The following excerpt from RAGE AGAINST THE MESHUGENAH sheds light on a few important parts of my outlook, specifically:

1. Where the book's strange name originated.

2. Where I got the idea to start blogging.

3. Why the book would make a wonderful holiday gift. :)

"In time, the isolation and monotony of my world stopped feeling so comfortable. It became burdensome and restricting, but my response to it was unlike anything I’d felt since becoming depressed. There was something primal in my gut, something that reminded me of a scene from a horror movie where an alien just tears its way out of some poor schmo’s belly. It stands over his dead carcass, all kinds of fluids and slimes dripping from its body, and unleashes a mean, angry, menacing wail. I was certain that no such creature was festering in my own belly (because I’m Jewish and the laws of kashrut demand that we not eat anything with monster-like alien larvae inside), but it was something I had to let out. Sometimes on my way to work I rolled down the windows on my 1999 Honda CR-V, cranked the volume on a Rage Against The Machine CD, and yelled until my throat went raw. I reveled in that release. I imagined my voice to be the sound of my depression, and as my yawp shot out of my driver’s side window and wafted over the hum of traffic on Highway 22, with it went the pain and sadness inside me.

Rage Against The Machine was as critical to my recovery as antidepressants and therapy, and that’s shocking to me. With the exceptions of Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” (a haunting outcry about the 1977 murder of South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko) and a few other songs like it, my music collection was virtually devoid of songs containing radical political and social messages. But this sort of defiant, freedom-fighting anger is the bedrock of Rage’s rap metal sound. Tom Morello, the band’s guitarist, majored in social studies at Harvard. Singer Zack de la Rocha’s distinctive intransigence shines through in Rage’s jams about Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and the Zapatista movement in Mexico. I don’t always agree with the controversial lyrical content in their songs, but the ferocity with which de la Rocha barks it and the grinding, powerful music upon which they are delivered elicited from me a visceral response.

More specifically, Rage Against The Machine put me in touch with my own anger – and that’s something no amount of therapy had ever done for me. I was predisposed to fear anger (in myself and in others) because witnessing my father’s rage as a young boy was frightening to me. There was a volatility about it that scared me so deeply that I fled even the smallest confrontation. I never liked to be around heated debate or voices raised in conflict. I lived this way into my early 30s when my friend Mike, a rabbi who is married to a rabbi whose father is one of the most prominent rabbis in America, introduced me to Rage Against The Machine (I also credit Mike with my first exposure to the Beastie Boys). In the summer of 1993, Mike and I were roommates. He played for me a song called Bombtrack, which ends with de la Rocha unleashing a primal roar: “MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRR!” I bought the CD the next day.

When I was finally able to get mad about being depressed, I listened to that CD and yelled out loud with it. I was liberating myself little by little. I felt the rage. Rage Against The Machine. Rage Against The Depression. Rage Against The Sexual Side Effects And The Pills And The Beer And The Busted Brain.

“Fuck you! I won’t do what you tell me!”

Rage Against The Judaism. Rage Against The Accounting Class And Fresno And The Pain. Rage Against The Meshugenah.

“Fuck you! I won’t do what you tell me!”

I imagine the sight of a crazy man in an Eddie Bauer dress shirt and the quintessential family car of its time bellowing profanities and defiant condemnations must have been quite repulsive to my fellow commuters. Fortunately for those poor souls, I found a second method of release – and this one was far tamer.

I had been writing for money for more than a decade, but during that time I very infrequently used writing as therapy or a tool for self-exploration. For a short period in the summer of 1993, I filled a journal (with Keith Haring art on the cover) with my thoughts about a girl I’d just met. Her name was Sharon. I’d never before felt what I was feeling that summer so I elected to keep a written record of my relationship with the girl. (Good thing, too. I married her three years later.) Given that happy legacy, I decided it was again time to psychoanalyze myself through the written word. At first my journal was little more than a Microsoft Word document whereupon I could spew my own consciousness detritus. But shortly thereafter I stumbled onto a Web site called Dooce, and I was immediately smitten by its format. Written by a woman named Heather Armstrong, it appeared to me as an online journal, complete with photos and powerfully written tales of growing up Mormon, escaping that culture, and being fired from her job because she’d referred to her boss negatively on her Web site – rather, her “blog.” It took two seconds for me to realize that I needed a site like Dooce. I found a service that hosted such “blogs” free of charge and signed up immediately. In a matter of five minutes I became the author of a site called Human Writes.

