Tag: Depression

Just Keeping Afloat

On By trashonthemonocacyIn Current Events and Issues, Monocacy River10 Comments

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It’s just too much sometimes. Or not enough. I’m not sure which. Either way, there are times when I feel as if I’ve been flattened, or maybe just blunted, by the minuscule concerns of daily life. Add a few extra worries — like an ill parent, maybe, or a letter to be written — and I find myself not so much flat but sinking into a small hole. A depression. Not a deep one, mind you, just a small dip requiring a little extra work to move my legs forward. I can do it myself. Just give me a moment. Yes. There I am.

So many times, I plan to address concrete issues on this blog, but I fear losing the joy of writing in facts and politics. Last week, for instance, the Monocacy Scenic River Advisory Board finally voted to recommend the adoption of the  2016-17 Monocacy River Management Plan to the Frederick and Carroll County governments. I followed these discussions with some regularity on my blog’s News page, adding a few editorial comments here and there, but, besides writing a letter in support of the plan in my own name, I essentially stayed out of the fray. Many farmers and landowners feel that the new plan, which encourages a substantial buffer along the water and delineates areas of ecological and archaeological concern, infringes on their private property rights, and they have been at times shrilly adamant in voicing their concerns. I, and many other citizens of Frederick county, have questioned the rights of individuals to decide whether or not to care for a river that belongs to the public and provides our drinking water. Of course, the arguments go much deeper than this — how much of a buffer is really required? Is the river already protected by other legislation? — and obviously a much longer article would be required to document the frustrated exchanges and to chronicle the evolution of the report. (In fact, you can find a few such articles and essays on envisionfrederickcounty.org).

But the many times I’ve started to write about this topic, rallying my facts and forming my opinions, I’ve felt myself tie up into knots, my body readying itself for an onslaught of perfectionism and the inevitable following sense of failure. It is my highly sensitive graduate student reflex. And I hate it. It’s far more pleasant to step into my stream of consciousness and record where it takes me. Rather like a stray raft down a river. (Seriously, it’s more than a metaphor: I saw one of them last week).

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It’s my blog. I can write what I want to. Yes? But I feel responsible, too, as someone who cares for the river, to address the issues that affect it. Or do I leave that to scientists and policymakers and allow myself to see the poetry of the river, in all of its messiness? There must be some balance, some way to step into the political waters without going under. Even when I’m in a shallow hole and the floodwaters are coming in. Yes. Even then.

High School Stars

On By trashonthemonocacyIn Current Events and IssuesLeave a comment

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Warning: I am about to write something completely off-topic.

A few days ago, the local paper ran a front-page story about the sudden death of a 30-year-old former local high school football star. No, let me correct that: it wrote about anything but the death of a 30-year-old former local high school football star. I would be positive and say that it wrote about his life, but that would also be untrue. The lengthy story concentrated only on what an amazing, focused athlete he was as a teenager; how he was so good and so serious that his friends didn’t like to involve him in pick-up games; how he gave up every other sport for football; how he had the world at his feet and colleges banging down his door; how he casually and confidently chose to go to the University of Maryland…until he injured his spinal column at the end of his freshman year, transferred to Penn State, never played again, and “life did not get easier.” After this statement, the writer returns to extolling the young man’s athleticism in high school for several more paragraphs, before dropping this quote from one of his old high school buddies: “We haven’t really hung out much or talked to him much…There wasn’t much in common here lately. We didn’t really want to associate with him, unfortunately.”

The cause of this young man’s death is never mentioned, and so I cannot with certainty say why he died. But there are dark hints that lead to some sad possibilities. He had a bad football injury, most certainly painful, and was never able to play football again. Afterwards, his “life did not get easier.” His friends ceased hanging out with him and “didn’t really want to associate with him.” He died suddenly of a cause not reported. When I read between these lines, I see hints toward depression, personality change (think: concussions), and, very likely, addiction. I also see a lost opportunity for a real story.

I understand that, for the sake of his family and friends, relating the (apparent) grimness of his recent years and the (painful? sad? tragic?) details of his death is something that, as a sympathetic writer, you might be reluctant to do. You want to remember the good times. But, to put his death on the front page and and to devote almost 30 paragraphs solely to his years as an amazing high school football player seems entirely disrespectful of the majority of his life. Was he truly only valued for those 2 or 3 years of athletic greatness? Did he fall off the face of the earth after football? The article notes that his Facebook page mentions working for a local tree service and country club. Did he have no friends from these places to quote? What has he been doing for the last 10 years? Was it of no value? Was he of no value?

I am afraid that he might have felt that way. I hope not. I hope he found life afterwards. I hope that he didn’t become addicted to painkillers. I hope that he didn’t become depressed and choose to self-medicate. I hope that he found something to live for outside of football. I hope that he found other interests and friends. I hope that he didn’t think that the best years of his life were over. I hope that he died in a way that had nothing to do with his “tough times” after leaving football. I hope.

It’s strange how angry this article has left me…for him, his family, his loved ones, for all those injured athletes who have had to face life after their sport.  All of these men and women are more than what they can do on a field, or how fast they can run, or how hard they can kick. Let’s be respectful of that. Let’s remember that. Let’s remind them of that.

We are not to be defined by one ability, by one time in our life, by one tragedy that changed things. We are all so much more.

Summer of Discontent

On By trashonthemonocacyIn MemoirLeave a comment

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Every year as summer approaches, I feel my emotions go flat, as if weighed down by the hot and humid mid-Atlantic air that ushers in the season. For years, I couldn’t quite accept the truth of this phenomenon. Summer is supposed to be so wonderful – sun, warmth, longer days, vacation – isn’t it what we’ve been waiting for since January? Depression at a time like this is just ridiculous! Yet, here it is, again, and so insidious in its subtlety: no dramatics, no crying, no morbid poetry; just restless nights, difficulty writing, disinterest in reading, and the usual fear of people.

Why am I writing this? The admission of my depression seems so much more dangerous once it’s recorded. Writing about it is like pulling the stuffing out of a tiny rip in a teddy bear. It emerges as a small ball of innocuous polyester threads and then unfurls, exploding into a cottony mass of shame, judgement and emotions. The bear is left a little emptier, lumpy, slightly misshapen. Maybe the nose is flatter, the right eye askew, the stomach curiously deflated. Even if the stuffing is packed back in, it never looks quite right, or, at least, the way it was before.

But maybe messier is better.

It’s the last day of mental health month, and I’ve been “liking” NAMI’s “stigma free” posts, signing petitions to the U.S. Congress for better mental health care, and sharing articles about mental health awareness all May. It’s much easier to discuss other people’s issues as “other people’s” issues. Nonetheless, their issues are my issues, and, contrary to popular belief, suicide is more prevalent in the spring and summer than it is during the holidays and winter months. Perhaps depression is as well? If this is so, then I am not alone. My issues are “other people’s” issues, too. Who am I, after all, but someone else’s “other people.”

When I named the blog, I never meant for the trash to be taken too literally. Trash isn’t just physical garbage, it’s the flotsam of life in general, sometimes very important to me but worthless to someone else. And, like the trash along the Monocacy, it won’t just go away if it’s ignored. Someone needs to pick it up, look at it, and put it away. If we’re lucky, we might be able to use it again, or turn it into something else, or give it away. And of course we’ll find more of it later. There’s always more. There will be more next year, and the year after that. That’s the way of life.

And so, despite everything, I’ll keep writing.