Travels in darkness toward the light

TW: depression, suicide

I woke up Friday morning, slightly hungover, to the sound of a neighbour outside our bedroom window talking on the phone as he took out the garbage. I wasn’t purposely eavesdropping, but one nugget passed by so specifically, it felt like my neighbour was talking to me through the walls. He said Anthony Bourdain was dead.

I scrambled out of bed and down the ladder (we sleep in a loft bed) to my phone charging by the wall, hoping that I had heard incorrectly or that my neighbour was talking about a horrible nightmare he’d had the night before. CNN’s was the first report I saw. Dead at 61 of apparent suicide.

I cried a lot on Friday. Anthony Bourdain was a personal hero of mine. He managed to escape a horrible drug addiction from his youth and other self-destructive behaviour to become one of the most visibly socially conscious people I’ve ever encountered. As a writer, his memoir Kitchen Confidential gave an inside look into a mysterious industry that was perhaps even rougher around the edges than one can reasonably imagine. His travel and food shows were more than that distinction can possibly provide. A step (bite) at a time, he curated a series of documentaries showing the people of the world as … well … people. And it was fueled by a constant curiosity and a desire to know more, to break bread, to form bonds. Parts Unknown (and No Reservations before it) were forces for good in the universe. Bourdain explored places like Iran, Lebanon, Libya the same way he would tackle Chicago or Montreal. His approach, such as we should all strive toward, is one based on love and a desire to understand instead of fear and disgust.

The word “desire” popped up twice in that paragraph, and while wholly unintentional I don’t think it’s exactly redundant. “Desire” is very much at the heart of these shows. How could it not be? Bourdain traveled the world, encountered scores of people who all invited him into his home to share a meal. I had the wanderlust bug before I fully dove into Bourdain, but my love of his work and his approach (he might have been the best journalist on the planet before he died … even though he apparently didn’t see himself as one) exploded around the time I was getting my Bachelor of Education degree. I wanted to teach overseas and open up a gateway to the world, and Bourdain helped me understand why it was important. Travel builds empathy. You see others face to face. It breaks down walls of suspicion.

As great as it all seemed, it wasn’t enough … or, it wasn’t a cure. I won’t speculate as to what his state of mind might have been in his final hours. I only wish it could have ended differently. To see someone I admired so much go out like this is terrifying. Bourdain represented strength and resolve as much as he represented curiosity, respect, and love. I don’t say this as a judgment, of course, because I’ve been on the brink myself. Multiple times.

When I was a teenager, I don’t remember the specific year or even the trigger, I stood in the kitchen with the sharpest knife I could find pressed against my left wrist. Maybe I almost ripped through my own flesh that day or maybe I wasn’t prepared to go all the way with it. Hell, it might have been a coin flip and my brain landed on whatever side said “put the knife back and walk away.”

Living hasn’t really come easily for me. I was always told I was a sensitive child, and I suppose that’s true. I cried easily, but from emotional influences more than physical ones. I remember moving around a lot in my elementary school days. I started in my hometown in Woodstock, New Brunswick (well…Wakefield) and moved to Saint John, and then Fredericton before landing back in Woodstock for middle school and high school. Everything felt different when I returned. I was a fairly extroverted kid and it slowly bled out of me when other kids responded with harshness. In Saint John and Fredericton, I hadn’t encountered difficulty or resistance in social situations. Maybe it was timing, I don’t know, but it was really hard for me, at first, when I moved back and I resented it something fierce. Look, I made friends in these years who are still the most important people in my life today, but it’s when I realized there’s a meanness in people and I’ve never really come to grips with it. I was bullied, sure, and it came in multiple fashions from boys and girls alike. I don’t think this is some unifying cause for how I’ve felt intermittently over the years, but I do know this is when I first felt an unbearable isolating despair.

I stupidly went to university right out of high school, after only just turning 17 (I skipped grade seven) and made it through year one well enough. I applied to a drama program, didn’t get in, and returned for a second year anyway with no direction or purpose. This didn’t go well. I spent most of my time in bed and started missing classes. I dropped out, moved home again, and started over. There would be moments when I’d crawl under my bed at home and just stare at the bottom of it for an hour. I don’t really know what the compulsion was there, but it also just didn’t help. What it did accomplish was it freaked my mom out.

My mother is a pillar of strength (and both my parents have been great all told). During this time, she was recovering from chemotherapy and her father was dying. Then, above all this, her son returns home from dropping out of university seemingly broken. With most diseases there is a very clear treatment process. I was never officially diagnosed with depression, though I did see a doctor once, though not a clinical psychologist — I’ll admit, I was resistant. So, maybe what I was going through — and continue to go through, though less frequently — wasn’t textbook and maybe it is. All I know is that it felt debilitating to the point where I just wanted to turn off the lights, my lights, and never turn them on again.

