Category Archives: Depression

More Thinking About Writing (Regarding Tools and Positioning)

Recently I’ve blogged about my attempts to optimize my approach to writing day to day, to hopefully become more productive and prolific. A huge part of that, by necessity, is that I have to deal with my depression; if I can’t, I might as well throw in the towel.

This week, I start a course of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), which will hopefully give me the edge in that fight. I’m assuming it will, so I’m working on setting the stage for the writing I plan once it’s over.

Kate gave me a book about writing for my birthday, Chapter By Chapter by Heather Sellers. Generally I find books about writing to be a waste of time for a writer; most of them say essentially the same things, and once you’ve read one, you’ve pretty much read the rest. If you’re trying to be a writer, your time is better spent writing than reading about writing. Till now, I’ve recommended only two books to writers looking for advice, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and On Writing by Stephen King.

Chapter By Chapter is now on that list, and not just because it came to me via hot redhead. Kate chose well; Sellers has some fresh perspectives on the work, and her book has been useful to me as I try to figure these things out.

One chapter proved pertinent to this post, the one about “positioning.” Sellers defines positioning as preparing to do the work, mentally and physically, in advance, so that when it’s time to get to work you can just sit down and write. Part of this is making a routine of connecting with your project every evening, thinking about the next day’s writing, staying involved. The other part of it is making sure you’re physically set up in advance so you don’t have to waste time gathering materials and setting up when you sit down to write again. Continue reading →

Counting The Clock That Tells The Time

I have the go-ahead from my psychiatrist, and just got off the phone with the ECT clinic.

Next Wednesday morning, I start my lightning ride.

If we can stand up
When all else falls down
We’ll last through the winter
We’ll last through the storms
We’ll last through the north winds
That bring down the ice and snow
We’ll last through the long nights
Till the green field’s growing again
Growing again…    

(Peter Gabriel w/ Kate Bush)

Taken By The Wind (A Personal History, Part 4): The Sound of Her Wings

Death is always with me.

I think I first met her Christmas Eve, 1965. I was still a season short of two years old, living in Missouri with my mom who had fled back to her parents’ home to escape my father’s jealousy and rage. My mom’s name was Linda, and she was 16.

She was working that night, I think waitressing or as a cashier…it’s been decades since I heard the story, and have no one to ask now. But I do think she was working in a restaurant of some sort. And she took a ride home with a coworker. Home to spend Christmas with her family. With her baby. With me.

She never got there. Another driver–I think it was a woman–slammed into the car and my mom was ripped from my life forever.

I don’t remember her. I vaguely recall photos of her, but have none, as they’re in my father’s possession and I’m years out of contact with him. She was a cute young Italian girl with a nice smile and lots of long dark hair.

For most of my youth, I didn’t realize the impact her death had on me, except for the fact it put me in the path of a couple of incredibly damaging step-monsters, and left me in the hands of my mean-ass drunken father.

But as far back as I can recall, my greatest fear has been the loss of a loved one. Continue reading →

Back From The ZZZZZZZAAAAAAPPP! Lab

Stalwart coffee drinker

Okay, I survived the ECT evaluation.

The people were nice, and the info I received gave me some peace of mind regarding the odds of my brain being permanently fucked up. The damage tends to be short term memory loss, and it usually goes away within a few weeks of treatment. There is always a danger that you’ll be one of the unlucky, but that’s life, and my life in its current state isn’t something to hold onto.

I need to make a change, and none of the other methods seem to work. ECT has the highest success rate of any treatment for depression, somewhere around 90% if I recall my initial reading. Antidepressants have less than 50%.

At my best, I’m very capable. I do things well. I tend to the details (I vacuum, when I vacuum, under the furnishings and in the corners, not just in the middle of things), and I do things right (like my writing, which I pride myself on making as close to copy-editor proof as possible). I’m outgoing and genial and people like me. I’m playful and goofy. And I am one damn fine dancer.

Unfortunately, my depression robs me of all that. Continue reading →

Not Calm Before The Storm

In three hours, I’m supposed to be at Emory for my ECT evaluation.

