Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

Diabetes and Depression

Understanding those who are outwardly like us is difficult enough.  Understanding people who are significantly different from us is an almost impossible task.  Today I’m going to help you understand some Diabetics.  I wouldn’t dream of speaking for all of them.  We’re all unique, and all our struggles are our own.  No one shares all of them.  There are obstacles some face that others don’t.  But there are a few that are common to all of us.  And one struggle that Diabetics are more likely to face than other people is Depression. 

I did an episode about Diabetes and Depression combined with Autism about a year ago.  There is worthwhile information there, and I recommend reading or listening to it if this is an interesting topic for you.  The podcast and the blog post are linked in the transcript.

Diabetes and Depression and Autism, Oh My!

Diabetics are at least twice as likely to suffer from Depression as those who don’t have this chronic disease.  Why is this?  First, there may be neurological reasons involved.  It’s not just that we’re “feeling sorry for ourselves.” 

It’s thought that alterations in brain chemistry tied to diabetes may be related to the development of depression.  For example, damage resulting from diabetic neuropathy or blocked blood vessels in the brain may contribute to the development of depression in people with diabetes.

Conversely, changes in the brain due to depression may cause an increased risk for complications.  Studies have shown that people with depression are at higher risk for diabetes complications — but it hasn’t been determined if depression increases the risk for complications, or vice versa.

https://www.healthline.com/health/type-2-diabetes/depression#research

At the same time, there are elements of Diabetes, itself, that can cause Depression.  There is the undeniable fact that if we make a mistake, we can die.  That’s something those constructing a skyscraper must face, but when they’re done for the day, they can go home.  The stress is probably more intense, but it doesn’t last as long.  The possibility of dying is with us all day, every day.  The best we can hope for is to keep our Diabetes sufficiently well controlled that the stress becomes less intense.

The inescapable fact is that if we want to live, we become slaves to our Diabetes.  It demands choices we may not always want to make at any given moment.

There’s also a sense of alienation that can often accompany Diabetes.  We’re clearly different.  You don’t see it the way you would a broken leg or a scar on our face, but we’re the ones who are supposed to choose only the right foods to eat.  If we do, we look different from those around us.  If we don’t, we may get shamed for it.  This isn’t something I just invented. 

For example, people with type 2 diabetes intentionally choose unhealthy food because they do not want to refuse what is offered by others around them,15 or delay insulin dosing and blood glucose monitoring because they are concerned about the reactions of others.13 14 16

— https://drc.bmj.com/content/10/6/e003001

That shame, itself, can be deadly.  It was something with which I dealt successfully, I believe, almost immediately when I was diagnosed.  I was a teacher 30 years ago when my doctor tested my blood sugar and told me, as matter-of-factly as if she was telling me it might rain today in Seattle, that I was Diabetic.  I felt terror in that first moment.  My only experience with Diabetes at that point was seeing my best friend from high school, a Brittle Diabetic named David, flopping on the ground like a fish that had just been tossed on the deck of a boat.  I didn’t like the thought of that happening to me.  Although Diabetes has all but killed me nearly 2 dozen times, I’ve never had that experience.  I’m grateful for that.

Dave hid his Diabetes from most of his friends, or at least he tried.  His mother told me about it the first time I ever went to their house.  Dave acted like it was no big deal.  I think it embarrassed him.  Getting him to eat when he ought to was often a difficult task. 

When I was diagnosed, the first thing I did when I got back to school was tell everyone there.  All my colleagues knew.  I set up students whose job was to get the nurse and call 911 if I lost consciousness.  I was still enjoying being alive in those days.  I had no interest in dying.  I was still young and trying my best to be in love with my wife. 

I saw no reason to be embarrassed.  Neither should you.  We didn’t do something to become Diabetic.  Even if we did, there’s nothing to be done about it now, and we still deserve to live as long and as well as we can.  The list of things of which I’m ashamed is long, but having a disease isn’t on it. 

If you have Diabetic friends, please help them by understanding their Depression is almost certainly not self-pity.  It is both biological and situational.  There’s little they can do about it.  At the same time…

Diabetes often seems to be an invitation to the world to tell us how to live our lives.  These are good, caring people who love us.  We have to be grateful.  Nevertheless, it’s more than annoying.  We’re shamed for the choices we make, and if we don’t make the choices others would like us to make, we’re told it’s our own fault.  Their concern for us instantly evaporates.  It’s one more thing about which they never need to worry again. 

This is among the reasons I never leave my house.  At least if people on Facebook say such things, I have the option to ignore or delete it.  When they’re right in front of me, I’m required to listen, and I would rather leap off The Golden Gate Bridge than be told how to live my life.  I’m divorced… twice… and that’s probably a lot of the reason for my marital failures.

