Tag: depression

You Can’t Go Back Part 4: A Goofy Musing

by Saintmort

A video was circulating of a man cosplaying as Powerline at Wondercon last week. I shared it on my Facebook wall which lead to a friend sending me the following video.

This reminded me of another video I saw of someone re-enacting the opening scene from A Goofy Movie. It made me realize that every time I met someone who liked Goofy Movie we’d both get excited and geek out that we both knew it existed.

Here’s the weird thing about it though… almost everyone I know has seen and loved this movie. I’ve noticed the same situation come up with the movie Heavyweights (which is also great). It seems that every person between the ages of 22 and 35 saw A Goofy Movie and thought that they were the only person to see it. As if we all collectively discovered a secret Disney film.

Maybe because we were ashamed to admit how much we loved Disney movies back then. Which is dumb of us because I don’t care who you are, part of you will always love Disney movies.

This past week I’ve been listening to Disney music in my car. It’s been a mixed bag of emotions. One of the weirder parts about being an overly sensitive and emotional person with anxiety and depression is your ability to smile, laugh and cry simultaneously.

On one hand Disney makes me smile. It makes me think of my vacations to DisneyWorld. The most recent one was in this past October with my family. It was one of the best vacations I ever had. I probably was to proud to say that to anyone in my family, but it really was. Just spending time with the people I loved the most, surrounded in a place filled with so much joy … it’s all the things vacations are made to be.

Disney trips are difficult. They’re long and more work than relaxing. But when you’re standing next to the greatest people in the world watching those fireworks over Cinderella’s Castle it’s impossible to not love the place, even for just a second.

The time prior to that was my senior class trip. It was just a few weeks before graduation and very few of my friends attended the trip. I ended up making friendships with classmates I never spoke to. They are now among my closest friends in the world. Another example of the power of Disney.


This is footage from my class memory tape edited by me

So why the sadness?

Because previous to these two trips… my Aunt Lisa had been with us on every trip to Disney. She loved Disney. When I was in college my aunt was diagnosed with cancer. She was given a year and she made it six. None of us said it on our family trip this October, but she was missed.

It’s not easy continuing to live life when someone who was a part of it is no longer in it. There is forever a part of you missing when that person is gone. This is why I find myself crying my way through singing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in my car on a Thursday. I probably watched Mary Poppins with my aunt more than any other movie.

It’s sad and it’s unfair. It’s always awful when someone is taken from us too soon. I was in 10th grade when my grandfather died. At the time, he was my best friend. How is that fair? How is it fair to expect a 16 year old kid to have to deal with not just his grandfather dying… but his best friend? It’s not fair that my grandmother had to bury her daughter. It’s not fair that my dad had to say goodbye to his only sibling. It’s not fair… but to quote one of the greatest movies ever made… ‘Life’s not fair princess, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something’.

When someone is ripped from your life it leaves a painful void and you can fill that void with one of two things. You can fill it with anger and sadness and bitterness. You can curse this world for being so cruel and so unfair. Or…

Or, you can live life harder than ever to make up for the life they can’t live.

That’s the option I prefer. So I went to Disney with my family. I rode the Haunted Mansion for her. I ate at Downtown Disney and saved her a seat in my mind. I walked around Animal Kingdom with her in my heart. When I screamed on Tower of Terror I screamed extra loud for her. When I’m singing along to Beauty and the Beast in my car, I’m singing it for her.

My family is already planning another trip to Disney. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to walk through Magic Kingdom’s gates, hear that music and feel her smiling with us. My Grandfather too and countless others that I carry in my heart every single day.

You Can’t Go Back Part 3: Write You A Letter Tomorrow

by Saintmort

I’ve been spending a lot of nights alone lately. Why is that? I’ve been unexplainably sad. I’m afraid to reach out to my friends because I’m afraid I’d be a bother. Do not worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ve been down this road a million times.

The problem with depression and anxiety is that it fills your head with thoughts that deep down you know aren’t true. You become concerned that you’re bothering your friends. When that happens, you feel like you only have two options: obsessively message them until you actually ARE bothering them, or shut yourself in.

Yesterday I randomly started watching videos of Mr. Rogers at work and sat crying quietly to myself for 20 minutes. What can I say… depression is a real bitch sometimes. After days like that, the only thing I can do is go home, put on pajamas, crawl into bed and watch one of my comfort movies.

