The Medication Game: Trial and Error

Despite progress in Mental health treatments in the past few decades, we still rely on a fair bit of trial and error to find the right treatments for each individual. Even when we know something does work, we don’t necessarily understand why or how. And symptoms, both in what causes them and what alleviates them, can vary widely from person to person.

Gone are the days when society would just shut people away in asylums (looking at you, Arkham), sedate the shit out of them, or force them to undergo painful, cruel procedures. Some of those procedures still exist, like Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), but are carefully considered, performed with informed consent (looking at you, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), and conducted in a manner that is far more sensitive to patient needs.

We have developed a greatly expanded array of medications as we’ve improved our understanding of how our brains work and what physiological factors can be at play with challenges to mental health. Rather than just sedate the shit out of people, we can use medications targeting specific neurotransmitters, like serotonin, to help our brains use them more fully.

In this post, I will share my experiences with the medication game: the trial and error of finding the right treatments for my mental health challenges. I will discuss various medications I have taken for my mental health challenges, discuss gaps in our understanding of what works for some but not for others, and point to some exciting research that is aimed at taking guesswork out of the process for finding the right treatments for each person.

The Imitation Game (film)

The Imitation Game is a terrific film about Alan Turing and his team’s work during World War II to crack the cyphers that German Navy used for their communications. By easily changing settings on their Enigma machine, the Germans were able to create a new cypher scheme every day. Turing and team needed to start over every day. This work included a massive machine designed to churn through mathematical probabilities to quickly land on the most likely solution. The machine and the process behind it laid the early foundation for the computers we know and love and hate today.

One Enigma machine, showing configuration dials as well as the keys for typing encrypted messages

Enigma machine

That daily reset necessary for Turing and his team parallels with the trial and error that is often a key component of finding the mental health treatments that will work well for any one person.

Note: The The Imitation Game – Wikipedia entry notes some historical inaccuracies between the film and what actually occurred, beyond some amount of dramatization that often accompanies films like this.

The Current Process: Fuck Around & Find Out

Despite how much we understand about our brains, there is still a tremendous amount we just don’t know. The human brain is massively complex and hard to study, particularly when it comes to disorders or injuries. We can’t just go around giving people tumors or concussions just to study what happens. It’s even worse for mental health challenges that can behave differently for each person, both in terms of symptoms and in the therapies that are likely to work for them.

The treatments for mental health rely heavily on the highly scientific process of Fuck Around & Find Out (FAFO):

  • Fuck Around: Let’s try X.
    • Find Out: Hm. OK. That didn’t work…
  • Fuck Around: Let’s try more X.
    • Find Out: Hm. OK. That didn’t work…
  • Fuck Around: Let’s try Y.
    • Find Out: Hm. OK. That helped some but the side effects were unmanageable…
  • Fuck Around: How about X and Y together?
    • Find Out: Shit. OK.
  • Fuck Around: Z?

Not only is this a terrible experience for the patient, but it can take a long time. Some medications take four to six weeks before they reach their therapeutic efficacy. And then, it takes time to assess how it is working. As a result, the “Let’s try X” can last months, during which the patient can still be in a bad way.

Some interventions, like Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) (see Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) » Can’t Juggle) take place over several weeks and involve an investment of time (heading into the TMS clinic every weekday). Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) (see Trauma, EMDR, and the Kobayashi Maru Test » Can’t Juggle), can take weeks and be absolutely grueling. EMDR kicked my ass so profoundly that each weekly session was followed by three to four days just to recover.

Even when we find a treatment that works pretty well, there is no guarantee that it will continue to work well over time. Sometimes a medication, for example, will be helpful for a few years and then stop being helpful for no apparent reason. This really sucks as it means starting the Fuck Around process over again (albeit with one less option since we now know something that is ineffective).

Some medications must be ramped down over time, rather than just stopped altogether, to avoid nasty effects, some of which can be just as awful as the symptoms they seek to alleviate. This can add even more to the process of changing medications.

To Thine Own Self Be True

One big factor in the challenge of managing mental health is that it relies heavily on the subjective reporting of symptoms by the patient. There is not an objective scan or test like there is for things like broken bones or strep throat. Progress requires that the patient both notice symptoms and communicate them effectively.

Even just noticing symptoms when they occur can be challenging, particularly when someone is in crisis and their processing centers of their brain are being circumvented. Stigma can also make it harder for someone to share symptoms due to feelings of embarrassment, shame, or fear of backlash.

Communicating symptoms clearly can also pose challenges. Sometimes we just can’t find the words to express ourselves. There have been times where my therapist has asked me questions about how I am feeling and there has just been a long pause followed by me saying, “I don’t know.” That’s not a good time. Nor does it actually help move forward.

My Own FAFO

I am going to focus on medications here. Over the years, I have been through several rounds of medication FAFO for my Depression and/or Anxiety. I will share some of them along with relevant experiences. It is really important to stress here that these are MY experiences. What worked or didn’t work for me does not provide a roadmap for someone else that is guaranteed to be effective or ineffective. Total shit-show, yeah?

Medications:

With medications, I work closely with my provider. This is an important partnership and is part of the challenge. If you and your provider are not able to work together well, then the results are likely to be poor. I have a great relationship with my provider, and it makes a huge difference.

Meds I no longer take and why:

  • Sertraline (Zoloft)
    • This provided me with no benefit.
  • Bupropion (Welbutrin)
    • This helped a little but gave me tremors in my hands something fierce as well as profound dizziness so we left it behind
  • Aripiprazole (Abilify)
    • This one made me way short of breath (I actually almost passed out just standing in my dining room) so we stopped it very quickly
  • Venlafaxine (Effexor)
    • This one took a bit of work to find the right dose but worked great once we got there
    • A major downside of Venlafaxine is that it is VERY sensitive to missed doses. Most meds are OK if you miss a dose here and there. Not this one. Miss one day and the next day SUUUUUUCKS
    • This one stopped working after a few years so we had to say goodbye to it
  • Alprazolam (Xanax)
    • This one was super helpful with my Anxiety and helped me profoundly with sleep
    • It’s also a really powerful med so careful management is vital; It can be both habit-forming AND dangerous
    • I did really well managing it… except this one time (see Almost There and Back Again: A Fat Man’s Tale » Can’t Juggle)
    • Needless to say, I don’t have this one anymore
    • I experienced very un-fun withdrawal symptoms after we removed it from my regimen

Meds I currently take:

I am currently on a mix of medications that took some FAFO to land on. I meet with my provider every few months (more often if we are Fucking Around on something new) so we sometimes make small adjustments here and there. It is not uncommon for folks to take more than one medication. For some, like me, there is no one medication that has all the right effects.

  • Escitalopram (Lexapro)
    • This one took a bit to find the right dose, but it works well for me so I still take it daily
  • Lamotrigine (Lamictal)
    • This one works well in concert with my Lexapro and I still take it every night
  • Mirtazapine (Remeron)
    • I take this one every night as it helps with my sleep
  • Quetiapine (Seroquel)
    • This one works well in concert with my other nighttime meds

A New Hope

The podcast Depresh Mode with John Moe | Maximum Fun is a wonderful part of my weekly listening. John Moe, author of The Hilarious World of Depression, interviewing a wide range of guests, from artists to comedians to musicians to actors to professionals working in the world of mental health.

Listening to John interview guests, many of whom have some of the same symptoms I have, makes me feel less alone. John does a wonderful job of guiding the experience with sensitivity, care, and humor. I highly recommend adding Depresh Mode with John Moe to you podcast feed.

