[This is the world-famous “Big Mouth” edition of my so-called column. I’m sure there will be a few comments on this one, especially with where I am now.]

I have a problem: I can’t keep my mouth shut.

I’m not kidding. Those of you who really know me know I’m not kidding. What you might not know is that I can’t control it.

Things bother me. Foolish or immoral decisions made by my government on a global or national scale, large groups of people who think those decisions were right or smart and loudly tell you so, whether or not my kid is getting enough ice-time, people treating each other in an inconsiderate or even mean fashion, Facebook posts that say “Your the best!” rather than “You’re the best!” in my news feed, not to mention poor choices made in film and TV (I’m talking to you, Hobbit, or any Disney show outside of the “Wonderful World of Disney”), and my eyebrows getting too shaggy. (One of the drawbacks of old age is hair growing out of control in places that make one look ridiculous, but I digress.)

At any rate, certain kinds of things have always bothered me. I used to be too polite to say anything about it, and I’m sure that some wish I’d stayed that way. Others state publicly that they’re glad I speak up or out about such things, but what do they say behind closed doors? Regardless, it’s not something that’s going to change; as I said in my opening statement, my mouth runs itself.

The reason I bring this up now is because some things have happened in the past year that have sort of forced things to the surface, things which I guess have been simmering deep in my psyche for years. I don’t really know why these things have been settling down there amongst my deepest fears and regrets, and I certainly don’t know why I’ve never spoken of them before–God knows I’m not known for my restraint. All I do know is that the past 18-24 months have brought about some serious life changes, and it looks like they’ve forced a few things out into the light at last, so I’m kind of obligated to deal with them. (That doesn’t mean you have to deal with them, so stop reading if you’re annoyed with my style or content.)

My mom passed away a year and a half ago, and it was, and is, a very difficult event to manage. I won’t dwell on it here, but suffice it to say that the loss of my mom affected me deeply, and led me to take stock of my life.

I’d allowed myself to get trapped in a career that made no sense to me, yet it served the necessary purpose of providing for my family, while being unable to provide me with the sense of accomplishment and purpose I had long craved. After a lengthy period of relative happiness as an actor, I had walked away from that business in 2001 when my son was two years old. My thinking was that, if I were going to make it as an actor, I would surely have made it by then; since my perception was that I hadn’t made it, I felt it was selfish to continue making my family forego a comfortable life. (I’m pretty sure that’s the only unselfish thought I’ve ever had, but I digress. Again.)

At the time I left the business for good, I was employed by a financial services company in Philadelphia, one of the few jobs in business I actually seemed good at. True to form, I left it behind. I have been searching for “what comes next” ever since, and have not done a great job finding that, which is not to say that I’ve done a terrible job; hey, I’m still here, aren’t I?

Which leads me to this past summer. Everything had been coming down to this, but it came to a head in July. I’d finally been able to walk away from my job in transportation a few months after my mom passed away, and a sales role with a staffing company seemed like a very good fit…at the time. At the very least, I was back on a daytime shift, and ceased being the vampire I’d been for nearly five years. Unfortunately for me, success in sales is based on achieving sales quotas, which I’m apparently not very good at, and so I was let go early this year. Hard to take.

As defeated as I felt, I was surprised on my last day with a phone call out of the blue. Without going into too many details (difficult for me, obviously), I agreed to help a transportation company move its operations from Orlando to New York, a task which would take a week, maybe two. I figured I could job-search while we wound it down, and get a couple more weeks of employment out of it. I was highly surprised and pleased when the powers-that-be decided to keep things going here, based on the strong performances of me and the other person they’d secured to box things up and ship them back to New York. Laurel Landsome (not her real name, though it’s close) and I worked very well together, initially, and naturally seemed to gravitate toward the tasks for which we were best suited; we began to rebuild the company together.

Except that Laurel was apparently not a real fan of me or my style, and was angling to move me out and bring her friend Mook Michelle (also not his real name) on-board in my role.

Yes, I know I’m still holding onto some anger regarding this, but it will dissipate eventually, I’m sure. Maybe.

The working relationship between me and Laurel, a duo once dubbed “The Dream Team” by our boss when we were hired, began to deteriorate, and by July I was miserable. I was drinking more, and even began to surf the net to find painless ways to commit suicide. (Spoiler alert: There aren’t any. And don’t judge.)

