The Hilarious World of Depression

by John Moe

Here’s the weird part: even when I was in the darkest and most despairing times of my depression, I still found depression funny. It was funny to me that the illness distorted my view of the real world like a funhouse mirror. It was funny that I could be immobilized by something that had no basis in a broken bone or bacteria or any tangible factor. And when other people, especially comedians and writers, shared their experiences with depression and those experiences were resonant with my own, I could laugh because we were all getting fooled together. I laughed in the same way an audience laughs at a particularly good trick pulled off by a magician. “We’ve all been deceived, but we don’t know how!”

I’d had good therapists in the past, briefly, but all I ever took away from therapy was a somewhat clearer understanding of how messed up I was. That’s helpful, sure, but it’s not really progress. Like knowing the brand of refrigerator you’re locked in.

Only by being useful or talented, and receiving external recognition, would I achieve personhood. I couldn’t imagine a world where I was a worthwhile person by dint of mere existence; I felt like I needed to earn it and prove it every day.

Only decades later would it dawn on me that normal people who never deal with depression have a sense of self-worth automatically. Just by being a person on the earth, they feel themselves worthy of respect and love and all that other cool stuff.

Boy, I spin thoughts around in my head a lot, don’t I? Like, a lot. That’s what depression does. The dance floor of your mind is never without a pounding beat, and usually the DJ is playing eight or nine songs at the same time.

All the wires were connected wrong inside Dave’s brain, and as a result he did a lot of things backward: when I would come home from work, Dave, instead of rushing to greet me and deliver affection, would bark ferociously as if I were a persistent robber who broke in every day at five thirty.

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