You know how people have comfort foods? I think that’s a thing. I see people use the term all the time so it must be somewhat real right? In any case, I have comfort movies.

There are five of them. They are the movies that put me in a good head-space. They have very little credibility by film-standards but that doesn’t change the comforting nature they have.

When I was in Junior High/Freshmen year of High School, I felt alone a lot. This doesn’t mean I didn’t have friends (because I did) nor did it mean I was depressed all the time (although at times I certainly was),  I just felt alone.

Most of my life I have been single. I’m 31 years old and I’ve spent just barely a year in a relationship. This is not to say I’ve avoided relationships. In fact more than any other thing in this world, I want to fall madly in love. I blame it on movies. It makes sense that movies would also be the thing that calms me down when I feel like I’m never going to find someone.

The comfort movies for me all deal with love in one way or another. Most of them it’s a main plot point (one it’s just a subplot). I can recall multiple Saturdays between 1998 and 2002 where I was alone in my parents house. I would get hungry and order a cheese steak from the pizzeria behind my house (Tom’s), walk over to pick up the Cheesesteak and then watch Empire Records, The Wedding Singer or Can’t Hardly Wait until the fears subsided.

I can never truly pin down what it was I saw in these movies that made me calm but I definitely have my guesses. In The Wedding Singer you have Adam Sandler playing Robbie Hart. Robbie desperately wants to get married and has ever since his parents died. When his bride no-shows their wedding he falls into a depression and is only saved by Julia (Drew Barrymore). Julia is a sweet girl who has a shitty boyfriend. Julia believes in Robbie’s ability to succeed, she believes he’ll find love but also sees something in him that all the women in past didn’t. While others saw him as a dude wasting his life singing cover songs at weddings she saw a genuinely good hearted guy who loved people and music but was talented enough to make it as a songwriter.

Wedding Singer was also the movie that gave me one of my first genuine celebrity crushes in Drew Barrymore. I loved her in this movie so much. I wanted someone that would believe I would succeed in all my dreams.

Empire Records. Well, that gave me hope of a dream job. Not necessarily working at record store (although I always wanted to), but a job where I was with my friends. We’d have fun. We’d talk pop culture and music. I lucked out. I found my Empire Records twice in my life. That would make 14 year old Matt Kelly really happy actually.

I’ll come back to Can’t Hardly Wait shortly. That movie is far too important to my life to summarize in a few sentences in the middle of this.

In the Summertime it would get incredible hot in my house, but the basement managed to always be freezing cold. I would sleep in the basement most Summers on the couch. Those summers I would watch the same two movies over and over again. American Pie and Loser. Both star Jason Biggs. This means really nothing, just that I have probably watched Jason Biggs act more than his own family.

Both movies filled the same purpose as Wedding Singer in the hopeless romanticism but it ran deeper than that. In American Pie, I saw hope of a sex life in High School. I wanted to believe someone would go to Prom with me, that I would get invited to the big party after Prom, that I’d have that high school memory. Meanwhile Loser gave me hope that I’d fall in love in college. That I’d meet that quirky, punk-rawk girl of my dreams and live happily ever after. I could hardly wait for those days.

June 12, 1998 the movie Can’t Hardly Wait was released into theaters. It was the last day of 6th grade. My friend Adam and I went to the mall and he made plans to see a movie with his girlfriend at the time. We were 13. There was nowhere for me to go. I couldn’t just drive home. So I sat by myself a few seats away. Adam and his girlfriend made out. I was captivated by the movie that played out before my eyes.

I had no desire to see this movie but midway through the film I knew I was watching something special. I knew these characters. I’ve heard people a few years my senior say that about when they watched John Hughes movies. This was my Breakfast Club, this was my Pretty in Pink. I KNEW these characters, and I was undeniably Preston Myer.

I had the ability to fall in love with a total stranger. I was able to build the fantasy of a future. It’s one of the toughest things about being a writer. You see someone that you like and within a few minutes you have written your entire life together. Vacations, dates, long drives, dinners, holidays… all of it has been written inside of your head. Preston’s letter… I understood everything that it represented.

Practically a year later I shared my first kiss at an end of the year party at Adam’s house. It was with my friend Claudia. Much like me, Claudia lived life by her own rules; we did it in different ways, but it lead to us both being outcasts. Despite our many differences, we were still friends. We respected each other’s uniqueness.