I’ve found a few things that help me deal with my Depression.  The first is to take stock of my situation in the most objective terms possible.  I ask myself the following questions:

  1.  Do I have a safe place to live? 

The answer to this is not always yes.  When I know I’m not in a safe place, I know where I need to focus the energy I still have left.  That always has to be our first priority.  Is there a way out?  Where can you go to be safe?  This is a difficult problem, and I don’t have an easy solution for you.  In my own case, I had friends who wouldn’t allow me to be in danger, and several of them worked together to get me here.  I always remember how lucky I am.  This is a big part of why I want to change the world.  No one should be required to live in a situation in which they feel they could be in jeopardy.

When the answer is yes, I can move on to the next question.  I like to stop, though, and take a moment to recognize how fortunate I am to have that much security.

  •  Do I have enough food to eat? 

    Again, the answer to this has not always been yes.  When I don’t have enough to eat, this has to be the next priority.  When you’re Diabetic, it’s not just a question of being hungry.  It’s a matter of life and death.  I’m fortunate that I have enough people in my life who love me so that I can usually solve this problem by asking someone for help. 

    Yes, it’s humiliating, but I remind myself that my friends would rather give me $100 than have to attend my Memorial, or if you’re my best friend, have to haul my dead body out of this house.  I don’t smell all that great in the best of times; I’m probably going to reek if I’ve been lying here dead for a couple of days.  $100 is a cheap price to pay for avoiding all that.

    If you have no one to ask for food, there are always charities available that will get you something to eat.  I understand how horrible it is to ask them for help, but sometimes there’s nothing else that can be done.  You’re not quite ready to die, yet.  There are still possibilities.  We don’t get to give up until we’ve exhausted all our options.
  • Do I have all the insulin and other medications I need to survive?

    This can be a more difficult problem to solve.  I don’t have a lot of friends who have insulin sitting in their refrigerator who can drop some off for me.  That said, one of The People on The Porch did exactly that when I was running out of Lantus.  I still don’t know how he worked it out, and I don’t need to know.  I just know I was grateful. 

    It can’t always be solved without enough money.  If prescriptions aren’t handled properly, insurance may not cover it.  Sometimes you need to hope you can find the cash to buy it.  Fortunately, a few companies are doing what they can to lower prices. 

    If you can’t obtain insulin any other way, it can come down to having to go to the Emergency Room before you fall into DKA.  They have to keep you alive whether you have money or not. 
  • Do I have a future beyond simply maintaining this meat sack I call a body?

    This is the one that makes the decision to keep going possible.  In my case, I know I can always write.  I know I can still make a little difference for someone, somewhere, and this is sufficient reason to keep going. 

    You can ask what it is you can still do in life that will matter.  I can’t tell you your purpose.  I promise you have one though.  Find that and move forward.

Another method for dealing with Depression is to accept its existence, recognize it’s a feeling just like any other, and know that, just like any other feeling, it will pass.  Sometimes it’s okay to wallow in it for a little while.  I’ve written some pretty good stuff when my Depression was at its peak.  And the act of writing helps defeat the lethargy that is a feature of Depression.

The last method I have is to find someone you can talk to about it.  One of the best people I know is frequently attacked by a sense of doom and despair.  She knows she can call me when that happens.  And she does.  And we get through it together.  I’m fortunate to have so many people in my life who love me and will talk to me when I need to get some of the sadness out.

If you’re Diabetic, keep in mind that you’re not alone.  There are more than half a billion of us running around.  You’re not the only one walking that tightrope.  There are people with whom you can talk, and there’s no more shame in medication or counseling for your Depression than there is in taking insulin or talking to your Diabetes Educator.  You wouldn’t walk a tightrope without professional guidance. 



Diabetes is a difficult disease to handle.  There are things we can do to help ourselves.  There are things others can do to help us.  Get the sort of help that’s right for you.  You’re still a valuable person.  You matter to others.  The world still needs whatever you have to contribute.  Just get through another night, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.  If no one else has told you today, it wouldn’t hurt to hear it from me.  I love you. 

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

Disability Is Not a Definition

I’m Disabled.  How disabled I am is open for debate.  There are those who claim my disabilities are insignificant.  There are those who think I am nothing but my disabilities.  This is probably the case for every disabled person.  People want us to fit into their neat little boxes.  Unfortunately, we can’t do that for you.  If disabled persons have nothing else in common, one thing we all share is that we are more than our diagnoses. 

