“If I do, I’ll call you,” I said. Unfortunately, by the time I did, we’d lost touch. That has always made me feel a little sad.

  “We’re ready for first team!” the first assistant director called out.

  She picked up her headphones and put them over my ears. “Quick! Before they find us!” she said. I giggled as she pushed play.

  A man started to sing. His voice was deep and beautiful. The music was soft, and felt sort of sad. If I’d known what “haunting” was, that’s how I would have described it.

  After a minute, she said, “Do you like it?”

  I did. It was unlike any of the music my parents listened to, and was very different from the pop music I heard on the radio.

  “Who is it?” I said.

  “It’s my friend,” she said. “This song is about an astronaut who blasts off and never comes back.”*

  “It’s really cool,” I said, as an assistant director poked his head into the room.

  “I have first team,” he said into his walkie talkie. “We’re ready for you on set,” he said to us.

  We got up and went to work before I could find out the title of the song. As the day went on, and the work took over, I never thought to ask, and by the end of the day, I’d forgotten about it entirely.

  Later that year, I helped my dad repair a gate on the side of our house.* We listened to KMET (the greatest rock and roll radio station in history, which was tragically replaced in 1987 by the worst light-jazz pile of shit in history)* while we worked, and that song from Susan’s friend came out of the radio.

  “Dad!” I said. “This is the song that Susan played for me when we filmed The Buddy System! This is her friend!”

  My dad stopped hammering, and listened.

  “Do you know who it is?” I said.

  “Yeah,” my dad said. “This is David Bowie.” The song was “Space Oddity.”

  To this day, whenever I hear it, I can see my eleven-year-old self, sitting in that empty, dusty, dimly lit set on Stage 18 at Fox. I can feel the rough pads of Susan’s headphones on my ears, and I remember how happy I felt to be part of a secret club.*

  You Stand at the Edge While People Run You Through

  Everyone who has depression experiences it in a different way, but I think it’s safe to say that all of us have days when it sits more heavily on us than others. I realized yesterday morning that I’ve been struggling under more depression and anxiety than usual for the last week or so without even being aware of it. Without realizing it, I’d gotten withdrawn and anxious, and because I didn’t really feel irritable, I wasn’t aware of how irritable I was.

  I’ve described the metaphysical weight of depression as being similar to that lead apron the dentist puts on you when you get X-rays of your teeth, only it’s draped over your head and shoulders, and sometimes it even covers your face so you can’t see clearly.* Without even knowing it’s happening, all you can see is whatever the depression wants to show you, and depression is a lying jerk.

  So yesterday, with the kind and loving help of my wife, I realized how heavy my depression has been weighing on me lately. I don’t know exactly how or why it works, but yesterday, like all the other times I’ve realized that depression was doing its best to smother me, becoming aware of it made the weight of it just a little bit better. I still had a pretty rough day, but I also knew that I’d get better. It was like remembering where the light switch was, so I could turn a light on in a dark room, and see the way out of it.

  A big part of realizing that I felt so much anxiety and its accompanying depression was figuring out why I felt that way, and I don’t think I could have done it without Anne’s support and patience.

  We were sitting on the couch in the living room. The back doors were open, and birds chirped and sang in the backyard. I told her basically what I wrote above, and she said,

  “You were really angry about the paparazzi* when you were in New York, and if your show* is successful, that’s probably going to happen again and again.”

  “That sounds awful,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you can deal with it in a more constructive way that doesn’t make you so angry,” she said.

  “I just hate that feeling of being trapped in a hotel, or not in control of my own . . .” I trailed off, because I had realized exactly why I got so angry, and why I’d been feeling so anxious and depressed for the last few weeks.

  “I just realized that the feeling of being trapped, of not being in control of my own life, of feeling like I can’t just do my own thing is a massive emotional trigger for me, because it reminds me of how I felt so often when I was a kid.

  “I hated all the press and attention and demands to be some kind of teen superstar, when all I wanted to do was be an actor.”*

  I described a picture taken of me to her, which I think was taken when I was fifteen. “I look at that, and I feel so sad for that kid. He’s scared, he’s uncomfortable, and he’s doing his best to just get through that moment so he can go back to whatever he was trying to do before a photographer shoved a camera in his face.*

  “I think I get so angry now because I’m not just upset that my current life was disrupted by these shitbags, but I’m also retroactively angry at how much they disrupted my life when I was a kid.” I looked at the floor for a long time. Our dog Riley walked over to me and shoved her face into my hands. I pet her and continued. “And then I get angry at the people who should have been looking out for me, who should have cared about how I was feeling and protected me, but who just told me to suck it up and deal with it because I had to.”*

  “That makes sense,” she said. “You’ve talked a lot about how you always felt like nobody listened to you when you were a kid, and how you felt like your feelings weren’t as important to the people around you as what they could get out of you.”

