Big Mike: My Horrors Are Bigger Than Your Horrors

The woman appeared to be boiling over. Let's call her Fatima. She seemed to be dying to say something but knew it might ignite a verbal melee. She found a roundabout way to say it, though. What followed was not an explosion but a simmering huff. The explosion would have been better.

Let me set the scene. The Loved One and I participated in a gallery exhibit at the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park the week before last. Entitled "Snap Out Of It..., Don't You Hate It When They Say That?" the show focused on clinical depression.

The show's barn boss was a visual artist named Sophia, a dear old pal of mine. She's fought a lifelong battle to get people to take clinical depression seriously. She suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a symptom of which is depression. Too many people have implied that she's merely being lazy. Some have come right out and said so. With the show, she created a constructive public outlet for her frustration.

I did a reading of a piece entitled, "I'm Slipping." It recounted a bit of my own lifelong battle against depression. Here's how it started:

I'm slipping.

Again. Same old thing. My life becomes very simple when I'm in the big slip. Sleep. Eat as many carbohydrates as the world's farms can produce. Tell myself what a lousy, lazy bum I am. Go back to sleep. Wake up. Eat more carbs. Insult myself. Do it all over again.

A lot of people love the simple life.

What's to love?

Later, I write:

I'm alone.

There must be some outward sign that warns people I'm toxic. Stay away! Don't touch, don't inhale, don't catch it!

When I'm slipping, people find ways to sidle away from me. And I think, "Those jerks. Couldn't get enough of me six months ago, now they wouldn't pour their drinks on me it I was on fire. What's wrong with them?"

But something's wrong with me. I radiate something. I've heard that if you walk near a big radio station's transmitter, you can hear the broadcast in your head, as if the metal in your fillings has received the signal and now is treating you to the Jonas Brothers in the caverns of your cranium. Maybe that's how powerful this depression is - 50,000 watts-worth of misery pouring out of me like the WGN signal.

I even delve into my wrangling with the ultimate solution:

Gotta find a way out of this mess.

Suicide. I've thought about it every day for most of my life. Sometimes, every hour....

... People become angry when they hear about a suicide. They say the person who did the dying was - take your pick - selfish, sinful, weak, or even all three. As if the cutting, the hanging, the ingestion of poison, the inhalation of toxic gas, or the submersion in frigid waters was the moral equivalent of having an office fling or eating the last of the ice cream.

In true Hollywood fashion, I end on the upbeat:

In a never-ending attempt to right my listing ship of sanity, I've tried talk therapy, group therapy, cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy, Freudian analysis, four different antidepressants, Valium, Xanax, Buddhist chanting, prayer, St. John's Wort, exercise, gin, vodka and beer, promiscuity, abstinence, pot, and at least a half dozen other panaceas I've forgotten or am too embarrassed to mention.

Trial and error. If at first you don't succeed, yadda yadda yadda. I hit on Zoloft when I was 46. Seven years ago. Hmm. I think this might work. I don't feel too much like killing myself anymore. Zoloft. And hope. They're all I've got.

I promise you - I swear to you - I'm gonna snap out of this. Because that's how easy it is. I made the decision and set out to complete this task and I'm almost finished. And it's only taken..., let's see now..., 36 years. It's a snap!

The fun thing about doing a staged reading is that, for a few minutes at least, I'm a rock star. A sculptor ran up to me after I was finished and lavished more praise on me than I could possibly merit. As she gushed, Fatima approached.

Fatima was born in a country that's notorious for its history of violence and unrest. She's made it clear many times that this whole business of depression is the bunk. According to Fatima, depression is easily conquered through prayer and a stiff upper lip.

Antidepressants? Hah! Shrinks and support groups? A couple of rackets.

Her's is precisely the attitude "Snap Out Of It..." was intended to address.

Exuding tension, Fatima waited for an opening. When the sculptor said that today's economic woes may set off an epidemic of depression, Fatima couldn't hold herself back. "You know, people have no idea what problems really are," she began.

Her eyes flashed wide. Her jaw jutted. "I've seen people shot on street corners. I've had to take cover for my life. Americans don't have any problems yet they're always talking about how horrible things are. It's sickening! Maybe people should experience real horror."

I sensed immediately that she was really referring to my tale of woe. Yet, wishing to avoid a scene, I found myself nodding. "Oh yeah, I know what you mean," I replied in my oiliest salesman voice. "We're richer and healthier than 98 percent of all the people in the world...." And so on.

What I should have done is tell Fatima to go fuck herself. It would have made me feel a lot better. When you're clinically depressed, you should always try to make yourself feel a lot better.