Logo of the podcast Depresh Mode with John Moe

The Depresh Mode episode from October 21, 2024, The Promising World of Precision Treatment for Depression | Maximum Fun, features a Stanford University researcher, Dr. Leanne Williams, who is working to develop a methodology using a Functional MRI (like a video instead of just a still shot) to help categorize how an individual’s brain is impacted by their symptoms. She then uses the results of this categorization to identify treatments that are likely to work well for that individual. The episode does a great job at describing the current FAFO process and why it is so challenging before diving deeper into the research.

Dr. Williams’s work has the potential to profoundly improve the treatment landscape for those, like me, who experience mental health challenges. Reducing the FAFO process and landing in a more direct manner to likely beneficial treatments sounds like a major step forward for us.

Wrapping Up

There is a lot of misunderstanding of medications for mental health. Some people see loved ones taking medication and expect it to make their loved one 100%; like the meds should “fix” everything. Others may see medications as weakness or failure on the part of the person who takes them. For many of us, our mental health challenges involve chemistry, our brains not properly using resources the rest of our body provides. Medications are a key part of helping us manage our symptoms.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Medication doesn’t juggle for me, but it does allow me to use both hands.

My favorite Christmas with my dad

I’m continuing my “And” series about my father with a great Christmas memory. For more on my goal with this series, see John Cazale and Inmate 19250 » Can’t Juggle.

Family tradition

Every Christmas Eve, my wife, my daughters, and I have “snack dinner” while watching A Christmas Story. This movie is one of our favorites. Even after many years, we still laugh out loud while watching it. Also, Darren McGavin’s performance as “the old man” is one of my absolute favorites in all of cinema.

Snack dinner is just what it sounds like. We each have a favorite snack rather than a meal.

With Christmas fast approaching, I have been thinking more about my old man and my favorite Christmas memory involving him.

Bottle it…

My dad grew up in the 1940s and exhibited the reluctance to show emotion and feelings so common with his generation. Why express one’s feelings when it is so much better to drown them in alcohol? My dad was a Cuddy Sark guy.

I can only remember seeing him emotional on two occasions. I may share these at some point, but for now the key takeaway here is the number TWO.

Even with all the stress of his arrest, the time leading up to his trial, his conviction, and the time leading up to his sentencing, he didn’t share how much he was struggling. Of course not. [sigh]

My dad, in addition to increased alcohol consumption, focused all of his feelings into his right thumb and right temple. He would sit in his reclining chair watching TV (he LOVED animal/wildlife shows), smoke cigarettes, drink scotch and soda, and press his thumb into his temple.

The behavior itself was not really remarkable to look at. But his right temple developed a divot that was at least a quarter of an inch deep. It was almost as if someone had scooped out a chunk of his head with a measuring spoon. My dad was pressing so hard against his head with such frequency and duration that his temple just couldn’t resist. I’ve never seen anything like it.

A full Christmas Tree

The primary way my dad expressed any kind of affection was in Christmas presents. He’d had a well-paying job doing computer mainframe work at a local defense contractor. Apparently, he was awesome at RPG programming. As far as programming languages go, RPG is as close to dark magic as anything I have ever encountered. It makes no sense at all.

Christmases were always full of gifts. Providing all of these presents was massively important to my dad and his self-worth.

An empty Christmas Tree

Our last Christmas together with my dad in the house I grew up in was a tough one for my dad. He had been laid off the previous summer and had not been able to find work. I honestly think he had not been searching for a new job with everything going on related to his arrest, etc.

That Christmas, there were zero presents. The tree was up and decorated as usual, but there was nothing underneath it but empty floor. My dad saw this as failure. We didn’t care about the presents and told him so, but he just couldn’t see it.

After our traditional Christmas Eve treat of tourtiere (French Canadian meat pie featuring ground pork , potatoes, seasoned with cinnamon and cloves), my brother Ray brought out a copy of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and read it aloud (mostly to my Dad). That didn’t get through either.

Note: The fact that the only image in this post of one of a slice of tourtiere with a golden brown crust and luscious filling is not an accident. That shit is so good, you guys.

A slice of tourtier with golden brown crust

Minuit Chrétien

The Christmas carol O Holy Night is one of my favorites. The French version, Minuit Chrétien, is particularly beautiful.

My dad LOVED to tell stories. And he was great at it. At one point in the evening, after tourtiere and the Grinch, my dad told a story about being an altar server at a Christmas mass when he was a kid… and then my dad started singing. “It started in low, then it started to grow.” He was singing Minuit Chrétien. “But this… this sound wasn’t sad. Why, this sound sounded glad.” I had never heard my dad sing before. But he sang that night. And it was lovely.

I met his eyes while he sang. They were filled with sorrow and pain, but also determination to make something positive of this failed (his perspective) holiday. He did indeed make something positive that night. That Christmas, with an empty tree and an unexpected musical performance, was that best. I still can’t help smiling when I think of it.

Best wishes to you and yours

Regardless of what holiday(s) you celebrate (or don’t) this time of year, I hope you are able to enjoy time with people you care about. May this season be whatever you need it to be.

Also: Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It just is.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

Over the past few months, I have been undergoing Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) for my treatment-resistant Depression. How do we know my Depression is treatment-resistant? Well, I have needed to go on Disability for it 4 times during the past several years. Each time was months of not working. During those periods, I underwent Intensive Outpatient (IOP) therapy twice, Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and my continued regimen of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT, talk therapy), and medication. Even with all of that, I still struggled quite a bit and even attempted suicide (see Almost There and Back Again: A Fat Man’s Tale » Can’t Juggle). Clearly, I needed to kick things up a notch.

My goals for this post are as follows:

  1. Share the fears/trepidations I had going into the process
  2. Provide some technical (but not clinical) descriptions of the mechanism of the process
  3. Describe my experience (what it felt like, etc)
  4. Share the results I have experienced (foreshadowing: it helped tremendously)

Whether you are living with mental health challenges and looking to learn more about TMS, have a loved one going through it, or just enjoy brilliantly written blog posts, then this one is for you.

My fears about TMS

Going into this process, I had several worries.

I was afraid of the commitment. When my depression and/or anxiety is acting up, I isolate like mad. Anything that makes me leave my basement office, let alone venture out into the world, afflicts me with dread and even outright fear. So, the idea of doing this every weekday for 36 treatments didn’t exactly give me a warm fuzzy.

Physical pain is not my favorite thing. I was afraid that it would hurt, and I would be hard-pressed to see it through or even so distressed that the efficacy of the treatment would be reduced.

To borrow from The Grinch, “There’s one thing I hate all that noise noise noise noise!'” Loud noise is a major trigger for me. Especially if it is sudden. Because of this, I no longer go to concerts, the movies, plays, or any other events that include sound as a major component. Don’t even get me started on fireworks or air travel. I’m not sure why noise is so problematic. It was not an issue for most of my life. It just jumped aboard my symptom train a few years ago like some asshole hobo.

The setup

The first day, they started by putting a stretchy white cap on my head so they could mark it with a sharpie. Then they took some measurements to mark various points. The white cap allows for easy placement on future visits without having to measure again.

My daughter took this picture for me during the first week. It shows the white cap as well as the TMS pulse emitter in the proper position for Depression treatment. You may notice my facial expression is not a warm, peaceful one. I was still struggling quite a bit at this point.

Picture of me from my shoulders up. Focuses on the white cap on my head as well as the TMS emitter on the front left of my scalp

Next, they kicked on the machine (which pulses) and tried various points on the front left to find my motor cortex. This involved the highly scientific process of “fuck around and find out” until my right arm twitched on its own. Then they reduced the power of the pulses to the point where my arm stopped twitching. That was used as an anchor point to locate the target regions of my brain for each protocol (described below).

