This essay talks about depression, suicide, and dancing the limbo. It’s Halloween so I can show you my monsters. If you have never been to limbo, I’m hoping this helps share what it looked and felt like to me. Thanks as always for your eyes, ears, and most of all YOUR BRAINS!
Hey CansaFis, super intense. The pain and losses in your life make an extended season of depression almost inevitable if you kept your heart open and your mind switched on--as you obviously did. Hopefully, with age and widening experience you're seeing more and more the other side of the coin--all the people who love you and admire you and respect you. It can't cancel the pain but it can shift it from the in-your-face foreground to the always there but manageable back ground. Thank you for sharing this part of your journey with us.
…appreciate you brother…after i got over this hump i do see continual improvement and a widening of experience…was an arduous path and the journey has just begun…but the work is working :)…
Generally the best souls are subjected to the most difficult, painful (and seemingly unjust) trials--it's not punishment, it's a refiner's fire that purifies away the dross and impurities with which they arrived in the world and refines and beautifies these souls until they each become a unique, precious and useful alloy that is a gift to the world.
Your talent for making the profound and the profane visible as one and the same is your gift. I remember you sharing this year's ago with me. "I made a commitment to myself to do something different every day, knowing that if I kept doing the same things the same way I would end up right back where I was, or worse." Amazing to hear more of the background of what was going on with you at this time.
Great essay CansaFis, I really appreciate you opening up and sharing. It’s so hard to help ourselves let alone others. Sharing like this is one of the best ways.
Thank you for helping destigmatize our need to talk openly about depression and suicide. I know you are helping others by sharing your story. Love you.
Reading this was like watching someone wrestle with their own shadow, all while delivering one liners that could wake the dead and I mean that in the best way possible.
I’ve never seen someone make despair sound so… relatable?
You capture that absurdity - how you reach out, hoping for connection, and end up feeling like you’re trapped in your own haunted house.
How did you find the strength to turn that experience into a kind of dark comedy? It's like you’re both the ghost and the guy asking the ghost for life advice
...this will sound cheesy but cheese is good (and gives me rashes)...sometimes it is less about finding the strength, and letting the strength find you...i have a bit i am working on where i ask "HOW ARE WE NOT UPSET ABOUT YESTERDAY!"...in that yesterday was probably the worst day on earth (every single day)...people dies...we solved no problems...etc. etc. ...if you pay enough attention to the world all the darkness is there, we just need to shine our lights on it and ask for it to leave...
Thanks for sharing! It's inspiring to see you cut through it all. I now get the writing - the casual marrying of the intense and the absurd. Perhaps that journey, however painful, also shapes the things you create which incidentally are beautiful.
…that’s a great framing…life as a paint set that keeps getting new colors to work with…maybe that means life is a subscription service…or just a beach full of sand we can look at grain by grain…someone said it somewhere…hug your shadow…but i do try and practice gratitude for all the parts…
Thank you for writing and sharing this. Your vulnerability and voice are both inspiring, and I relate to so much of what you wrote. What struck me most (besides the creative use of fart metaphors) was the italicized sidenote on *how difficult it is to find mental health services through insurance*. This is a path I have traversed and want to write about someday. Thanks for giving me the boost to do so. When my own depression inevitably returns, I hope I remember to read this post again.
...it's the worst...in CA i think it is being litigated because it is almost criminal what they do to try and avoid giving that type of care...it is a sad world we live in sometimes...sending you good vibes with the hope you don't have to deal with too much depression moving forward...and can't wait to read that piece!!...
This was in NY...and the context is absolutely surreal. Not to give it away but I was working at an ad agency on a health insurance client...who was our employer-based insurer...and my job was to help position and sell their mental health services...while I also desperately needed a new therapist and yet was unable to navigate their website or terms. True story. Can't make this up. Haven't shared it because of client confidentiality, but finding it harder to keep inside.
Grateful that you are here and sharing yourself despite the, like @ChrisCoffman said, 'inevitable' encounters with weight. Thankfully, through the sciences (of the brain), we are able to see it as a "refiner's fire".
Thank you for being a great human being, CansaFis! 💛
…appreciate you Licinda…we can control only so much of the surrounding world but the internal is ours to curate…but also sometimes easy to forget that great power…
Absolutely. Feeling comes with a lot of responsibility, including bringing ourselves into existence..Stay strong- we may not be in the same boat, but we are not alone♥️
Brave, touching, thought provoking, really enjoyed hearing you read this one. Thank you for sharing, happy you made the choice to do something different every day, thanks for encouraging us to do the same.
... different life story... but have walked to the very edge and almost jumped... Not sure if I backed away far enough, though... What you say here is helpful... more so, I imagine, than whatever therapy I could have...