  “Exactly. I’ve been working basically for myself for the last ten years, with occasional breaks to go work on shows where I feel like I’m working with people, and for the last month or so, I’ve felt like I’m working for people.”

  I stopped scratching Riley’s chin, and she put her paw in my lap.

  “Well . . . you kind of are.”

  I looked at her.

  “. . . and that’s okay,” she said. “I know you’re feeling overwhelmed, but this is a good thing, isn’t it?”

  I lifted Riley’s paw off me, and pointed to the floor. She lay down at my feet and sighed. “. . . it is. I love the people I work with, and the network goons* have all been really supportive and awesome. I guess I just . . . I don’t know how to feel. It’s really great, and it’s really scary, and there’s a lot at stake, and it’s fun, and I’m . . .”

  I took a deep breath and frowned. “I’m afraid to enjoy it, because it probably won’t last.”*

  It felt good to say it out loud. It felt freeing. I’m supposed to pretend that we’re going to be some kind of massive success and we’re all gonna get laid, but I have done this long enough to know that nothing is certain, nothing is guaranteed, and Firefly was canceled because the network was stupid.

  “And on the one hand, if it doesn’t last, all this press and attention that I don’t like goes away. But if it does last—”

  “If it does last, you can let the work speak for itself like you want to, and you don’t have to do press, or go places you don’t want to go. But promoting it now is super important because you have to let people know your show exists so they can watch it.”

  Riley rolled over on her back. Marlowe walked into the room and stretched out on the floor next to her.

  “I know, and I feel like a jerk for having conflicting feelings about it. I guess I haven’t completely dealt with some unresolved childhood issues, and they’re getting stirred up in my stupid brain.”*

  My cat Watson jumped up into my lap and began to purr. He rubbed his face against my hand, then against my chin, and then began to groom my beard.

  “I’m really grateful for everything we have, and I don’t mean to imply otherwise,” I said, around Watson’s cat-food breath. “I just remember how I felt so unhappy so often when I was a kid, and I don’t want to feel that way again.”

  “I know.”

  I lifted Watson off my chest and put him on the couch next to me. He rolled on his back and pushed his head into my thigh. I scratched his chin and his belly.

  “I also know that I’ve been letting depression make me feel like shit for the last month or so, and I know that depression lies, so I’m probably just fixated on all the worst case stuff, and not paying enough attention to the awesome stuff.”

  And the second those words came out of my mouth, it was like someone cast Dispel Depression.* I felt the weight of it lift off me. I saw the light switch in the room, and though I knew it would take a little bit of time before I could walk out, I at least saw the doorway.

  I’m going to talk with a therapist about the unresolved emotional issues from when I was a kid, and I’m going to work even harder so that depression can’t trick me into thinking all this incredibly awesome stuff that I get to do is something I can’t enjoy. It’s going to be a challenge—it always is—but I can do it, because I’ve done it before.

  And you know what? It is going to be fun to make The Wil Wheaton Project. I know it will be fun, because it has already been fun, and I think I need to consider the two likely scenarios: if we only do twelve, I get to go back to my normal life at the end of the summer after working with some really great people and doing something we’re proud of. If we end up doing more than that, I can let the work speak for itself, and I’ll learn to adjust to a new normal in my life, because the really valuable and important bits of my life—my wife, my kids, our home, burritos and beer—are going to be here no matter what I do for my job, and nobody can take them away from me, not even depression.

  “I feel a lot better,” I said. “Thanks for listening to me.”*

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too.”

  MENTAL HEALTH

  One of the best things I’ve ever done was take a close look at my mental health and accept that I wasn’t doing fine. It’s also one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. Ignorance and stigma have surrounded mental illness forever (in society, and in my family of origin), and anyone who is struggling worries that seeking help will change their relationships, their career, the way people see them.

  But it’s not just about other people. It’s also about how we see ourselves. It’s hard to accept that the genetic lottery gives us strengths, maybe even a superpower or two, but that it also gives us vulnerabilities. Similarly, it’s hard to accept that the damaging moments in your past didn’t just toughen you up, didn’t transform you into a black-caped vigilante (dammit). That those moments hurt.