The subject matter for my first few entries was rather mundane – road rage, baseball, poop. But soon enough I began to write about the real issue in front of me. I never found the nerve to publish them, but the entries about depression were the vehicles by which I could check in with myself, understand what was in my head, and ultimately feel around for what I needed to change in order to improve my mental health:

I have done my best to hide my depression from view. I’m embarrassed by it and scared of dropping several notches in the eyes of others who do not understand, nor even wish to try. But the incessant game of hide-and-seek becomes exhausting and stressful and only serves to fuel the self-doubt. Whenever I have told people that I have this disease, I have watched as they wonder in a panic what it means – if perhaps I’m a threat or if I’m untrustworthy or if I’m liable to do something they’d rather not have their children see because they wouldn’t be able to explain it away with a roll of their eyes. Maybe it’s contagious?

I have kept the depression at bay for a long while, relegating it to the back burner of my mind as much as possible with the aid of the standard, recommended treatments (and some others that may not be so widely heralded by the mental health community). But it’s still at the forefront of my world. I still have the fear that I am somehow broken and beyond repair. I am resisting that self-talk as spiritedly as I can, but these are difficult days.

The depression comes in waves, sometimes by way of side effects from the medication and sometimes in the way it first appeared: with a kind of physical sadness and emotional paralysis I’ve never believed real. It makes you feel crazy, like you might just freak out at any moment. Every time I tried to get out of bed and live like a normal person, I felt a strange sort of magnetism that drew me back under the covers. I shook. I shifted in the bed over and over. I buried my head in the pillow and prayed that it would go away, that I would wake up and realize this wasn’t real. But it was. And I had to endure all. The anti-depressants and all of their unpleasant side effects. The therapy. Hiding it from the world, which wouldn’t understand and would always hold the stigma in the back of its collective mind when working with me, talking to me or about me. It truly does put my reputation at stake. 

I believe I’ve hid it reasonably well. I’ve ventured forward through the blurred vision, the foggy mind, the nausea, the insomnia, the fear. Writing helps. Staying occupied seems to make the time pass a little faster and keeps me from sitting here wondering how long it will be before I can feel human again."

Comments

I love that you shared this. For anyone who hasn't read the book...you should.

I bought your book last summer as a little "light" vacation reading. :)
This passage in particular resonated as music has always been a source of therapy and solace.
cheers.

Delurking! I live in Singapore and i just bought your book from a local bookstore 2 days ago. (hoorah!) I really really enjoyed your book, it spoke to me on so many levels. cheers!

God, I so know how that feels. Congrats on letting it free. And congrats on the book! I definitely will be buying it!

Bravo for posting this, and ditto with hmv003. I work in the mental health field and think it's so critical that people be heard. You have probably helped more people than you could ever realize.

A lot of people don't understand how much anger is wrapped up in depression and how exhausting all that anger is.

This is one of the parts of the book that really hit me. Your and Heather's work make it possible to see pieces of the worst and then the best of your experiences with depression and then life after. Thank you!
---Laura

I stumbled on your blog this morning by some happy accident. I am just learning about depression. My brother moved in with me recently and, though I knew he suffered from it, I had no idea the magnitude of the monster. Reading you book might just help me see life from his prospective and allow me to lend him deeper compassion.

So, thank you. Merry Christmas.

I am devouring your book and love it. My husband is a family physician. Every time I pick up your book, I tell him that he needs to recommend it to all of his patients with depression and anxiety, especially the men. If we can can demystify and destimatize this disease, then it will be so much "safer" for those of us suffering from it to cope "out loud" instead of alone, in hurtful ways, or not at all. Thank you so very much for sharing your story. What a gift to us all.

I'm giving "Rage" to my hubby as a Christmas gift this year. Thank you, Danny, for sharing yourself with us....and in doing so, allowing us to help others deal with depression. You are a gifted young man!

Just amazing. Seriously.