Wierd Wired: A Family Affair

The Stress Doc decides to come out of the depression closet and itemize his longstanding resistances to a trial of antidepressant medication. And he also shares a song written in a dark hole period that was prophetically ahead of its time.

Weird Wired: A Family Affair

Recently, I captured the progressively debilitating effect of: a) an exhausting year as a stress, team building and violence prevention consultant for the US Postal Service, b) unexpectedly losing this consulting contract and c) the sudden, unanticipated death of a favorite uncle. Why had I been resisting my resident psychiatrists' entreaties to try the antidepressant, Prozac? With five years of hindsight, in Captain Renault-like fashion (I just knew my dozen or so viewings of the film classic, Casablanca, would one day have a transcendent purpose) it's easy to "round up the usual suspects":

1. Family History. The family tree is littered with some weird wired, genetically hybrid fruit. First, there's my father's so-called manic depressive breakdown and hospitalization when I was 11/2. Not to mention years of maintenance shock therapy which, mercifully, stopped when desperation finally propelled him into mid-life psychotherapy. And dad's mother, who died shortly before I was born, was severely depressed much of her adult life. Apparently, being married to my Russian immigrant, gifted carpenter and craftsman, weekend hard drinking and carousing, strongman competing grandfather, had more than just its moments. (Grandpa would win contests for the most wooden doors carried on one's head. Obviously, my hard head is a survival of the fittest characteristic, clearly a product of Gorkinian natural selection.)

Of course, we must not overlook the other side of the family. We have my mother's brother - a perpetually mischievous and impish character who was probably schizophrenic from birth. Both Rusty and my maternal grandmother lived with us for several years (Gram died when I was twelve) in what I affectionately call my Jewish Tennessee Williams Family period. Her incredibly spiritual, healing presence and Rusty's athleticism kept him intact. Alas, when she died, Rusty, in his early 30s, had his first of several breakdowns and psychiatric hospitalizations.

Me...afraid of acknowledging my family roots???

2. Family and Personal Pride. Naturally, I had internalized my father's oft- spoken commandment, "There shalt be improvement in the generations." So, for me to succumb to medication was to admit another area in my life in which I had failed, and also had fallen short of the patriarchal standard. Clearly, when one's self-image is tied to another's expectations, especially an impatient, hard-driving, judgmental Type A New Yorker's standards...this is a precarious psychological position. At the same time, when my father defied his own script, when a woman with whom he was having a brief, mid-life affair told him he was nuts for continuing the shock therapy, and when he subsequently unplugged the wires and entered psychotherapy, and slugged it out in group therapy for twelve years - a man of his generation - well this guy, not surprisingly, eventually became an heroic role model.

Especially, when I finally found the courage to ask about his breakdown and shock treatment; and when he told me as much as he could about the pain and the terror. And when he allowed me, in my mid-20s, to crawl in his lap as he was talking so purely, so undefended; and then let me cry without stopping. And I could finally say, "Dad, I know those same fears." And when he allowed me to hug him so deeply, with a love that had been blocked for so many years, that we both were so overwhelmed that there just were no words...just this healing energy flowing between us...so that the lurking, generational ghost of mental illness and guilt had finally been exposed by the light of pure loving forgiveness.

While my father had broken out of his box, I was, despite some therapeutic progress, still confined in mine. I had struggled so many times throughout my life and, with the help of counseling beginning in my early 20s, had always pushed through the depressive (albeit, reoccurring) fog. As I recently penned: "I would do it somehow...find the energy, confidence and willpower. I'd done it before. Absolutely grit my soul, steel and push my mind and body to near desperation and exhaustion and, eventually, blood would trickle, if not flow from the proverbial psychic stone." So why could I not seem to do it now in my mid-40s. Maybe, like my father in his mid-40s, I had to jump from my safety ledge.

