Get Comfortable

“One day, Mr. Cohen is crossing the street and gets knocked down by a car. Just to be cautious, an ambulance is called. When it arrives, the attendant puts Mr. Cohen on a stretcher with a blanket over him and a pillow under his head and asks, ‘Sir, are you comfortable?’
Mr. Cohen looks up and says, ‘Eh, I make a living.’ ”

For as long as I can remember, I have known this joke. One of the many classic jokes my dad has told me. And anytime we are together and someone is talking about something and asks if someone is comfortable, we reply “Eh, I make a living,” almost always in unison.

I, like most people, have tons of moments like this that friends or family and I share, whether it is a punchline, a movie quote, a song lyric, or sometimes even, an actual real life memory. When my dad isn’t around and someone says “Are you comfortable?” I still say “I make a living.” Sometimes to myself, sometimes out loud, and though it is not the same, it is, because I still connect it to him, that shared experience, the joy, the comfort.

The shared experience is why I do improv. Improv is the art of shared experience, of “yes and”, of creating together. To stand on stage with people and not just agree to the journey, but to go full force into it, to get excited about it, oh how I love this. To do this offstage, is a privilege, and I have been so, so, fortunate to experience it daily. In order for someone to “yes and,” you, you have to put something of yourself out there. That is the risk and joy of improv. That is the risk and joy of life.

As I continue to share my journey, I am so touched by all the people willing to go on the ride with me and the only way I know to pay it forward is to remind whoever is reading this, that  life is easier when we let others “yes and” us and when we “yes and” others because no matter who we are, we all need people to be the “Eh, I make a living” to our “Are you comfortable?”

The Safe and Healthy Struggle

Though I am struggling right now, this time it is different. It feels like a safe, even healthy struggle. That difference is huge. Like the difference between Kraft singles and actual cheese huge. (though I ‘m not beyond eating a Kraft single now and then.)

Sometimes I have to remind myself that the struggle is different this time, I find this reminder necessary especially at night, when it seems harder, lonelier. I tend to try to curb this by posting on facebook more at this time. Then I read that post and am like, “Oh no, this sounds needy, I will post something else that is less desperate and unstable sounding.” I am not sure I am succeeding at that though, but that is a separate issue.

It seems there are three parts to my depression; chemical, situational, and behavioral. This safe and healthy struggle I am going through right now is possible because the chemical part of my depression is in control. The situational and behavioral, they are a work in progress, progress being the important part of that phrase.  The way my brain works, I tend to want to quit when stuff seems unmanageable, hence the desire to end life sometimes. I am working on resisting that urge, or more accurately accepting that that urge exists and trying to use it to my advantage, to say “Okay, I hear you but that is not truly what I want, it is just how it feels right now.”

This is a challenge, a challenge that I am not willing to quit. It is not lost on me that I  am able to make the choice to not quit because the chemical part is working. And for that I am very lucky and very grateful to others for their help, and to myself, for hanging in there.

Inevitable

In my play I talk about the Jewish Prayer the Shehecheyanu (Blessed are You, Ruler of the universe, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this moment.) and the great amount of meaning and peacefulness I find in it.

It occurred to me this week that improv is the art of Shehecheyanu; Creating something new, and feeling grateful you were given the opportunity to experience that. Every scene is happening for the first time, every scene is a chance to say Shehecheyanu.

It’s Not Your Fault

I often think about how my son was the one who kept me alive during the years of on and off suicidal crap, and then I think damn, I really need to stop saying that.

I worry one day that my son will see these words that I’ve written or I will find myself telling him “When things were at my worst I stayed alive because of you.”

What a fuck ton of pressure to put on a child. One day if it comes to be that I don’t survive the suicidal tendencies (let this not happen) that have become a part of my non-healthy periods of life, my son will think “Did I not do enough?’ or worse “Was I no longer enough?’

What a beyond shitty thing to leave a child with.

When people live with cancer and are able to not die, they’re called survivors. Of course this happens for other diseases too. Not for suicide though. For suicide, survivors are the people that were left behind.

I use to see postings for Survivors of Suicide group. I sincerely thought “Wow, this is really great.” I can sit in a room full of people who want to kill themselves and we can talk about how we haven’t. It would be like the saddest AA meeting in the world. We would get 30 day chips for going a month without ending our lives. We would share stories of almost dying and how we overcame what seemed inevitable.

Of course, the problem being, when we fell off the wagon that would be it. The wagon would be like the one in Oregon Trail and suicide would be equal to dying of dysentery.

But these suicide survivor groups are not for people who managed not to kill themselves. They are for the family they left behind. They need these groups because being left behind by someone who died from suicide, is a tragedy that leaves a guilt like no other. I have often written about the guilt I feel living with depression because it seems that depression is something you should be able to overcome and that you’re a selfish and weak person for not overcoming it.

The guilt suicide survivors feel is equal if not greater than the guilt I feel. They plague themselves with statements like “There must have been something I could have done differently.” and “I should have seen how close to the edge this person was.”

Of course suicide related to depression is nobody’s fault. I want to scream this over and over, like Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, to the people who deal with this loss. Of course, for them to hear me, I need to be alive. If I reach the suicidal lowness again, maybe this is what I need to remind myself of to keep me going. It is not about my son and what I make his role out to be. It is about me being here, so he never has to be a survivor of suicide.