Search Results for: depression

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My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed.

Posted on By Wil

I’m about to go speak to NAMI Ohio’s statewide conference, Fulfilling the Promise. These are the remarks I prepared for my speech.

Before I begin, I want to warn you that this talk touches on many triggering subjects, including self-harm and suicide. I also want you to know that I’m speaking from my personal experience, and that if you or someone you know may be living with mental illness, please talk to a licensed and qualified medical professional, because I am not a doctor.

Okay, let’s do this.

Hi, I’m Wil Wheaton. I’m 45 years-old, I have a wonderful wife, two adult children who make me proud every day, and a daughter in-law who I love like she’s my own child. I work on the most popular comedy series in the world, I’ve been a New York Times Number One Bestselling Audiobook narrator, I have run out of space in my office for the awards I’ve received for my work, and as a white, heterosexual, cisgender man in America, I live life on the lowest difficulty setting – with the Celebrity cheat enabled.

My life is, by every objective measurement, very very good.

And in spite of all of that, I struggle every day with my self esteem, my self worth, and my value not only as an actor and writer, but as a human being.

That’s because I live with Depression and Anxiety, the tag team champions of the World Wrestling With Mental Illness Federation.

And I’m not ashamed to stand here, in front of six hundred people in this room, and millions more online, and proudly say that I live with mental illness, and that’s okay. I say “with” because even though my mental illness tries its best, it doesn’t control me, it doesn’t define me, and I refuse to be stigmatized by it.

So. My name is Wil Wheaton, and I have Chronic Depression.

It took me over thirty years to be able to say those ten words, and I suffered for most of them as a result. I suffered because though we in America have done a lot to help people who live with mental illness, we have not done nearly enough to make it okay for our fellow travelers on the wonky brain express to reach out and accept that help.

I’m here today to talk with you about working to end the stigma and prejudice that surrounds mental illness in America, and as part of that, I want to share my story with you.

(more…)

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the hilarious world of depression

Posted on By Wil

I spoke with John Moe about my mental illness for his podcast, The Hilarious World of Depression:

Wil Wheaton was a child star in Stand By Me, a regular on Star Trek: The Next Generation as a teenager, and has been trying to figure out his role in show business for a long time since then. He was dealing with the pressures of fame and the fickle tastes of Hollywood, all while dealing with a chemical imbalance in his brain that made him prone to anxiety and depression. Wil’s better now thanks to medication, but despite his long IMDb page and regular work on The Big Bang Theory, his hit YouTube show, and a thriving and varied career, he sees himself primarily as a failed actor.

It’s a good show, as they say. Go give it a listen.

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depression (still) lies

Posted on By Wil

One of the super fun things about living with depression and anxiety is how my idiot brain can go from “CAN DO!” to “EXISTENCE IS SUFFERING” faster than you can wish to take two strokes off your golf game. So today started out normal, and very quickly became a rough day. One of the ways I help myself through days like today, is to acknowledge that I’m sick not weak, and then take one step after another to get out from under the lead apron that Depression likes to drape over my life.

I just answered an ask on my Tumblr thingy that has helped me feel better, and I wanted to put it here, so it’s easy for me to find again the next time I need it:

==

Q: what can I do to bring myself out of depression?

A: It isn’t easy, and accepting and understanding that is the first and very important step to getting through it.

So I’m having a tough day today, and I know that it’s my mental illness taking small things that most people can probably roll past, and blowing them up into one giant lead apron of I CAN’T EVEN.

Knowing that and accepting it doesn’t make it go away, but it does give me a little bit of light in this darkness, to help me eventually find the exit.

We have to remind ourselves that Depression Lies, and one of the things it does, to keep itself strong and in charge, is tell us lies, like: I am the worst at everything. Nobody really likes me. I don’t deserve to be happy. This will never end. And so on and so on. We can know, in our rational minds, that this is a giant bunch of bullshit (and we can look at all these times in our lives when were WERE good at a thing, when we genuinely felt happy, when we felt awful but got through it, etc.) but in the moment, it can be a serious challenge to wait for Depression to lift the roadblock that’s keeping us from moving those facts from our rational mind to our emotional selves.

And that’s the thing about Depression: we can’t force it to go away. As I’ve said, if I could just “stop feeling sad” I WOULD. (And, also, Depression isn’t just feeling sad, right? It’s a lot of things together than can manifest themselves into something that is most easily simplified into “I feel sad.”)

So another step in our self care is to be gentle with ourselves. Depression is beating up on us already, and we don’t need to help it out. Give yourself permission to acknowledge that you’re feeling terrible (or bad, or whatever it is you are feeling), and then do a little thing, just one single thing, that you probably don’t feel like doing, but I PROMISE you will help. Some of those things are:

  • Take a shower.
  • Eat a nutritious meal.
  • Take a walk outside (even if it’s literally to the corner and back).
  • Do something – throw a ball, play tug of war, give belly rubs – with a dog. Just about any activity with my dogs, even if it’s just a snuggle on the couch for a few minutes, helps me.
  • Do five minutes of yoga stretching.
  • Listen to a guided meditation and follow along as best as you can.

Finally, please trust me and know that this shitty, awful, overwhelming, terrible way you feel IS NOT FOREVER. It will get better. It always gets better. You are not alone in this fight, and you are OK.

You can ALWAYS talk to a mental health professional, too, if you have any thoughts of self-harm or feel hopeless. Some free and anonymous resources are:

Check in with me in a few days and let me know how you’re doing, okay?

