A humorous essay about a great depression

It's been one year since The Events Leading to this Substack.

On July 11, I got a phone call from two people informing me that I had been fired.

That was fun.

I can’t tell you most of what I said, due to a Non-Disclosure Agreement, but my response was, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Anyway. Sue me.

It’s been a year.

As a creative personality, I certainly have been the victim of what some call the Black Dog. Mostly it sits quietly in the corner, panting. I can hear it, I can smell it, I can see the loose fur on the floor, but it doesn’t hit me too hard.

Except on July 11, 2023.

Then he jumped into my lap, licked my face, and asked if I missed him.

The funny thing was that we had several black dogs growing up, all Labrador Retrievers, all trained as gun dogs. I didn't care for the last one, the house Lab. Her hobby was gently depositing long strings of drool filled with tasty chunks of Purina Dog Chow, suspended like ornaments, on my suit.

That was depressing.

This depression from which I (believe) I have emerged was what they call a “situational depression”, which means some life event caused it. The last time I had this was my divorce in 2005. No blame, it just happened.

In that one, I had absolutely zero interest in speaking to humans, at all. I spoke to my children. Maybe a few friends, haltingly. Mostly I watched All the Presidents Men and 2001: A Space Odyssey every night after my kids left my house. Maybe I had weed.

OK, I had weed.

I didn’t smoke pot for 18 years, not one time, during the time I had children. I was barely a drinker. Of course, the first thing I did was buy pot. It was very expensive, and you really did have to know someone who was band-adjacent.

I did.

One really ridiculous therapist gave me terribly stupid advice except for this: “Would you kill the father of your children?”

I would not, I said. And I did not.

I went on Lexapro, a dreadful med that did nothing except make me feel foggy. I went off again, and began to have those thoughts, again, which scared me. I didn't want to go to parties. I didn’t want to fish. I didn’t want to do anything except eat root beer floats, which I did truly enjoy. Sometimes I would alternate between those and Coke floats.

After a few months of this, when I noticed none of my shirts fit, I suggested to the therapist that Lexapro wasn’t cutting it. So he put me on Wellbutrin.

Wellbutrin was great. I felt no side effects at all, and, after six weeks, I went to a party at my buddy’s house where I had actual conversations while making eye contact.

I may well have laughed.

Anyway, I felt better. I did humaning. I went fishing. I laughed at things, when appropriate. A few months later, I went somewhere (see how goddamned cagey I am?) with someone, and I forgot to take the Wellbutrin.

Rut roh.

The next day, I felt like I had a single, fairly dry martini. The day after that, I felt fine.

I went to the therapist, and told him I had forgotten to take it.

“Jesus Christ, you can’t just go off Wellbutrin! You have to wean off gradually!”

“I’m weaned.”

And I stopped taking Wellbutrin, and then I stopped going to the therapist, who also suggested I marry someone not quite as smart as I am.

I ignored that advice, too.

I haven’t been on Wellbutrin since 2006. Honestly, I have basically felt fine since. That’s because things have generally gone my way since 2006, except for the Unpleasantness of 2012, where my employer (well, a guy) wanted me to leave. So I left and came to California.

California was and is very exhilarating. I didn’t realize I needed a change at 52, but I did. Unfortunately, I came to California to replace one of my best friends who died in the job I had on the morning of July 11, 2023.

I did win a Pulitzer for them. It’s a public record, and I can say that.

But when I got the “AYOOYFM?” phone call, I was afraid, very afraid, that my black pooch would make an appearance.

He did. With dog food drool. On my suit.

I frantically tried to get some gigs lined up, and I did. It took awhile. Not long long, but awhile. That didn’t seem to help my panting pup, much. I would say in that phase I was in a kind of manic anger, thrashing, speaking at the top of my voice to everyone about The Incredible Injustice I had been dealt.

I talked to my brother all the time, and one time he said, “Buddy, I’ve been laid off six times”. Jim is good at distillation, not to mention home repairs.

In fact, working in American journalism is now a cardiovascular risk factor as far as I am concerned. So I settled in at my new gig at the San Francisco Chronicle, a job I cherish mostly because I get to work with an editor named Pete Wevurski, who seems to be some long-lost brother who likes discussing Ernie Kovacs and the moon landing.

Pete helped enormously. Pete would say hilarious things, all the time, and I looked forward to each call. Pete could be a therapist while telling you something obscure. He was copy desk chief at the Chronicle, and those guys kill at Jeopardy!

I also relied on a therapist named Wendy. Wendy sells Frosties. They’re frozen and chocolate. I had a large one every night.

I think I gained 18 pounds.

Then I got shingles in January.

Of course, I am very careful about my health and meds. I have all COVID boosters, take several BP meds, and my doctors know me better than their husbands. But I was a little skittish about the shingles vax. I had heard there were side effects, so I put it off.

Here’s the side effect of putting the shingles vaccines off.

YOU LOOK AND FEEL LIKE SOMEONE FIRED A 12 GAUGE AT YOUR ABDOMEN AND BACK.

The shingles made it uncomfortable to sleep, eat, breathe, bathe, eat again, bend over, stand up, move in any direction, flare your nostrils, walk, or breathe. Needless to say, yoga was out.

To recap: it’s February. My income is, well, diminished, shall we say. Every fiber of my being hurts. I feel like I have no momentum, my wife is completely overwhelmed on every level, very few of my former Hymenoptera colleagues seem to be much interested is speaking to me, and money is, well, tight.

Hey! Why are you depressed?

You got me! Go back into therapy, maybe?

So I did. Again. My new therapist is fantastic, and I think she’s maybe slightly older than my kids. Maybe. After some extremely animated sessions where I Spoke At The Top Of My Lungs, she decided to suggest that I go on Wellbutrin.

I have resisted this, but was very close to doing so about six weeks ago. I am not going to go into detail, but there have been moments where it seemed like, shall we say, a great idea, since I wasn't doing shit.

Then I decided to start this Substack column, thanks to a guy in Davis named Bob Dunning.

Bob Dunning was summarily executed over at the Davis Enterprise, after working there since 1971. To put that in perspective, I was 10 in 1971.

Bob got no severance. But he did get the red hot outrage of 5,000 people in Davis, who now support his Substack and his great journalism way more than the Davis Effing Enterprise supported Bob.

Bob helped me enormously and now edits my column!

Here’s the deal, folks: I ain’t going on Wellbutrin now because of Bob, and Readers Like You.

I feel like myself again, because of you people. I have gone fishing, I’m back to golf (back to back 42s in the last two weeks), my son is here, and wake up every day ready to bang out 1000 words for you. It’s better than Wellbutrin.

I’m still in therapy. But I think you all healed me in a way I couldn't possibly have predicted. And I did lose the 18 frostiepounds.

Thank you. I will never forget this mitzvah. Paid or not.

See you tomorrow, annoyingly chipper.

Except for the 2024…oh, why ruin the moment?