Big Mike: This Depression Ain't So Great

Visual and spoken word artists have joined forces for an exhibit on depression (the skull-jockey variety, not the economic kind) in the Dole Gallery at the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park in Crystal Lake, Illinois. The show, "Snap Out Of It... Don't You Hate It When They Say That?" which runs through May 15th, features deeply personal ruminations on the illness, which some 20 million Americans grapple with.

May is Mental Health Month in McHenry County. Lakeside Legacy Arts Park this month also features "Voice - Adolescent Allies," in the Sage Gallery, featuring works by teens exploring relationship power dynamics and sexual violence.

Here are images of some of the works from "Snap Out Of It."

"Social Phobia," acrylic on canvas, 2009,

by Sophia Anastasiou-Wasik

"I Would If I Could," computer graphics, 2009,

by Karen Roszkowski

"Addiction" (left) and "Obsession," both mixed media on Masonite, 2009, by Sophia Anastasiou-Wasik

"I'm Falling," prose poem performance, 2009, by Michael G. Glab

In case you're looking for this week's installment of Randolph Street, photojournalist Jon Randolph is missing in action today. To the best of our knowledge, he had pressing social and convivial responsibilities last night which kept him from his cozy bed until the wee hours. We trust he has an ample supply of aspirin on hand for when he greets the day.

Check in with us tomorrow. Hopefully, good old Jon will have rejoined the living by then. Come to The Third City every day for top-notch writing and terrific pictures.

Big Mike: Snap Out Of It!

The Louisville area got four or five inches of snow last night, the equivalent of 25 inches in Chicago. Schools and businesses were closed today, most streets were treacherous, and hardly anyone was on the road.

I got up at the crack of dawn to shovel the driveway. It's about fifty yards from the garage to the street so it took me a good two hours. It was only after I'd finished and was peeling off my sweaty layers that I thought, Hey, I've got freakin' congestive heart failure!

As usual, I overdid it. I drove over to Barnes & Noble for morning coffee and the New York Times but the place was closed. Most of the shops in The Summit - one of only three malls in this city - were closed. Jeez! The Starbucks was open - phew! - so I sat down and began to read. Then it hit me. A wave of exhaustion. I could hardly concentrate. My legs and arms felt like lead. I thought I might pass out.

That's what happens when a CHF sufferer goes overboard, as I did. It didn't alarm me; I knew it would pass after a few hours. I sat back and breathed deeply. Then, suddenly, I started thinking about the last year and a half.

I've gotta confess - I went through yet another of my patented, fall-off-the-face-of-the-Earth depressions last year. The realization that I'd experienced another lost six months was as jarring as if I'd recalled that I'd lost a loved one.

This kind of thing has happened to me before. Somehow, whenever I've found myself extraordinarily worn out by physical exertion, the sun,or some emotional strain, the reality of my depression floods into my consciousness. The first time it happened was way back in the fall of 1979. My little nephew Doug, 11 at the time, wanted to go downtown to see the Pope at the Petrillo Bandshell. I considered counseling him to shun the gaudily-attired leader of the world's most pompous mythology but then decided, hell, it'll be an event and I can disillusion the kid another day. So we went.

The day was unseasonably warm. Doug and I stood out in the sun for eight hours. When we got back home, we collapsed on my mother's sofa, spent and dehydrated. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by the memories of my first real cyclical depressive episode, one that I'd just been emerging from. I'd been feeling fairly decent the last few weeks but sprawled on that sofa, the feelings of alienation, loneliness, dread, uselessness, and all the other classic symptoms washed over me. I began to sob uncontrollably. I told my mother that day that I wanted to kill myself, the first time I'd ever revealed the secret I'd been holding in throughout the just-passed episode.

I got over it, of course, only to go through the same process all over again more times than I care to recount here.

Today's realization was an epiphany. Here's what I learned: the amount of energy I expend fighting depression, running from it, arguing with it, pretending it isn't there, trying to fix it - all the strategies I employ against it - is enormous. Sure, I see shrinks, I take anti-depressants, I repeat affirmations, I seek joys and answers - I do, in short , what every depressive does to survive. But the most important thing I do each day, every day - every minute - is pretend it isn't there.

Were I to remain in constant cognizance that I carry this gray-matter burden, this six-ton anchor on my heart, this emotional Rubik's Cube, I'd never have a moment to wash my face, write a story, or, well, shovel the snow. It takes gigawatts of energy to shove the melancholia into an unused corner of my brain so I may pursue everyday life. Then, when I'm exhausted, when my energy reserves are depleted, that melancholia breaks out of its closet.

I'll be participating in a gallery show at the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park in Crystal Lake, Illinois in May. The opening reception will be on the first. The show is entitled "Snap Out Of It!" and will feature highly personal works about the artists' battle with depression. I'm doing a video piece. Keep an eye on these precincts for more info.