There can be no doubt that I have physical disabilities.  I need both hands to stand up.  I become more worried about being able to do that every week or so.  My diabetes has all but destroyed my body.  I have to nap, ideally, every six hours.  When I get lost in my writing or my recording for the podcast, I might go as long as 9 hours.  After that, there’s more than a good chance I’m going to pass out at the computer.  If I don’t watch my blood sugar carefully, any day can be my last. 

I’m emotionally disabled.  I have a diagnosis of depression.  I fight it in all the ways I can.  Perhaps, however, I need to learn to accept it, as a friend of mine on Facebook suggested.  This is our conversation on that topic.

As you know Fred, all things come and go.  Including your depression.  Depression often includes certain thoughts that can be very compelling.  These thoughts, however compelling, are even more transient than the feelings of depression.  We are drawn further and further into the vortex the harder we struggle with these feeling and thoughts.  Stopping the struggle, ceasing doing battle with the demons of depression seems like the exact wrong thing to do, but it is also the best way of caring for yourself.  You may have to stop the struggle a thousand times, or ten thousand, but like anything the more you practice the more skilled you become.  This is the way I learned to dance with my depression.  If I feed it with my life energy by struggling with it, it gets stronger and stronger.  If I stop the war, it eventually burns itself out, just like any feeling or thought.

Take the best of care my friend.

Fred Eder

Name Deleted that’s the most difficult part of depression, I think.  I expect myself to be happy, and when I’m not I treat it as a problem to be solved instead of an experience that is a part of who I am.  I feel guilt about being unhappy.  I feel weak.  I feel cowardly.

I need, it seems, to accept it in the same way I accept diabetes or having blue eyes.  It simply exists.  There may be things to learn from the darkness if I would allow myself to live there without feeling the need to escape.

Name Deleted

Fred Eder It is absolutely normal to want to escape experience that is unpleasant – anything from a finger prick when you are testing your blood sugar to the deepest darkest abyss of depression – to push away that which is unpleasant and grasp at and pull in what is pleasant. We begin to learn this probably even before we leave the womb.  It is the hook that leads us to a lifetime of struggle trying to have more and more pleasant experiences.  Each experience ends to be replaced by new experience in the ceaseless flow of experience that is life.  Whether grasping onto pleasant experiences to extend the feelings of pleasure, or struggling, fighting, battling to push away pain (physical or emotional), the effects are the same.  It is an unending struggle to obtain something that is, by the very nature of existence itself, not possible.  All experience is transient – radically transient.  We have no control over any of it.  Influence – yes.  Control, never.  Your expectations (learned thoughts and ideas) for “happiness”, “guilt”, “feelings of weakness and cowardliness” keep you tied to the very thing you want to kill.  Like Ahab bound to the gigantic object of his hatred that is dragging him down into the abyss – Melville’s metaphor is perfect.  If we are trying to get rid of something unpleasant, we have to grapple with it, fight with it. The question is, can we simply relax the fierce desperate grasp we have on the object of our desire (yes, getting rid of the pain of depression is THE desire), and LET GO of it – NOT get rid of it.  Can we stop hating it?  Stop wanting it to go away?  Can we, just as you say, accept it as it is and not trying to make it go away?  And in your case, not punish yourself for having the experience?  Can you accept that depression IS a part of what you are?  Something that comes and goes like the other vast expanse of moments that make up your life.  What if Ahab was able to release his hatred of the white whale?  How would his life and the lives of so many others (including the whale) have been different?  Maybe the white whale would have continued to come into his life at times, but without his hatred, it would have likely journeyed on.

Perhaps some of the things you might learn from the darkness is self-acceptance – how to live there without feeling the need to escape.  These are HUGE lessons in and of themselves.  The kind that liberate us.

I suspect that I am somewhere on the Autism Spectrum, but no doctor has ever confirmed this.  I have many, but not all, of the symptoms.  I undoubtedly think differently than most people do.  I almost certainly don’t process emotions the way you do.  Something will bother me, and I will say nothing about it because I don’t want to burden anyone else.  It will just sit inside me, getting worse and worse, until finally I am forced to confront the feeling in some way.  There is debate over whether Autism is even a disability.  Google tells me it is considered a disability from both a medical and legal standpoint, if you have a doctor’s diagnosis.  One of our producers, Scott Knight, said this on my Facebook page.

Autism in the past was less of a disability and more of a weird neighbor who did strange things and didn’t talk much, but what they did do they did perfectly.  Autism with several comorbidities can be disabling no matter what the structure of society is.  Disability is a condition that leaves you physically, intellectually, emotionally, or in any other way disadvantaged to the point where it makes it difficult to impossible to function within the parameters society expects from you.  Some accommodations allow disabled people to still participate in society, but they rarely create the same ease of access that non-disabled people experience.  Some disabled people cannot participate in society no matter how many accommodations are made.

