Jacqueline Novak - How to Weep in Public

People often talk wistfully about the rapid passing of time. If only you could hit pause on life, they sigh, as if pausing were but a magical notion. But the depressed know pause is possible, and we achieve it. We pull our boats out of the water, ensuring that even as the river of time continues to roll along, well make no real progress.

Whether you are very depressed or only a little, or not at all (so you think), you deserve a break from the ever-gushing deluge. I know how it is. Life can feel like a never-ending game of tag. To that I say: Let this book be your base. Catch your breath here, friend. Take a moment. You can pretend to read it if you like. Or just hug it like a teddy bear. Hugging a book looks collegiate, not childish, so you will be safe from prying eyes and maybe even attract the attention of a roaming professor looking to take advantage.

Think of this book as your pause button. Make yourself at home inside its pages. Rest assured, I wont try to push anything on youno probing questions or helpful exercises. I definitely wont try to cure you. Why? Because Im still pretty depressed myself, and trying isnt exactly one of my hobbies at the moment. Ill just keep you company for a little while. Nothing more, nothing less. No false promises of a life free of depression hereyou can count on that.

But what if youre not up to reading a book in your condition? What if youre still waiting for your new meds to kick in? I get it. Hauling your focus left to right through the muck of a sentence, back to the left, and down a levelonly to start the trudge through a new linecan feel less like a leisure pursuit and more like natural-resistance strength training.

Look, however you decide to hobble along for this ride (or not) is fine with me. Feel free to skim, start at the end, or each morning open to an arbitrary page as if youre pulling a tarot card. Enjoy the book while curled on the floor in a fetal positionafter all, thats how I wrote it. Im just giddy youre here at all.

Please understand I use the word giddy in the way Helen Keller used the word seethat is, relative to my own experience, because at the moment, much like you, I feel almost completely numb to an already narrowed emotional spectrum. Know that I use words with traditionally positive connotations only as a sort of shorthand. Language will fail us in many ways throughout these pages. But we must plug away at the cause.

The limitations of language have been ruining my life for a long time. Once I told a guy I was a bleeding-heart liberal for him. I meant I just couldnt help loving him, but it came off as a political statement. For a while, I also thought heroine was just a fancier word for hero, so I told another guy he reminded me of a Victorian-era heroine. I guess the real problem is that I need to stop complimenting guys.

No matter how good you are with words, its inevitable that meaning is lost between your mind and someone elses. Trying to communicate is like chucking a cup of water at a thirsty persons face. Its better than nothing, sure, and a teaspoon of water might hit their lips, but oh, God, theres just so much water in the grass.

Ive tried to use sex in place of language, but no one yet has been capable of processing the imagery, references, and metaphors I imbue into my thrusts, so Ive returned to common English.

Yes, this book will be made up of words and sentences, bound to misrepresent me. But at least there will be no outright promises of help. No pressure or appeals to buck up, and not a single skyward tug on a bootstrap. Again, Im just here to keep you company while you waste away in the prison cell of your mood. Im like that guard who provided Saddam Hussein with Doritos during the days leading up to Husseins execution.

Think of it this way: while most books on depression try to help you win the war, this one is merely a cigarette in the trenches. Truthfully, with your feet blistering and boots wet, you are not in a place to combat your mood anyway. So you can sit there and continue to shit yourself or you can accept a bit of comfort from a fellow soldier.

Go ahead and take this hit of nicotine. Make yourself cozy. The war on your mood disorder can wait. By simply sitting inside your depression, by giving in to it rather than trying to fight it, you have achieved something momentous, something enviabledont let anyone tell you otherwise.

Most people cant stand to let things be awful, so they instigate some drama. They fuck someones aunt, withhold someones pension, or refuse to validate your parking ticket, based entirely on the fact that they dislike your ascot.

But you? You may be slumped on your carpet, but for that, my friend, you are a radical. You have dared to hit pause, and now you are just sitting there inside the pause, floating in space like Neil Armstrong. In your own weak way, you are one of the heroic explorers of our time.

You might be thinking, Hmm, I dont feel proud.

Well, then, outsource your self-esteem to me, and let me be proud on your behalf. By not even pretending to be a person and, instead, scurrying away from your responsibilities, you are willing to go where others arent. You are bold. You are brave.

But what if you are too depressed to buy in to your own weasel-like courage, you ask? I get that. But really, what else are you going to read? Best American Travel Writing? Pretty much every book but this one risks bumming you out with the glittering details of a world youre incapable of experiencing. Since this book will speak