==

For myself, today: I am getting off Twitter for at least the rest of today, and maybe until the end of the weekend. I am walking myself and my dogs. I am meditating. I am making sure I eat a nutritious lunch AND dinner (go me!). And I’m going to accept that, at this moment, my creative well is dry. It will refill in its own time, and I have to accept that I can’t force it.

You’re not broken, and you’re not weak. Depression lies because Depression is a dick.

Posted on By Wil

A question from my Tumblr ask thingy:

I was just wondering, how did you feel when your doctor suggested going on anti-depressants? My therapist of several months suggested it to me today and while logically I know it’s probably a good idea, I can’t help but feel like I’m broken, you know? Like, I’m worse than I thought I was. Did you feel like this or know anyone who felt something similar?

My answer:

First of all, Depression Lies. It tells you that you’re weak and unworthy and terrible and that you’re never going to be able to get out from under it.

Depression lies like that because it wants to protect itself and keep on controlling your life.

Depression is a dick, and I want to encourage you to listen to your therapist and let him or her help you.

Now I want you to imagine that you have a fever, and your whole body hurts, and you’ve been coughing up all sorts of awful gunk for days. You’re miserable, so you go to the doctor.

The doctor says, “oh, you have this terrible infection in your body, so I’m going to give you some medicine to help your body get better, and some other medicine to help you not suffer while your body works on that.”

Imagine that you then say, “I don’t want to do that, because I feel sort of broken if I take those medications. I feel like I’m weak or something, and if I take those medications that you know will help me feel better, I’m admitting that my body needs some help so I can stop suffering. I think I’ll keep on suffering and hope it gets better.”

Or you go to your doctor because you’ve been feeling crummy and she runs some tests and she says, “Well, it turns out that you have diabetes, but you’re in luck! You can take some medicine, and it’ll treat it. You’ll probably have to take it for a long time, maybe even your whole life, but you’ll get well and feel better!”

Do you say, “No, I think I’ll just deal with it,” and continue suffering?

Of course not! You would treat any illness with medication if you could, and you’d put a cast on a broken leg and walk with crutches if you needed to, because walking on a broken leg really really really hurts, and you don’t need to suffer through that pain!

Mental illness is exactly the same as a physical illness. Your body has something that’s out of whack – in our case, it’s how our brains handle neurochemicals and stuff – and there’s medication that can help us help ourselves feel better.

You’re not broken, and you’re not weak, and if you’re now thinking that you’re worse than you thought you were? Well, that’s really awesome, because it means that you recognize that your brain needs some help to get healthy, and your doctor is there to help you do that.

It takes courage to take the chance on medication, and the first one you try may not work, because brains are all different and incredibly complicated, but something will work, and you will feel better, and you will be so glad that you took the step to take care of yourself.

Please check in with me in a month or so, and let me know how you’re doing.

I answer a lot of questions about living with mental illness on my Tumblr thing, if you want to go take a look.

And please, remember, if you live with mental illness like I do: you are ok.

Post script: It’s been about 24 hours since I published this, and there are a lot of comments here, a lot of people sharing their own experiences and stories. That’s wonderful. Something that has come up a lot, which I know but failed to write here originally, is that medication for mental illness isn’t a magic wand. We live in a society that too frequently says, “here, take this pill” instead of “let’s look at what’s going on, and see how you can be helped, including but not limited to taking medication.” For me, personally, a combination of ongoing talk therapy plus medication gave me my life back. That may be different for you or someone you know. Brains are complicated, as I said, and what works for one person may not work for another. What works for you now may not be as effective at some point in the future. My goal in writing this post yesterday was to dispel the myth that says mental illness = weakness, because I believe that myth is demonstrably harmful to countless people. There are lots of ways to get help for Depression and Anxiety, and I hope to encourage anyone who is suffering to please seek help, because you don’t have to suffer. The comparison I made between physical illness and mental illness is one way I try to do that.

ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, and Conventions

Posted on By Wil

Reader R writes:

Dear Wil,

I wonder if you could give me some advice. My daughter Ella is 10 years old and is really getting into Star Trek, particularly Voyager and DS9. She’s even started drawing her own fan fic comic about Odo and Quark. So we thought we’d take her to a con.

The problem is, she has ADHD and mood disorder, and me and my husband both have depression/anxiety. So places that are crowded and have lots of long lines are hard for us, collectively.

I’m wondering if you can recommend a con that’s particularly well-run so that we can help our daughter enjoy the experience. We understand that we’ll have to manage waits ourselves, we won’t get help like we do at Disney World, but I can imagine that some cons are completely packed with people and it would be hard to find a quiet space to give Ella a break from the crowds or a food vendor that can serve us in a reasonable amount of time.

Any advice you have would be appreciated. I imagine you’ve developed mad skills for surviving a con while anxious.

Oh, and we live on the east coast (came to your NY show with Paul and Storm–awesome!) so a show on this side of the country would be great. And if there are games there, so much the better.

I have both  anxiety and depression, and a combination of medication and therapy helps me deal with the lovely* things they do to me. When I’m at a convention, if I start to feel that overwhelming feeling of being trapped in the trash compactor, I can duck out into a quiet place until I’m able to get C-3P0 to shut down the power on that level, but if someone has spent time and money to get to a con, that’s probably not something they want to do.

I don’t really have a good answer for R, but I thought that maybe some of you who read my blog may have personal experience that you could share about dealing with mental health issues when you’re at a con.

 

*and by ‘lovely’, I mean ‘not lovely at all’.