In my limited experience, teaching improv to kids with autism, and talking to parents of kids with autism, this is very true.

The line that “We confuse our wrong actions with their preferred behaviors,” struck me very hard as it also applies how we treat someone struggling with mental illness, especially crippling depression. We often thinking they want to avoid social interaction or be cheered up, getting frustrated when those don’t work.

Though we can point it out, we are often too worn out, too annoyed to have to ask for what we need.

I am healthy right now though, so I can ask, though I don’t speak for everyone, I can tell you, when stuff is bad, I need someone to sit in the dark and uncomfortable with me and abandon any idea of making it better.

So I have shared this, and I hope we all find ways to be of service to others by understanding, not ignoring or trying to fix something.

I believe 97% of people who have tried to help me, have the best of intentions but that doesn’t mean they know what to do, and maybe this will be helpful guidance for someone who wants to be there for someone.

It went on and on, of course ending with me having a moment with my gal, Princess Leia.
It literally (the right meaning of literally) felt like my son’s spirit and excitement was inside of me as I watched.

So here we are, this movie he is ecstatic about, tickets bought.
For a date seven weeks away.
Another forward motion when I’m struggling to go in that direction
But the trailer ends with me being told to just let it in and you kinda got to listen to what movie trailers tell you.
After all Dirty Dancing’s trailer guy told me to get ready for the time of my life and that dude was right on.

I have been feeling a little bit better and I’ve been doing a lot of positive things in life and I want to make one thing very clear.

I am not better because I have been doing positive things. Rather, I had to get better in order to do positive things.

And then, yes, making positive choices helps but there is a low point where that is just not part of the equation.

Even when I am at my worst I do make choices, to walk, to get out of bed, to be there for my son, but the fact is that I make those choices because even as bad as stuff is, I happen to be able to do those things.

That’s how the disease manifests for me.
But for other people they are not able to get out of bed.

And they are fighting just as hard as I am

When we see someone who is struggling with depression, we feel we need to encourage them to make healthy choices, exercise, eat kale, count your blessings.

But the most important thing we can do is encourage them to get the professional help they need because then, hopefully, they will get a little bit better and they will be able to make those life affirming choices.

Frankly, when I am at my worst, one of the only reasons I walk everyday is so when somebody says to me “Hey, you should really exercise, that’ll make you feel better!” I can say “Yes I already did! and I still want to die!”

There is no one cure for depression. There is no one tool. This disease, like many others, requires patience and building up your resources as much as you can so when stuff is at its worst you can get through.

But that is the job, in many ways for the person with the disease, and the best way they can work on building up their resources is by having people who support them through the disease, even when it is at a standstill, and who are not just trying to get them past it.

It is scary to not be able to solve something that seems like it is something you should be able solve. So let go of the idea that you should be able to solve it and let yourself know that your goal is to just be there.

The person suffering, and you, will be better for it.

People have inquired before if writing so much about wanting to die keeps those thoughts festering in my head. The quick clinical ansewr: No.

My answer: I write so i can live.

Unless you’ve lived this, I don’t know if you could ever understand what it feels like to believe at your core you’re not meant to be here. That you are wrong for being alive.

So I write these thoughts but I live opposite to them

There is something very disconcerting about signing a one-year lease when you are struggling through each moment, but I did it.

I’ve had a week ridiculously rough by any standards. A finalization of a divorce, a death of someone else who suffers from this disease, I moved out of two houses; the one I grew up in and the one that I lived in with Leon, the place where I was pregnant, brought home my son, watched him grow alongside his dad, someone I care about deeply.

And now I will sit here in this new place with the goal of making it through tonight and watching the Not Ready For Primetime Players, continuing to try and find the deliciousness in the ambiguity that the fabulous Gilda talked about.