That doesn't amaze me, because turning anything into a mantra is corny as hell, but also because I'm one of those people.
One thing I've had to struggle with is that it's hard to make a list of favorite songs without including some that are just emotionally significant on a personal level, and some of those songs are emotionally significant for reasons that are bad, or dark, or embarrassing. And I've struggled with how to deal with that here. Sometimes I've just ignored it, or couched it in euphemism or innuendo, but I'm reaching a point where the next half a dozen songs are going to feel out of place unless I actually explain why they're so significant to me. Not only that, but I've kept so much of this to myself over the years I just want to tell it somewhere, to more than the handful of close friends who know most of the story (because nobody knows the whole story), and shouting it out into the void, even publicly, seems less scary to me for some reason.
I realize that this those of you who are reading this for the music probably don't care, or even those of you who just like the way I write don't care much either, and I apologize, but there are going to be 99 other posts, most of which are more focused on music itself, and if not music then sexuality or history or culture or nostalgia.
But this post is about suicide.
And I cannot express how awful it was. I thought I liked political science, but studying it full time disabused me of that notion entirely. So I took my master's degree and bailed.
Turning in my withdrawal paperwork to the department chair three years into a Ph.D program was the only thing that had made me feel good since undergrad. But the stress and fear of grad school were quickly replaced by the stress and fear of what I'd do next. I was 25 and living at home. I had no money, no job and no way of getting one, as I was looking for government work in the midst of a hiring freeze, or writing/editing work during a recession in which nobody was hiring editors. I applied to literally hundreds of jobs in literally dozens of fields in literally every state east of the Rocky Mountains and struck out for eight months, until I got an interview for a job halfway across the country that I could feel from the start would make me even more miserable, but I was so desperate for work that I took it.
And so, even at the beginning of this process, before I'd even left grad school for good, I started to despair. I'd taken all of my social advantages, all of the talent I was given and the hard work I'd put in to cultivate it, and I had nothing.
I'd started having panic attacks in college, and done a brief stint in therapy, which had helped, but about halfway through grad school I started to realize that I might be dealing with something closer to depression. It had never bothered me when things were going well, but realizing that I'd spent my entire life being told to get good grades and stay out of trouble, done it, and come out of it worse off than if I'd fucked around my whole life was just something I couldn't deal with.
Which was the lamest, whiniest, most Boomer's stereotype of a Millennial crisis to have, and I knew it, and my shame over being unable to either fix my situation or not being able to deal with being unable to fix it just compounded how worthless I felt.
I didn't leave the house unless it was absolutely necessary. I didn't get out of bed unless it was absolutely necessary. Doing so strained, unintentionally, whatever relationships I wasn't straining on purpose, just because I felt self-destructive. I started hurting myself on purpose because physical pain offered a momentary relief from the crushing spiritual and emotional burden I felt. Around January of 2012, going to bed wishing I didn't have to go to school or work turned into going to bed wishing I wouldn't wake up, and I spent about five hours a day fantasizing about killing myself, and while I never seriously tried to, I had more than one plan stashed away for how I'd do it.
This was how I felt, day after day after day, with only momentary interruptions, for almost two years.
Which is not to say that I don't ever feel that way anymore, only that I feel it less frequently, or less intensely. That experience changed me forever, and for the worse--it made me less outgoing, more cynical, more generally nervous--and I joke about life being an unending torment a lot partially because being detached and pessimistic is how I am now, but partially as a way to talk about this without actually talking about it.
Which brings us back to The Mountain Goats' "This Year."
It was about April 2012, my last few weeks of grad school, and I was listening to music while waiting for the subway from Center City to Temple. This song came on, and I remember this moment forever, but not for the reason you'd think. I didn't hear the line "I'm gonna make it through this year if it kills me" and march out onto the street with newfound determination or anything, like an epiphany in a movie.
Being depressed like that, all day, every day, is exhausting. It almost takes physical energy to put on your pants, or drive to the train station without yanking the wheel and going off a bridge, and I'd had to do that for months just to get from one moment to the next.
I remembered an inside joke my roommate and I had in undergrad, where we'd sing the line as "I'm gonna make it through this beer if it kills me." It wasn't a particularly funny joke, but thinking about it made me feel like myself again. I don't remember the rest of that day, because it didn't change my life or represent a turning point, but I do remember for a few minutes having that fog lifted. I don't know if there's a grand statement to be made about how music allows us to escape--though there probably is, and people say it over and over without realizing the profoundness of doing so--but this song, for a few minutes, was a momentary relief for me once, which is a bigger deal than it probably sounds like.
