Quadriplegia likes to attack both
your body and mind. It doesn’t do it all at once, however – or at least it
doesn’t feel that way. It comes on in stages. It typically feels like
quadriplegia is attacking your body first, with the loss of your mobility and
sensation grabbing all the early headlines and capturing your immediate
attention. Then, as you gradually process those losses, and slowly figure out
the best ways to keep yourself physically healthy, the struggle turns to how
you keep your thoughts positive and your momentum leaning forward. This is
perhaps the greatest long-term threat to many individuals in my situation.
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| Time For Pills. Everybody Happy? |
It should probably
come as no surprise then that my doctors immediately put me on antidepressants
right after I broke my neck. They didn’t ask or even consult me on the matter.
They just did it. And with all the other shit going wrong in my life at the
time, I really didn’t have any time or grounds on which to object. I just did
the only thing I could: I kept working towards getting healthier and moving
forward with my life. But I knew I didn’t want to be on those pills for very
long if I could help it.
As soon as I was out
of the hospital and my health had finally stabilized, I actually tried to stop
my antidepressants. I made my first attempt at stopping them in January 2004. I
had been home for little more than a month. The only reason I remember the
timeline accurately is because my doctors wouldn’t actually let me stop my
pills at that time. They thought I might be susceptible to “seasonal affective
disorder,” and they said I’d have to wait for some sunshine to properly treat
all my mental ailments. But once the flowers were in bloom and the calendar
turned to June, I made another appointment, answered all of their questions and
threw the rest of my script in the trash when I got home. I was finally done
with those pills forever.
I don’t mean to
sound overly hostile towards antidepressants. They’re obviously a tool that has
helped millions of people effectively manage their mental health, and they have
a place in medicine as a result. But I also think they’ve become too heavily
relied upon by doctors and patients rather than more constructive forms of
treatment, like therapy. It’s not difficult to see why, though; they’re super
easy to use. You just pop a pill every morning and you're fixed. Well, definitely
not fixed, but popping pills is far easier than doing the dirty work that
therapy requires. Those conversations can be messy and painful and expose
truths we’d rather leave alone in the dark. So, why wouldn’t you just pop a
pill when given the choice?
While I certainly
won’t begrudge someone that chooses to take antidepressants for any reason, I
personally felt tired and just generally numb while I was on them. And in my
situation, numbness isn’t a lot of fun. Paralysis – which is the complete
absence of sensation, not the reduction of it – has taken everything I once
felt from my shoulders down. I didn’t want some stupid fucking pill to take
away whatever I could still manage to feel from the shoulders up, even when
those feelings are sometimes shitty. I already know exactly what it’s like to
physically feel nothing. I can’t afford to numb myself emotionally, too. Life
is too much about experience and interpretation to further impair the ways I
can process the world. And what’s left for me if I do that? So I chose early on
in my recovery to get clean and face whatever might come as soon and as sober
as I possibly could.
This approach has
taken me pretty far in my life post-injury, but I haven’t been able to handle
all my thoughts and insecurities over the last 15 years. These struggles also
seem to be occurring with greater regularity the older I get. And that’s
probably natural. It’s easy to put off bigger, existential issues when you’re
young. The world is full of new opportunities, experiences and people, and that
stuff serves as a bunch of sand for you to stick your head in for a while. That
was certainly true for me, even as a cripple. I had college and work and so
many other new things to check out (not to mention figuring out my whole new
way of life as a quadriplegic). But the hunger I had for many things in my
youth has slowly given way to routine and comfort as I’ve gotten older. While
other factors like the nursing shortage and a lower income contribute to this
issue, ambition might just be chief amongst them. And this is where mental
health gets tricky.
The thing most
people don’t understand about depression is how it operates. And this is key to
figuring out how you can stay happy. Too many people believe depression is a
simple one-time foe to be defeated and discarded. But that grossly
underestimates just how goddamn insidious depression can be. Think of
depression as a slow and patient siege outside your walls rather than a single
combatant. And even when you’re happy and healthy, it’s still waiting patiently
outside your gates, probing for weaknesses and looking for a new way back into
your life. Then, your dog dies, or life steps on your dick in some other cruel,
newfound way, and you suddenly slip back into your old mindset again. That’s
where the real challenge with depression lies, and that’s precisely why it can
be so problematic for many individuals post-injury. Life just loves steppin’ on
our dicks, and depression is more than willing to wait for its moment.
So, if depression is
so damn insidious, and a cripple’s dick is under constant threat of being
mashed by the cruel realities of the world, what exactly is a guy supposed to
do?
I honestly can’t
answer that question in a general sense. I have no clue what every guy should
do to stay happy and healthy. What makes some dudes tick couldn’t hold my
attention for a minute. I can only tell you what this guy does to stave off
depression, and the easiest thing I do is try to create a schedule that leaves
me with things to consistently look forward to on a weekly, monthly and yearly
basis. For a realist like myself, I call these things, “manufactured hope.”
