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| Nicholas L. Laning |
I used to be a big fan of the show
”24”. Like many, I watched to see
just how far Jack Bauer would go to save the day, again, again, and again, all
without leaving the city limits of Los Angeles. The writers of the show knew exactly what they were doing. An episode would end with Jack
apprehending the guy that we all thought was the mastermind behind the
terrorist attack at the beginning of the show. Bloodied, bruised, and aching from not eating, sleeping, nor
peeing for the last twelve hours, Jack finally has a look of reprieve on his
face. The famous clock ticking
sound would start, letting us know the episode was almost over. In those final five seconds, without fail,
you’d find out that the guy Jack just apprehended wasn’t the actual
mastermind.
We’d see a shot of Jack’s
grandmother talking on the phone.
“Everything’s set in motion,” she’d say, lisping through her
dentures. “Yes. No. Yes. They took
the bait. They have no idea it was
me, Grandma Bauer, who planned this whole thing. Yes. Jack will
pay for not eating all of his vegetables when he was a kid, little ingrate!
Bwahahaha!”
Ding. The screen goes black, and all of us watching yell,
“Nooooooo! Not Grandma Bauer! I knew it! (No, we didn’t)” Then, over
the next ten episodes, we cringe in frustration as Jack can’t piece it
together. At one point Jack comes
to Grandma Bauer’s house to hide from the cops, who are looking for Jack now, as
he has of course been framed for the attack. They found his fingerprints on a piece of the bomb. Jack knows that it had to be someone
close to him who lifted his fingerprint to put it on the bomb. But who could possibly betray him? He bursts through Grandma Bauer’s
screen door bleeding and bruised, still hasn’t peed, and scours the kitchen for
a flashlight and a butter knife, all he needs to fend off the machine-gun toting
terrorists. Jack looks over at her
table and thinks aloud, “Why are all of the ingredients for napalm strewn
across Grandma Bauer’s kitchen table.”
We see him thinking for a second.
We hold our breath. Surely
he will finally get it! “She must
be cleaning the bathroom,” he concludes and goes on.
Whap! We slap ourselves in frustration and scream at the screen,
“Come on! He’s fluent in twenty
languages, can disarm a bomb with a toothbrush, a fried egg, and the latest
issue of GQ, can tell if everyone else on the planet is lying simply by
smelling them, but he can’t seem to piece this one together? Stupid show! They’ve gone too far.
I can’t watch anymore.
When’s the next episode?”
We’ve seen this concept play out
hundreds of times throughout TV shows, movies, books, Comic Books, all of
it. No matter how many times we’ve
seen this scenario play out, it still irks us. We’re still talking to the screen. Okay, maybe I’m the only one actually talking to the screen,
though I doubt it. Still, it
frustrates us to no end. Why? Because we can’t seem to understand how
someone can’t see what is right in front of his or her face.
Why can’t Jack allow the
information to reveal the obvious truth?
Why?
The answer is because sometimes the truth is so
awful that it is easier for us to choose to not believe it… until it hits us in
the face.
We see it in real life all the
time. Teachers deal with this on a very frequent basis. As a subtitute teacher for years, I can’t tell you how
many times I have seen parents simply not accept the testimony of not just one,
but several grown teachers that testify to the hideous acts of their
child. Instead of getting
frustrated at the child, they get mad at the teacher. Even if they believe the kid did the awful things the teacher's said
the kid did, which they usually don’t, then by golly, somehow it’s the
teacher’s fault they did it. The
truth that their kid isn’t perfect, that perhaps, though not necessarily, they
are bad parents, is not acceptable.
It is easier it seems, to believe a lie instead.
Not only do we reject unpleasant
truths as individuals, but we do it as a collective too.
You probably don’t know the story
of Witold Pitecki. You
should. Absolutely incredible,
true story. In order to gather
intelligence, he volunteered to enter the Nazi extermination camp of
Auschwitz. For almost three years
he gathered intelligence and helped lead the underground resistance inside the
camp. He would send out reports of the horrors he discovered, that the Nazis were not simply interning, but exterminating the Jews by the hundreds of thousands in that camp alone. Frustrated by a lack of appropriate response from the Allied forces, he escaped. He went back to his superiors in London to try to convince them in
person of their need to intervene.