One thing I've had to struggle with is that it's hard to make a list of favorite songs without including some that are just emotionally significant on a personal level, and some of those songs are emotionally significant for reasons that are bad, or dark, or embarrassing. And I've struggled with how to deal with that here. Sometimes I've just ignored it, or couched it in euphemism or innuendo, but I'm reaching a point where the next half a dozen songs are going to feel out of place unless I actually explain why they're so significant to me. Not only that, but I've kept so much of this to myself over the years I just want to tell it somewhere, to more than the handful of close friends who know most of the story (because nobody knows the whole story), and shouting it out into the void, even publicly, seems less scary to me for some reason.
I realize that this those of you who are reading this for the music probably don't care, or even those of you who just like the way I write don't care much either, and I apologize, but there are going to be 99 other posts, most of which are more focused on music itself, and if not music then sexuality or history or culture or nostalgia.
But this post is about suicide.
***
I didn't know what a telos was until I was until I was in my 20s, but I latched on to the term immediately because it gave a name to something I'd felt since I was about eight or nine years old. A telos is a reason for being, an essence, a purpose, and mine was to be a writer. It's the only thing I've ever truly wanted. So I went to college and majored in journalism, and I came to discover that the career path I was training for--investigative and public affairs reporting--required a strong telos, but writing wasn't it. Great journalists are collectors, investigators and analysts first, not writers, so upon realizing that I wasn't quite in the right business, I went to grad school.And I cannot express how awful it was. I thought I liked political science, but studying it full time disabused me of that notion entirely. So I took my master's degree and bailed.
Turning in my withdrawal paperwork to the department chair three years into a Ph.D program was the only thing that had made me feel good since undergrad. But the stress and fear of grad school were quickly replaced by the stress and fear of what I'd do next. I was 25 and living at home. I had no money, no job and no way of getting one, as I was looking for government work in the midst of a hiring freeze, or writing/editing work during a recession in which nobody was hiring editors. I applied to literally hundreds of jobs in literally dozens of fields in literally every state east of the Rocky Mountains and struck out for eight months, until I got an interview for a job halfway across the country that I could feel from the start would make me even more miserable, but I was so desperate for work that I took it.
And so, even at the beginning of this process, before I'd even left grad school for good, I started to despair. I'd taken all of my social advantages, all of the talent I was given and the hard work I'd put in to cultivate it, and I had nothing.
I'd started having panic attacks in college, and done a brief stint in therapy, which had helped, but about halfway through grad school I started to realize that I might be dealing with something closer to depression. It had never bothered me when things were going well, but realizing that I'd spent my entire life being told to get good grades and stay out of trouble, done it, and come out of it worse off than if I'd fucked around my whole life was just something I couldn't deal with.
Which was the lamest, whiniest, most Boomer's stereotype of a Millennial crisis to have, and I knew it, and my shame over being unable to either fix my situation or not being able to deal with being unable to fix it just compounded how worthless I felt.
I didn't leave the house unless it was absolutely necessary. I didn't get out of bed unless it was absolutely necessary. Doing so strained, unintentionally, whatever relationships I wasn't straining on purpose, just because I felt self-destructive. I started hurting myself on purpose because physical pain offered a momentary relief from the crushing spiritual and emotional burden I felt. Around January of 2012, going to bed wishing I didn't have to go to school or work turned into going to bed wishing I wouldn't wake up, and I spent about five hours a day fantasizing about killing myself, and while I never seriously tried to, I had more than one plan stashed away for how I'd do it.
This was how I felt, day after day after day, with only momentary interruptions, for almost two years.
Which is not to say that I don't ever feel that way anymore, only that I feel it less frequently, or less intensely. That experience changed me forever, and for the worse--it made me less outgoing, more cynical, more generally nervous--and I joke about life being an unending torment a lot partially because being detached and pessimistic is how I am now, but partially as a way to talk about this without actually talking about it.
Which brings us back to The Mountain Goats' "This Year."
It was about April 2012, my last few weeks of grad school, and I was listening to music while waiting for the subway from Center City to Temple. This song came on, and I remember this moment forever, but not for the reason you'd think. I didn't hear the line "I'm gonna make it through this year if it kills me" and march out onto the street with newfound determination or anything, like an epiphany in a movie.
Being depressed like that, all day, every day, is exhausting. It almost takes physical energy to put on your pants, or drive to the train station without yanking the wheel and going off a bridge, and I'd had to do that for months just to get from one moment to the next.
I remembered an inside joke my roommate and I had in undergrad, where we'd sing the line as "I'm gonna make it through this beer if it kills me." It wasn't a particularly funny joke, but thinking about it made me feel like myself again. I don't remember the rest of that day, because it didn't change my life or represent a turning point, but I do remember for a few minutes having that fog lifted. I don't know if there's a grand statement to be made about how music allows us to escape--though there probably is, and people say it over and over without realizing the profoundness of doing so--but this song, for a few minutes, was a momentary relief for me once, which is a bigger deal than it probably sounds like.