Accommodations for autistic people rarely help me with any of the things I struggle with.  I am disabled by society because I am autistic.

I believe I may also have Rejection Sensitivity Disorder.  I learned about this only in the last few months, but I exhibit all the symptoms I’ve been able to find associated with this condition on Google.  These are the symptoms I have found most frequently.

  • low self-esteem
  • avoidance of social settings
  • fear of failure
  • high expectations for self
  • frequent emotional outbursts after being hurt or rejected
  • feelings of hopelessness
  • approval-seeking behavior
  • anger and aggression in uncomfortable situations
  • anxiety

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria#symptoms:~:text=conditions%20which%20include%3A-,depression,anxiety,-Although%20symptoms%20of

I do my best to control the most negative aspects of this by avoiding any situation in which I may come in contact with another person who may feel hurt by my behavior.  I rarely, if ever, leave the home in which I live.  I get nervous when I take the trash out across the parking lot.  I went out to lunch with my best friend last month, and I needed several hours to recover from the fear I spent the whole-time masking.  I love her, and I almost never see her, so I was willing to pay this price.  I probably won’t do it again for quite some time. 

Here’s the thing about being disabled.  Many people believe it’s our own fault.  Part of this has to do with what is called “Just World Phenomenon.” 

In psychology, the just-world phenomenon is the tendency to believe that the world is just and that people get what they deserve. Because people want to believe that the world is fair, they will look for ways to explain or rationalize away injustice, often blaming the person in a situation who is actually the victim.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-just-world-phenomenon-2795304

Instead of recognizing that poverty isn’t a lack of character, or that failure to comply with a police officer shouldn’t be a death sentence, or that disabled people somehow deserve what has happened to us, many people will convince themselves they are immune to oppression, persecution, or any debilitating condition simply because they do all the right things.  Bad things happen only because someone did something wrong. 

The total tonnage of advice I have received about how to “cure” my depression and my diabetes would be enough to stun a team of oxen in their tracks.  If I would only do what they tell me, my problems would be gone.  They want to make me all better so they don’t have to deal with the fact that it could happen to them, too. 

I would have no objection if someone cured Diabetes tomorrow afternoon, but I’m not sure I want to change the rest of who I am.  I don’t really want to be someone else.  I’m sorry if someone is uncomfortable with who I am.

I will be the first to admit to a list of flaws that go on nearly endlessly.  I just named a few of them.  I’m different from you.  I don’t, however, think that makes me worse than you.  I don’t know that I need to be cured of my Autism, and the efforts made to cure me of my depression have been ineffective.  Prozac has the effect of numbing all my emotions.  I fear becoming sufficiently depressed that I finally end my life, but I’m not afraid of being dead.  I’m afraid of hurting others who, for reasons passing understanding, love me.  They’ve done nothing to deserve the pain that my demise will bring.  The price of love is always pain.  I just don’t want to charge you any earlier than necessary.    

Seth MacFarlane, in The Orville makes this point: “People who try to take their own lives are unable to distinguish the future from the present.  There is no problem so immense that it can’t be solved in time.”  The Orville is obviously an offshoot of Star Trek.  I don’t think anyone makes any effort to hide that fact. 

Although one of my friends said, rather smugly, that she doesn’t worship at the Altar of Roddenberry, I have no trouble saying that I do.  Star Trek is an effort to show us that the kind of world of which I dream could be a reality.  And Star Trek does its best to address disabilities intelligently.  Sometimes it does it very well.  Occasionally it misses. 

In the episode, “Loud As a Whisper,” a person who is deaf and mute is brought to The Enterprise to negotiate a peace treaty between two warring factions.  The legendary diplomat, Riva, uses a chorus of psychics who can hear his thoughts to express himself.  When the members of his chorus are killed, it appears all is lost.  As a deaf mute, he has no means of communicating with the aliens.  It is only when he decides to teach both sides sign language that the peace can be made.   His “disability” allows him to solve the problem. 

In the same episode, Riva asks Geordi LaForge if he resents being blind.  Geordi, of course, was born blind, and he uses a piece of technology called a VISOR that allows him to see, albeit in a different way than most people.  Geordi tells Riva he doesn’t resent it at all.  It’s part of who he is, and he likes himself.  There’s nothing to resent. 

