Letters to the Editor
david sugarman
Published Letters: 2385 Editor's Choice: 3
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i don't know, aka, i really liked your poem
[Read the article: Psych meds drove my son crazy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]it was dramatic but not sappy. really. compare it to hallmark on one end and modernist esoterica on the other. it sounds pretty good to me (and being hypomanic(just discovered that term) i don't take "reputable publications" word for it)). this kinda "proves" my point. crazy makes you creative. that's why we have evolved to have so much of it. but that's just *ability* there are two other factors. being crazy means never having to give a shit (apologies to "Love Story" - which sucked, by the way, i guess whoever wrote it *wasn't* crazy)). that's two. and three, it gives you something to say, the same reason journalists go to iraq not flushing (queens). my sons are 19 and 20. the 20 year old one was called yesterday (by M_), however he only spent ten minutes. i asked, "is that ok with you?" and he said "yes". amazing, he's a man by this time and still listens to me. and yes, his solution is much better than mine. he's able to help yet not get bogged down in someone else's morass. as for the suicide warning signs. i knew people who committed suicide. they weren't depressed and they gave *none* of the signs. i know from myself that when people you love kill themselves you look for something to blame. his mother convinced herself that it was the librium he was taking (misdiagnosis? depression not anxiety? another of his relatives thought that). it's useless. the person's not there any more. you can't go back and change it. he called me a day before he killed himself. i mentioned that someone we knew got into a car crash and died. and said, amazing how someone can be here one day and then be gone the next. he made a stupid excuse (he had to help his wife with the groceries) and was about to hang up when i said, wait, when can i see you again? he said in a month or so. when i got off, i shrugged, an odd way to end a conversation. of course, you know, what happened. that phone call was 30 years ago, i can still remember it. you never really get over it. i've often thought, if he could see how many came to his funeral (literally *hundreds*) he, like tom sawyer, would never have done it. but then, who really *knows* who will come to their funeral? all i know is my nuclear family - but that's enough. i think all of us who are happy enough (could be better, but so what?) ought to thank our lucky stars, or medications or god or genetic neurochemistry - whatever myth suits. in the end, it's a mystery.
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i could never prove it to you, but i know the difference between depression and angst
[Read the article: Psych meds drove my son crazy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]depression has a "cardboard" quality - unreachable. a "lack of affect". and of COURSE i tried to get her to get help. i didn't go into all of it - she lives in kansas, far from us, and i don't know even how she got our number. i asked her to ask her friends (she still has some, i told her she's lucky, but even the best of friends have limited patience with what seems a hopeless task). to take her to the hospital for evaluation. swhe's afraid of hospitals. i asked her what her parents think. she's afraid of talking to her parents(it's hard to find out what they even *know*). i don't know if it's *fear* or really not wanting(hoping) to even try. there's little i can do to convince her and i grew tired of trying. there's a point - one i have reached - where you rather see yourself as a callous bastard than subject yourself to another sniveling whining depressed hour of unhappiness. you start to think of darfur - and wish she was there. sorry. as i said, i'm not up for canonization. as for people like you, who *do* care for them, i think of you like i think of tightrope walkers - i didn't know humans could do that. true, you can think (to yourself), another hour, another dollar. but i don't think that's enough. you'd burn out no matter how disinterested you can make yourself. i once heard (i don't know if it's true) that there's a "position" in some primitive societies called the "sin eater", they absorb the sins of others - then get screamed at and driven out of town. mental health workers seem to me to have a job like that. you have to absorb all the others depression and anxiety and refusal to help themselves - and at all times offering support. i don't know how you can do it. it doesn't put any bread on your table or give you the status you need, but for what it's worth, you have my unbelieving admiration. how you can do it and not become alcoholic is truly miraculous.
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it was a JOKE!
[Read the article: Michelle Obama's sacrifice]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]look folks, this is debra's schtick, the way she supports a family. she finds a bland topic, infuses it with racial sexual tension and plunks it down. voila, mortgage paid. her first sentence - "Damn it all, Michelle Obama has quit her $215,000 dream job and demoted herself to queen." dream job? the money's good, but when was the last time you heard a kid saying he wanted to be VP of HR, or secretary-treasurer of the PTA? somewhere between astronaut and firefighter, musician or doctor comes "vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals"? and then, if not convinced, look at the last sentences, "her staff created a matching volume of her accomplishments. Mrs. Obama wept when she saw it. Problems don't come much thornier than this. You've got a right to sing the blues, Michelle, so go ahead and cry. Then take action." debra is sarcastic and you fall for it every time.