Depression on Social Media

Recently, I’ve seen an alleged Jim Carrey quote talking about depression floating around social media. Chances are if you’ve browsed Facebook or Twitter in the last few weeks, you’ve seen it too. A Carrey fan page posted on Instagram a photo with this quote (which seems to match Carrey’s views on depression but I can’t find it from a credible source): “I believe depression is legitimate. But I also believe that if you don’t; exercise, eat nutritious food, get sunlight, get enough sleep, consume positive material, surround yourself with support, then you aren’t giving yourself a fighting chance.”

I don’t know Carrey (if this was him) or his experiences. However, this advice seems to come from a neurotypical perspective. It’s like the people who tell those with depression to quit taking their meds and go hiking instead, as if their personal experience is enough to countermand the years of medical training and education of doctors.

I don’t want to go point-by-point examining the argument here. I could talk about how the fatigue element of depression alone makes it hard to cook a decent meal, get exercise, even to find the sort of material that is professed as one of the steps to success in fighting depression.

I could go the scientific route. I could cite Harvard papers about altered brain chemistry and discuss the debate on psychotherapy versus drug therapy. I don’t want to do that. I think it would be more useful to talk about my own experiences.

I was never formally diagnosed with depression, though in my middle school years, I probably should have been. I did a decent job hiding it from my family, my friends, and definitely kept any symptoms from medical professionals. I didn’t want to get labeled a freak or be treated like I was made of glass, have them worry that at any moment, the wrong word or phrase would shatter me into a thousand pieces, Humpty Dumpty-style.

I didn’t want to be a burden.

Besides, boys don’t cry. Boys don’t get sad. Boys certainly don’t get depression. Right?

There wasn’t a reason to suspect anything could be wrong, outside of the rampant bullying I received. I was a three-sport athlete, lived in a good home with loving parents, had a few close friends.

I was a starter on every team I was on (is it still a humblebrag if there were only like 17 kids on the football team?). I was a decent trombone player. I lived on a farm and helped raise animals.

Yet, in 2009, I fellated a 12-gauge to try to hasten my end.  

I was doing all these things, leading what should have been a happy life, checking all the boxes from the Carrey quote, and yet I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t sad either. One of the things I’ve noticed with the colloquial use of the word “depression” is that it makes people think that being depressed is being sad all the time. Maybe that’s true of some people. For me, though, I didn’t feel sad.

I just didn’t feel, period.

It was like I was walking through every day in grayscale. I knew that I should see color, but there wasn’t even black and white. Everything was the same shade of gray. Sure, I was playing sports, I wanted to be good at them, but I was going through the motions. I did enough for my teammates and coaches to see I was trying, but I never did the extra work to take the next step.

I played the trombone well enough to lead my section, but I never practiced hard enough to feel comfortable soloing or make the instrument sing. I did well in school, in part to avoid the ire of my parents if I got bad grades (and a deep-seated need to prove that I was better than my older sister, to whom I was constantly compared, but let’s not go there), but I never went above and beyond in any subject.

I worried about letting everyone down—my teammates, my teachers, my coaches, my parents. The anxiety over failing them was the only thing that pulled me out of bed most days (well, that, and a need to pee).

It didn’t matter how much sun I got, how many laps I ran, or how many vegetables I ate. Every day was a trial, and I was the defendant fighting to get off death row. I was my own defense attorney because asking for help was a weakness I couldn’t show.

Of course, I had another worry over asking for help: would anyone believe me? When I told my mother years later that I had tried to kill myself in the seventh grade, she said, “No you didn’t!” even as she looked at the semicolon tattoo on my arm.

If I had reached out at 13, would I have met the same response? It’s impossible to know, but I worried I would be told it was all in my head. Hell, I was convinced that it was. Well, yeah, Josh. That’s kind of the issue, isn’t it?

By Carrey’s definition, I gave myself every version of a fighting chance I could, and it still didn’t matter. I did everything I could think of to shake out of it, and it didn’t matter. I don’t know what it was that finally let me break out of depression. Maybe I never was depressed. Maybe being suicidal was part of something different. I don’t know.

I do know that sometimes, it doesn’t matter what you do. You can give yourself every fighting chance in the world and it will make no difference. The world will still be grayscale.

Carrey’s words make depression sound like a personal failure. It’s not. You can do everything “right” and still be depressed. Blaming those who suffer from it for not caring for themselves can make it less likely they’ll seek treatment. It makes no sense to blame a person with a cold for being sick. Why, then, does it make sense to blame a person for being depressed?

I don’t know when exactly the trial ended, or if it’s just in recess. I don’t know when I started to see color again. I do know that it had nothing do with the food I ate or the weights I lifted. If I had seen this same advice at 13, knowing that I was doing everything right, I wouldn’t have made it to 14. I would have felt hopeless and despaired at the thought of life ever getting better.

I’m glad I didn’t.