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Saturday, Nov 28, 2009
Dear Cary,
I am waging a daily battle against depression, and I think I'm losing. I would never kill myself, so there's no need for an automatic form letter urging me to seek immediate help. I need your poetic third-person POV of this situation. I was let go from a job that I hated with a passion three months ago, and I have decided to carve out a career as a freelancer in a creative field. I realized that I had to work for no one other than myself, or my life just wouldn't mean that much.
I'm also trying to date as aggressively as I can. As a somewhat shy 29-year-old male, I have not had a good relationship in seven years. I did have a nightmarish yearlong relationship with a wretchedly immature woman who was just a terrible human being, but that's another letter. On average, I've been meeting and dating one girl a month since I got laid off. Each was worse than the one who came before.
The point of all this is that I feel so socially and professionally isolated that it is driving me insane. I am sex-starved and I spend almost all my free weekend time with my parents and my sibling's children. Not only is that not natural for a man my age, it often underscores my loneliness and I wake in the middle of the night sometimes wondering what I'll do after my parents pass away and all I have to keep me company is my work. It frightens me.
I did have several successful long-term relationships in high school and college with attractive, exciting women, so I don't think that I can classify myself as damaged goods.
It's so hard some days, I feel absolutely morose. Please don't suggest an antidepressant. I did it once years ago and they worked so well, I put on 40 extra pounds (that I've worked off) and they killed my sex drive. Those pills can stay in the bottle.
Needing a Second Wind
Dear Second Wind,
Thank you for your thoughtful and moving letter. I think I understand what you are asking for -- some encouragement, the kind everybody needs occasionally when the chips are down -- but the more I think about your having lost the job, not sleeping well, being anxious about the distant future, having tried antidepressants and gone off them, having had good relationships in the past but not being able to connect with women, deciding to go freelance, the more I think you really ought to talk to a professional, just in case this is not simply a phase, but the beginnings of a serious bout of clinical depression.
Promise me you'll do that. And then, if it is just a spate of bad luck, a rough patch, here's what I think: Don't go freelance. Not now. Not when you're already a little rocked back on your heels. Even a job you hate has a lot to offer. It gives you a steady income and gets you out of the house at the same time every day -- as mundane as that is, it can help keep you from excessive brooding. And it puts you in the great brotherhood of people who hate their jobs; it gives you a common enemy; it's something to belong to. There's nothing like feeling superior to a crass and irritating supervisor, and sharing your disdain with others after work. It's those little shallow pleasures that get us through life; we bitch and moan and feel better. In a dark and perverse sort of way, it gives your life meaning.
So losing that steady job, even though you're glad it's gone, may be contributing to your depression. And dating a new girl every month can't be helping. That sounds like a regular regime of rejection and failure, which doesn't do much to help a guy feel good about himself.
I get the feeling something else is going on here. Something has happened between now and high school What's different about now and then? Are you not in as good health as you were? Are you drinking and taking drugs regularly? If there's some overall pattern like that, that's why you need a professional to help you get your head above water and begin swimming to shore.