Hey CansaFis, super intense. The pain and losses in your life make an extended season of depression almost inevitable if you kept your heart open and your mind switched on--as you obviously did. Hopefully, with age and widening experience you're seeing more and more the other side of the coin--all the people who love you and admire you and respect you. It can't cancel the pain but it can shift it from the in-your-face foreground to the always there but manageable back ground. Thank you for sharing this part of your journey with us.
…appreciate you brother…after i got over this hump i do see continual improvement and a widening of experience…was an arduous path and the journey has just begun…but the work is working :)…
Generally the best souls are subjected to the most difficult, painful (and seemingly unjust) trials--it's not punishment, it's a refiner's fire that purifies away the dross and impurities with which they arrived in the world and refines and beautifies these souls until they each become a unique, precious and useful alloy that is a gift to the world.
Your talent for making the profound and the profane visible as one and the same is your gift. I remember you sharing this year's ago with me. "I made a commitment to myself to do something different every day, knowing that if I kept doing the same things the same way I would end up right back where I was, or worse." Amazing to hear more of the background of what was going on with you at this time.
Great essay CansaFis, I really appreciate you opening up and sharing. It’s so hard to help ourselves let alone others. Sharing like this is one of the best ways.
...thank you so much Michelle...still seeking more means of available vulnerability when/where available...
“Depression wasn’t the ghost on display.
I was.”
So beautiful
Thank you for helping destigmatize our need to talk openly about depression and suicide. I know you are helping others by sharing your story. Love you.
...appreciate you and your love and support!...
Reading this was like watching someone wrestle with their own shadow, all while delivering one liners that could wake the dead and I mean that in the best way possible.
I’ve never seen someone make despair sound so… relatable?
You capture that absurdity - how you reach out, hoping for connection, and end up feeling like you’re trapped in your own haunted house.
How did you find the strength to turn that experience into a kind of dark comedy? It's like you’re both the ghost and the guy asking the ghost for life advice
...this will sound cheesy but cheese is good (and gives me rashes)...sometimes it is less about finding the strength, and letting the strength find you...i have a bit i am working on where i ask "HOW ARE WE NOT UPSET ABOUT YESTERDAY!"...in that yesterday was probably the worst day on earth (every single day)...people dies...we solved no problems...etc. etc. ...if you pay enough attention to the world all the darkness is there, we just need to shine our lights on it and ask for it to leave...
Thanks for sharing! It's inspiring to see you cut through it all. I now get the writing - the casual marrying of the intense and the absurd. Perhaps that journey, however painful, also shapes the things you create which incidentally are beautiful.
…that’s a great framing…life as a paint set that keeps getting new colors to work with…maybe that means life is a subscription service…or just a beach full of sand we can look at grain by grain…someone said it somewhere…hug your shadow…but i do try and practice gratitude for all the parts…
Thank you for writing and sharing this. Your vulnerability and voice are both inspiring, and I relate to so much of what you wrote. What struck me most (besides the creative use of fart metaphors) was the italicized sidenote on *how difficult it is to find mental health services through insurance*. This is a path I have traversed and want to write about someday. Thanks for giving me the boost to do so. When my own depression inevitably returns, I hope I remember to read this post again.
...it's the worst...in CA i think it is being litigated because it is almost criminal what they do to try and avoid giving that type of care...it is a sad world we live in sometimes...sending you good vibes with the hope you don't have to deal with too much depression moving forward...and can't wait to read that piece!!...
This was in NY...and the context is absolutely surreal. Not to give it away but I was working at an ad agency on a health insurance client...who was our employer-based insurer...and my job was to help position and sell their mental health services...while I also desperately needed a new therapist and yet was unable to navigate their website or terms. True story. Can't make this up. Haven't shared it because of client confidentiality, but finding it harder to keep inside.
...wowowow...can't wait to hear the whole story...wild...
Grateful that you are here and sharing yourself despite the, like @ChrisCoffman said, 'inevitable' encounters with weight. Thankfully, through the sciences (of the brain), we are able to see it as a "refiner's fire".
Thank you for being a great human being, CansaFis! 💛
…appreciate you Licinda…we can control only so much of the surrounding world but the internal is ours to curate…but also sometimes easy to forget that great power…
Absolutely. Feeling comes with a lot of responsibility, including bringing ourselves into existence..Stay strong- we may not be in the same boat, but we are not alone♥️
Brave, touching, thought provoking, really enjoyed hearing you read this one. Thank you for sharing, happy you made the choice to do something different every day, thanks for encouraging us to do the same.
Thanks for sharing your journey!
...feels weird to say my pleasure...maybe i say my displeasurable pleasure instead...thank you!...
<3 <3 <3
... different life story... but have walked to the very edge and almost jumped... Not sure if I backed away far enough, though... What you say here is helpful... more so, I imagine, than whatever therapy I could have...
... barely letting my monsters out...
...it's hard but the more we free them the more we might play with them...