In the episode, “The Masterpiece Society,” it’s Geordi’s blindness that allows him to save a planet that is going to be destroyed by a fragment from a disintegrated neutron star that is going to move too close to their planet.  Captain Picard wants to evacuate the human colony there.  The society, however, has been genetically engineered and selectively bred to ensure optimum efficiency and happiness for everyone.  There are no disabilities on Moab IV.  If they leave their planet, their society will fall apart.  Geordi uses the same technology in his VISOR to devise a way to move the fragment and save the planet.  He finds it ironic that his disability allowed him to save a planet on which someone like him never could have been born in the first place. 

A disability doesn’t define who someone is.  It’s merely a part of us. 

We’ve all been brought up in a society that finds disability distasteful.  Sometimes we look at someone with pity when we see them in a wheelchair.  When we do, we are seeing only that one part of them.  We’re missing the rest.  Stephen Hawking did some remarkable things from a wheelchair using an adaptive device to allow him to communicate.  While I don’t envy him his disabilities, I absolutely admire his extraordinary contributions to the world.  The same can be said of Helen Keller.  

It’s easy to miss the fact that I’m disabled.  For a depressed, Autistic, diabetic who suffers from RSD, I seem exceptionally capable.  I write, record, score, and Horace a podcast every week.  I communicate with people on Facebook, and from time to time, on the phone.  I seem fine.  Thank you for that assessment.  I’m grateful that you can overlook my disabilities. 

I don’t believe they detract from what I do.  I believe they make it possible.  First, from a strictly financial point of view, there would be no way I could do this show if I had to work 40 or more hours a week just to pay rent.  My Disability check is tiny, and it keeps me from getting a job, assuming a job for which I could get paid even existed.  If I tried to work a 40-hour week at anything other than what I do, I would certainly be dead within a month.  You’d be surprised how few employers want a worker who needs to nap every six hours. 

They also make it possible from the Artistic point of view.  My depression is the author of “Horace’s Final Five.”  My experiences have made me into the man to whom you are currently listening.  My social disabilities have helped me to learn empathy.  I know what it’s like to be ridiculed for being different.  My insecurities help me to imagine how others may feel when they’re abused in some way for being different from the norm.  One of the reasons I argue so passionately and so frequently for the rights of marginalized groups is because I am a member of so many of them.  That sounds odd coming from a straight white male, but there is more to me, and to you, than conditions we never chose.

I’m also socially awkward, at the very best.  I’m a member of that group.  We’re easy targets, and we have to tolerate the laughter at our expense. 

I’m also a member of the group that can’t deal with rejection.  It’s easy to say we’re melodramatic, and for this reason we are not to be taken seriously.  But just as a lost Teddy Bear would mean almost nothing to most adults, to a 3-year-old it can be as devastating as the loss of a family pet.  The fact that other people don’t experience the world in the same way we do doesn’t mean their experiences are to be discarded.  The suffering is real.

I’m not, however, a member of the most notable marginalized groups.  I’m White.  That eliminates me from a vast number of marginalized groups.  I’m straight, and I have never felt the need to change my gender.  I’m also male.  My disabilities are nothing compared to those who are oppressed in groups of which I have never been a part.

That’s a fair point.  It’s also irrelevant.  It’s Whataboutism.  It implies that because other things are worse than my disabilities, mine don’t count.  I should stop complaining.  I’m actually not complaining about my life, though.  While there are many elements of it that suck, it’s mine to do with as I see fit in the time I have left to me.  Many people’s lives are better.  Many others are worse. 

I like to think I can feel empathy for those who are oppressed because, even though I’ve never experienced the specific abuses they must endure, I have an understanding of what it feels like to be mistreated for things that aren’t your fault.  I do what I can to stand up for them whenever possible.  I would like all people to live lives that are free from unwarranted judgments, and in which all their basic needs are met.  I would like mine to be the bottom of the scale instead of anyone being worse off than I am.   I work for that in all the ways I can. 

What would I like you to do?  I can’t speak for all disabled people.  My experience with disability is mine.  Other people’s experiences are different.  It seems to me, however, that the best thing we can do is to accept people as they are.  Try not to be repelled by variations.  Embrace them.  Celebrate them.  Recognize the richness of experience that comes from us all being so different from each other.  Don’t ridicule those who aren’t as attractive, or as intelligent, or as athletic, or as quick-witted, or who can’t walk, or see, or hear, or feel the same way you do.  Recognize our unique circumstances grant unique perspectives.  The more ways we see the world, the more paths open up for us to find meaning and Truth in the world. 

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations will create a painting of the world that is more beautiful, more honest, and more complete than anything we can produce while seeing through our single lens.  Before you hate someone, ask yourself what it must be like to be them.  Try your best to feel for those you normally reject.  This is how we will create the world in which everyone is loved, respected, happy, and alive all at the same time.  Isn’t that what we all really want?

