Owen Wilson’s recent suicide attempt is really dominating the headlines right now. Too bad for Owen, but great for us.
I’ve suffered depression off and on since my teens. Sometimes it gets really bad and debilitating, but most of the time it’s just omnipresent in the back of my mind, kinda like my social insurance number. God knows I try to fight it, but I know I make my mistakes, too.
One watches these shows like Oprah and sees all the “happiness” experts parading through, telling us that happiness is a choice, and one can be left feeling pretty malfunctioning in a world of efficient and bubbly personas, you know?
Someone like Owen Wilson, who’s perceived to be this laissez-faire, lowkey comedy hottie, goes and tries to kill themself, and, yeah, the world starts to realize that your typical psych case isn’t necessarily always that anti-social asshole who has the corner office on your floor.
Me, I admit my depression history and I see immediate shifts in facial expressions, like I’ve just announced I have a bedwetting problem or something. It’s amazing how quick the shift occurs. The thing is, depression isn’t some icky-gross malady that can turn a stomach. I mean, it’s not some ginormous goiter or oozy weeping ulcer that most people try to avert their eyes from, but it’s still a strangely taboo subject. It’s the kind of thing yuppies still mutter over their martinis. Mm, you heard about his breakdown last year? He spent six weeks rehabbing in Oompa-Loompaville. I bet he’s having cocktail de valium as we gab.
Those of us who’ve been proverbially alone in the dark with depression get how debilitating it can be, how hard it can make day-to-day life. We know how incredibly isolating it is. We’re flooded with endless self-doubt and morose thoughts. Not always, thank god, but there are certainly days and months and even years of bleakness barraging us.
It is what it is, though. We carry on. It’s kind of like suffering from chronic pain. Sooner or later, it just becomes a new normal. Usually you can just get by on it. Every now and then, though, some bit of contrast comes our way and we can compare our lives with those of people who actually seem to enjoy every moment and have carefree existences. Then one of two things happens — either you’re okay with the reality but you commit to changing or at least keep fighting the good fight, or you feel overwhelmed by all you don’t have, all you’ll never feel (or so you think) and you want to just end the suffering now, because if living 10 years longer means living 10 more years like this then why fucking bother, you know?
But that’s the thing. That’s where depression and other disorders win. Fortunately I’ve never felt that way. I have noticed periods where I forget what I love about life. Like these past few months… I feel like I’ve lived in some vapid disconnect. I don’t get how I got here from there, and I’m just a little disoriented. It’s clearing up now for me, but it’s been a troubling year, and nothing like what I expected.
Am I depressed right now? Yeah, a little. But I have an action plan and I have hope and faith, so that’s everything. I also try to be open about it. I haven’t been that open about it this time, because I haven’t been writing, but it’s clicking into place now and I feel like I’m on the right path. Writing shit down: the best therapy ever.
I digress. Owen Wilson’s suddenly-public battle with suicidal tendancies is going to have a huge impact on people being willing to admit more of this. People like Brooke Shields, Halle Berry, who’ve admitted suicidal actions in the past, they’re different. A) They’re women, and gee, aren’t all women overemotional? (I’m parroting stereotypes. Bullshit!) and B) They’re women. Ha. Or they’re your typical angry-at-the-world loner types that seem to be a round peg in a round hole. It was only a matter of time with him, y’know?
Owen Wilson’s this funny, affable, easy-going guy with a penchant for porn and a million creative outlets. Brilliant, rich, single, good-looking… and yet suicidal? This is no Kurt Cobain here. The guy didn’t write a song called Lithium before putting a shotgun in his mouth. He wasn’t married to whack job like Courtney Love. This guy’s got the dream life, and yet he wanted an exit plan.
It’s nice to have the world’s best example of money solves no problems and fame is not an antidote to pain. Everybody hurts. Maybe now we can cut the crap and start talking about something real. Here’s hoping Wilson knows how to turn this into a positive that impacts others. Here’s hoping we all start dialoguing a little more about what’s beneath the surface.
You know I have thought alot about the subject of depression since hearing about Owen Wilson. For exactly the same reasons that you state Steff. I too suffer periodically from depression, runs in my family, mostly amongst the women (strangely “they” suspect a link between depression and migraines due to the seratonin, similarities between the two “disorders” or commonalities in people that have both problems). And I digress. I have had people look at me in disbelief when I talk about the Prozac days (I no longer take meds for it, I manage with some behavior modifications). Through some therapy, I keep in manageable, but family members (close ones) of mine cannot, it’s always lurking behind, even with me, and things going badly in life can trigger me into a complete tailspin.
I think until someone experiences an overwhelming sadness that there is no rhyme or reason for, or starts to cry for no apparent reason, due to no trigger at all, they have no idea what it is to be really and truly depressed. And yes, there is such a stigma, most people that suffer from it don’t mention it ever.
Seriously, if we felt we could talk about these things without a stigma attached, would there be suicide attempts like this one? It has to be pretty bad when ending everything seems the answer, I have thankfully never been at that point, but have been at the point of asking myself why I’m around and if I do any good to anyone including myself, and that’s a pretty damned bad place to be, let me tell you.
Thank you for a very thoughtful post. As someone who lives with both depression and chronic pain, and having lost a very close member of my immediate family to suicide … well, this all hit home. So thank you.
xx Dee
Nicely put
Depression is not unfamiliar to me.
Can I link this to my blog?
i also enjoy how people who really have never suffered from depression, say they have dealt with “being depressed” and then offer suggestions as to how to “get over it”.
Sometimes, you’ll find one who can see themselves in you. While i was in THE funk, a woman told me her story – and it’s like sunshine cutting through thick fog and deep tall trees in a forest, gorgeous, rays of hope, that one day i may also be able to reach through to someone in the morass. i was reading the posts on how to give great …. everything… and i auto-feel a sisterhood… love men, love sex, love giving great… whatever.. and suffer also..it is as though i found you through the fog, the morass…and when i tell you that today, i am happy, holding down a job, met a new fabu man, and can get out of bed every day – well, almost every day ;^} – now i choose when i stay in it, for fun with someone or even on my own with a novel. i am ONLY like this, on a regular basis due to the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals. i do not advertise it. i try not to get around to talking to potential partners about it for awhile.. because of that “wild-eyed, what kind of weirdo” glaze that you mentioned. but i struggled for YEARS with believing that i was somehow a strange person in the world, sleeping 15 hours a day, and not caring that i couldn’t find my life, or a grip, or anything. friends helped support me, i sagged in and out of lovers, and finally, a ben & jerry’s addiction that was only cured by a serious attempt to change my lifestyle and lose a few pounds.
pharmaceuticals – seriously 375mg. a day… i’ve tried to stop… cause they’re too expensive – and i couldn’t afford it.. but it was worse. and i went into the worst fog ever. thanks for your post and your honesty.
they say thinking about suicide, not such a big deal. imagining how you’ll do it, not that bad; and actually trying, somehow is only a cry for help also. so is it only when you actually try and succeed when there is a problem???
everyone struggles.
everyone finds it difficult.
some people truly just want out.
i don’t know today how i feel about all that – but to open a dialog – it’s all good.