
My Father the Werewolf - artsandsci
https://folks.pillpack.com/my-father-the-werewolf/
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girvo
By far one of the better metaphors I've read regarding depression, especially
how mine affects me and those I love. Heart wrenching, but wistful and happy.
It seems the author has come to terms with his fathers struggle in a way not
many do. Amazing writing.

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Fordrus
"It didn’t cure his depression, any more than you can cure a werewolf by
ripping out his fangs."

I don't have the same issues as the author's father, but I've often thought of
almost exactly this analogy when treating my own issues. The idea sometimes is
to make the condition tolerable, and at least for me, that would be the first
order of business upon learning I was a werewolf: to remove my ability to harm
others while wolf-ified. This is a tremendous article, I love it and I'm going
to save it and maybe read it with my dad - not because my dad is like your
dad, OP, but more because a few of your experiences line up really well with a
few of ours. I'll read it with my wife too, because the story of how you
remember your dad when you were young - I want to be that kind of Dad to my
son. So, so, so much. Except without the later issues and whatnot. I do wonder
just how possible it is, but I intend to give it a shot! :)

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arittr
A wonderfully written, really moving read. There isn’t enough out there that
really humanizes mental illness and makes it accessible - I feel like every
time I read something like this it helps me better understand my own
relationship with mental illness. I just think the werewolf metaphor is dead
on.

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framebit
I agree that this piece is exceptionally well written!

I also just wanted to mention, if you're looking for more things that humanize
mental illness, that I've been particularly impressed by the podcast The
Mental Illness Happy Hour. Some episodes are better than others, but all of
them give voice to deeply personal, human experiences.

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headhunter
Amazing piece, thank you for sharing. One bit in particular stuck out: "After
all, every werewolf story also ends up with self-imprisonment—ostensibly to
protect others, but really so the werewolf can protect itself from the wounds
of the world."

I've always seen the story of the werewolf as an allegory for the alcoholic,
and your commentary gave me a lot to think about.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
This comment previously had a statement saying that there was a current of
domestic violence. That is a false statement. The author was kind enough to
clarify and respond in the comments below. My sincere apologies.

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DrCrypt
I am the author. There is no undercurrent of domestic violence, glossed over
or otherwise, in the article.

My father had a psychotic episode once, due to a 1-in-a-million reaction he
had to a misprescribed medication. My memory of this incident opens "My Father
The Werewolf." During that episode, he was utterly terrified, and not in
control of himself; in fact, he didn't even know who he was, or who we were.
He gets a pass for it, as surely as he would get a pass if he had a stroke
while driving, and consequently killed someone with his car.

Other than that one instance, my father never raised his hand to me, and I
never once saw him so much as raise his voice to my mother. I even called my
mom upon reading your comment and asked her if he ever touched her: she was
offended by the notion.

My father was many things, not all of them good, but he was absolutely not a
domestic abuser. He was the gentlest man I've ever known.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Thank you for your comment and clarification. I am sorry for the false
accusation and for offending you and your mother. Forgive me for adding to the
pain of your memory.

~~~
DrCrypt
No apologies necessary! I understand that the opening of the essay has some
powerful imagery that might be triggering to people with first-hand knowledge
of domestic abuse. I just wanted to make sure to set the record straight, that
my Dad was the victim there every bit as much as we were.

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phatbyte
Fascinating read, there's so many taboos and misconceptions when it comes to
mental illness.

Hopefully articles like these help us understand more what is like.

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harshaw
This was a fascinating read.

Slightly more fascinating was that was sponsored by a Boston area tech company
who I know a little bit about since I interviewed there years ago. They have a
cool business packaging meds for patients, aka the "pillpack". Interesting to
see this as a community service project.

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DrCrypt
Just to add some context to this post: "My Father The Werewolf" was published
on PillPack's in-house web magazine, Folks, which aims to tell humanist
stories about people with health conditions. Folks publishes one story a day,
fighting the stigma around being 'sick' by showing that managing health
conditions is universal. We're fully sponsored by PillPack, which views
reducing stigma around health conditions as part of its mission, but besides
the mention of our parent company in the site logo (Folks, a PillPack
Magazine), we don't advertise PillPack at all on our site.

I'm the editor of Folks, as well as the author of "My Father The Werewolf."
Thanks to everyone who is reading the article! I'm really glad my Dad's story
is moving so many people.

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beautifulfreak
Since you're the editor, perhaps you could correct the caption on the last
photo showing your Dad's friend John. "Left to Right" obviously doesn't apply
to that photo.

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DrCrypt
That's ME John, not my Dad's friend John. But yes, changing now to be clearer!
Thank you!