And yes, I still love you.

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

Diabetes and Depression and Autism, Oh My!

I don’t speak for everyone with diabetes, but I suspect this is true for many of us.

I have to make a conscious choice every day to stay alive. If I don’t choose to eat, my blood sugar will drop too low, I will go into a quiet coma, and I will die.  If I eat too much, my blood sugar will skyrocket, I will go into Diabetic Ketoacidosis, and I, again, will die.

There are, sometimes, if I’m lucky, days when my body will continue to function without direct input from me.  But most days I have to ask myself, “Do I want to continue to live?”

This seems like a simple question. Everyone wants to continue to live, don’t they?

People who suffer from depression often don’t see any point in prolonging their existence.  Life becomes, even when nothing bad is happening, unbearably bleak.  The temptation to forego the effort is sometimes nearly irresistible.

I ask myself every night before bed if I really want to wake up in the morning.  I have to search for something to make tomorrow sound more desirable than letting go.

This week, it has been creating Art that made me decide I wanted another day. There was something beautiful and exciting to accomplish.

Sometimes, I honestly have no real reason to say I want to see tomorrow.  I simply won’t do anything to make that happen.  I won’t actively seek death, but I won’t actively fight it, either.

When all else fails, I remind myself of the Love I have in my life.  No, I don’t have a woman to love me in that deep sort of way so many of us prize so highly.  But there are people who can be kind from time to time.  There is the chance that my “Rhiannon” will click love on something I post.  There is the possibility that someone will tell me how much they love my Art.  There may be something more I can create, which is my greatest act of love.

For the past several weeks, someone has been kind to me.  She’s given me a reason to choose to stay alive.

It’s worth remembering, sometimes, that the little, insignificant things you do may actually save a life.

Many of you have saved mine.

Thus, we see my blood sugar below.  (106) It was 426 this morning.  That’s perilously close to DKA time.

Someone made me want to live, and I worked hard to get it where it is now.

— Fred’s Facebook, April 29, 2022, 10 PM

Depression is a significant part of who I am.  It is no different or less life threatening than Diabetes.  It’s less controllable than my blood sugar.  I can take appropriate steps and test my blood sugar and get verifiable numbers to guide my choices about how much insulin to take or how much food to eat.  I can’t do that with my depression.  I’ve had it for long enough that I am getting better at detecting its onset.  I will sometimes take steps to put it off.  When I feel myself being needlessly tired, or when I am feeling sad even though there’s nothing wrong, I will push myself toward a brain cleaning activity.  I’ll listen to some music.  I’ll pack and light a bowl.  I will seek out Speedy Shine to cuddle me.  If it’s really bad, I will try to talk to someone.  There are only 3 people, other than my mother, with whom I regularly communicate.  One of them is someone with whom I can discuss my show.  One will listen to me talk about my life, but I have to pay a toll of sixty minutes of hearing why her relationship is failing again before I can get to how I’m feeling.  The third is someone I’m supposed to be helping, but she will rescue me when I’m too far down.  She needs much healing.  I do my best to help.  The one person who is anxious to discuss my depression doesn’t exist in a physical form.  I refer to him as my Prosecutor.  He’s the voice in my head that knows every stupid thing I’ve ever done, and he’s fond of reminding me of them, particularly when depression is creeping in the window.  He urges me to end the fight to stay alive.  Inevitably, he will win.  I just try my best to keep him at bay for as long as possible.  People who love me (and there are many more of them than I could possibly deserve) love to tell me he’s a liar.  I’m grateful to those people.  Sadly, he’s not a liar.  He’s entirely correct in every assertion he makes, and he has the evidence to back up his claims.  He makes a cameo appearance in the final episode of “Universe Selectors, Incorporated,” and he has his own episode in “The Prosecution Never Rests.” 

Those are conditions with which I am familiar.  I learned about a new one last week. 

When the final episode of “Universe Selectors” failed to move my best friend, I was devastated.  She loves “The Velveteen Rabbit,” and I made a point of leaving it pure, not playing with the voices at all so I could return her to that feeling one more time.  And she didn’t get it.  I failed.  I plunged into the deepest and darkest depression I have experienced since my father died 12 years ago. 

Several things were at work here.  First, there was something akin to what I suspect postpartum depression must be.  (I have a Facebook Friend who says I shouldn’t compare my feelings to postpartum depression.  Fortunately, she appears on my page only when she has a criticism to make, and I’m convinced she doesn’t listen to this show.  Such people annoy me.  I promise you I will never tell you you’re not allowed an opinion or to imagine something because you’re female, or in some other way different from me.)  I had created and delivered something beautiful to the world, just as a mother does.  The effort left me physically and emotionally drained.  The fact that it was over left me empty.  I was, at that moment, particularly vulnerable to depression.  The rejection I felt was intensified a hundred-fold. 