Hating yourself sucks. Hating yourself so much that you start to believe that your loved ones are lying to you and secretly hate you, too is the worst feeling in the world that I’ve felt. I have a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder, my dominant arm, and it hurts like a bastard, but I’d gladly suffer through this the rest of my life than feel the despondence of self-loathing that ambushes me at my most vulnerable ever again. I wish I could say it’s ancient history, too, but that’d be a lie. I achieved that dream to teach overseas and travel. Twice, in fact. I took a year off in between excursions.

That probably should have been a sign not to go back. The second year was not a good experience, aside from travel and my students. I just want to make it perfectly clear here that my students, in both years, kept me afloat. But, I couldn’t escape this darkness. I would wake up on a Monday and already feel exhausted and counting the minutes until Friday evening. The job was part of it, but it was also a crippling feeling of self-doubt, that I was somehow inadequate to do the job in the first place. This has been a common thread in my relationships in addition to professional career. I embark on self-sabotage, in large part because I don’t believe I deserve to be loved. The insidious part of this, too, is the effect can devalue others and seeing the pain I have caused in others only exacerbated my feelings of self-loathing. I have been a shitty romantic partner and have constantly avoided commitment until the last few years. To those who I have made feel like garbage due to my own bullshit, I can only say I’m sorry.

One thing that emerged from my doctor’s appointment after my drop out was a suggestion that I read self-help books. Now, I was never recommended bullshit snake oil like The Secret or the vast collection of Tony Robbins, but instead more clinical books about mood and depression. I refused. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did. I found a compromise, though. Literature. Around this time, I read The World According to Garp by John Irving, which I still feel had a more profound effect on me than any other book. I barely even remember the specifics of the book, but it brought my inner turmoil to a better light. I finally understood that it was okay to feel like shit even though I had an essentially easy life compared to others — a big part of my depression has always been guilt, and it still is when I have my days or weeks in the gutter. I feel guilty because I don’t believe I have a right to feel the way I do. The guilt also bubbles up when I feel like I’m not living a life of purpose … which is often … I feel like I could be doing more, but then I play a video game.

Fuck, I feel guilty writing this. I’ve gotten this far and I’m questioning why I’m bothering. Is this some self-indulgent, masturbatory pity party? No, but there’s that part of me that thinks that. And maybe it’s a fine line between that and a needed form of therapy or self-care.

When Anthony Bourdain died yesterday, I felt like I had to process it this way even if this is a rambling mess of disconnected thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness soup. I didn’t know Bourdain, but I felt like I did to a point. Or, I felt like … oh, and this is going to sound so fucking cheesy … he helped me know myself. And while it may be too fine a point to suggest that Bourdain “saved my life,” he certainly helped navigate the darkness to see the light that hadn’t been extinguished. There is so much ugliness in the world that I often wind up feeling like the bad guys win and that it’s not like the movies, and Bourdain’s death scares me because I don’t want to end up the same way.

And I’m scared to even put this whole diatribe out there because I’m terrified someone I care about will reject me over it. Or I’ll be made to feel shame. But, hell, if even one person finds some solace in this, or comes to an understanding about themselves, or just sees a shared experience, then it’s worth it.

Suicide has crept into my consciousness a lot over the years. Sometimes, it’s when I’m at my wit’s end, confused and begging for release. Other times, I’ll be waiting for the subway and simply wonder what it would be like to just jump in front of the train at the last possible second. That one is maybe scarier, because it comes with a total numbness and lack of caring. It’s dispassionate and indifferent.

To dispel a possible notion, I’m not constantly living under a cloud. Far from it. Most days, I’m fine and I’m a generally happy individual. I may not be jumping up and down in joy, but that’s also not my style. I was an extroverted kid, but I’m a more introverted adult and tend to keep a lot of people at arm’s length.

But I’m good. I have a partner who loves me, and I love and adore her. We’re going to be married in just over a month and I couldn’t be more excited for it.

The weight of despair comes and goes. The futility of human existence is a common feeling, and sometimes I react with a laugh and other times I react with tears. Coping will be different for everyone. There’s no magic answer or prescription. Try to find something that works for you if you’re going down a similar path as I have.

In the meantime, I want to get motivated. Scott Hutchison, the lead singer of Frightened Rabbit, died of a suicide in May. He had a lyric in a song called Head Rolls Off that said “make tiny changes to earth.” I feel like Bourdain’s message was the same one and it’s the least we can/should strive toward. I had a podcast once, briefly, where I talked to people for an hour about their lives, interests, and thoughts. It was called Tell Me Something. I want to resurrect it in a fashion, but expand the scope to include people I don’t already know in addition to the gifted and wonderful and fascinating people I do. Give them a platform to tell their stories and share their experiences.

Together, we can make those tiny changes to earth. Let’s start by no longer being dicks to each other.

Related posts:

All depends upon whose ox you gore.. “It all depends upon whose ox you gore” is published by Stephen C. Rose in Everything Comes.

Offices are their own little worlds. When you’re starting in a new space, it’s important to get the lay of the land. Just like schools, every company has its own culture and there are key people who…

What brings you joy? I mean the deep down silly joy that maybe not everyone understands. It could even be something that seems a little selfish, like the mom who hides from her kids to eat a…