An excerpt from The Problem with Men.
Gary could tell something was wrong the moment he saw me. “Come in, friend,” he said, his voice gentle. He guided me into the kitchen, a cozy, older space similar to the one in my apartment across the street, but his was painted a cheerful light yellow. After rummaging through a cabinet, he returned with a joint and lit it without hesitation.
“Here,” he said, passing it to me.
I hadn’t seen much of him during the summer and fall, not since I dropped out of medical school. He’d thrown a party that I’d attended, but it was all a blur now. The only thing I remembered was the feeling of being an outsider. One of the CIPA guys had asked, “So, what’s happening?” and I had sarcastically replied, “You’re asking me?” I was too out of it to grasp what was going on, and the guy had laughed nervously before walking away.
Gary sat across from me, placing his hands gently over mine. “Lay it on me, Ron.”
“I’m such a failure,” I confessed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I hate everything and everyone, including myself. The world would be better off without me. I’m scared I might do something that can’t be undone.”
“Why don’t you stay here, my friend,” he said with warmth and understanding. He was the best kind of friend—gracious, compassionate. “We’ll get you set up, help you out, watch over you, keep you safe, and give you what you need to recover.”
He and Nancy embraced me as if I were a beloved child, setting up a cot in their garage. They checked on me daily, offering whatever help they could. But I remember little else from that time. Days blurred into each other. Nothing excited me. Nothing interested me. Even the smallest of tasks felt impossible.
What did depression feel like? For me, it was an endless swirl of despair, despondency, and self-directed anger. People often say depression is anger turned inward, and that was certainly true for me. I was my harshest critic. But most fundamentally, I had lost faith in myself—the very thing that had carried me through my difficult childhood.
On my worst days, I couldn’t get out of bed. On better days, I managed to push past the inertia. “Come on, Ron,” I’d mutter to myself. “Open your damn eyes. Why can’t you do the simplest of things? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
It took everything I had just to roll over and put my feet on the floor.
Lowell drove to San Francisco to visit. His long hair, scraggly beard, and tie-dye shirt screamed counterculture, but something about him seemed off—really off. His sentences meandered aimlessly, with little connection between them, and I struggled to keep up. The only thing I could gather was his love for acid. LSD was the one topic he kept returning to, but he was higher than anyone I had ever seen, even at the free clinic where I’d helped hippies come down from bad trips. I wondered if he was in worse shape than I was, and that thought depressed me even more.
With encouragement from Gary and Nancy, I shuffled outdoors. The air felt heavy, the sky dim, and my negativity followed me wherever I went. At the end of Haight Street, just before Hippy Hill, there was a busy road—Stanyan Street.
Cars zoomed past, filled with people who had real, meaningful lives. They were on their way to work, or maybe to have fun. They were happy. They weren’t failures.
I watched them groggily, waiting for the right moment to step forward. But then I thought, why wait? What was the point?
I strode toward Hippy Hill without bothering to look up, wondering how it would feel when it was all over. I took another step. Then another. Soon. It would happen soon.
The screeching tires were deafening, the sounds loud and grating. Horns blared, and the scent of burnt rubber filled the air.
“You stupid motherfucker!” someone screamed.
I took another step.
More squealing tires, more angry shouts from motorists.
Another step.
I refused to look up. It would be over soon. It had to be. I longed for darkness, nothingness, a void—relief.
Cars idled behind me, their engines warming my back.
“What’s wrong with him?” someone asked. “Why is he standing there?”
“Who fucking cares? He’s an idiot,” another person yelled. “Dude, get out of the street!”
Another step. And another.
Suddenly, there was grass under my shoes. Somehow, I had made it to the other side. Somehow. But why was I still here? Why hadn’t I died? Why didn’t someone put me out of my misery?
I climbed the hill, sat down, and pulled out a joint. I smoked, but it brought no pleasure. I was a failure at everything, even at ending my life.
Ronald F. Levant is a professor emeritus of psychology and author of The Problem with Men.