At the party everyone was drinking but myself. A crowd of kids went into the shed to play a game of spin the bottle. Claudia and I, ever the outcasts, went swimming in the pool instead. We were talking when suddenly she kissed me. It was a random beautiful moment and then it was over. We never dated, we always remained friends, we just shared one beautiful and special moment together in a pool and then went on with our lives.

Last year Claudia died. It was sudden and unexpected. At first I was shocked by the news, so I drove to the local diner and had a cup of tea and just sat there. Suddenly years of memories and regrets for years of silence all flowed into me at once. I couldn’t stop crying. I paid for my tea and went home and I watched Can’t Hardly Wait.

That movie is like a high school reunion with fictional representations of people I know. Claudia was there, so was Adam and there was I with a love letter. I’m still carrying the love letter with me, every day of my life. I eagerly await the day I can give it to someone who will appreciate it.

Geekscape Roundtable: Cinematic Uppers for the Nerdy and Depressed!

by Joe Starr

Sometimes, the world kicks you in the ass and you can’t deal with putting on real clothes or moving from your couch for a few days.

Depression hits everyone sooner or later, and most geeks have a movie or three that substitute for medication. And until we all plug into an Avengers IV at the end of this week, here are Geekscape’s 24 FPS surefire depression treatments!

Jae Renfrow: Pristiq River

When I get depressed I usually don’t want to feel better, so I watch movies that’ll wallow with me. Like Million Dollar Baby. Oh, it’s all well and good early on. You’re sitting pretty learning gaelic and reveling in the witty banter between Morgan Freeman and grump Clint Eastwood. You get to see a trailer trash girl kick some butt and rise above her fried twinkie family. Next thing you know you’re biting your own tongue off hoping you drown in the blood. That’s life folks.

And Clint Eastwood has another sad bastard movie sitting on my shelf for those moody Mondays: Mystic River. You ever wonder what happened to all your friends? I do. And when it starts getting me down, I just pop in Mystic River so I can watch one child hood friend make another confess to the murder of his daughter so he can sleep at night. I remember doing this to my brother two years ago when I visited him in Kentucky. I kept saying. “Did you kill her? Just tell me you killed her. C’mon, you killed her didn’t you? Just tell me, it’s cool. You killed her. Say it.” And you know what? It works. He was a blubbering mess after five hours of it and I disposed of him in the woods out behind our house. Rest in peace, bro.

But on the rare occasion that I do want to feel better I just curl up with plate of brownies and watch Bring It On. Hot chicks having PG-13 fun, while trying to protect their cheerocracy from cheererrorism. I’m smiling just writing about it.

Time to get the sad spirit fingered right out of you!

Joe Starr: The Last Adapinbender

My primary depression movie is Transformers: The Movie, but sometimes I’ve got more sadness than Hot Rod’s got photon charges.

When that’s the case, I let Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai ease the pain. Cruise’s character Nathan Algren and I have a lot in common: he can’t find peace in his life and neither can I. One time he was ordered to slaughter a village of Native American women and children and sometimes I have tough sets on stage where people don’t laugh as much as I want them to. And Ken Watanabe has a way of delivering lines that make you mourn for the loss of Japan that Was like it’s something you experienced in person and not via Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 when you were in fifth grade.

If I need a little more pick me up, I’ll burn through Book 3: Fire of Avatar: The Last Airbender like it was a bottle full of happy pills. “I don’t think boomerang is coming back, Toph.” Damn it, Sokka, it’s like you know me.

When that isn’t enough, I watch old Royal Rumbles on YouTube. And that’s when you need to start worrying me.

Steven Kunz: Cymbalted Away

Spirited Away has a real heart behind it and to see the amazing animation and the fantastic settings and characters makes it my ‘go to’ if I want to be inspired or become motivated to change things. It’s really enjoyable to see Chihiro initially learning how to be a servant in the bathhouse and watch her grow stronger throughout the film. This movie is also something I go to when I’m depressed because of, once again, childhood memories. I received a Japanese copy of this movie from an art teacher back in high school for the entire summer, a year before the movie came out. It was just a really nice gesture and I showed Spirited Away to friends and family for the entire summer.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is so ridiculous and over the top in that it is impossible not to feel good about it. It’s a movie you can enjoy simply because of that absurdity. Great example of this would have to be Jay and Silent Bob fighting Cock-Knocker, played by Mark Hamill. How can anyone not laugh at Hamill playing a wacky character parodying the lightsaber fights from Star Wars?

