And in a weird way, the book says something for other people, too.
I think that the part about my clinical depression helped a lot of
people, because I'm a funny man, and I had two serious depressions, and I
came out of them.
I'm going to tell you a very dramatic story, which happened
yesterday. It was so hard to believe, it feels like a movie. A woman
wrote to me and said I saved her life. She had overdosed from pills, she
said, last week, and then she rolled over in bed and she hit the TV
remote when she rolled over and I come up on the screen. And she said,
and I quote, "I started watching you, and by the time I was finished, I
didn't want to die anymore." That's wonderful.
PT: That's an incredible story.
AB: I can't tell you how nice it is to have so many people say nice
things to me, and that's the payoff. Getting even for me is that every
goddamn fantasy I ever had has come true. Tomorrow, People magazine's
doing a piece on me, and they're going to photograph me out in my
hometown. You know, it's terrible, not a nice neighborhood now. But
there's something about a little boy on roller skates, dreaming these
dreams, and they all come true. So, I mean, it's wonderful.
PT: You say that you feel bad that you never saw your mother, yet
you don't really make any excuses, you just state it. Do you feel better
just having confessed it?
AB: No, I think what I tried to do--I didn't say I'm sorry or I'm
not sorry. What I really said was this is the way it was.
I was on "Prime Time Live," and they asked me why don't I go to the
cemetery and see her. And I really was thrown by the question because I
wasn't expecting it. And I said the truth: What good would it do me now?
Maybe it would and maybe it wouldn't. See, one of the poignant parts of
that story is that my father, my Aunt Molly, and my Uncle Oscar are
buried on Long Island, and once again my mother is separated from the
rest of the family in New Jersey.
PT: You describe, quite openly, your history of clinical
depression. Obviously a great deal has been written these days about the
biological component of it. What's your own personal opinion about
this?
AB: I have a theory that probably has no medical basis to it. My
theory is that we're all walking around with a depression gene or
depression molecule or something. It can be triggered by a death in the
family or by the breakup of a marriage, whatever happens. And then that
depression is triggered. This is my theory on it.
Now I don't care what really causes depression because I'm not in
research. But I do feel that if you can just get through the experience,
you come out of it a better person. You just have to hang on. And this
isn't an original idea of mine, it was told to me when I was in the
middle of it. My doctor kept telling me, "Arty, hold on, hold on." And
they repeat it and repeat it and repeat it.
And you can play a vital role in helping somebody by saying the
right thing to them. An example of that, and he's talked about it, so I'm
not violating a confidence, is I always thought I was Bill Styron's rabbi
when he was going through his depression. And when he wanted to kill
himself, I said to him--I came up with this, I don't know where I came up
with it because it was such wonderful word. I said, "Bill, that's
unacceptable." I didn't say you can't do it. I said it's
unacceptable.
PT: Is this before he wrote his book on the subject?
AB: It was when he was living it! I was his rabbi when he was
having his depression. He didn't write his book until later.
Incidentally, I've always maintained, I was very resentful that he made a
million dollars on his depression, and I didn't make a nickel on
mine.
PT: What do you think about drugs such as Prozac that seem to be
helping?
AB: They do seem to help people. I think some of them may have to
do with the placebo effect. People think they can take a pill and get
better. I think depression really depends on the attitude of the person
wanting to get better, and it may be just this much of him that wants to
get better and the rest is too discouraged, but that's enough to help
him.
I have no reason not to believe that Prozac has helped millions of
people. I have no reason to believe it, either. It didn't exist when I
had my depressions. But I got through mine. And the only danger we're all
talking about, and I'm sure you talk about it all the time, is that
people will resort to a pill instead of resolving problems.
Look, I have a theory I wrote a column on. You didn't see it, but
because of health insurance, you can't afford to be sick more than ten
times. You can't go to a psychiatrist more than ten times because that's
all the insurance companies allow you. So you got to get better in ten
visits or less. So my theory is that group therapy is so much better than
individual because, in group, you can't bullshit anyone.
In individual therapy, the psychiatrist doesn't care if you're
there ten years. But in group, if a guy says there's somebody in my
family who I hate, the person next to you will say, "You're full of shit,
it's your mother." And the guy's cured in one session. There's a lot of
underlying truth to the notion that psychiatry takes so long, and nobody
can afford it anymore. I mean, they have to change their ways because
it's too expensive.
PT: So you embrace your depressions, and you would not have given
them up?
Tags:
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twenty five years