~~~
beautifulfreak
Oh, I see. I was thinking it was a before-the-murders photo, yikes.

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dkarl
_If you asked him on any given day how he was feeling, he’d reply: “It’s the
worst day of my life,” no matter whether he was comatose with depression or
talking to you on your wedding day. It was almost like my dad had lost his
inner compass to tell you how he was feeling: even if he acted like he was
feeling better, he’d tell you he was feeling worse._

I remember feeling like that. Having a good day, or starting to emerge from a
particularly deep low, suddenly you feel more intensely, and you're doing
more, and you see all the lost potential of the previous days. One of the nice
numbing things about depression is that nothing seems possible. You can see
the difference between what's possible for you and what's possible for other
people, and it's humiliating, but the idea that _you_ could do better is a
dead one with no emotional potency. Then your depression lifts a little bit,
and you look back with the perspective of a slightly higher capacity to
perform, and it's crushing to see the time and possibilities you wasted. It's
like depression holds a little back so it can hit you one more time in the gut
on the way out, to remind you that it will be back.

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redressor
_tl;dr_ ECT was used as an extreme form of treatment for major depression that
had short term benefits, but ultimately resulted in a renewed version the same
depressed person with damaged long-term memories, who ultimately relapsed into
a depression with no obvious emotional or intellectual cause.

The subject's eventual death was natural, although arguably early, so from a
ceratin point of view, maybe the treatment was at least clinically successful
in warding off suicide proper.

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subwayclub
The article deals with a lot of stuff apart from the clinical aspects of
diagnosis and treatment. For example, it outlines someone who lost social
connections as he grew older, a major causal factor in depression.

~~~
DrCrypt
Yeah. I'm the author, so I'm obviously biased, but I wouldn't say the TL;DR
here is about ECT either.

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qxzw
"...my mother told me she thought he’d known he was having heart attacks but
chose to ignore them as a way of killing himself. This, I think, is putting an
overly heroic sheen on it, but the interpretation doesn’t surprise me. My
mother worshiped my father, and there’s something noble about a slow,
plausibly deniable suicide. "

I find it to be an extreme form of cowardice. I had a couple of close family
members who always used to 'emotionally blackmail' when something wasn't how
they wanted it. And it wasn't manipulation - they genuinely suffered. It was
horrible. Like an inescapable black cloud. My uncle did it for so long,
ignored his health issues on purpose that he eventually died. He wasn't even
too old. I don't even remember exact cause, but it was something simple,
couple of days in hospital and some pills would have made it go away. I had
similar inclinations, but adopting stoicism helped me curb it.

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jasonmp85
I liked the part where you call people suffering from mental illness
"cowards". The part where you blithely assert some millennia-old facile
philosophy can solve depression was pretty good, too.

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qxzw
Maybe I didn't express myself accurately (English is not my mother tongue). I
don't think depression is simple thing, banality to be solved by philosophy. I
don't know how you read that from my post. I said it helped me _curb_ some
instincts to 'let myself go' when things aren't going my way. Regarding
'cowards' \- again, you misunderstood. I meant that people who take the slow
suicide path are cowards. It's a subset of mental illnesses as a much bigger
sphere.

1\. It takes courage to take the blows life gives you and keep going, ("Do it
for her" photo) 2\. It takes courage to actively take your life, hurt yourself
physically 3\. It _doesn't_ take any courage to just let yourself go and fade
away

I've had close family members 2 and 3

