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 on 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.

A Bully and a Hero: Depression and My Paladin

Reading Assignment

Back in 2017, I posted on my professional blog about my oldest daughter, Paige, and some of her experiences with depression. That post is entitled A Bully and a Hero: Depression and My Daughter. While it focused mostly on her, it was also the first time I shared publicly that I had lived with depression as well. This post here is a direct reference to that one from 2017 and builds on some of those themes.

Before going much further here, I would recommend reading that post. I believe it will be worth your time; and it will make your reading of this one even more transcendent.

A Brief History of Mental Illness

OK. Now that we’re on the same page (this was not a planned play on words, but I like it)….

I dealt with depression a tiny bit in high school and had another obvious, but relatively brief, bout of it about ten years ago or so. But Depression was not really something that was clearly a chronic condition for me; I never had medication and only had very brief experiences with therapy until the past few years. I dealt with two different therapists/psychologists in my teen years. Both experiences were terrible.

My first psychologist experience was when I was in 7th or 8th grade. She was not my therapist, but I was required to see her. This is related to stuff/trauma I do not plan to share, so hopefully you can keep going without more detail. If not, then perhaps a nice cat video would be better for you.

This psychologist was adamant that I was supposed to be angry with a particular person in my life. She could not let herself consider that I was not. Nothing I said or did could convince her otherwise. Since her textbook said I should be angry, and I said I was not, the ONLY possibility was that I was lying to her.

I was not angry with the person she insisted I should have been angry with, but she herself inspired plenty of anger. Fuck off, lady.

My second experience was someone I went to see in high school a few times during my first diagnosed bout of Depression. He didn’t think I was really depressed so he treated me like I was just an ass hole wasting his time. You, sir, can also fuck right off.

Anger character from Disney Pixar movie Inside Out

My Bully: Depression

In 2018, or so, my Depression stopped fucking around. Paige was seeing an awesome young therapist named Corrin. She is bright, perceptive, and super helpful. I would bring Paige to her weekly sessions with Corrin, and would join them for the final few minutes. I was open about my history with Depression in the hopes it might help Corrin help Paige.

When I was starting to have trouble focusing, having bouts of crying completely out of nowhere, I thought it may be depression knocking on the door again. I shared my terrible experiences with psychologists in the past with Corrin and asked her if she would see me for 1 session, just so I could perhaps learn a coping skill or two. She agreed.

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For that one session with Corrin, I spent most of the time sharing my background, my family history with depression (my mom was Bipolar and she had suspected her father was as well) and childhood experiences. Plenty of my trauma stems from my mom; I will have posts on that in the future. As I shared all this, Corrin’s face got steadily more and more astounded and concerned.

Getting Help

When I was done, she closed here eyes, took a few breaths, then delivered a couple bombshells for me. What follows is somewhat paraphrased, but is pretty close to what Corrin actually said.

OK...

First, it sounds to me like you have been living with depression for decades and doing it without any type of support at all. I have no idea how you have been able to accomplish that, but stop it.

Second, I would strongly recommend you see a therapist that specializes in trauma. You have a massive amount of trauma to deal with and a generalist like me may not have the tools to give you the help you need.

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That first point hit me really hard for a moment. But then when I looked back at everything I had shared with Corrin for 40 minutes of near constant talking, it made perfect sense. I had been living with depression all this time. There were some periods when I handled this better than other periods. But there were clear times when my cup runneth over and it kicked my ass. I was not getting any kind of help for it. None. It was pretty clear that my solo career was coming to an end.

Corrin’s second point had even more impact. I had not heard the term “trauma” applied to my experiences before. I had only ever heard it on medical shows and war movies related to physical injury, etc. None of my “traumatic” experiences really related to physical harm to my body.

But some events we experience, like a car accident, an assault, combat, will trigger our fight or flight response. Then, later, events or even the perception of events that may remind us of that initial trauma, even in tiny ways, can trigger that fight or flight all over again. Which SUPER sucks.

You can read more here about the most common form of this, PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). My traumas were a combination of several point-in-time events as well as environmental stressors over the course of years. Fun. Again, more on that in later posts.