I was there for the Depression protocol, but they offered me additional protocols to help with both my Anxiety and the rumination/suicidal ideation at no additional cost. It just meant being there for a bit longer.

Yes, please!

See the following posts for more on my suicidal ideation and anxiety.

Each of the three protocols I underwent target different areas of the brain and feature pulses at different rates. They can provide therapeutic benefits by [like a shit ton of science stuff]. Pretty cool, right?

Depression (Standard Protocol)

For depression, the machine zaps at a rate of 20 pulses per second for two seconds. Then it pauses for an interval of 11 seconds before pulsing again. This grouping of pulse and interval is called a train. In this protocol, there are a total of 78 trains over about 20 minutes.

Each pulse feels like someone tapping on my head with a hammer; not enough to injure, but enough to definitely get my attention. So, I would say it fell short of being painful, more like medium discomfort. During each pulse, the left side of my jaw would want to contract, so I had to be careful not to bite my tongue. In addition, it contracted the surface of my scalp such that it fell like someone pinching the skin. I enjoyed chatting with Gabby, the TMS technician. I had to pause speaking during the pulses though since I could not really control my mouth. It was… fun.

The pulses sound like someone walking on a smooth stone floor in high heels, but loud enough to dominate any other sounds. It did NOT trigger my anxiety, so I was good on that front.

I’m not going to lie. This is not a good time. But it is not as bad as I had feared.

Modified OCD Protocol for Ruminations

While this protocol does not have suicidal ideation in its name, it can have benefits for that, which was the goal for me.

For this protocol, the emitter sits just about on the top of my head. The pattern is 1 pulse per second for 10 minutes. If you are interested, it targets the Supplementary Motor Area.

This one also feels like someone tapping with a hammer, just like the Depression protocol. The sound is the same as well. Not sure if it is the different location or the frequency of the pulses, but this protocol was the easiest for me to tolerate by far.

Anxiety Protocol

The typical target location for this one is on the front right of the head, basically like the Depression location, but just on the opposite side; the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). I found that location unbearable (even at only 80% pulse intensity). There is an alternate location for this one in the back right of the head, more or less a few inches behind the right ear. This location was much more tolerable and has about the same efficacy.

The pattern is 5 pulses per second for 5 seconds, then a 5 second interval with no pulses. It does this 67 times over about 12 minutes.

The pulses in this protocol felt less intense than the others, almost like whoever was tapping my head with a hammer started using a smaller hammer. The sound was also more of a buzz than a solid impact. I found it was also a bit quieter than the other protocols.

My results

I found TMS alleviated my symptoms really well. Even after only about 5 treatments, my family noticed I was seeming more like my old self. A few treatments after that, I started to feel it myself. My mood is more stable and my lows are less low.

Side by side images of Hello Kitty and me with my white cap and TMS emitter

Who wore it better?

I will share again that TMS is not an enjoyable experience. But for me, it was a far easier experience than I feared it would be. And my results were well worth it.

Concrete, Water Buffalo, and a Black Hole

Several years ago (I don’t know how many, but it was more than ten), my oldest brother’s garage had a void under the concrete pad (floor) of his garage. We could see it as a black, empty space when looking through the 3/4 inch gap between the edge of driveway and the garage pad itself.

Our Dad was out visiting from NH and together we all took on the project of using ready-mix concrete (just add water) to fill in the gap and thereby shore up the pad itself to reduce the risk of it collapsing and swallowing cars or water buffalo.

Note: My brother did not have any water buffalo at this time. But it just seems like water buffalo would not benefit from falling through a collapsing concrete garage pad. Although he has since moved to Florida, and I cannot visually confirm, I am confident that my brother continues not to have any water buffalo in his care.

Also note: No water buffalo were harmed in the creation of this post.

Also also note: While this post will discuss some very challenging emotions, I am safe right now.

The Plan

Our plan was to mix the concrete and pour it through the 3/4 inch gap between the driveway and the garage pad to fill in that black hole underneath. We went to Home Depot and picked up a couple 50-lb bags of concrete mix. We mixed in water from a garden hose and proceeded to pour/push it into that 3/4 gap. Getting the mixed concrete through that gap was way more of a pain in the ass than it sounds. You see, properly mixed concrete doesn’t flow as freely as water, so it took effort to make sure the concrete went into that gap rather than just gathering in a blob on the driveway.

After the first bag, there was no visible change to the hole. That concrete was just swallowed without having any effect we could detect. So, we mixed another bag and repeated the process. The result was the same: nothing. After another trip to Home Depot to get several more bags of concrete mix, we repeated the process again, several times. The result was the same: nothing.

Home Depot. More concrete. Mix. Pour/push. Still no change. We had been at it for hours at this point.

The Understatement

My Dad just peered into the gap, which, other than concrete residue around the gap, looked just like it had when we started: a black hole. He calmly took his cigarette out of his mouth and just said, calmly, “Oh my good word…” We all just started laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation and the spot-on, highly technical assessment of the situation my Dad had provided.

When the project was done, we had ended up using 1150 pounds of dry concrete mix in filling that hole, all of it pushed through that 3/4 inch gap over the course of several hours and several trips to Home Depot. According to some basic searching online, an adult water buffalo can weigh up to about 1200 pounds, although some larger ones have been seen. That means, we used approximately 1 water buffalo of dry concrete mix in the completion of this project.

When I mentioned water buffalo in the intro of this post, it was just an attempt at fun (see below). The fact that the amount of dry concrete we used here aligns with the weight of 1 water buffalo is purely accidental. That said, I’ll take it as a much-needed win.

The Black Hole

From a mental health perspective, I am dealing with two major issues right now:

  • Anhedonia: An inability to experience pleasure; having little interest or enjoyment in doing things
  • Dysphoria: An overall mood state of unease, dissatisfaction, or hopelessness.

It is not uncommon for folks like me that struggle with Depression or other mental health challenges to experience anhedonia and/or dysphoria as symptoms. I am experiencing both at the moment.

These two assholes prevent me from getting any joy out of things that usually make me happy AND make me feel certain that this state will continue forever.

My brain is currently a black hole, sucking in and destroying anything that gets near it. Like the void under my brother’s garage pad, it feels like no amount of enjoyment will ever have an effect to make me feel better. I can pour in as many Water Buffalo of concrete I can get my hands on, and it won’t matter.

I am going through each day doing things more out of habit than because they make me feel good. I enjoy coffee. I am having coffee, but not enjoying it. I am eating (although less than usual), but not enjoying what I eat. I love my family and am spending time with them. But I am getting no enjoyment out of it (despite some laughter). My family is not doing anything wrong and my feelings for them have not changed, I just can’t capture the light they provide to me.

Both Sides, Now

I have Joni Mitchell’s beautiful song, Both Sides, Now, in my head as I write this. I think it is because I have both tried to help someone who is experiencing these symptoms (and struggled to understand why I couldn’t help) AND experienced these symptoms myself. In the past, I have been the concrete; currently I am the void.

Whether you are the concrete, the void, or even a water buffalo, please know that you are NOT alone. There are people that understand. I am one. There is no guarantee that tomorrow will be better than today. But it CAN be. It’s worth making another trip to get more concrete. And if that isn’t enough, it’s worth it to make another.

Almost There and Back Again: A Fat Man’s Tale

Content Warning: This post contains discussion of suicide.

In this post, I want to share my thoughts and feelings leading up to, during, and after my attempted suicide on March 8, 2024. I am not going to go into a lot of detail in some areas, but I will share some pretty raw stuff. So, buckle up, yeah?

