Bunker Hill Road

  August 27, 2008 – I doubt I will ever fully understand why I spent so much of life feeling fear, and so little time dealing with it. I can guess the reasons, and have uncovered them, to some degree, but still regret it. Last year, I began writing euphemistically about depression and mental illness, and received an ovewhelming and supportive response. This year I finally got some serious help with it, from a clinical social worker in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. I am lots better, and more quickly than I imagined.
  I never grasped the serious and effective nature of clinical social work, and I will be writing and talking about this repeatedly on this blog and during the book tour for “Izzy and Lenore,” which deals glancingly with my encounter with this potentially devastating illness.
  As some of you know, I am always wrestling with this question of openness versus privacy, and will never resolve it It’s just my life. I will share some things, and not others. It is important to write about this treatment so that other people who may need it and are suffering can feel more hopeful about it.
  And get help if they need help. There is help, and it can work.
   I have learned that therapy in general, and group therapy, is not a cultural cliche, as often portrayed, but something that can provide serious help for people who want it and are willing to work at it. I entered therapy on my own, and the therapist suggested a group for a short period of time as a way of getting support and seeing my own problems more clearly, through the experiences of others.
  I was skeptical, for a number of reasons. I favored psychiatry over social work, an inaccurate prejudice, I now see. I was wary of a group, in part because I am somewhat well known and because I associated it with episodes of Seinfeld and the lives of neurotic New Yorkers.
  Like anyone who has suffered from any form of mental illness, I will always be dealing with these issues, for the rest of my life. The point is to deal with them well, and knowingly. And to get better.
  So I am better. The group was an amazing experience, like hospice work, something that resulted in extraordinary support and understanding, and quite a bit of love. I first looked at these people and wondered what I was doing there. They were not really like me.
  They were, and understanding that was helpful, even critical. They suffered almost unbelievable pain and fear, and have struggled bravely to figure out their lives.
  Seeing the lives of others helps understand your own. Every one of these people traveled separately to the Washington County Fair to look at my photographs, without mentioning it to me. Everyone is rooting for me, and helped me make some critical decisions about my mind and my life.  I didn’t quite grasp what support was.
 When the group ended, earlier this evening, I was very sorry, and overwhelmed with gratitude for the experience. We agreed to meet again in a few months, hopefully to share progress and good news about our lives.
  I intend to bring good news, to spread the message through my life and work that there is help, and that it helps. I can get better, if I want to.  I did, and I do.
  I am well aware that one is not supposed to talk much about these things in public. I am quite proud of this group, and the work we did together. It is the least I can do to be open about it.