I keep getting asked about the mental state people might be in amid all... this (gestures to the entire world). Meant to write a tweet about it and ended up with a whole thread.
Adapted here:
During COVID, Americans are reporting depression symptoms at three times the regular rate. It's because life is fucking terrifying right now - a deadly pandemic, huge number of jerks out there going maskless even though universal masking would end the damn thing.
Then you got the politicization of trying not to die and kill others in a political climate that it can feel like not so much an election as an existential question held to public vote through an election whose veracity is constantly in question.
And also the climate isn't doing any better and the income gap only stretches and we're always an inch away from losing health insurance and facing financial ruin and/or death. There's new music from Semisonic but that doesn't cover the gap. It's tough out there. And it's making more people wonder about what depression in the clinical sense really is. Like, what's the emotion of depression and what's Major Depressive Disorder? What's the mood and what's the THING?
I want you to know that if you're sad and scared and angry through all this shit, that is a HEALTHY emotion. It really is sad and scary and enraging. So your receptor still works. In spite of all of this, your mind/brain/heart can still read the room. Where you need to really pay attention is if shit is still getting done or not. Are you feeding yourself in healthy amounts of healthy things? Are you feeding others you're responsible for feeding? Are you showing up for school or work?
If so, YAY and it's probably not really a disorder. If those functions are breaking down, I can't diagnose but yeah, that's an immediate problem. Get to a doctor, even just a general practitioner, because shit's derailed and you need re-railing. If you're getting through all the functions but are still miserable, you could probably benefit from some help to feel more capable of dealing with the HORRIBLE SHIT SWARM. You may not have a disorder but you can do better. Talk to someone, read stuff, research. (I can't get specific here because you need to find your own path.) (There are many paths.) (Mine won't work for you.)
A therapist told me once that "major depressive disorder" is pretty much an insurance term. It's a term that a trained professional can write down so that they can unlock all the available tools to try to help you. My point is, if you think it's horrible out there, it might not be clinical depression, because it really is horrible out there. There really is a monster under the bed.
If you can endure and fight, great. If you don't know if you can, please get help because we need you. As I say in my book (please buy!), it took me nearly all my life to feel I could get better. I was two years into hosting a show ABOUT DEPRESSION before I allowed myself to believe it.
Okay, this got away from me a bit. Strength and kindness, my dear babies.
I wonder if anyone else has this thing where when you hear or read “COVID”, you translate it into Alexis from Schitt’s Creek saying “David”.
Just me? Cool cool.
I appeared on Melissa Monte’s Mindlove podcast recently and I think it went well. We get pretty deep.
It’s funny, I’ve done a lot of interviews since the book came out and I’ve been paying attention to the variations in both in the words I use to answer a question and the tone in which I say them. For this one, I was very relaxed and wasn’t trying to entertain. For comedy podcasts or for commercial radio, I’m much more conscious of an audience and, having been a radio guy, focused on giving the host and producers something to work with.
I'm pretty sure I made some jokes, that’s just the way I talk and interface with the world, but it’s mostly the me that you would hear if I had just woken up. Actually that me would be panicky and ask why you were in my bedroom but you get the point.
On the podcast front, I am very close to resuming shows. There are a couple of things in the way that I hope to get cleared up soon and then I’ll be set.
I’ve tried to just enjoy the silence a little bit and not be in a hurry to get back to making shows since I’ll be making plenty of them plenty soon. But I think I am a thing called bored. I’m somewhat unfamiliar with the sensation since, for many years now, I’ve been a father of three who works a job and writes books on the side.
I shall return. Y’all will find out first.
I’ve been kind of hiding away in a public radio ivory tower for a couple decades, concentrating my energy on shows and not really learning how The Biz has changed and evolved. Happily, that same Biz has become much more favorable to creators of shows than I expected. No longer does public radio have exclusive power over thinky audio programming through an elaborate network of terrestrial radio stations largely connected to colleges and universities. Which is a hell of a weird way to run an empire, really. Similarly, now not all thinky audio programming relies on a business model of asking people to call in and receive a tote bag. Public radio has always been proud of the pledge/member drive funding model, which, okay, but it’s noteworthy that no other industries think it’s a good enough idea to copy.
Meanwhile, the place I used to work is having all sorts of problems and the CEO resigned.
He says that he had been thinking of doing this for years but it just happened to be on the same day that employees declared a loss of faith in him and made demands for changes. The secret to comedy is timing.
The color scheme on that employee site makes me think of candy corn.
For the past few months, I’ve been doing a regular weekly Instagram show with my dear friend Ana Marie Cox. You might know her from the Wonkette blog long ago, from her many talking head media appearances on cable news talking about politics, or from a kind of amazing episode of The Hilarious World of Depression we did together. I had admired Ana’s work long before we became pals but when we met, it just clicked. Sometimes you meet a friend and it feels like you’ve known them forever already.
We meet each Wednesday at 3:30pm central on her Instagram and it’s two friends checking in with each other about how we’re holding up during THE MADNESS OF THE PRESENT TIMES. Part philosophy, some spirituality, some jokes, some book recommendations.
I have depression, she has bipolar and addiction, we both have trauma issues, it’s really a dream team. And it’s fun. So stop by there if you like.
It’s part of my mental healthcare regimen to Google “buildings that look like faces” and I was pleased to see some new results today.
It’s fun because they all look like they know HORRIBLE TRUTHS.