So Long, Spuddy
Mar. 9th, 2004 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonI was very sad to hear of the death of Spalding Gray. Two months ago I heard that he'd disappeared and it didn't look good, but it was sad to hear yesterday that they'd fished his body out of the East River. Maybe it's some kind of relief for his family to finally know the worst so they can start to deal with it, but that seems kind of like something outsiders think while watching a family in crisis. I keep thinking of his three little kids and how devastating it's going to be for them to grow up without a father.
I loved his work. My friends and I would go see him whenever we got the chance. My favorite venue was an intimate theater at UCLA where actor and audience are real close, maybe ten or fifteen feet away from each other. That close to Spalding Gray, it was like sitting around after dinner listening to a remarkable and gifted friend tell you about the extraordinary thing that happened to him just the other day. He could entrance you with the fluidity of his thought and expression, his weird and wonderfully skewed humor, his odd and touching perceptions. Those intimate talks of his gave me a real sense of bonding.
Of course, I know that what I saw was persona, that I don't really know Spalding Gray or his family, but there was something so personal and magic about his monologues that gave me this wonderful sense of a shared journey. My friends and I took to calling him Spuddy because in one of his monologues (Gray's Anatomy?) he mentioned that his mother used to call him that, and because we felt enormous affection for him.
And I can't help thinking about the razor's edge many artists walk. There's a fine line sometimes between creativity and the darker aspects of the mind. A number of artists, like Spuddy, have bipolar disease; others (in my experience) seem to live closer to the edge of depression then the rest of the population. I've spent my times on the dark side, but fortunately my meds have been regulated for the past several years and I'm pretty well balanced.
No, I'm not bipolar. My thyroid went wonky several years back, eventually went cancerous and I had to have it yanked out. I've been cancer free for several years now. Knock wood... After the yanking out, it was a process of getting the synthetic thyroid hormone dosage right. The thyroid gland has something important to say about every major function in the body and if the hormone isn't right, your mind and emotions can rollercoaster in really nasty ways.
Combined with that rollercoaster, I was seeing a charlatan doctor for another problem who didn't listen when I told him I was spiraling into depression. He put me on absolutely the worst medicine he could have, just exacerbating the problem. It was the only time in my life when I seriously thought about suicide. It's just not part of my usual personality makeup to do away with myself—just not me. But there was one night there in the midst of that atrocious chemical soup when—if I'd had an easy means to do it—I have no doubt in my mind—even sitting here on a sunny day, balanced, and thinking life is pretty good—no doubt that I really would have done it. I just didn't want to go on. I wanted my life to end right there.
Fortunately, the apathy that is often a major accompaniment to depression was just as strong as the urge to die. The effort involved in getting dressed and leaving the house, finding a means to end it all, just seemed like too much trouble. I compromised by going to bed and praying that I didn't wake up.
All things considered, I'm glad no one listened to that prayer. I'm glad my better angel put his arm around my shoulders and said, "This isn't you talking. It's bad chemistry and this will all seem better by-and-by." I'm glad I woke up. I also got help almost immediately after that because it scared the crap out of me. I went to another doctor, explained what was happening, and she took me off of the bad medicine. Within a few weeks, the depression was gone, all thoughts of suicide gone. I didn't go back to the charlatan doctor. I haven't had a really bad patch of bad chemistry since, but I'm acutely aware of that razor's edge we walk, how a little chemical tweak here and a little tweak there can send our systems seriously out of whack and our emotions out of control.
Spuddy wasn't so lucky. I heard they were trying to adjust his meds but were having trouble getting it right. Bipolar is really tough that way. And when he got on that ferry there was no one to put an arm around his shoulders and say, "It's just bad chemistry, Spuddy." Or maybe there was and he was too tired to listen anymore, too tired of fighting it. No one will ever know, I suppose—certainly not an outsider like me. Did the East River, that broad avenue of bodies for over two hundred years, seem to him like a metaphor for his life? Or the perfect metaphor for his death? Or was it just easy, just there, no reason in his tortured mind and tired spirit not to do it finally, to go to sleep and never wake up?