Note: the fact that I refer to myself here as “Fat Man” is not self-deprecating humor or meant to apply any judgement to myself or others on being heavier than other folks. Weight stigma is a real and insidious problem. This post will not focus on my weight at all, so I feel no CONTENT WARNING is necessary. If you or a loved one struggle with weight stigma, I highly recommend the Maintenance Phase podcast.

Other Note: Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy will likely find some fun easter eggs in this post. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

The last 16 months or so have been a bit of a roller coaster for me. I know that metaphor is overused and a bit lazy. I wanted to come up with another one but the best I can land on is The Great Space Coaster which doesn’t really fit. Where my Gary Gnu fans at?

This ride included the following (not necessarily in chronological order):

  • (dammit) Several mental health crises with my family at home that took a massive amount of my energy to deal with in order to support those I love
  • (dammit) Two medical leaves from my dream job at Microsoft due to my Depression/Anxiety
  • (woohoo!) Completing Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) and Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) for my Depression/Anxiety
  • (SUPER woohoo!) Purchase of a super powerful gaming PC for the first time ever in my life
  • (dammit) Terrible performance reviews at Microsoft as I tried (and failed) to meet the increased demands of my role. The things I was really good at, and that had gotten me promoted a few years ago, just weren’t enough anymore.
  • (SUPER dammit) Termination from my dream job at Microsoft due to my inability to meet expectations of my role despite my best efforts to do so
  • (SUPER dammit) Feelings of betrayal and abandonment as family members expressed how I was failing to meet their expectations of me despite my best efforts to do so
  • (SUPER DUPER dammit) Suicide attempt on March 8
  • (woohoo!) Surviving said attempt
  • (Super dammit, but necessary) Hospitalization
  • (woohoo!) Discharge from the hospital (followed by pepperoni pizza) on March 14
  • (woohoo!) Did I mention pizza? Mmmm

Note: While I am going to share that my suicide attempt involved an overdose of one of my medications, I am not going to refer to it by name. Instead, I will call it Lembas (the magical “waybread” that the Elves in the Lord of the Rings series use to sustain them when travelling long distances).

Concerning Failure

In a hole in the ground (my basement office) in Minnesota, there lived a Fat Man. Not a nasty, dingy, dirty hole with nowhere to sit down or play computer games, but nice hole with a gaming PC and comfy chair.

One of the things I tend to do when I am struggling with my mental health is to isolate in my basement office. When I am having a hard time “being” then “being around other people” is SO MUCH harder. I also worked from home for the past several years in that same office. I also also have hobbies that I either must do in my office (computer games) or that are just easier to do in my office (so I can watch or listen to what I want without needing to coordinate with anyone else).

The bottom line is that I’m in my office a lot.

Venn Diagram of Me in my Office

From my perspective, I take part in several different activities and happen to be in my office (by necessity or by choice) when I do them. I see the smaller circles inside the diagram, not just the outer one. I almost always (not when I need to isolate) welcome my family to come in and talk with me if they need or want to. So, from my perspective, I was not failing anyone, I was just using my office.

From my family’s perspective, I am in my office almost all the time and therefore not available. They tend to only see the outer circle in the diagram: “Me in my office,” which I fully acknowledge is understandable. This generates feelings on their part that I am not there for them or that I just don’t want to be around them and am therefore failing as a father and/or husband.

As noted above, I had failed in my dream job at Microsoft. So, I was failing at work AND at home despite my best efforts in both places.

Meme showing two buttons, and a man sweating over which one to press. They are both labelled FAIL

The Unexpected Journey

After struggling for a month with the loss of my dream job, and an absolutely brutal (from my perspective at the time) family therapy session the night before, I decided that everyone would be better off without me.

I had just gotten a refill (30-day supply) for my Lembas prescription, and I had not yet insisted that the bottle be stored in the lockbox that only my wife has the combination for. Thus, I had access to all of it. That proved suboptimal.

Around 11:30am Central on Friday, March 8th, 2024, I locked my office door and downed the entire bottle of Lembas along with my nighttime meds for the day (which includes a bit more Lembas) that I take to help me sleep. Thus, I had like a shit ton of Lembas in my body.

I sent a text to my family indicating how I felt and that if they ever loved me they should let me be and let me go. I wanted to say goodbye in a way that wouldn’t leave them wondering why I had gone but also would not generate immediate red flags that would make them rush to intervene. Thoughtful, yeah? #FacePalm

I turned off my computer and sat back in my chair and closed my eyes. After what seemed like less than 5 minutes to me, I woke up Saturday evening (according to my wife, since I had no idea) in a little room at the Acute Psychiatry Services (APS) unit of a local hospital feeling dizzy as fuck and only barely aware of myself or my surroundings. I will share more about APS later in this post.

My first thought was utter disappointment that my attempt to take my own life had failed; yet another fucking failure. I knew at that moment that I had just made EVERYTHING worse than it already was. AND, I was more trapped than I had ever been in my life.

Riddles in the Family Text Chat

My text to my family ruined my planned exit. My text had a similar to feel to ones my youngest daughter had seen before from friends who were having thoughts of self-harm. She ended up texting my wife and my oldest about what I had sent. One of them came to check on me, found the office door locked (which I pretty much NEVER do), and knew there was a problem.

I kind of want to make a “what does it got in its pill bottleses, precious?” joke here but it seems like too much. Is it too much? Yeah. It’s too much. Never mind.

The bottom line is that my youngest played a key role in saving my life.

In the Houses of Healing

Hospitalization for mental health is most decidedly NOT FUN or enjoyable in ANY way. The wards for the most acute needs, like the APS I mentioned above, are essentially “people storage” designed to prevent patients from self-harm. There is medication management but no other therapies. It’s just to get patients stabilized and safe enough to move to a more tradition in-patient setting.

In APS, the unit itself is locked down and the rooms and environment are designed to deny any means of self-harm. Solid beds bolted to the floor, padded corners everywhere, nothing sharp or even dull and hard. And individual rooms that disallowed turning the lights all the way off so that the staff can observe you at all times via video. APS is essentially human storage. Or at least that is how it felt to me.

I was on a mandated 72-hour hold in the APS unit. Those were the longest 3 days of my life. I didn’t have the brain power for reading or much else, so I mostly just had my thoughts which were filled with disappointment, darkness, and doom.

The very firm foam mattress of my bed triggered really bad muscle spasm in my back. That added a lot of physical pain to my experience and made every moment feel so much longer. I have bulging discs in my lower back that make the way my pelvis shifts when I lay on firm surfaces super painful.

The few bright spots were a visit from my wife and two visits from my oldest daughter. My daughter and I discussed the fantasy series I have been ruminating on for decades. I had told parts of it to my girls as bedtime stories and they both LOVED that. I shared more of the ideas I had put together over the past several years and we had such a great time. She got so excited she started (when she got home) drawing up some possible designs for character clothing and key locations. It was pretty amazing. Because of those conversations and how excited we both got over it, I am actually starting to write the damned thing.

Eventually I was moved to a more general psychiatric ward for those struggling with mental health and/or addiction issues. It is a more relaxed environment for more freedom and a bit more independence. It is still locked down and designed to prevent self-harm but there are showers, various therapy activities, social interaction, and easier communication with the outside world.

My time in the general ward was certainly better than in APS. I was able to read again, socialize with other patients, and even play some chess with another patient that loved the game and was starving for someone to play with that knew the game well enough to play with strategy and not just the basics of how the pieces move. That was fun. I only beat him once (gotta love a Knight fork). We both really enjoyed our games.

