Today was the first time I’ve caught myself having increasingly negative thoughts. Normally, when I have a bad day, it continues down into a flat spin of self-destruction until I wake up the next day feeling slightly different. When I was driving today, I started thinking about my life in a way that I have done many times before. I thought about what I would have been like if the abuse had never happened. I thought about myself as a seven year old, a ten year old, and a confident, fourteen year old freshman in high school. I was jealous of that guy. He had a good self-image. Emotional stability. Confidence. I thought through how he would have handled so many situations in college, his twenties. I pictured myself entirely differently and I felt completely gypped. I felt as if I was gypped out of the guy I was supposed to be.
These thoughts are so dark and they lead nowhere, but I have them often, unknowingly. I must have kept this line of thinking going my entire drive from Goochland to Powhatan, about 35 minutes. Just before I got to my Powhatan site, I caught myself. Why was I allowing myself to think about this? I don’t think I’ve caught myself before. Maybe it’s because of the conversations I’ve had with people about depression and hearing the “spiral” analogy mentioned over and over. I hear people talk about self-maintenance. Before I entered the Powhatan site I sat in the car and thought about how thinking this way wasn’t right. I couldn’t focus on being gypped – it’s a dead end. When I got back in the van I felt a little better just knowing that I caught myself. I’m not sure how to control these thoughts before the spiral starts, but at least I caught myself after 35 minutes. A small victory, and I’ll take it.
Closer to the end of my route I was listening to The Herd on ESPN Radio. Colin Cowherd is the radio host who happened to start therapy right when I did to handle his issues with an abusive father. I’ve been glued to his show because he talks candidly about it on the air. Colin suddently got on a rant about depression, and how so many Americans are clinically depressed, something like 10%. Then he mentioned the number of American soldiers in Iraq who are labeled clinically depressed, around 8%. His next statement was that, of those Americans with depression, 85% improve with placebo. His ever-so-scientific conclusion was that typical Americans don’t have purpose in their lives and just become depressed, and that the soldiers, while in a war zone away from their families, were better off because their lives had purpose. What a dick thing to say about so many people who suffer from depression. Suddenly, I was back to being down on myself and hating Colin Cowherd.
After work, I returned to my house pissed off. I went to my laptop and found The Herd’s website and drafted an email to Colin, spewing fire. I’ve never written anyone in the media. I’ve never really cared, but somehow this pissed me off to no end. I slammed the laptop shut and headed for the gym. Dick.
An hour later I was exercised, showered and feeling ridiculous for sending him an email. Why did it matter to me? Colin Cowherd, while I’m sure is a nice guy, is a radio host who lives and breathes ratings. Ratings write his paycheck. His sports fan ratings most likely took a dip after his public meltdown about his abuse. Sports dorks don’t like touchy-feely therapy talk. He’s got to put himself back together and generate buzz. So, he’s ranting and forcing himself to feel better. I get it.
What I’m figuring out is that I need to stop letting myself be controlled by outside sources, whether it’s my subconscious negative thoughts or some guy with a microphone I don’t know. I need to put more faith in what things I do know about myself. I need to remind myself more about how fortunate I am. I need to tell myself about the incredible opportunities I’ve had. I need to think about the great family, friends, love that I feel from the people I care about. I need to think about my amazing wife more – and how lucky I am. I need to wonder about what color eyes my kids will have. I need to do all of this but it’s not easy.