To be clear, my best friend did nothing wrong.  Not everyone likes everything.  There are people who don’t like The Beatles, and there are those who think Eminem is superior to Beethoven.  I disagree, but, to each their own.  She doesn’t think Aaron Sorkin is a great writer.  I shouldn’t take her opinions of my Art personally, or even seriously (if you don’t like Aaron Sorkin, we’re unlikely to see eye to eye about Art), but that night I did.  I decided to give up my show.  I was a failure.  I was worthless.  I didn’t even need to continue to suck up everyone else’s oxygen.  The Prosecutor was about to win his battle to end my life. 

This is a Facebook exchange between myself and a good friend:

The people who heard it have been entirely unmoved.  I don’t understand.  I guess it was… I don’t know.  It failed to move anyone is all.

Fred Eder did someone say that directly?  Because I am seeing several likes.  3 of them.  That is a good amount of likes considering the metrics of your audience you’ve previously shared.  The ratio matches what is typically seen.  You also have an audience who returns rather faithfully to hear your work.  It seems as though the prosecutor might be telling you untrue things.

That makes sense when you have obviously put a lot into this project.  You’re emotionally depleted and overexcited.  That’s the perfect time for the prosecutor to swoop in like the asshat it is and tell you all sorts of horrible shit.  Specifically rejection sensitivity dysphoria shit.  Don’t listen to that.

You made something you’re proud of.  We will listen when we have the ability.  We will like it (I have no doubts, I liked the last couple I just need to set a good chunk of uninterrupted time so I can listen to all 3 and digest them), we may or may not comment depending on where WE – YOUR AUDIENCE- are in our own heads.  We are your audience, though.

Breathe.  Rest.  Give us time.

I had never heard the term Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria before.  I decided I needed to learn more about it.  My friend, Jenn, sent me a TikTok video describing it.  That helped me.  I did a google search to learn more.  This is what I found:

There appears to be a connection between rejection sensitive dysphoria and ADHD or autism.

This isn’t to suggest that people with these conditions will develop rejection sensitivity.  Instead, having either condition is a risk factor…

This neurodevelopmental disorder affects the nervous system and triggers a variety of symptoms.  Autistic children or adults may have difficulty communicating and socializing, and sometimes they have difficulty understanding the actions of others.

They might also deal with emotional dysregulation and hypersensitivity to physical and emotional stimuli.  As a result, any real or perceived feelings of rejection or criticism can cause them to become overwhelmingly upset.

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria#adhd-and-autism

I dealt with Rejection Dysphoria once that I can remember, a couple of years ago.  My roommate was about to chew me out once again, and my tension was so high that when she started, I exploded.  I screamed at her, and I left the house through the back door.  I found a spot about 200 yards from the house, and I sat down in the grass.  I remained there for 5 hours.  My roommates called the police to make sure I was all right.  I was breaking no laws.  The officers were polite, made sure I wasn’t a threat to anyone else or to myself, and they left.  I didn’t know what it was then.  I think I understand a little better now.  It may have been Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, or it might have been Autism.  Perhaps it was both.

I have no medical diagnosis of Autism, but I am convinced I am, in fact, Autistic.  I’ve done a good episode about this already, in which I point out that a lot of the reason I am so drawn to Star Trek is because, without necessarily intending to do so, they have brought autistic characters to life, and I identify with them deeply.  Spock, Data, and Reginald Barclay are the easiest examples.  They all feel alienated from the rest of the world.  They can’t deal with human beings as effectively as others do.  They don’t understand how all of you process emotions.  Neither do I. 

I have learned to deal with all of these conditions by simply refusing to leave the house unless it’s absolutely unavoidable.  The woman with whom I am quietly and unassumingly in love (no, I’m not going to tell you who she is.  It might embarrass her, and my feelings for her are much deeper than hers for me) calls these my self-imposed limitations.  I don’t think they are self-imposed, any more than my diabetes is.  I think they are the only way I can deal with the world.  People don’t understand how I can be in love with someone I would be terrified of meeting in person.  I don’t understand how I could be in love with someone in any other way. 

My greatest asset is my imagination.  I think you saw what I could do with it a couple of weeks ago.  I included a sequence with a coffee cup in USI to show how my imagination works.  Once Horace could make the coffee real, he could move into another universe.  No, I will never be in the physical presence of the woman with whom I believe myself to be in love, but I don’t need to be.  I can make things almost real in my imagination.