It's certainly not for me to say. I just hope he's finally found a peaceful sleep.
I loved his work. My friends and I would go see him whenever we got the chance. My favorite venue was an intimate theater at UCLA where actor and audience are real close, maybe ten or fifteen feet away from each other. That close to Spalding Gray, it was like sitting around after dinner listening to a remarkable and gifted friend tell you about the extraordinary thing that happened to him just the other day. He could entrance you with the fluidity of his thought and expression, his weird and wonderfully skewed humor, his odd and touching perceptions. Those intimate talks of his gave me a real sense of bonding.
Of course, I know that what I saw was persona, that I don't really know Spalding Gray or his family, but there was something so personal and magic about his monologues that gave me this wonderful sense of a shared journey. My friends and I took to calling him Spuddy because in one of his monologues (Gray's Anatomy?) he mentioned that his mother used to call him that, and because we felt enormous affection for him.
And I can't help thinking about the razor's edge many artists walk. There's a fine line sometimes between creativity and the darker aspects of the mind. A number of artists, like Spuddy, have bipolar disease; others (in my experience) seem to live closer to the edge of depression then the rest of the population. I've spent my times on the dark side, but fortunately my meds have been regulated for the past several years and I'm pretty well balanced.
No, I'm not bipolar. My thyroid went wonky several years back, eventually went cancerous and I had to have it yanked out. I've been cancer free for several years now. Knock wood... After the yanking out, it was a process of getting the synthetic thyroid hormone dosage right. The thyroid gland has something important to say about every major function in the body and if the hormone isn't right, your mind and emotions can rollercoaster in really nasty ways.
Combined with that rollercoaster, I was seeing a charlatan doctor for another problem who didn't listen when I told him I was spiraling into depression. He put me on absolutely the worst medicine he could have, just exacerbating the problem. It was the only time in my life when I seriously thought about suicide. It's just not part of my usual personality makeup to do away with myself—just not me. But there was one night there in the midst of that atrocious chemical soup when—if I'd had an easy means to do it—I have no doubt in my mind—even sitting here on a sunny day, balanced, and thinking life is pretty good—no doubt that I really would have done it. I just didn't want to go on. I wanted my life to end right there.
Fortunately, the apathy that is often a major accompaniment to depression was just as strong as the urge to die. The effort involved in getting dressed and leaving the house, finding a means to end it all, just seemed like too much trouble. I compromised by going to bed and praying that I didn't wake up.
All things considered, I'm glad no one listened to that prayer. I'm glad my better angel put his arm around my shoulders and said, "This isn't you talking. It's bad chemistry and this will all seem better by-and-by." I'm glad I woke up. I also got help almost immediately after that because it scared the crap out of me. I went to another doctor, explained what was happening, and she took me off of the bad medicine. Within a few weeks, the depression was gone, all thoughts of suicide gone. I didn't go back to the charlatan doctor. I haven't had a really bad patch of bad chemistry since, but I'm acutely aware of that razor's edge we walk, how a little chemical tweak here and a little tweak there can send our systems seriously out of whack and our emotions out of control.
Spuddy wasn't so lucky. I heard they were trying to adjust his meds but were having trouble getting it right. Bipolar is really tough that way. And when he got on that ferry there was no one to put an arm around his shoulders and say, "It's just bad chemistry, Spuddy." Or maybe there was and he was too tired to listen anymore, too tired of fighting it. No one will ever know, I suppose—certainly not an outsider like me. Did the East River, that broad avenue of bodies for over two hundred years, seem to him like a metaphor for his life? Or the perfect metaphor for his death? Or was it just easy, just there, no reason in his tortured mind and tired spirit not to do it finally, to go to sleep and never wake up?
It's certainly not for me to say. I just hope he's finally found a peaceful sleep.
Found Ya!
Date: 2004-03-15 01:45 pm (UTC)Tara