He shared in great detail the devastating news, and gave some very simple solutions. Bombing runs were already going on far past Auschwitz. Just bombing a section of the wall, and it would give many a chance to escape. Or better yet, bomb the crematorium, or the gas chamber. It would have taken many months to rebuild them. Yet, they rejected
Witold’s testimony. Why? For the simple fact that it was too
horrible to believe, evidence be damned. Witold had to be exaggerating.
As a result, nothing was done to help, and hundreds of thousands of
people, maybe more, were exterminated.
None of us is good at accepting the
truth when it isn’t likeable, nevertheless full on detestable. I
know this first hand.
I don’t remember the exact
date. It was some time during the
fall of my junior year in high school, in 1997. The final bell rang.
I jogged my way out the side door of New Braunfels High School, waving
and high-fiving (fist bumping hadn’t been invented yet) friends as I made my
way to the parking lot. It was one
of those days where the air was cold, but the sun was bright and hot. Whichever side of you faced the sun
would eventually begin to roast, and whichever side of you faced away from the
sun would freeze. The leafless trees cast intricate, hauntingly beautiful shadows. It was a
beautiful, crisp, fall afternoon.
I hopped in my car, turned on a movie soundtrack, and headed home.
Everything in the world was
absolutely fine. My life was good.
Not but a couple months earlier, I
had spent the majority of the summer living one of the greatest adventures of
my life helping my missionary uncle in Moscow, Russia. I got to take in the immense beauty of
Red Square. I ate all sorts of new
foods, both delectable and disgusting.
I got to ride the midnight train to St. Petersburg. I got to experience “white nights,”
where the sun never fully sets. It
was one of the best times of my life.
To cap it off, on the way back, I got to spend two weeks with my parents
in Switzerland.
The first night in Switzerland, I
stared out of my hotel room across Lake Geneva. The sight was so beautiful, and my heart was so full, I can
remember thinking, “I could die right now, even though I am only sixteen years
old, and I would have lived a full life.
Thank you, God, for the life you have given me.”
Yes, life was surely good.
Back to the day things changed. When I got home form school that
crisp, autumn day, the house was empty. I had
beaten everyone else home.
Swiftly, I walked to my room and slung my backpack onto my bed. A little downtime was in order before
everyone came home and the house got loud again. Wanting to listen to some music, I began to walk around my
bed to my stereo. I never made it.
In a single instant, everything
changed. Something hit me. This feeling. It was like an invisible wire from hell had shot through
space, latched onto my heart and brain, sucked out everything good, and swapped
it out with pure, unadulterated emotional agony. I dropped to the floor, and I stayed there for the next
several hours, completely unable to move.
The only movements I could muster were to blink my eyes and breathe.
It wasn’t that my body wouldn’t
physically respond. It was that
the emotional pain was so full, so evil, and so complete, that I couldn’t find
a reason to ever do anything ever again.
This is the part in the story where
I would tell you that I discovered that something was indeed wrong, went to
my parents, they told me I was depressed, and starting the process of
healing. I would tell you that… if
that were true. It isn’t. Truth is I didn’t say a thing. Truth is I spent the next year and a
half telling myself nothing was wrong, despite the fact that all I could think
about was how much I wished I were dead, that I'd never existed.
“How is that possible?” you
ask?
Easy. Like most people, I didn’t believe depression was real.
I couldn’t understand how a person
could be fine one day, then for no apparent reason, not fine the next. I couldn’t accept the reality of the Abyss’
persistence that you couldn’t pull yourself out of it like any other feeling. Also, depression is a mental
illness. Mental illnesses are what
crazy people have, and I wasn’t crazy.
I was completely sane. I
just couldn’t stop feeling like everything was awful.
Just like Jack and his grandmother
(wink), or the Allied commanders regarding Auschwitz, I made things worse
because I couldn’t accept the awful truth. These battles begin with acceptance. You can’t fight a battle you don’t
believe exists. The longer you
spend rejecting the truth, the more time you give you or your loved one free
reign for the depression to wreak havoc on your or their brain.