They’re the shining stars on the horizon that I’m able to lift my head to and
gaze at fondly when struggling with something in the moment. But depending on
what you’re into and want to do, this might take a little work and a little
capital to accomplish. You shouldn’t let that dissuade you, however. Investing
time and money into maintaining your mental health will truly pay dividends in
the end.
The things I like to
keep on my radar revolve mostly around my hobbies – shocking, I know – and the
primary hobbies I enjoy are: metal, cinema (horror, in particular) and
boardgames. Between those three interests, I’m able to steadily identify new
content coming out all the time (I purchase a lot of music and movies
throughout the year), and create events that utilize that content for the
future. For example, I host a weekly boardgame group at my home almost every
Saturday, and I also try to visit my local theater at least once a week for the
latest and greatest in cinema (AMC’s Stubs A-List is a fantastic program).
Quadriplegia can be quite isolating, especially during the colder winter
months, and those two things keep me interacting with people and regularly
making trips outside my home. I’ve also discovered over the years that having
fun and interesting things to look forward to makes doing all the monotonous,
shitty work that quadriplegia necessitates just a little bit easier to
tolerate.
These interests are
also able to keep my mind active, even when I’m not directly engaging in one of
them at the time. I don’t want to imply that idle minds are somehow more
susceptible to depression. I have no fucking clue. I just know it’s easier for
me to fall back on all my anxieties and insecurities whenever I’m left alone
with only my thoughts and nothing to really fill that void. While sometimes
even my best efforts can’t break my negative thought patterns, when possible
I’d much rather think about pleasant topics, like art and boardgames, than
worry about my health or other aspects of my disability. These questions don’t have
to originate from really profound thought exercises, either. I’ll often spend part
of my night thinking about the perfect doublebill for lesbian vampire movies
(yeah, they’re a thing) or the best metal songs inspired by horror movies. And
by giving myself these types of things to think about – as stupid as they might
appear to some – I’m able to occupy my brain with healthier and more worthwhile
pursuits than just fixating on my disability over and over again.
Another thing I try to
do is stay the fuck off social media as much as possible. While I loathe most social media platforms, Facebook is
honestly the worst. I lost a few of my friends a couple years back to kids and
other nefarious acts of domesticity. I can still call them up and bullshit whenever
I want, but I rarely have the opportunity to see them anymore. It sucks. But it
sucks even more to look at pictures of them doing shit with their family and
other friends. It makes me feel like I’m either missing out on things with them
or that they’d rather do stuff with people other than yours truly. If you can
believe it. While I honestly don’t believe either of those things to be true,
it can still be really hard to push those feelings aside. And I’m not alone.
Just Google “Facebook missing out” and you’ll see that this is something a lot
of people suffer from. Thankfully, nobody I know leads a really interesting
life, so I have no reason to lurk around and create that kind of self-doubt for
myself.
But of all the
things I do to avoid falling into a funk, I believe expressing my inner
thoughts to be the most significant. I don’t think anybody can find truly long-lasting
solutions to all the dark shit floating around in their head if they’re not
willing or able to express that stuff in some way. While I strongly believe in
introspection and looking inward to identify the issues that you’re struggling with,
at a certain point, your efforts must turn towards some form of outward
expression. Writing gives me an outlet where I can express all of the things I
can’t really say aloud to other people in my life. I also find that while
writing on a particular topic I’ll often discover a few things I didn’t
necessarily have in mind at the outset, and it frequently serves as both a
source of inspiration and catharsis that allows me to avoid having to endlessly
internalize all my thoughts and emotions.
Therapy helps, too. Unfortunately,
too many people – and guys, in particular – attach a negative stigma to
therapy. It’s seen as an admission of weakness for some reason, and that’s
fundamentally wrong. Strength isn’t being able to handle everything alone;
it’s being able to admit your vulnerabilities to someone. Because I choose not
to confide most things to my family and friends, I value having a therapist that
I can chat with regularly. While just being able to make my struggles known to
someone else feels great, there’s also a certain empowerment that comes from
verbally conveying your thoughts to someone rather than simply writing about
them in a vacuum. I feel like there’s a sense of ownership that occurs whenever you sit in
front of someone and state your issues out loud and in-person. And a good
therapist is able to tear down whatever walls you may have and call you on your
shit. I know mine does. This is also a large part of what I still enjoy about
speaking publicly on my injury. Sometimes leaving yourself with nowhere to hide
can produce some profound revelations, even if the revealing process makes you
feel a little uncomfortable.
Ultimately, whether I’m happy or angry or sad or whatever – the particular emotion is never
usually all that important – I believe I’m best when I’m operating like
your slimy digestive tract: consuming, absorbing and expressing. (Yes, this
implies that my “expressions” on a matter are essentially big, stanky turds.)
But in laying out how I try to avoid depression, I’m also really just revealing
the things I value most in life. And I think that’s the major take away from
everything I’ve said. While my approach and my methods probably won’t work for
most folks – I realize loud, angry music and violent, gory movies have an
admittedly small audience – I’d argue that the best way for anyone to stave off
depression is to identify what you value most and cling to it with everything
you’ve got.
– King Cripple