3. The Anti-Cure. I also feared that antidepressant medication might create the classic situation: "The cure is worse than the disease." One of the reasons I didn't do LSD or other hard drugs in college was because of an underlying, barely conscious suspicion of precipitating a psychotic reaction. And with such a family history who could blame me. This also explains why I rarely drank. My father, paternal grandfather and aforementioned maternal uncle all could have qualified for an AA group. Drinking, I must admit, mostly made Rusty more playfully mischievous. However, he did once pull a knife on my mother when my folks were driving him back to the psychiatric hospital after a weekend leave. No doubt about it, Charlie Chaplin was right: "A paradoxical thing about making comedy is that it is precisely the tragic which arouses the funny...We have to laugh due to our helplessness in the face of natural forces and in order not to go crazy." This family was an incredible laboratory for becoming the Stress Doc and an Online Psychohumorist (TM).

4. Dread of Losing My Edge. And the final preoccupation was that medication would somehow dull or mute my existential angst, dry up the primal pool of emptiness that often was the wellspring for passion and primary process. Family dynamics, genetics, extensive and intensive training and therapy, along with an acute sensitivity to abandonment, rage, terror and humiliation helped make me a highly intuitive and empathic therapist. My identity in this role was solid; the real neurotic fear was that all my blood, sweat and tears in developing and nurturing my artistic persona - from on the edge writer to evolving performing artist-humorist - would somehow be aborted by a pill.

To borrow from Johns Hopkins University psychologist, Kay Redfield Jamison's book, subtitled, "Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament," when immersed in the creative process I was, "Touched with Fire." My pattern was to use writing to make sense of and harness the clashing and clanging psychic elements, to pursue the art of designing disorder. I was compelled to give my depression a higher calling. There had to be some greater purpose to my eruptions of pain. And if I could take the plunge, overcome my fear of unattainable performance expectations, eventually, an affirming process and product would emerge. (This statement evokes a smile. I recall how my mental meandering as a doctoral student prompted this eloquent challenge from a faculty member: "Remember, Mark, the noun that goes with the adverb "productive" is product! Thanks Dr. McBride for helping me become prolific. In fact, "I no longer have a life...I have a memoir.")

For example, here's a "touched with fire" work that sprung from a primal black hole moment in time. My younger brother had recently moved to town. He was a successful research psychologist, earning a lot more money. (Larry obtained his PhD.; I had to drop out of my doctoral program.) Envy, if not competitive jealousy, was being stirred. I also was about to confront my computer phobia; issues of shame related to math and science were surfacing. It took about a week to see some light in the writer's cave. But once I did the sparks were flying. And, in hindsight, this piece was also prophetic. Six months before the fateful and gentle confrontation by my psychiatrist, I gave birth to Double-Edged Depression:

Waves of sadness, raging river of fear/Whirlpooling madness till I disappear Into the depths of primal pain...Then again, no pain, no gain.

Depression, depression...Is it chemistry or confession? Depression, depression/Dark side of perfection!

Climbing icy spires, dancing at the ledge/The phoenix only rises on the jagged edge In a world of highs and lows...Hey the cosmos ebbs and flows.

Depression, depression...It's electrifried obsession High flying depression/Exalted regression?

So I'm pumping iron and Prozac, too/What else can a real man do? In a life of muted dreams...How about a primal SCREAM?

Depression, depression...Even inner child rejection Depression, depression/Hallelujah for creative expression!

Like the Berlin Wall, my walls of resistance were eroding from within and would soon come crashing down. And I'll share the dramatic trial by Prozac in my next column. Until then...Practice Safe Stress!

Mark Gorkin, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is a speaker, trainer and "Online Psychohumorist" (TM) known throughout the web, AOL and the nation as "The Stress Doc." Mark's "Practicing Safe Stress" programs target stress and burnout, reorganizational change, communications, team building, creativity and HUMOR. The Doc is the "Online Psychohumorist" for the major AOL mental health resource, Online Psych, and for the internet newsletters Humor From the Edge and Financial Services Journal Online. Mark is also a Contributing Writer for the national publications, Treatment Today and Paradigm Magazine. And, the "Doc" is a critical incident specialist for a variety of EAPs. For more info, call (202) 232-8662 or email Stress Doc@aol.com . And check his website - www.stressdoc.com - recently featured as a USA Today Online "Hot Site" and designated a top-rated, four-star site by Mental Health Net.