I deal with this massive set of emotional differences by staying inside my house.  I occasionally visit the backyard.  Once a month, and only because I have to, I leave the house for 15 minutes to get cigarettes.  Otherwise, I’m here, alone, where I can’t hurt anybody, and nobody can hurt me. 

So, why am I telling you all of this?  First, I hope you’ll understand me a little better.  Since, however, unless you’re one of the three people with whom I willingly communicate, you don’t need to understand me any better, it seems to be pointless… but it’s not.  I feel sure you know people who live with Diabetes, or Depression, or Autism, or Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria.  You may have some of these conditions, yourself. 

My hope is that you will understand these conditions a little better so you can be kinder to yourself or to those you love who are a little different from the rest of the world.  We’re not evil.  We’re not childish.  We’re just different.  It’s okay to be different.  I intend to continue to be different.  I am a mess, but I can still love myself.  You or those you love may also be a mess.  You can still love them.  I know because, for reasons passing understanding, people manage to love me.  Tonight was about letting those people know a little more about who it is they love, and who it is that loves them.  And yes.  I do love you.

Posted on by Fred · 1 Comment

What You Probably Don’t Know About Poverty

I believe it is difficult to understand poverty until you’ve actually lived it. Reading about it is usually insufficient. You can’t really understand it until you are hours away from homelessness. You don’t get it until you aren’t sure what you’re going to eat, and you’re excited you managed to get a quart of milk so you can survive on cereal a little longer. You don’t conceive it properly until you’re forced to live with others, do all the housework, and pray to a God in whom you don’t even believe, that they don’t throw you out because you can’t possibly survive on the money you can make.

When you have to humiliate yourself twice a year at DES, you begin to understand. When you are doing your third GoFundMe, and being called an Online Panhandler, your understanding begins to dawn. When the car you had paid off gets repossessed because you had to borrow money on it, at obscene interest rates, to pay rent for one more month, your understanding deepens.

When it becomes month after month, year after year, you understand. When friends and relatives tell you what is wrong with you repeatedly because you don’t have enough money, you understand how poverty really feels.

It isn’t just hoping that things get better. It’s the fear that comes when they do. You realize this is almost certainly going to be followed by The Fuckening. It’s that unexpected catastrophe for which you had no opportunity to prepare. It always looms just around the corner. Your $750 car breaks down. Someone ends up in the hospital, and that costs work time, and that’s less money you have next month.

The Fuckening is when, just when you finally are making it, and you have enough money to make it this month, your landlord sells your house, and you have to find a new one in which to live. It’s when they hit you with a $140 bill you didn’t know you had so you can’t pay rent that last month, and they won’t take a partial payment because they’re a corporation and not a person. It’s when you have to beg your best friend’s boyfriend to rent you his old house because your credit is so horrible that no one else on the planet will, and now that you didn’t pay your last month’s rent, you’ll never get a decent reference when you do apply. Poverty is when you don’t even dare to apply because it’s a non refundable $165 for the three of you. You can’t afford to lose a bet and your odds are lousy. Poverty is paying $1400 a month for a 2 bedroom house that’s not worth more than $1100 a month. You have to pay that price, though, because it’s the only deal anyone is willing to make.

Poverty is having to show a friend your budget and pay 50% interest on a 3 day loan so you can put gas in your car. Poverty is your roommate getting chewed out by the cashier at Wal Mart because she’s using food stamps. It’s being belittled for not working hard enough, even when she works 40 to 50 hours a week, and she still can’t make ends meet. It’s when she gets to be humiliated by a cashier who is somehow, evidently, not on food stamps herself, because she must have some other source of income, and she needs to be better than somebody, and your roommate will do just fine. Sure, you can get her manager to chew the cashier out, and explain that’s not how she should treat her customers, but the damage is still done. And you can’t help but feel sorry for that cashier.

They say Poverty can actually reduce IQ due to all the stress and anxiety. I like to think I’m no stupider than when I had almost enough money to live alone. But the longer I live in it, the slower I become. I feel a little less worthy, each day, and I have to keep reminding myself I’m doing the best I can. I have to try to stay out of the hospital. I have to remind myself that choosing not to eat and taking 50 units of insulin is not really the answer, no matter how tempting it sounds. It’s wrong to make someone wish they didn’t love you so they could have been spared the pain of your demise.

The more you try to change the world, and the more you fail, the more you feel as though you really are as worthless as the Marketplace says you are.

Sometimes, if you write about it, it helps a little. Not much… but a little. And when you live in poverty, a little is all you can ever hope to get.