Shock treatment.

It’s fucking scary. I keep having the impulse to call and cancel, or to at least reschedule. This is not going to be a pleasant process. I may not be the same at the other end of it. Of course, that’s the point…I was the same after I did the full TMS course with Brian Teliho, so that was an expensive failure. But I may not be able to write when I’m done…I may not be able to spell, I may not have the same vocabulary, I may not be able to make those twisty mental leaps which tap out on the screen so magically.

I may forget things. I may lose memories of my son. I may remember little of my wonderful times with Kate, since recent memories are usually the ones most affected. I may forget the holographic sense of the stories I have in my mind, and never be able to regain it in order to write them.

But as I think of calling it off, or putting it off, I have the concomitant thoughts that I can double down on my efforts to get things done. Hey, if I make myself go the gym every day, for real this time, the resulting vitality and health will get me to the point I can write regularly too. And I can eat better. And make a point of sleeping better…

And I’ve (not) done this a few thousand times already.

Scary.

I want to thank those friends who’ve contacted me through the hard times of late. I feel alone a lot of the time, and that meant a lot.

Shock Me

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with the storm.

I’ve written here about my longtime depression, and my attempts at dealing with it. Last year, I spent a fuckton of money I couldn’t afford trying a treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation, with a local doctor named Brian Teliho. (You can read all about it here and here). I saw it as my last stop before taking the step of ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, the less barbaric modern version of ye olde electroshock. If the TMS didn’t work, I planned in January to sign on for ECT.

Well, the TMS was a complete waste of time and money. But come January, I went back to my regular pattern, which is, frankly, to try to do better. To try to get to the gym regularly. To try to write a bit every day. You can find my little plans and hopes in the posts I wrote here, and as always, the depression won out.

Then, I fell in love, and that did make a difference. Kate improved my life. She inspired me to write. I started to think, y’know, I sure am glad I didn’t do ECT, because all I really needed was Kate.

But the truth of the matter was that, as much as her support and presence helped, it didn’t help nearly enough. When I was with her, I functioned well enough, but most of that functioning was just hanging out with her, enjoying her and sharing things with her. When she was back home, hundreds of miles away, I tried to stay upbeat and buckle down, and I did get some writing done, but the usual fluctuations of energy and motivation were still there. Maintaining that same pace, I’d still get nowhere.

Then, of course, I lost her. I expected that to pretty much destroy me, at least for a while, but as I wrote in my last post, I recovered (mostly) from the trauma of it almost immediately. I was relieved and clear-headed and thoughtful…and I picked up the phone and called the ECT clinic.

The only thing this has to do with Kate is that I wasn’t doing it while I was with her because I was entertaining the false hope that I didn’t need it. This is what I need to do. I should have done it in January. I damn sure should have done it instead of TMS.

It’s a big step. It’s a harrowing process, it costs a lot (though not as much out of pocket as TMS, which insurance won’t cover), and there are dangers. The biggest danger is memory loss and possible losses in cognition; as a father, I’m terrified of losing memories of my son, and as a writer I’m worried I’ll lose the particular synergy between left brain and right which allows me to use language and imagery in the fanciful ways I do.

But you know what? If I can’t actually make myself write often enough to produce anything, it doesn’t matter how great that synergy is. And if I wind up losing all hope and killing myself, I lose my son altogether and worse, he loses me.

So, I have an appointment with the storm, and I’m going to ride the lightning.

Wish me luck.

“Wild Soul – Nature, Civilization, and the Ecological Spirit” (Now Available, Just 99¢)

 

JUST 99¢!!!

My essay “WILD SOUL – Nature, Civilization, and the Ecological Spirit” is now available from Amazon as a Kindle download for 99 cents.

In the near future, it will be going up at other online venues, in other ebook formats. (If you don’t have a Kindle, you can still read Kindle books with free programs downloadable from Amazon, like Kindle for PC. I read Kindle books on my iPhone and desktop computer.)