I only spent a few days in the general ward. After my first meeting with the in-patient psychiatrist, it was clear that I had been very thoroughly “doing the work” of managing my mental health via consistently taking my medications, actively participating in psychotherapy, and had a great ability to advocate for myself in insightful and healthy ways. She concluded quickly that getting me home as soon as possible was the best course of action.

As we were planning for my discharge, the psychiatrist asked if I needed refills on any of my medications. I mentioned in a very deadpan way that “I seem to be out of Lembas for some reason…” and she guffawed with delight at the joke. That felt really good.

I want to say that the people that work in mental health facilities are heroes. They are understaffed, overworked, often poorly treated by patients, and seldom get appreciated for their efforts. The health systems in place in the United States, designed to prioritize making money rather than actually providing care, are a total shitshow. But healthcare workers are not at fault for that in any way. They do the best they can with what resources they are allowed and very much deserve respect and gratitude. They certainly have mine.

Well… I’m back.

Now that I am out of the hospital, I will be doing another round of PHP and resuming care with my own psychiatrist and therapist. I am also respecting the needs to my family in order to help them feel that I am safe. We are being far stricter about what medications are locked up and I am being very patient with my wife needing to periodically ask me how I am feeling. My actions had a massive impact on all of them. It is heartbreaking to me to know what I put them through.

If you have dealt with self-harm/suicide as part of your own mental health challenges, please know that you are not alone. There are people out there who understand. I am one of them.

If you have a loved one who tries to harm themselves, please don’t blame yourself or them. There are too many factors in play to pin judgement on anyone. The best path forward is to show up for them with compassion and empathy.

I hope this post helps someone. It certainly helped me to write it.

Thanks.

PS for Saint Patrick’s Day: The nurse that brought me from the APS unit to the regular ward is named Patrick. I had the joy of telling him, “I didn’t see a single snake the entire time I was in here. Thanks for all you do.” Who’s got two thumbs and makes jokes with the hospital staff after a suicide attempt? #ThisGuy

Meat Shield

I’m struggling with my Depression right now. I have been for about a week. While it fluctuated throughout the week, the general trend was that it was ebbing; that I was climbing out of it. My Depression had other ideas.

I’ve been sharing quick posts on various social media just about every day for several months, now. You can learn more about that effort here: #MentalHealthDailyCheckin » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com). I find it helpful to take stock of how I am feeling at the time and put it into words. It gives me the benefit that others may get from keeping a journal. And sharing helps me. And my sharing helps others (feedback I have gotten from this effort has been profound).

The section below is a timeline of my check-ins during the week.

The Great Space Coaster of mental health challenges last week

Note: See The Great Space Coaster – Wikipedia for details on what that is. It’s a great 1980s reference that at least some of you will likely appreciate. That title is also an apt metaphor for the ups and downs I went through over the week. Try and keep up.

I had a big anxiety spike on the evening of Saturday, April 8th. It came out of nowhere. Just BAM! On Sunday, Easter Sunday, when Christians of various flavors celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection, I posted about it.

On Monday, I shared about the weekend.

That “giant bag of dicks” reference comes from this post: The Trouble With Postmortem Compassion » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com)

I repost that section here for your convenience, although I do recommend reading the full post linked above. I’ve seen it; it’s pretty good.

A giant bag of dicks

A few years ago, I was on a leave of absence from my job due to my Depression and Anxiety being a giant bag of dicks. I should share a little background here and since it worked so well above, I’m going to use a List.

  • Depression is a dick.
  • Anxiety is a dick.
  • “Depression and Anxiety” does NOT equal “Depression + Anxiety” in the way that having “two apples and three plums” means you have (2+3=5) five pieces of fruit.
  • Rather, it is more like Depression to the power of Anxiety (or vice-versa); each one making the other “a lot worse.”
  • Whenever something is troublesome, having “a giant bag” of that something is “a lot worse.” Since having one hornet nest is bad enough, having a giant bag of hornet nests would be a total shit-show.
  • Thus, Depression (which is a dick) and Anxiety (which is a dick) yields a “giant bag of dicks” rather than “two dicks.”
  • Math, y’all.

Moving on.

I didn’t have the energy to post on Tuesday. On Wednesday, my check-in showed some improvement, although I still didn’t have much energy.

Thursday included a session with my therapist that was super helpful.

On Friday, I was pretty proud of how I managed to get through the week.

This hopefulness seems to have pissed of my Depression. It pounced on me bigtime yesterday. What a dick.

I’ve done a lot of hard work over the past few years to work through, or “process,” trauma from my childhood. Essentially, this means I have, with the help of therapy and coping mechanisms, softened the sharper edges of my traumatic memories to make them less painful as they rattle around in my head. You can read more about that here: Trauma, EMDR, and the Kobayashi Maru Test » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com).

I’ve shared that a lot of my trauma stems from my Dad’s sexual assault of a minor and everything related to that. You can read more about that here (trigger warning: that post contains references to sexual assault and prison): John Cazale and Inmate 19250 » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com).

Safety

When I was a kid, my Dad had always been calm and collected. I have zero memory of his having yelled at me or anyone else. Despite others of his generation subscribing to the idea that it is OK to hit your kids, I have zero memory of his having done so to me or my brothers. He had also been a firefighter and knew how to keep his head in a crisis. I always felt safe with him. I always felt that he would keep me safe.

Very soon after his arrest (the same day or the next, I cannot recall exactly), I was sitting with my parents at our dining room table while they chain-smoked. I don’t remember any particular topics of conversation; it’s possible it was just a chain of uncomfortable silences to go along with the cigarettes.

Then there was a knock at the outer door to our front porch. It was a TV news crew.

What the hell is a Meat Shield?

In fantasy role-playing games, and I suppose other games that would involve some form of fighting in groups, there are different roles that members of a group will play. The 3 most common are the Damage Dealer (who specialized in harming the enemy, but is not capable of sustaining a lot of damage), the Tank (who specialized in absorbing damage and trying to get the enemies to attack THEM rather than their more fragile group-mates), and the Healer (who is very fragile and works to keep the Tank alive). These are all roles that players CHOOSE to have their characters play.

I have an affinity for Paladins (see A Bully and a Hero: Depression and My Paladin » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com)), who often make excellent Tanks. It is important to remember that a Tank CHOOSES this role. They choose to take lots of damage and risk to protect their friends, allies, whoever. They also choose to build their character to try to succeed at doing so: donning the best armor they can, maximizing their health and ability to survive. Some will also refer to Tanks at Meat Shields; someONE you hide behind so the enemy hits THEM instead of YOU.

More often, Meat Shield is the term used to apply to some living creature that you place between the enemy and you, absorbing damage, whether that creature wants to or not. They are more of a sacrifice than a partner. You can think of war movies in which soldiers will use corpses for cover when they don’t have better options like sandbags. There are also examples in movies where someone grabs an unwitting enemy to hold in front of them while they advance, protecting themselves at the expense of the enemy (who almost always gets killed). Non-evil characters tend not to use allies and teammates as Meat Shields because it’s a terrible way to treat a friend. Or someone you love.

I was on TV!

My Dad told me to go see who it was at the door. I told him it was a TV news crew. With out a pause, he told me to go tell them this was private property and they needed to leave. I was scared. I was nervous. I didn’t want to do that… But, I did as I was told. I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I was trapped.

When they heard me come to the door, the camera made a whirring sound as it turned on and quickly swung to face me. I opened that outer door and the reporter immediately swung the microphone to my face. I was fighting back tears, and it took everything I had to speak instead of sob. I felt embarrassed. I felt vulnerable. I felt scared. I managed to plead with them to leave and went back inside the house. They eventually left.