Here’s what did happen…
For the next year and a half after
that terrible day, I looked for any other cause for my pain that wasn’t
depression. I was aware of
depression, though vaguely. I
didn’t even research depression, because I just “knew” that it had an external,
easy to explain cause. Once the
cause was found, I could deal with it and be ok. Every inch of my memory was combed over again and again, to the point of obsession. Each detail of life was dissected to
the nth degree. There had to be
some outside cause.
Somewhere.
Perhaps my faith was just too
weak. Maybe I was being punished
for some great sin. Maybe
something really tragic happened to me as a child, and I had subconsciously forgotten
it. Only thing I could recall was that I got picked on as a kid, but
that is pretty common.
The confusion and mystery behind
the pain drove me to the brink of my sanity. No good reason for the pain’s existence could be found. As so many people would later shove in
my face… my life, on the outside, was pretty wonderful.
My family isn’t perfect. Yet, for humans, they are as good as
they get. I didn’t have to deal
with the pain of divorce or abuse.
The only major death I had to deal with was that of my grandfather when
I was ten. That was very difficult
for me, but I feel like everything felt and thought then was normal and
healthy. I missed him and was sad. Pretty simple. I wasn’t particularly popular or
anything, but I had plenty of good friends. I am tall, reasonably athletic, and have many talents. On top of all that, I had the affection
of the girl I loved. I was, by all
accounts, including my own, blessed.
And yet, the pain not only stayed, it grew in power.
I blamed and dismembered every
piece of my life that could be blamed until only one thing was left. The girl I loved was the last
thing. Up until that point, I
wouldn’t allow her to be touched by it.
I knew she was a good thing.
She was everything I had wanted.
Having exhausted all other avenues of blame, I reluctantly concluded
that it had to be my relationship with her that had caused it. I broke up with her. Not only did my pain not cease, it grew
ten fold. That decision haunted me
for years.
Only after that did I finally start
to recognize that perhaps there was something unique at work; that maybe there
was something wrong on the inside, something "uncommon".
Desperate, my mother took me to a psychiatrist who pretty much just looked at me
and said, “Yep. You’re
depressed.” It was nothing but
obvious to a trained eye.
I tell you all this because I want
you to know that I understand the difficulty in accepting the awful truth of
depression. So forcefully did I
reject it’s existence that I prolonged my stay in it. There can be no condescension in me toward those who struggle to grasp the
reality of depression, for that would be the pot calling the kettle black.
I tell you all of this because I
don’t want you to make the mistakes that I made, that those around me
made. I was so ignorant, so
prejudiced, that I spent a year and half wasting my time in absolute hell. All I had to do was recognize that
depression was real. That’s
it. Or, had my parents not been so
ignorant as well, they could have started the process of healing too. Heck, it took my brother years before he finally felt like what was going on was more than me just being weak, seeking attention.
Think of those Allied
commanders. Their inability to
accept the hard truth kept them inert.
Here’s a scary thought. Had
Hitler not invaded other countries and started the war, it is entirely possible
that he could have carried out his “Final Solution” to completion. The war was fought to stop Hitler from
trying to take over the world.
Stopping the exterminations was merely a side outcome of the war, not
its objective.
In that same vein, too many people
have been lost to depression when it is possible to overcome, as I have, and so many others have. So many people do as I did, and just
keep on living in misery, because they are unable to accept the reality of
depression. So many people miss out on getting to be the difference maker in what will likely be the greatest battle of their depressed loved one's life.
Some don’t keep on living in
misery. Tens of thousand decide it is too much, and kill themselves. Some of the mentally ill go a step further. It's not enough to stop living. They must make a statement, perhaps a last desperate cry, or a middle finger to a world of disappointment and pain. Perhaps in this final act of absurdity something will change. They rip away not only their own lives, but the lives of others in the process.
Hear me now, in both cases of suicide and homicide, ultimately, only the one who does the act is responsible. Over a hundred million people in the world today live with depression, and do neither of those sickeningly selfish acts. We don't take the blame for other people's hideous acts. What we do take the blame for is our own actions. Did our pride get in the way of receiving the truth? Our fear?
Being an Ostrich doesn't work. You may not see the lion chasing you down, but that doesn't mean the Lion is not there. Depression is real whether you like it or not, believe it or not. The difference will only be in your ability to respond, to love, to encourage yourself if you are depressed, or the loved one in your life who is depressed. You can be the difference maker.
Step one is the hardest, just believe.