Traditional tales across the world describe mankind’s joyful rise in a wild paradise like the Garden of Eden. But they also tell of our fall from such lives of bliss and natural grace.

Our technology, our cities, our toys, our wealth, all have done nothing to ground us as individuals or as societies. If they had, we would live in a near Utopia, rather than the reelingly chaotic and violent world-on-the-brink around us, for surely our affluence and level of comfort is greater than it has been for any people in the history of the earth.

Is Eden forever lost, or is there a way back?

Can we access that marvelous, mythic place in our souls, find a path to its joyful, natural wonders? Or have we slumbered so long in civilized ways that our vital selves are banished for the rest of time?

Can we reclaim the power of the primitive without denying ourselves the comforts and wonders of the modern world?

Exploring sources ranging from the Old Testament and Eastern mysticism, from poetry to popular fiction, from ancient fable to contemporary deep psychology, novelist Tim Byrd finds the prescription for our ills.

We need to live and love more fully, and do things that matter.

We need a renewal of a sense of sacredness towards the natural world, and intimacy with that world.

We need wild soul.

Thinking About Writing

Tim Byrd

I’m thinking about writing today.

Not that that’s anything unusual. I think about writing all the time. I think about writing a hell of a lot more than I actually write, which is a big part of the reason there’s not more cool Tim books in the world for you to enjoy, and for me to make grocery money from.

Today, though, I’m engaging in the sort of thinking about writing which is about how best to approach the work, as opposed to what the work should be. Thinking about how to actually organize my self and my space and my time to attain some level of regular productivity, so I can more reliably share the tales I want so much to tell.

I’ve written here a few times about my attempts at getting on a daily schedule, writing so many words a day, every day, and keeping at it. One enormous complication is my depression, which wears huge fucking cleated boots it uses to regularly stomp me into the floor and crush whatever dreams I’m currently dreaming. I’ve written about my struggles with it a few times, so if you’re curious, just click on the appropriate “Depression” category in the sidebar to find those posts.

Today, we’re gonna go with the assumption that I will overcome that hobnailed monster, and focus on what I need to do to best accomplish the work. Continue reading →

Jaded (Song of the Week, 1/17/11)

I first saw the video for Aerosmith’s “Jaded” years ago, in the midst of a loveless marriage, overcome by my depression, feeling utterly cut off from the primal charge of life and from the world outside.

The video, which tells the tale of a young woman living an artificial life, similarly out of touch with the marrow of existence, moved me incredibly. Eyes might’ve gotten misty. I watched it repeatedly, seeing in it what I’d lost, and trying to use it to inspire me in finding it again.

It’s a well-crafted, beautiful video for a fun song, and as I renew my offensive against my depression today, and once more try to find that doorway into the world, it’s once again a rousing call to life.

My TMS Adventure [UPDATED]

I mentioned in a post yesterday that last year, trying desperate measures to deal with my lifelong chronic depression, I’d looked into ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), and while researching it, found out about a newer, less harsh treatment called Neurostar transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

TMS seemed very promising. A sort of less powerful electro-shock which uses a targeted electromagnetic charge (about as strong as an MRI) to stimulate an area in the prefrontal lobe of the brain that controls mood, it lacked the potentially dire side effects of ECT, such as memory loss. It was a simple in-patient procedure that didn’t require anesthesia every time, as ECT does, so you don’t pay for an anesthesiologist and have to have someone drive you home every day because you’re so out of it. And the claims for its results, and the longevity of its effectiveness, sounded very appealing.

The biggest downside to trying it: insurance doesn’t cover it. It’s only been FDA-okayed for treatment of major depression since 2008 and insurance companies, always leery of paying for anything, haven’t accepted its use yet.

Still, it sounded promising, and nothing else had worked to any significant degree, and I was quite leery of ECT (which insurance does cover). So I decided to go for it.

There were a couple of places in Atlanta I could go, and I opted to be treated by Dr. Brian Teliho because he was the less expensive option. The course of treatment was a session every day Monday through Friday for 4-6 weeks, depending on how the patient responded.

