ANXIETY/DEPRESSION

I assume that most people I know grapple with mental illness. We're creatives- actors, singers, comics, painters, dancers, writers, poets, sculptors- people with things to express, people with high intelligence, and people with pain. So much of what's happened to me in my life has pretty much wired my brain in such a way that everyone feels temporary. The thought of that alone agonizes me. Getting close to my loved ones and colleagues is not only desirable to me, but essential for our communal success. But somewhere in my brain, I'm reminded to keep it cordial, but never intimate, because intimacy requires vulnerability, which in my experience has ultimately meant betrayal, abuse, or abandonment. So it's incredibly likely that  after all of that, my brain is hotwired for self-destruction as a means of survival. 'If everything I love is going to be taken away or will walk out, why not do it myself?' These are deep-rooted things my brain doesn't even consciously process anymore; it just 'does'. Auto-kamikaze pilot.

I talk an awful lot about mental health because my community needs to talk about it. Especially since the horrifying and tragic passing of one of my greatest inspirations, Robin Williams, talking candidly about my struggles has been important. Listening to the struggles of those around me has been important. I was very open about my year of sobriety and how it helped me to clear areas of pain related to being sexually assaulted, and more than one person said it helped them to get sober and work through their own pain. Shit, others talking openly about their struggles helped me to talk openly about mine. Everyone wins when we open up (the irony of this is not lost on me).

I don't know what's next. I don't know how to stop my patterns of self-destruction. I don't know how to rewire my brain. I don't know how to work through things that hurt so much I had to bury them long ago. The roots keep bringing new sprouts, which I have to cut away daily. I don't know how I'll overcome any of that. Every day hurts. Every day is the day I think that the things and people I love will no longer be there. It's the worst kind of agony, and only I exist in it. I'm finally getting places in my comedy and acting career with true potential, I'm traveling, I'm finally with the man I want to build a life with, and I live in the greatest goddamned city in the world. These are the things I love, and I don't know how yet, but I'm doing my best to restart my brain so that I can stop destroying them.

If you love someone with anxiety or depression, or any mental illness, love them as fiercely as possible. It will be hard some days, I promise- very hard- but loving them can be transformative, life-changing, and rewarding in unimaginable ways. #anxiety #depression #mentalhealth