Aliens is not only a classic and entertaining movie, but it also brings back childhood memories for me. This was a movie I first watched when I was in the 4th grade, and ever since I can pop in at any time and easily recall great childhood moments. The whole movie itself brings back a younger, happier time.

No matter how bad things are, you’re not Newt.

Matt Blackwood: Arthouse Abilify

This may sound odd, but my go-to movie when I’m feeling awful is a new one. I love getting lost in a story, and it’s tougher to do that when I already know what happens. I especially like to see a new movie in the theatre. I go all by myself and sit in the front and disappear into cinema for two hours. Being overwhelmed by someone else’s imagination takes my mind off my own problems.

Tim Powers: Thomas the Triavil Engine

My ‘go to’ depression TV show is Trains and Locomotives.

This hour-long show explores the trains and locomotives that aided the growth of travel, further settlement and the development of certain American industries and agricultural ventures.

Archival film footage shows many famous trains that operated dome cars, impressive private rail cars and illustrious sightseeing cars through the years.  You’ll see one-of-a-kind, world class trains that were once the very top for speed, style and service. Trains and Locomotives also features interviews with the people who rode, operated and managed the great trains of America’s vast railroads.

Climb aboard the Super Chief, the showcase train of the world famous Santa Fe Railway, which set the standard for all western passenger trains, or visit The California Zephyr, known as the “Silver Thread Through the West.”   Witness the documentation of a travel mode that provided scenery, comfort and high-class service across the United States – from President Lincoln’s private car to the latest most modern cars that are plying the world’s rails today. The unique and timeless footage captures the excitement of streamlined, steam locomotive hauled trains that will go down in history as a monument to the rail industry, as well as the growth of a the American nation.

Visit the machines of iron and rails that stretched from the first Eastern states along the Atlantic, across the expanse of North America to the new states along the Pacific.  If you like to view the world at eye level, or at the speed of steam and coal, then we welcome all aboard Trains and Locomotives on RFD-TV.

Mark Wensel: River Phoenix Remeron

Not only is Stand By Me my favorite movie, but I have a weird connection to coming of age stories that take place in the 60s. What? I like to watch movies about memories that I’ll never have. Is that so weird?

Anyway, there’s something about the story of four kids in their last summer of innocence. Happiness, leeches, guns and taking care of bullies! Then the end happens and you just kind of become a blubbering mess. Not only that, but the fact that the most talented of the four actors overdosed in the street at the top of his game. A more depressing movie that’s not about mass death there is not.

Matt Kelly: Harold and Marplan

There’s few films that are more hopeful, uplifting and well shot as Harold & Maude. Hal Ashby’s direction and Ruth Gordon’s delivery of Colin Higgins is enough to make you chuckle, smile and L-I-V-E LIVE LIVE LIVE.

The film is filled with beautiful motivational speeches that give you a desire to get up and make a change in the world. It’s been my favorite movie since I saw it over 9 years ago and will probably always be my favorite movie.

How can you still be sad after a wonderfully uplifting speech like this?

‘Mayhem’ Molly Mahan: Lexapro of the Fall

I used to say Legends of the Fall was my favorite movie (after all it is a pretty awesome flick), but then I realized I watch it so much because it was the only thing that made me feel better when I was down. When I broke up with my first serious boyfriend, I seriously watched it every day at least once for two weeks. I was a mess, but the awesome trio of Aidan, Anthony, and Brad made life bearable. It was a reason to get up in the morning (if only to find the remote to turn on the TV and crawl back into bed).

I think the reason it helps so much is because there is no way my life will ever be as bad as theirs. My wife isn’t going to be shot by Irish bootleggers, nor is she going to shear her head before blowing her brains out…possibly because I’m a heterosexual female and therefore will never have a wife, but I digress!

Though I don’t watch it as much anymore (perhaps I am more emotionally stable? Hah, yeah right!), whenever I am down on myself I still recall poignant scenes from the film and imagine myself as the characters. For example, today I was down on myself for whatever reason, so I thought of Samuel in his final scene: Blinded by mustard gas, hearing the voice of my savior and I smile, only to be shot down by the Kaiser’s men. Bastards.

That’s right. Brad’s gonna make everything better.