Each session cost $300, so I was paying $1500 a week. This is a lot of fucking money for me, as it would be for most people.

But, I was desperate. Continue reading →

Walking Out Of The Darkness

I’ve been blogging a bit lately about my battles with depression and the impact it has had on my life. Now, leaving the wretched first decade of this millennium behind, I’m determined to turn this around and stop letting the monster control things.

Last year, I reached a point of near hopelessness. Therapy hadn’t helped much. Meds hadn’t helped much. And I was just getting worse. I decided extreme measures might be called for, and started looking into electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), the modern version of ye olde electro-shock.

ECT is intense, and it has side effects (most notably memory loss, sometimes dire and permanent memory loss). But it also has the highest success rate of any depression treatment, and many people who’ve undergone it have had their lives not only significantly improved, but pretty much saved.

Still, it’s a big scary thing to do. And while reading up on it,  I found out about a newer treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a more controlled and allegedly highly effective therapy without ECT’s scary side effects. I decided to try it, even though it’s so new it’s not covered by insurance in this country, even though it cost me $9,000 for the course of treatment.

I’m going to blog in detail about my TMS adventure, but here’s the short version: it didn’t do shit for me. In fact, it cost me a huge amount of savings while not doing shit for me, so if anything it contributed deeply to my overall sense of hopelessness and despair. [UPDATE: the detailed post about TMS can be found here.]

Looking ahead to the beginning of this year, I’d pretty much decided that, if I didn’t manage to at least finish up Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull and deliver it to my editor by now, I’d go ahead with the ECT. The book’s not done yet. But ECT’s still pretty scary, and I figure I owe myself at least one final attempt at a Hail Mary pass before going with the electrodes.

In the past, I’ve made big plans to overcome the depression and to get back on track, and clearly that has never worked to any consistent degree. So this time, I’m taking my cue from Bill Murray’s character in What About Bob?

Baby steps. “Baby steps through the office…baby steps out the door…all I have to do is take one little step at a time and I can do anything…baby steps out of the office…baby steps to the hall…baby steps to the elevator…”

The two most important things I need to do every day are:

  1. Write
  2. Exercise

So my new plan begins there. Whatever else I have on my to-do list, whatever else I may or may not accomplish in a day, I need to at minimum get at least some of both those things done. Every damn day.

So my daily to-do list from now on forms around this:

  • Write 500 words
  • Do 20-30 minutes of cardio of some sort

That’s my minimum daily requirement now. I will often write more, and exercise more, but when the will is weak, I can at least force myself to do that much.

My plan will evolve, and I’ll blog as I go. Hopefully I’ll be able to wrangle the dark beast enough that I won’t have to ride the lightning.

I start officially on Monday. Stay tuned.

Taken By The Wind (A Personal History, Part 3): The Beard of Loneliness

When things never get better, when do you give up hope that they will?

I’m not there yet, but I’ve been on the edge of that chasm for a long time.

For most of my life, I’ve alternated between times when I have to struggle to get anything at all done, and times when I was on task, organized, and convinced I could make permanent change. Note that these have never been “manic” times, just times when I was operating closer to the norm, closer to what I should be, what I might have been had it not been ripped out of me as a child.

But those productive times are always followed by collapse. To-do lists curl and die like leaves in a fire. Lonely chapters gather virtual dust on the hard drive, awaiting fellows who’ll never show. The bed forgets what it’s like to be made. And my chin thickens with whiskers, a barometer of my efficacy in my own life because I do not want a beard.

I have one now. Continue reading →

Good Memories of 2010, Prologue

2010 kinda blew.

I had major health issues and major struggles with my depression. As a result, I blew a deadline on my next book, which I still have yet to finish.

I realized that some people I thought I was close to weren’t really there for me in a meaningful way. These epiphanies come when you’re sitting around week after week thinking dark, with no one around.

I watched a Democratic president with overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress govern with his fucking hat in his hand, accomplishing some good things that could have been great had he acted with a tenth the chutzpah his ridiculous and vile predecessor had.