What Is Your Quest?

I took Corrin’s advice and started seeing a therapist she had recommend, named Ashley. I also went to my primary care provider to see if medication would be a good idea. It was. I plan to write at least one post on medication, so I won’t go into it very much here.

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In my first session with Ashley, I went through my background, etc, just like I had with Corrin. Ashley’s responses were much like Corrin’s, with the exception of being a good fit to help me. I will cover more of my experiences with Ashley, including EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, discussed on the NAMI page I linked above) in future posts. I need to bring this post on home and I haven’t mentioned any paladins, yet.

My Hero: My Paladin

File:Diablo II characters.jpg
The playable characters in Blizzard Entertainment‘s Diablo II, my favorite computer game of all time. The Paladin is on the right, kneeling.

You can find paladins in the realms of Fantasy, like Dungeons & Dragons and other members of that sword and sorcery genre. A Paladin is a holy warrior, using the blessings and abilities granted them by their deity to fight for those who cannot and to smite evil wherever it may be found. Think of your ultimate “knight in shining armor” trope and add in a generous helping of faith and zeal. In a very real sense, a paladin’s powers and abilities are earned through their actions, boons granted by a proud god/goddess in appreciation for their efforts.

Ashley and I talked for a few minutes about my unexplained, decades-long, experience of keeping Depression at bay with no outside intervention (divine of otherwise) at all. “What do you think it was?” she asked. I had already been picturing a sea of pitch darkness with one tiny globe of light in the center, like a single spotlight on a massive, but otherwise empty stage. Moving closer to that globe, with some encouragement from Ashley, I could see, at its center, was a champion, fending of attack after attack from the darkness and all it contained.

HOLY SHIT! It’s a paladin!

Ashley, well versed in Fantasy and general nerdery (we had geeked out on Diablo more than once) gave a laugh of absolute delight, “I LOVE it!” She totally got it. More on that in a moment.

Seal of Approval

These experiences with Corrin and Ashley provide two fantastic examples of good therapists, and two points that I want to close with.

  1. A good therapist knows when they are not the best therapist for YOU and is honest about it.
  2. Finding a therapist who understands the context you come with, the point of view from which you perceive the world, etc, is immensely important.
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Corrin was able to determine from that one session that she was not in the best position to provide me the kind of support and help that I needed. She was up-front about it and pointed me to someone who would be a better fit. It is not hyperbole to say that 1 hour with Corrin changed my life. It serves as a boundary between epochs of my timeline: before Corrin and after Corrin are two very different lives.

My experience with Ashley highlights the importance of finding the right therapist; someone who will “get” you. Having the added burden of having to explain references to your therapist just makes the work of therapy that much harder. When I told Ashley that the thing that kept me safe against Depression for all those years was a paladin, I knew I didn’t have to explain what a paladin was. I knew she would instantly understand. Our shared understanding felt like a weight being lifted off my shoulders.

I Cannot Be Your Paladin

I have learned that this need for finding the right therapist is often an especially challenging one for people of color and members of the LGBTQ community. There are a lot of straight, white folks who are therapists. But someone who is Caucasian cannot fully grasp the lived experience of being a person of color. Someone who is heterosexual cannot fully grasp the lived experience of NOT being heterosexual. Someone with what we might call a binary (Male or Female) gender identity cannot fully grasp the lived experience of NOT having a binary gender identity. No amount of education can change any of these.

I feel strongly that it is crucial that I acknowledge the advantages I was born with. My life is not made harder by the color of my skin. My life is not made harder by who I love. My life is not made harder by who I pray to (or not). My life is not made harder by my socio-economic status. My life is not made harder by the country I was born in.

But I Can Let You Use Mine

My life is most definitely made harder by mental illness. I have that lived experience. I work hard to be the kind of person that can brighten someone’s day. Or help them carry their burden (as long as it isn’t too heavy; I have back issues). While I cannot fully understand lived experiences that are different from my own, I move through live with a decent amount of empathy. I sincerely hope that my blog can help anyone who chooses to read it.