THANKS, MAYNARD

When it comes to the matter of mental health, for the longest time I had lived by the mantra of, “If you don’t have a gun in your mouth, you’re fine.”

Turns out that isn’t a very healthy perspective.

I’ve struggled with depression since I was nine-years-old.

Anyone who’s ever dealt with it knows that one size does not fit all. For me, depression means feeling angry and lonely – like there is no meaning in anything I do or in anything at all.

Along with that sense of nihilism there is a deep and simmering self-hatred that’s always kind of hampered me. One of my former co-workers once told me that I don’t compliment someone else without putting myself down in the same breath.

That shook me.

For a while I thought it was all just part of growing up. “Teenage brain” and all that jazz.

Surely I wouldn’t always feel like this?

This hopeless black hole of a feeling is gonna go away when I get out of high school, right?

As I stepped out of my teens and into my 20s, that feeling only got worse. At times I’ve even felt embarrassed for even experiencing depression. Sure, my situation in life has never been ideal, but things could always be worse. That line of questioning has often made those feelings of despair hit harder.

I didn’t learn the term until this past year, but intrusive thoughts have also played a huge role in my depression.

“You are worthless. You do not deserve happiness. You let everyone down,” my own self-consciousness would sneer at me.

And when those intrusive thoughts get started up, there is no turning them off. They come out like a whisper on a good day and a black metal scream on a bad one.

Now it could be my blue collar upbringing (or a lack of health insurance until last year), but I always thought of therapy as something for the privileged. Regarding antidepressants, I feared that they would change my personality and had always been resistant to the idea of taking them.

2021 and 2022 was probably the toughest period of my life.

Some people I loved a whole lot died. A three and a half year relationship with an amazing woman came to a sudden and brutal end. I drifted from job to job.

Emotionally, physically, and even professionally it was a struggle. At times it felt like caffeine, bourbon, and spite were the only things keeping me going.

One particularly tough Sunday last June, I found myself lying in bed in the middle of the day, nearly catatonic. The intrusive thoughts were being particularly nasty. So I decided to put in some headphones and shut them up the only way I know how — with heavy metal and rock n’ roll.

While I’m not necessarily against other genres of music, if you can’t throw up a pair of devil horns while you’re listening, I’m probably not into it.

I scrolled through the list of some of the usual suspects on Spotify like Queens of the Stone Age, Ghost, Mastodon, Metallica, Slayer, The White Stripes, Type-O Negative, and Slipknot. I decided to go with TOOL (Yes, you have to spell it out in all-caps).

For the uninitiated, TOOL is a progressive metal band fronted by drummer Danny Carey, guitarist Adam Jones, bass guitarist Justin Chancellor, and prickly and enigmatic frontman Maynard James Keenan.

Instrumentally, their music is complex as all get out, at times seeming more like jazz than a metal outfit. Lyrically, TOOL bounces back and forth between the esoteric and the juvenile. “Forty-Six & Two” is inspired by Jungian Theory, as compared to “Rosetta Stoned,” a manic headbanger about a man who’s taken so much DMT that he thinks the fate of humanity is in his hands, but in reality is lying in bed covered in his own feces.

On average, most of their songs clock in around 9 minutes in length. Maynard writes all the lyrics.

Upon entering TOOL’s catalog on Spotify that fateful Sunday, I thumbed the little album cover for “Lateralus,” what most consider the band’s magnum opus. That said, Ænima, their sophomore effort, is my favorite TOOL album.

The first song on “Lateralus” is “The Grudge,” heavy and pummeling, it touches on the orbital patterns of Saturn and letting go of negative feelings.

Next up was a quick interlude track followed by the much more subtle “The Patient.” Which I had never paid much mind to until this particular listen.

“A groan of tedium escapes me,” Maynard crooned after a slow and somber riff opens the song

I kept listening. And the lyrics began to resonate with me on a much deeper level than they ever had before.

“But I'm still right here, giving blood, keeping faith

And I'm still right here

But I'm still right here, giving blood, keeping faith

And I'm still right here,” Maynard sang.

And suddenly, I get the feeling that fate is speaking to me through the voice of one of my favorite singers.

“If there were no rewards to reap

No loving embrace to see me through

This tedious path I've chosen here

I certainly would've walked away

By now,” the song continued.

In that moment it occurred to me that I’m lucky enough to have a lot of people in my life that love me.

I love them too.

For their sake and for mine, it was time to stop wallowing and do something about the depression that had dragged me down since elementary school.

“Be patient,” Maynard sang.

These things don’t change overnight. But just because things don’t come quickly doesn't mean they’re not worth doing.

For me, after years of struggling, I finally decided to get help.

I’m not trying to say that a prog metal band that charged me way too much for nosebleed seats at the Yum Center last March was the reason I decided to start going to therapy and take medication.

That's all on my loved ones.

Nor will I say that I even know what the lyrics of the song mean to Maynard. But listening to “The Patient” that day was the final epiphany I needed to do what needed to be done.

And things have gotten so much better since that day.

Upon starting medication it was an almost immediate change for me. For the first time in a long time, my intrusive thoughts shut up. It felt like climbing out of a black hole.

I’m in therapy and I take medicine every day. I don’t feel like a different person.

I’m still me, sans the self-hatred.

When I’m feeling down, “The Patient” is a rallying cry for clarity and stability.

You take antibiotics when you get strep throat. When you’ve got depression or any other kind of mental illness, you go to therapy or start taking antidepressants. There shouldn’t be any stigma in that. And it’s a travesty that a lack of accessibility and affordability blocks that kind of treatment for a lot of people who desperately need it.

Don’t be ashamed or afraid to admit that you’re struggling with depression or other mental health issues. A lot of people do, and admitting that you need help — even if it’s just to yourself — is the first step to feeling better.

I’m not gonna pretend like you’ll never have a bad day again.

I still have a lot of them.

Frankly, I’m having one right now as I put the finishing touches on this column. But it’s not going to last forever.

Good days are coming.

For me, for you, for everyone.

Listen to Maynard. Be patient.