I watched ignorant rabble and theocratic authoritarians rebuild their power and influence in a time when rationality and progressive values were initially emergent, thanks to the lack of effective political leadership by that president and his party in general.

I didn’t get to sleep with Olivia Wilde.

And, basically, not a whole lot of good happened in my life otherwise.

Now my year has opened again with illness, and my “fine Irish melancholy” is clawing my eyes, and I feel somewhat  less than motivated to write about the good things I experienced last year. It’s an effort of memory even to recall such things. But I’m going to, because I’ve established that tradition and keeping to it is good discipline, and because it may do me some good to think back on some positive things.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Writer

As of today, I am one year late on delivery of my second book.

I’ve been writing lately about my depression and its roots, and about the past year being really rough. Like hanging off the edge of a giant razor blade by your fingers rough.

The manuscript I’m so long overdue on is no great massive volume. I’ve not floundered halfway through my War and Peace. It’s just the second Doc Wilde book, which at editorial decree is to be about the same length as the first, #30-40,000 words. I should’ve been able to write it in a couple of months. That was, indeed, the plan that led to the original deadline.

But, depression. And some major health issues related to it. Continue reading →

Taken By The Wind (A Personal History, Part 2): Bad Vibrations

A day later than planned, but here we go…

I was telling you about my father, and all the great times we had when I was a kid. And I said the next post would be one particularly entertaining anecdote. In today’s very special episode of Taken By The Wind, I’ll tell you about the day I effectively became an orphan.

Here’s the scene:

Afternoon. Me, at sixteen, reading on the sofa in the living room.

My father and his wife, my second stepmother, are in their bedroom.

Their door opens and my father steps into the living room, glaring.

“You stole something from our room,” he says. “Give it back.”

I’m at a loss, since I have not, indeed, stolen anything from their room. I say something to that effect.

“Yes you did,” he tells me. “Get it.”

“What did I steal?” I ask.

“You know,” he says. And he’s very angry.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” I say.

He fumes. “You know what I’m talking about,” he says. “I’m going back in the bedroom. I’ll come back out in ten minutes, and you better have it.”

And he disappears into the bedroom.

I go back to my reading. Can’t do much else.

Ten minutes later, he returns. His thick leather belt is in his hand. “Where is it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He glares at me, looking like he’s trying to solve an algebra problem that keeps kicking him in the nuts.

“I gave Pam a gag gift,” he finally says. “You went in our room and stole it.”

And then I realize what he’s talking about.

Continue reading →

Taken By The Wind (A Personal History)

Okay, so here’s the deal…

I suffer from depression.

To the unenlightened out there, that means I’m moody or lazy or mopey or too sensitive or whiney. I’m none of those things. I’m not even really sad, for the most part, though after suffering this affliction pretty much all my life, there is certainly a constant hum of melancholy way back in my mind. And despair. And anger.

On the plus side, I’m 6′ tall, naturally fit, agile, and strong. The baldness that colonized my father’s head has found no home on mine. I’m blue-eyed, square-jawed, and apparently reasonably attractive. I’m highly intelligent, and can write very well. These things and others I’m grateful for.

In overwhelming opposition to those blessings, I apparently have the genetic bug that makes you vulnerable to depression. Apparently, though anyone can get depressed (usually through some sort of trauma), most people are innately capable of recovery. But when you have the gene for it, it’s harder to recover, and if you are repeatedly traumatized, the depression can settle in for good.

Kids, especially very young kids, with this neurological fuck-up are particularly susceptible. Their brains are still forming and such trauma can do permanent damage. Kids who lose a parent early or who are abused are at really high risk.

I was both. Continue reading →

The Experience of Depression

I’ve mentioned my struggles with depression before, and my intention to write further on the topic. Of course, depression itself gets in the way of that writing, just as it gets in the way of other writing (like fiction, email, even Twitter and Facebook), just as it gets in the way of everything else in life.

The past year has been one of the worst I’ve ever had, as far as the consistency of my depression is concerned. It has been vicious and unrelenting. Add in some related physical issues and we’re talking good times.