The story on the news that night showed me coming to the door and speaking while the reporter, instead of using the audio of what I said, just said that my Dad “sent his teenage son” to deal with them. The tone was not complimentary. It was plain to the reporter that I was being tossed to them instead of my Dad dealing with them himself.

My Dad’s Meat Shield

This scene has been playing out over and over in my mind all week. It’s not one of my favorite memories. It’s not a shining moment of courage from my Dad. It’s not an example of how parenting should work. On that day, my Dad, who had always helped me to feel safe, tossed me to the wolves to protect himself. He took his shame and embarrassment, laid them upon my shoulders and sent me out alone while he hid behind doors and curtains and HIS YOUNGEST FUCKING SON. And he didn’t even hesitate to do it. This has been the trauma that my Depression has been beating me with this past week.

I don’t have a witty connection to close out this post. I guess, the best I can come up with is this: There are ways to show someone you love them; using them as a Meat Shield isn’t one of them.

Abassynia, 2022

I’m not gonna lie. 2022 has been a tough year for me. I really struggled with my Depression and Anxiety for most of it. I’m glad to put 2022 behind me. At the same time, I feel like I am more resilient at the end of the year than I was at the beginning. There were parts of 2022 that I do/did appreciate.

Note: see “M*A*S*H” Abyssinia, Henry (TV Episode 1975) – IMDb for context on the title of this post. The sentiment doesn’t fit super well, but the reference was just too much for me to pass up.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?

While I think this phrase is a gross oversimplification, and is sometimes outright bullshit, I do think it holds SOME truth. We ARE undeniably shaped and impacted by our experiences. Sometimes the result is some kind of growth (I’m not referring to some random protuberance that appears on someone’s face here) and we end up better for it. But sometimes experiences just suck and that’s all there is to it.

Everything happens for a reason?

This is a phrase that I find to be a common one people of faith use when someone they know is going through some shit. The reason is usually that God has placed this challenge in their life to help them grow or to test them in some way. While their intentions may be good, I find this phrase/idea to be decidedly unhelpful drivel.

Let me explain.

I’m a recovering Catholic. I still consider myself a Christian; though I don’t use my Christianity as a weapon or a stamp to mark people as “other” or “less than” like so many Christians do nowadays. That shit infuriates me. I place more blame for this on leaders in organized religious groups than on the individuals, though. While religious faith (not just Christianity, but all of them) can help people find meaning and even some peace in their lives, I firmly believe that religious faith is also an amazingly convenient means for people with power to manipulate people without power. Way too often, faith is the hilt people offer to religious leaders to allow themselves to be turned into instruments of harm.

No. there is too much. Let me sum up.

I believe, when you boil things down to the most basic level, EVERYTHING happens for some combination of four reasons:

  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Biology
  • Human decisions

There are undeniably folks who will take issue with my excluding “the will of God or some other deity/deities” in this list. That’s fine. I’m not attacking anyone here. Just sharing what I believe. To me, the idea of a god taking discrete manual actions to affect each and every person’s life is to label that god as a moron.

Even a junior-level database administrator knows that relying on manual tasks to maintain even a hundred databases (let alone billions) is a guaranteed path to failure. So they use automation and scripts to allow their efforts to scale. Even if one’s response is that an all-knowing god IS capable of doing all this manually, why would they do their work in the least efficient way possible? Are junior-level database administrators smarter than an all-knowing god? Really?

I jumped up on my soapbox a bit here, huh? I hadn’t intended to when I started this post. But I’m keeping it in so that this post is an accurate reflection of what’s going through my head right now. Again, not meant to attack anyone.

A look back at 2022

I feel like some sort of retrospective of accomplishments from 2022 would be valuable for me, so here goes.

  • While I did not post often, I did continue to blog about my experiences with mental health challenges. Since this is a personal blog, I don’t pressure myself to post with any particular schedule. I post when I am able. I don’t post when I am not. And either is OK.
  • I had a fantastic year at work. I’m in my dream job at Microsoft where I help the folks who produce Power BI and related products and services understand the goals, priorities, and challenges of some of the world’s largest organizations. Feedback from all sides was that I went above and beyond even though I was just doing the job the way I felt it should be done. That feels great and keeps Impostor Syndrome on the sidelines way more often than not.
  • I had the courage to take a leave of absence/medical leave from work when I realized that I just COULD NOT get myself well AND do my job at the same time. I am fortunate to have this as an option, both from a benefits/financial perspective, as well as from the standpoint of a compassionate and supportive manager and team.
  • Back in July, I started sharing daily check-ins on how I am feeling/doing each day. See #MentalHealthDailyCheckin » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com) for more on this effort. I started just posting on Twitter and eventually added LinkedIn and Instagram as well. I’ve only missed a couple of days, which greatly exceeds my own expectations. Since I have never had the discipline for keeping a journal, this has been a very low-effort way to reap some of the benefits that others get from journaling. Also, the feedback from this effort has been amazing. The outpouring of support and appreciation for my openness has overwhelmed me with joy and love from friends, family, coworkers, even total strangers.
  • It took a bit longer than expected, but I did finally get my youngest daughter to say, “tits.” See There are no “bad” words » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com) for more on this noble pursuit.
  • I managed to make it through my first ever experience in which suicide felt like a really good option. See Cat Pee, Suicide, and Bananagrams » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com) for more on this.
  • I made the incredibly difficult decision to surrender 3 of our cats in order to do what I needed for my own mental health even though it was a very unpopular choice for my family. See Surrendering Cats: Pre-game Show » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com) and Surrendering Cats: Post-game Show » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com) for more on this.
  • For the first time, I shared that I am the child of a sex offender, around which a lot of my childhood trauma revolved. See John Cazale and Inmate 19250 » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com) and Overcoming Victimpostor Syndrome » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com) for more on this.

Wrapping up

I made some really difficult choices this year. On the whole, I feel like I made the right ones. I’m still here. That’s a big one. I’m hoping 2023 is less… interesting for me. I can’t imagine having another year so jammed up with strife, tribulations, bullshit, drama, and so forth right after this one. I made it through 2022, and I’m proud of that, but 2023, take it a little easier on me, yeah?

Overcoming Victimpostor Syndrome

Since you follow this blog with rapt joy, you will recall that I have like a shit ton of trauma from my childhood. It took me a long time to work through and “process” a lot of that trauma. By process, I mean the work of shaping that trauma into something less dangerous and painful, reducing the risk and severity of its triggering intense physical and/or emotional responses as I go through my life. More on that in a future post.

I have participated in a few outpatient trauma-focused programs with group therapy settings. The most recent was a few years ago, during the early months of the COVID pandemic, so it was all online. It was four hours per day for 3 weeks, but I took the full 3 weeks off from work knowing that it would take all my energy. When it comes to therapy, I go all in. Therapy is one of those things that requires commitment and openness to get the most benefit, so I jump in with both feet.

Trauma-focused group therapy

Group therapy settings, in general, come with rules about confidentiality. What happens in group stays in group. Trauma groups have even more. One of them is that participants are asked not to share details of their trauma. This is to help protect other members of the group who may have similar experiences from getting triggered by discussions of events that remind their brains of the trauma they experienced. While Exposure Therapy can help some people with their trauma, group therapy is typically not the place for that.

Each of the trauma-focused groups in which I have participated included people who were raped, sexually assaulted, sexually abused, or some combination of all three. As I shared in John Cazale and Inmate 19250 » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com), my father sexually assaulted a teammate of mine. While I myself was not raped, sexually assaulted, or sexually abused by my father or anyone else, a lot of my trauma comes from my father’s behavior and the giant blast radius of the events and experiences stemming from it.

