Down And Out Around Denver, Colorado
 
As an occupant of the Social Security age group, I have a unique privilege.
I'm issued a pass to look back.  And in looking back over the pock-marked
landscape of my life, I have come to the conclusion that in some ways, my
life couldn't have turned out worst if I had planned it that way.  In other
ways, things really aren't that bad.  Some days the glass is half empty.
Other days it's totally empty.
 
Of all things a kid can be born with, clinical depression is one of the
least fun.  Especially since when I was born, doctors didn't have a tool to
diagnose levels of metal illness, especially in children.  Anyway, in the
summer of 1992, they had a tool and I was diagnosed with clinical
depression.  Well, I guess they are right because as long as I can remember
I've been depressed.
 
It seems that several events came together in the spring of 1992 that tossed
me to the canvas with a super depression to end all depressions.  This
depression had its physical as well as mental repercussions on me.  I had a
hard time getting out of bed.  I lost a pound a day for almost a month, and
within four months, had lost 40 pounds.  I couldn't make any sense out of a
movie and reading a book was harder than charting out a trip to mars.
 
My physician tested me for cancer as the weight dropped off.  I began
bingeing on five pound tubs of jelly beans, my body forcing sugar to my
faltering brain.  I still lost weight.  The Jefferson County Mental Health
Clinic (the "Clinic") diagnosed me and put me on the one-size-fits-all,
generic anti-depressant, Pamelor, and things got worse.  The jelly beans
worked better than the Clinic's happy pills.
 
Depression is a primary feeling.  Remove it and what do you have left?  If
happiness is the opposite of sadness, what is the opposite of depression?
If peace is the opposite of war, what is the opposite of depression?  If
employed is the opposite of unemployed, what is the opposite of depression?
 
I was used to depression.  Depression was my friend.  I wasn't used to a
void and the hallucinations that came with the Pamelor.  Out of work, in a
serious funk, I was called by the State of Colorado to take an employment
test.  By that time my brain had quit functioning and I couldn't finish the
test.  And there it was, glued on my forehead.  FLUNKER.
 
I was out of work.  I had my car for 10 years and it had 100,000 miles on it
when I bought it.  The transmission and motor were both shot and the Clinic
told me I should never own a gun or drive a car again.  So at the end of
1992 I gave my gun and car away.  Taking a bus and walking became my
constants in my life.
 
I was just kidding about the gun.  I didn't really own one.  So no problem
there.  But what about clothes line and plastic bags?
 
By the summer of 1993, the Clinic was running out of money and, as I
remember it in my then muddled mind, my therapist told me my $20.00 a week
sessions would jump to $100.00 a week.  And I was still out looking for a
job.
 
So I quit the Clinic, and, two years later, finally managed to kick the
Pamelor habit.  Pamelor is a quite nasty piece of work according to the
Internet, where descriptions of it can be found even if the spelling of it
is inconsistent.  I got the spelling I'm using from a druggist at my
neighbor drug store.
 
The Clinic contacted me a time or two and that's the last I heard from them.
I went to a small group of mentally challenged senior citizens until the
group folded (it's hard to keep the attention of people who don't know what
street they live on or what year it is), and finally went twice a month to
the Jefferson County Action Center.  Then, my volunteer therapist stopped
showing up.  I'd take a bus and walk a mile up Colfax.  Guess what.  He
wouldn't be there.  A half a dozen times of that and I gave up.
 
Colorado has one of the highest suicide rates in the country.  Michael Moore
(writer and director of "Bowling for Columbine") ripped through Columbine
but never uncovered that fact.  The number of people in the general
population who go though a bout of depression every year is staggering.  Now
Colorado had passed a statewide law allowing people with a license to buy a
gun and then walk around with it concealed on their person, even law
abiding, depressed people.
 
My mother's brother killed himself-with a gun.  One of my ex-boss's sons
killed himself-with a gun.  A girlfriend's son killed himself-with clothes
line.  If you want to see how to use a plastic bag, rent the movie "The Life
of David Gale."  Again, you might as well save your money.  If you're that
interested, you already know how.

- Bob