Now, lest you fret you’re keeping company with a human sinkhole, I’m not. I’m actually pretty cheerful, even in my worst moods; my ability to laugh at anything, including and especially myself, keeps me alive.

No, in my case, depression doesn’t make me a droopy sad sack, all glum and self-pitying. It just obliterates my energy to do things, and more importantly, my volition to do them. There are days I get up motivated and ready to write/exercise/clean the apartment/etc., then I shower and have breakfast and BLAM, it’s gone. There are also days I never have coffee because I can’t muster the volition to brew a pot.

The past couple of years, I’ve learned a lot about depression, its causes, its effects. I’ve had it at least since my teen years, probably longer, but for most of that time I was oblivious, and even once I found out, my understanding was shallow. Even though it took its toll on me every day, I didn’t recognize the full impact it can and does have.

My shrink told me once that patients of hers who’ve suffered both cancer and depression say they’d rather have the cancer. That’s a mind-boggling thought, but when someone has an affliction like cancer, they can still enjoy the life they have. You hear stories of people who find joy through illness because it shows them the importance of life and every moment is to be cherished and all that.

When you’re depressed, you don’t get those types of epiphanies.
Continue reading →

By Way of Sorrow (Song of the Week 3/1/2010)

I’m starting a new tradition here under the ol’ outlaw moon. Every week, I’m going to share a song with you. And I’m going to begin with one of my favorites, a song by the lovely Julie Miller called “By Way of Sorrow.”

This is a song that I’ve listened to hundreds of times over the years and it has never lost its power to move me. Aside from the elegant softness of the music and the gentle beauty of Miller’s voice, the song is like a shelter from the cold, a loving touch on a lonely night.

I suffer from depression, and just listening to Miller sing this song adds a bit of hope to my time in the abyss. This winter has been a time of crushing solitude and torpor for me (it’s become apparent that my depression is very cyclical, and the colder months damn near crack my bones spiritually), and I’m only just starting not only to see sunlight again, but to care whether I see it or not.

Julie Miller’s song helps me feel like perhaps there’s still someplace I’m headed besides base survival.

Lyrics after the break:

Continue reading →

Depression

If you suffer from depression, you should watch the video below.

If you know someone who suffers from depression, you should watch it too.

The video is a lecture by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a brilliant biologist (of the neuroendocrinologist sort) at Stanford. It’s less than an hour in length, and Sapolsky is a very engaging speaker who makes complicated topics very easy to understand.

I’ve suffered from depression for most of my life, been in therapy, read a book on it here and there….and in less than sixty minutes, Sapolsky gave me a much clearer vision of exactly what the hell is going on in my mind and soul. It’s enlightening, and somewhat terrifying.

I was particularly taken with his explanation about how nature (genetics) and nurture (trauma) can interact and literally change the way the brain functions. I already knew that emotional events could have lasting neurological effects, but now I understand how that probably happens. He explains very clearly how, say, a miserable childhood and possession of a certain gene can do crushing damage not just to a person’s psyche but to their brain chemistry. (Which reminds me of the Andrew Vachs column on emotional abuse I blogged about here).

You should watch.

Emotional Abuse

One of these days, I intend to write some about my childhood and relationship with my father, how I believe my struggles with depression are rooted there, and how I think I have become a very good father at least partly because I have such a flawed model behind me to veer as far away from as I possibly can.

For now, I just read a column that hit very close to home. It’s by Andrew Vachss, a mystery novelist and lawyer who is also a relentless advocate for abused children.

I’m a lawyer with an unusual specialty. My clients are all children—damaged, hurting children who have been sexually assaulted, physically abused, starved, ignored, abandoned and every other lousy thing one human can do to another. People who know what I do always ask: “What is the worst case you ever handled?” When you’re in a business where a baby who dies early may be the luckiest child in the family, there’s no easy answer. But I have thought about it—I think about it every day. My answer is that, of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest and longest-lasting of all…

The whole thing is here.