Victimpostor syndrome

As I listened to these survivors discussing the toll their trauma has taken on their lives, I started to feel like my own trauma was less valid. I felt like MY trauma was on the wrong side of the line (the side of the perpetrator) and therefore I was less entitled to the empathy and compassion that I and my groupmates were bestowing upon each other. That I was being fraudulent in my pursuit of healing.

I didn’t have a word for this at the time, but the other day I came up with “victimpostor syndrome,” a portmanteau of “victim” and “impostor syndrome,” which I am defining as the feeling that I didn’t earn my victimhood, that it was only a matter of time before people learned that my trauma comes being the family of a sex offender, not from being a direct victim of that behavior, and once people found out, I would be excluded or even become the target of anger or outrage.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is currently in its fifth edition, the DSM-5. The DSM provides the criteria and framework for mental health challenges so that there is consistency across mental health providers and researchers when it comes to mental health. The diagnosis of mental health challenges still has a degree of fuzziness and art to it since there is still so much about the brain that we don’t understand. It includes no entry for Victimpostor Syndrome as far as I know. But it feels like a valid thing to me. So, who knows what the DSM-6 could include, yeah?

It is worth noting that many prefer the term “survivor” to “victim” and while I use both in this post, in the future I will try to lean more on survivor. OK. Now I want to listen to Eye of the Tiger. Back shortly…

Taking the bull by the horns

Since, as I mentioned above, I commit fully to therapy, I decided to share with my group-mates that my dad was a sex offender (going into zero details out of respect for the guidelines of the group and the spirit behind them) and that I was struggling with feelings that I was less worthy of compassion than they were because my trauma was “on the wrong side” of the line. I want to stress that there had been nothing in their behavior or words that suggested this to be the case.

The response was swift and unanimous. My feelings of being unworthy were misplaced. Neither me nor my trauma were “less than” because of my father’s being a sex offender. It helped so much to get what amounted to acceptance from survivors of rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse that my trauma mattered, too. That I mattered and was worthy of all the help I could get for my trauma.

Why am I sharing this?

Given the emotionally charged nature of my father’s behavior, I have no doubt that, now that I have shared it, some people will find it a little harder to have compassion or empathy for me. While you may want to believe that this is not true for you, I think it is only natural. I’ve been there. It took me extra effort to have compassion and empathy for myself. For some of you, this extra effort is minimal and we’re good. I have received direct expressions of this since I shared it recently.

For others, you may still be working through this effort. Some of you may never get through that effort, and you will be unable to find that compassion and empathy for me that you otherwise might. Please know that I accept that and hold no ill will toward you if you need to pull back from me. This is hard stuff.

My main reason for sharing this is so that others in my situation may feel less alone. The families of sex offenders can be ostracized, forgotten, or even become victims of disdain and vitriol due to their connection with someone who perpetrated crimes against children or other vulnerable people. Please know that someone else understands that isolation and fear.

The other reason is to remind everyone else that the families of people who do things that society has labelled as heinous are victims, too. Lumping us in with our family members that do these things is easy and may make you feel better in the moment, but it is unjust and wrong. In the long run, it does NO ONE any good. I have never experienced this myself (not directly, anyway), but I know that there are some who have. Let’s remember the sage advice of Bill S. Preston, Esq, and Ted “Theodore” Logan: “Be excellent to each other… and party on, dudes!”

John Cazale and Inmate 19250

Trigger warning: This post will mention sexual assault and prison. If either of those are troublesome for you, stop reading when you see the warning box, pictured below, further down.

WARNING: HERE THERE BE DRAGONS

The actor’s vulnerability

I have degrees in Theatre and English. I’m a trained actor. I was by no means a great actor, but I had a few moments. My point here is that, while I made no terrific accomplishments as an actor, I understand the craft. I understand the work that goes into making something look effortless; the work that goes into convincing people, both audiences and fellow actors, that someone in a play, etc., is not a character, but a person.

One of the most important things an actor can bring to any scene is vulnerability. This can also be one of the hardest things to accomplish. As humans, our most basic instincts are to seek safety instead. Part of actor training is learning and practicing letting go of this instinct, of baring one’s soft underbelly to scene partners in an effort of creating something more than the sum of its parts.

The great John Cazale

John Cazale was an actor. A masterful actor, his performances so subtle and natural and vulnerable that it is easy to miss them. It’s rarer than you might think to find an actor that makes you so completely forget they are acting. Since he was not the leading man in any of his films, it is also easy to miss the impact he had on his fellow actors.

Part of an actor’s job is to poke, prod, and support their scene partner(s) to create an experience that transcends what any of the actors in the scene could do alone. Even when a character is quite aloof, the actor must traverse and build upon vulnerability to find that aloofness and make it natural and believable.

John’s film career was a brief one. He acted in only five feature films before succumbing to lung cancer at age 42, in 1978:

  • The Godfather (1972)
    • As Fredo Corleone
    • Winner – Academy Award for Best Picture
  • The Conversation (1974)
    • As Stan
    • Nominee – Academy Award for Best Picture
  • The Godfather Part II (1974)
    • As Fredo Corleone
    • Winner – Academy Award for Best Picture
  • Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
    • As Sal
    • Nominee – Academy Award for Best Picture
  • The Deer Hunter (1978)
    • As Stan
    • Winner – Academy Award for Best Picture
    • John was fighting/losing his battle with cancer during filming, passing soon after filming completed.

For such a short film career, he was in iconic films. And nothing but. There is a spectacular documentary of John and his work: I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale. The documentary covers his stage acting career, his all too brief film career, as well as interviews and discussions with actors, directors, and others who had the privilege of working with him or were inspired by his work.

Asking questions without having to answer them

There’s a great moment in the interview with Al Pacino discussing working with John on The Godfather Part II: “He became whoever it was he was playing; and he did that by asking questions. Because he taught me about asking questions, and not having to answer them — that’s the beauty. What’s wonderful about it is you open the door to things.”

In life, like in the stories we tell, we don’t get answers to all of our questions. We don’t get solutions to all of our problems. What matters most, I feel, is pursuing those answers and solutions regardless of our chance of success. To me, the measure of a person is not the answers they can provide, but the questions they are willing to ask (of themselves, of others, of society, of the world).

Asking hard questions can come with vulnerability. Sometimes lots of it. I have been using some of my acting training, namely making myself vulnerable, in my sharing my experiences living with Trauma, Depression and Anxiety. It’s been difficult. It has required courage. I have done it anyway, particularly since not everyone can. I have done it anyway in the hopes of helping to nudge society in the direction of openness so that sharing mental health challenges doesn’t require courage. Mental health stigma is a giant bag of dicks that our society tries to make us all carry around. It doesn’t have to be this way.

My vulnerability

I’m going to start sharing more about my childhood trauma, with more details related to my dad. It’s going to be hard. But I have a unique perspective, a perspective that most people don’t think about, a perspective that doesn’t get much coverage, even in the era of the 24-hour news cycle. I will be getting vulnerable AF, risking ire and outrage from people who may not understand I am trying to shine a little light where there is currently just darkness; not taking light from anywhere else, but adding new light.

WARNING: HERE THERE BE DRAGONS

Inmate 19250

I sat at a 4-seat rectangular table that was bolted to the floor. All four chairs, likewise, were bolted in place, capable of swiveling but not being lifted. The chairs, as I remember, were in varying colors of muted blues, greens, and oranges. The room had 12-15 such table/chair installations. Along one wall stood vending machines with various snacks in their soft, plastic packaging; nothing that could be even improvised into anything dangerous (other than trans-fats and sodium).

