The Upside of Down: A Comic Deals With Depression

Diana deRegnier © 2006

In 1995, Brian Wetzel was a stand-up comedian booked in 10 states. He has taught comedy traffic school for the Improv Comedy Club. He has lectured on a wide range of issues including public safety, social justice and personal growth. Brian has led regional camps for teens, youth and adults. Brian Wetzel has also battled depression for 30 years. Since September 2004 Brian has been touring the West Coast with his autobiographical one man show “Side By Side: A Journey With Depression -- a funny look at serious survival.”

Elena Alioto of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill says, “Brian’s show candidly transports you to the intimate recesses of his mind amid his turbulent struggles with clinical depression. He will bring you laughter, grief, compassion and hope while touching the depths of your very soul. After seeing Brian’s shows you will never think of mental illness in the same way again.”

Brian begins the show telling us the 5 things you should never say to a depressed person:

I know just how you feel.

How are you (unless you really want to hear)?

Snap out of it! You don’t tell someone in a diabetic coma to snap out of it, do you?

Quit whining. Brian adds that he quit whining at forty.

You’re thinking about it too much.

Brian quickly banishes another myth by saying, “I wish I could blame this on my parents . . . but I did not have depression as a child.” Furthermore, the voices he hears are not like the voices that tell someone to hit a cop. He calls his voices Fraidie Cat Frankie, Sammy the Self-Loather and Damn It All Dean. They are judgmental, degrading and cynical.

Brian evokes the unrelenting feeling of someone lurking behind him. “I felt like I had to sneak up on my days to get through them. He led a double life always wanting to be a competent adult. He attended four colleges in 15 years believing, “As long as I was in school I could avoid confronting my demons another semester.” Brian tried to outrun paranoia, anger, guilt and lethargy with Prozac, caffeine and pot. His only girlfriend, Mary Jane (euphemism) dulled his pain but gave him no forward movement, “and that’s what I needed.” Brian finally realized, too, "there is no such thing as good stoner to stoner advice.”

“So tired of being scared and so scared of being tired,” Brian called a 24 hour crisis line, but after being put on hold, then given eight push button options, he drove to a clinic and checked himself in. With whatever had been stalking him for 20 years, he was determined to make eye contact. “We’re going to walk side by side from now on.”

In the waiting room, Brian filled out the lengthy paperwork with great care to not appear crazy. “Especially to the guy next to me arguing with an orange.” I got the feeling if he’d known the intake physician had a charming French accent to match her demeanor he’d have arrived sooner.

Brian’s psychiatrist looked like John Lennon. He wore small, round, wire-framed glasses and an orange print vest. “We can work it out,” ran through Brian’s mind. “Doctor, I surrender! I’ll do whatever you want.”

“The real work is going to have to come from you,” the wise man said, then talked with Brian about his diet, exercise, and medications. “Will you take St. John’s Wart?” He asked.

“I’ll take any skin condition St John has,” Brian told him.

With carefully monitored medications and talk therapy Brian has been given tools for his journey. “I still don’t know when it’s going to hit or how bad it’s going to be. It means feeling bad as well as feeling good. Surviving and striving and moving forward. I’ve learned the difference between a marijuana high and a yoga high is that after an hour a fly on the wall is not fascinating.”

Asked what one should say to a depressed person, Brian’s best answer was to listen. And, as the caregiver, realize that your role is hard and frustrating, and take care of yourself. His other advice was to get the person moving. Brian stressed that the most dangerous thing for him to do is to stay in bed. “I try hard to get some perspective and I can’t get it there.” The best thing, he suggests, “is stepping out the front door. Brian tells us not to try to solve anything, don’t analyze, don’t try to get over it. His favorite therapy is to go to the Epiphany Music Store in Santa Rosa, where the philosophy is please touch and play the banjo, bongos, the didgeridoo.

Though it is not part of the show, Brian told me “My spirituality and my relationship with God is part of what keeps me afloat, part of what makes me believe in what I’m doing; and it’s part of the strength that gets me up and moving forward each day.”

In “Side By Side” Brian reminds us that some of our favorite people in history were depressed: Hemingway, Poe, Plath, Van Gough. More current celebrities who have publicly revealed their struggle have included Mike Wallace, Buzz Aldrin, Sting, Charlie Pride, Lorraine Bracco, Ben Stiller, Tipper Gore and Barbara Bush. References found easily on the internet go on for pages more.

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Diana deRegnier lives in Mill Valley, CA. She is webmaster of www.spiritlinksnews.org. Diana leads the Living Well with Chronic Pain and Illness Support Group; she has co-led Grief's Garden Workshops; and is writing a memoir about healing her childhood. Diana's weekly column SpiritLinks appears on United Press International Religion & Spirituality at www.religionandspirituality.com.

This article is posted on United Press International as

The upside of down: a comic deals with depression

Commentary: SpiritLinks

By Diana deRegnier

Feb 20 2006 12:54PM

The funny thing is, there is no upside. Brian Wetzel - stand-up comic and victim of depression, was determined to make eye contact with whatever had been stalking him for 20 years. "We're going to walk side by side from now on," he told his illness.