  I’m proud of the journey that I’ve made since then—it’s made me a stronger, better person. And I’m eager to make the first steps of that journey easier for others, by speaking openly about the mental health challenges I’ve faced and supporting worthy causes where I can. I’ve talked about it a number of times already, but it’s such a core part of me, I wanted to really dig in. The next couple of posts are about what it’s like to live with depression and anxiety, and what we can do about it.

  Because sometimes, just sometimes, it’s better not to be Batman.

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

  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 forty-five 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 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.

  When I was a little kid, probably seven or eight years old, I started having panic attacks. Back then, we didn’t know that’s what they were, and because they usually happened when I was asleep, the adults in my life just thought I had nightmares. Well, I did have nightmares, but they were so much worse than just bad dreams. Night after night, I’d wake up in absolute terror, and night after night, I’d drag my blankets off my bed to go to sleep on the floor in my sister’s bedroom, because I was so afraid to be alone.*

  There were occasional stretches of relief, sometimes for months at a time, and during those months, I felt like what I considered to be a normal kid, but the panic attacks always came back, and each time they came back, they seemed worse than before.

  When I was around twelve or thirteen, my anxiety began to express itself in all sorts of delightful ways.*

  I worried about everything. I was tired all the time, and irritable most of the time. I had no confidence and terrible self-esteem. I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone who wanted to be close to me, because I was convinced that I was stupid and worthless and the only reason anyone would want to be my friend was to take advantage of my fame.

  This is important context. When I was thirteen, I was in an internationally beloved film called Stand by Me, and I was famous. Like, really famous. Like, can’t-go-to-the-mall-with-my-friends-without-getting-mobbed famous, and that meant that all of my actions were scrutinized by my parents, my peers, my fans, and the press. All the weird, anxious feelings I had all the time? I’d been raised to believe that they were shameful. That they reflected poorly on my parents and my family.* That they should be crammed down deep inside me, shared with nobody, and kept secret.

  My panic attacks happened daily and not just when I was asleep. When I tried to reach out to the adults in my life for help, they didn’t take me seriously. When I was on the set of a TV show or commercial, and I was having a hard time breathing because I was so anxious about making a mistake and getting fired? The directors and producers complained to my parents that I was being difficult to work with. When I was so uncomfortable with my haircut or my crooked teeth and didn’t want to pose for teen magazine photos, the publicists told me that I was being ungrateful and trying to sabotage my success. When I couldn’t remember my lines, because I was so anxious about things I can’t even recall now, directors would accuse me of being unprofessional and unprepared. And that’s when my anxiety turned into depression.

  (I’m going to take a moment for myself right now, and I’m going to tear a hole in the fabric of space-time and I’m going to tell all those adults from the past: Give this kid a break. He’s scared. He’s confused. He is doing the best he can, and if you all could stop seeing him as a way to put money into your pockets, maybe you could see that he’s suffering and needs help.)*

  I was miserable a lot of the time, and it didn’t make any sense. I was living a childhood dream, working on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and getting paid to do what I loved. I had all the video games and board games I ever wanted, and did I mention that I was famous?

  I struggled to reconcile the facts of my life with the reality of my existence. I knew something was wrong with me, but I didn’t know what. And because I didn’t know what, I didn’t know how to ask for help.

  I wish I had known that I had a mental illness that could be treated! I wish I had known that the way I felt wasn’t normal and it wasn’t necessary. I wish I had known that I didn’t deserve to feel bad, all the time.

  And I didn’t know those things, because mental illness was something my family didn’t talk about, and when they did, they talked about it like it was something that happened to someone else, and that it was something they should be ashamed of, because it was a result of something they did. This prejudice existed in my family in spite of the ample incidence of mental illness that ran rampant through my DNA, featuring successful and unsuccessful suicide attempts by my relations, more than one case of bipolar disorder, clinical depression everywhere, and, because of self-medication, so much alcoholism it was actually notable when someone didn’t have a drinking problem.

  Now, I don’t blame my parents for how they addressed—or more accurately didn’t address—my mental illness, because I genuinely believe they were blind to the symptoms I was exhibiting.* They grew up and raised me in the world I’ve spent the last decade of my life trying to change. They lived in a world where mental illness was equated with weakness, and shame, and as a result, I suffered until I was in my thirties.*

 

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