My mother and I had entered the room through a stout metal door with a small, reinforced, shatter-resistant glass window. At the opposite end of the room as another such door. We weren’t allowed to go near that one. Nor was anyone that came out of that door allowed to go near the one my mother and I had used.

It was only a few moments of waiting before we saw a familiar face through the small window in that far door. It opened and a brown-haired man in his fifties with perpetually stooped shoulders approached us. He was wearing a faded, but deep green, button-down shirt with a label on the left breast, “19250” in dull, whitish letters. We hugged and he sat down at the table with us. On the table rested coins for the vending machines; the man was allowed to touch neither.

The room was the visiting area at NH State Prison in Concord, NH. The man was inmate 19250 and my dad. The scene was repeated often, weekly when we were able, over the course of more than 5 years. He was convicted of felonious sexual assault of a minor (11), one of my soccer teammates, and served most of a 7-year sentence.

Forgotten victims

While my father never sexually assaulted/abused me, I am nevertheless a victim of his behavior. There is a fuck-ton (not sure how many shit-tons are in a fuck-ton, but a fuck-ton is undeniably bigger) of trauma for me in and around his arrest, his trial, his conviction, his sentencing, his term in prison, his release, and other events that happened in relation to and/or in conjunction with all of this.

I cannot even fathom what my dad’s victim had to go through and is quite possibly still going through. I sincerely hope that he got/is getting any help and support that is needed. I hold no ill will toward him, or his family, either. Just empathy and compassion. My opening up about my own victimhood is IN NO WAY INTENDED to lessen his. This will likely be the last time I mention him at all since my goal is to share MY lived experience and on one else’s.

There will undoubtedly be people who will have the knee-jerk reaction that I am trying to defend my dad or clear his name. I have no intention of doing either. There is no doubt in my mind that my dad was guilty. I didn’t witness any instances first-hand, but there were things I did witness that, upon reflection, take me beyond a reasonable doubt. I have no plan to go into any of those details.

And

Our society stresses OR. Someone is either a decent/great person OR they are a monster, with very little, if any, middle ground. Nuance is something people just don’t have patience for. There are lots of famous names I could mention here. There are many crimes/deeds for which we vilify people. People that harm children are pretty damned high up on that list. And I can’t argue with that, nor will I attempt to.

While it is effortless to mark strangers as monsters, it is a lot harder to do when that person worked hard to make sure you had food, shelter, a good education. It’s harder when that person loved you, read to you when you were little, played games with you, made you and so many others laugh. It’s harder when that person volunteered so much of his time, and when possible, his treasure to help people and taught you to do the same. It’s hard when you witnessed that person doing so much good to throw that all away and label them: MONSTER.

My quest(ion)

I understand taking the position that no amount of good makes up for horrible actions. If you hold that position, I respect that. I will not try to argue with you or change it. Rather, I will be focusing on the question I feel is worth pursuing:

How do I hold all the good things that my dad did in one hand AND the horrible things he did in the other? I just can’t apply the OR here that society would dictate.

I make no promise (to myself or anyone else) that I will find some grand answer or make any startling realization. My hope is that I will, to borrow from Al Pacino, “open the door to things.” I also hope that I can shine a light on the difficulty of being the family of a sex offender; the difficulty in being caught in the blast radius of the actions of someone you love.

I don’t know how many posts there will be as part of this effort. And they will not all be in an unbroken sequence or series. I will need to take breaks to blog about other topics for my own well-being. I am creating a new category and tag “AND” that I will use to denote posts related to this important quest(ion). So, if this is content you would rather avoid, but you still want to read my brilliant posts on other topics, just skip the posts in the AND category.

I hope you will follow along as I try to sprinkle some AND in among the OR.

Headbutt With Me

Dopamine matters

My favorite comedian, Mike Birbiglia, suffers from REM Sleep Behavior Disorder which means that he acts out his dreams instead of their just happening in his mind. It has to do with the neural pathways that paralyze the body during sleep malfunctioning. He shares about this in his comedy special Sleepwalk With Me as well as a book, a Broadway show, and biographical film. Some of these sleepwalking episodes resulted in injury and one almost killed him (defenestration: the struggle is real).

Just last night I dreamt that several Target employees and other shoppers kept pressuring me to us the Target delivery flatbed truck (which I’m pretty sure is not a thing) since they doubted my ability to fit everything I bought into my old Saturn SL1 sedan. Challenge accepted.

If I lived with REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, I can imagine waking up this morning to discover the oven is meowing and it turns out that I managed to fit a shit ton of random items from all over the house in there along with our one remaining cat, Onyx, and I let him out and he walks off like nothing weird happened and I take a deep breath in relief that I wasn’t dreaming about cooking.

I don’t suffer from REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, but I did have one episode that gives me a glimpse of what it is like for Mike.

Dabbling in domestic violence

I met my wife, Trish, in college. She was one of the many fine people I met when I started doing improv comedy and then added Theatre as a second major to English. One night, she and I were asleep in the tiny twin bed I had in an on-campus apartment. I had a dream about being bullied in high school, being held against a wall by two assholes while another (let’s call him Dick the dick) got ready to start punching me. In the dream, I snapped and head-butted Dick in the face, proud of myself for fighting back. Fuck that guy.

I woke almost immediately, as I almost fell out of bed, and saw Trish leaning on one elbow, facing me, her face covered in blood. It took a few seconds to realize what had happened. I’ve never been a good fighter. I’m still not. In this particular case, I had aimed a head-butt at Dick and hit Trish instead, which is just gushing with FAIL (and blood, since I had broken her nose).

Now that I think about it, if Trish had been wearing a helmet, she would have been fine. So, it’s just a little bit HER fault, right?

NOTE: This is a joke about how STUPID it is to blame victims of assault/abuse/violence. So, let’s knock that shit off, yeah?

Knight's armor from mid-chest upward.
Photo by Mike B

When I went with Trish to the on-campus health clinic, the staff kept asking her if she was safe, suspecting she was the victim of an abusive boyfriend. Trish recounted to me later that it took her a while to convince them it wasn’t like that at all. You see, it was totally Dick’s fault.

Trish had to explain several times to the staff at the clinic that her boyfriend, Mark, was not abusing her. It was Dick the dick who was a dick to Mark, and Mark was finally fighting back against Dick the dick and Mark was asleep when he mistook Trish for Dick the dick and, thinking he was breaking Dick the dick’s nose in triumph, broke Trish’s nose instead by mistake. Could happen to anyone, really. I can’t imagine why they had trouble accepting this narrative.

Hilariously unfunny

Reactions from our friends hit Trish and me in different ways. You see, Trish, like all our friends, thought this entire situation was hilarious. They would make jokes and Trish would genuinely laugh while I retreated further and further into myself. I didn’t find any of it funny.

I had a really hard time forgiving myself for hurting Trish. Looking back, the dream had likely triggered some trauma from the high school bullying I endured from Dick and his friends. Combine that with having a terrible temper that I had worked so hard to gain some manner of control over and this entire incident was just a total shitshow for me. I still can’t laugh about it like Trish or anyone else can.

Food, folks, and fists

Meeting Trish’s family was harder for me than it otherwise may have been. I felt more pressure to make a good second impression since my first impression involved lots of blood. Trish’s paternal grandmother actually came up to me and touched my nose with her fist the first time I met her. Which, as I think about it, is pretty funny, actually.

Wrapping up

If you follow this blog with rapt joy, you will have noticed that I typically wrap up with important connections and shit like that. I don’t have any for this one. My Depression has been super bad this past week and I needed to vent. I just wanted to write and share something. It helps me.