Thankfully, I had engineered a trip home in July, and talked extensively with my family, leaning very heavily on my youngest sister. (We’ll call her “Leenie.” On second thought, I think she’d prefer “Kathleen.”) Kathleen Robertson King and I had always had a very strong connection, and her training and experience as a Presbyterian minister and social worker, coupled with her being my baby sister, made her a very helpful and calming resource in this time of such turmoil in my life. Also, I happened upon a very helpful website in my search, one that helped me work through my darker feelings, feelings I shared with very few at the time.

It was at this point that the woman who once called me half of “The Dream Team” decided to call me “unemployed.” I was torn between anger/hurt/betrayal and the deepest form of gratitude you can imagine, and I would guess I’m still there, really. I had already been on the hunt for a new career direction, and had determined in my conversations with my sister that I should either get involved in education again, or in some sort of non-profit organization. My resume had been revamped for weeks, and I had even begun taking interviews, though not for a job I wanted yet. And then she dropped the bomb on me, baby. And I was jobless. Again. Shit. I mean, I had been miserable, yes, but I really wanted to make this a smoother transition; as often happens in life, or at least in my life, however, the decision was taken out of my hands. 

So be it. I did what I should have done long ago, and I went to see a psychiatrist. In speaking with the doctor, we determined that I might benefit from some medication, specifically an anti-depressant, and perhaps ixnay-the-elfsay-edicatingmay. My wife had been telling me for several years that such therapy might be very helpful for me, but I had resisted, mostly because I was fearful that such medication would affect my creativity. I’d heard about people becoming zombies on such meds, and didn’t want that to happen to me. It was also difficult to admit I needed help. But enough was enough. I was obviously depressed, and had been for a long while, and I was tired of feeling that way.

And within 24-36 hours of taking that first pill, the cloud started to lift at last. Listen, I’m a firm believer that our society relies too much on medication to solve their problems, but I also firmly believe that I was clinically depressed, and that medication might have saved my life. Looking back now, I can also say that the difference wasn’t that great; but after living through such darkness in my spirit, I can also say that a candle in the darkness looked like a sunrise to my eyes, and I found myself smiling again, as I hadn’t in a long, long time. It felt good.

Things began to get easier and easier for me, and my interactions with people, especially with my wife and my son, were more relaxed than they had been for years. I engaged people again, and enjoyed interacting with others like I hadn’t in God knows how long. And, though it bothered her for me to point it out, there was a form of minor role-reversal between me and Jen, as I watched her get irritable with people or situations that used to make me crazy, and there I was, quietly smiling that she was getting annoyed at such a minor problem. (She was even doing some of the goofy things I occasionally do, like putting two fingers up behind a person’s head while they’re speaking, which I found/find hysterical. It was kind of cute.) And don’t get me wrong: she wasn’t over-reacting at all; it was just that her reaction, in light of the changes in my head and my thinking, was now stronger than mine, and I was the king of overreaction. For years.

The kicker in all of this is that exact point: years. As I said, Jen had told me for a couple of years that I might benefit from medication of some kind, and I finally agreed to give it a try. Now, on the other side of it, I was curious how long she had thought I was struggling with my depression, so I asked her one night.

“You once said that you’d noticed I was depressed for a while, and you mentioned a few years ago that you thought it might help if I saw a doctor and got some medication. When would you say you first noticed that?” She was quiet for a moment.

“I started to notice a change in the way you behaved when your dad died.”

My dad died in 1997. Nineteen ninety-seven, for Pete’s sake.

The thought that I’ve been depressed for 16 years is depressing. The thought that my son has never known me any other way makes me sad. The fact that I put them both through that–and so many more of you–for so long is very upsetting.

But guess what? As I type this, I’m smiling again. Because I got help, and I’m starting to rebuild, and I’m seeing me again for the first time in a long, long time.

While tomorrow is my wife’s birthday, and I’d love to get her something really special to celebrate her years so far on the planet, I’m still not working full-time; I can’t really afford it right now. But that’s okay, because this, too, shall pass away. Though I still occasionally have darker days, they aren’t as dark, and they don’t last as long. I’m finding my way through, and I will get there.

It’s nice to be here, completely unable to keep my mouth shut.