felt that kept him from leaving his home, the on-and-off cycles of medications he took, the friendships he lost, the people who were close to him who wondered if the time they spent would be the final one with him. It is hard to explain to people who do not experience these things how insulting it is when we are told to just "get over it," as if we ask to be miserable, that we want to be anxious about being in social situations, or choose to shut ourselves off from others. Why would anyone make the affirmative choice to be unhappy? 

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