It's Personal and It's Everybody's Business

Since I rarely have time for good television shows, I have never seen "Two and a Half Men." It's not just the lack of proper punctuation in the title, but I have heard it is odious. Speaking of odious, Charlie Sheen has been on the express train to Crazytown lately, most recently telling the world that he has cured himself of his addictions and that he has "spent, I think, close to the last decade...effortlessly and magically converting [the show's producer's] tin cans into pure gold."

That last sentence almost makes me love the guy. But this is not a post about aging Brat Prackers and their problems. No, I just want to think a little about anyone who has ever had a mental illness or addiction and pulled it together every day and gone into work. Because this is what Sheen has done, even though he seems to have a boundless appetite for drugs and hookers. He wants to be acknowledged for this ability, and this makes me wonder if he is largely free of "addiction" and is now simply a loony jackass with an appetite for drugs and hookers (insert "Now he can run for Congress" joke here).

If you have a problem that you are trying to hide from the world, the last thing you want is to say out loud that you should be congratulated for hiding said problem well. You probably say this to yourself at night in the bathtub as you contemplate offing yourself (again...uhh...so I have heard....), but the rest of the time you are engaged in Hiding the Problem, and that is a full-time job in itself.

For awhile, I hid my anxiety and subsequent depression, and went to work every morning hoping the day would bring some catastrophic medical crisis (a brain hemorrhage was a favorite wish) that would relieve me of the job of holding myself upright. I never had the type of depression where I could not get out of bed, and that made me really angry. And it took me a long time to get help, because we still live in a society that communicates the message that if your illness can't be seen, you can't take a sick day.

Today I am one of the few people who won't shake my fist against Big Pharma, because Big Pharma (wielded by some smart medical professionals) saved my life. And, on the few-and-far-between bad days, I am not afraid to tell people that I need a nap. What I am afraid of is actors from bad sitcoms with Messiah complexes and long lists of conspiracy theories.