Depression & the Otis Chronicles

George and Otis on their wedding day two years ago. 

The “Otis Chronicles” first appeared in my “Lost in Racine” newspaper column in 2004. This summer I talked with Otis about posting those two old columns again but updated to show how his health and spirits are twenty years later. Living with depression is a hard and tricky art. 

…

"90 MPH Towards a Brick Wall" 

Otis and I have been friends for decades. We met our first day at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (Northwestern’s graduate school of religion). That year someone (he never learned who) “outed” Otis; after that he was not allowed to become a minister within the UMC denomination. And thus the United Methodists lost a kind, organized, musically gifted, upright, moral, and deeply caring minister. 

He earned his master’s anyways, eventually became the coordinator of Garrett’s Field Education department. Years later he became the office manager of a large UMC congregation in Michigan. 

,,,

When either of us calls the other, before we can even identify ourselves, the other one says, "What's up?" We hear each other's grins through the phone. That kind of friend.

Three weeks ago his partner called. "Otis tried to end his life." There are many ways for the bottom to drop out of your life. This is surely one of them. 

…

Otis said, yes, absolutely, I can write his story for you to read. He is fiercely pleased to shed some light on how suicide descends upon a person. He and I also agreed that he reads and okays this before I publish it. Nothing will be said here he doesn't choose to reveal. …

"Part of this is inherited brain chemistry. My mother struggled with bipolar disease all her life. As we age, my brothers and I are noticing that depression runs in us as strongly as musical ability and bad teeth. Two of us have been taking anti-depressants for years. I have a psychiatrist who monitors my medications. I've talked to therapists, from time to time, for years. 

"I know in many ways I'm lucky to be a sensitive person. I notice and feel a lot. Often this makes me more curious, more interested in new things, or more grateful than other folks. It also means that I can fall lower and feel worse when things go wrong. 

"Yet no one ever told me to watch myself for these specifics signs of big trouble and I wish they had. Maybe I would have noticed sooner that I was going downhill emotionally. It's ironic that I had a psychiatrist, a therapist, plus my job was working as office manager for a big church with lots of professionals around all the time -- yet no one noticed I needed help.        

"Over the past few months I'd get really mad at things that, realistically, shouldn't have bugged me so much. I was losing my sense of perspective. I was uncharacteristically irritated, angry, and ticked off at things every day.

"I often felt teary. Sometimes I was confused by things that are basic in my life. I remember sitting down to my desk one day and simply not knowing how to open the mail -- and I've been opening office mail all my adult life! 

"I was finding it difficult to drag myself through the daily stuff. For instance, I hadn't paid my bills in more than a month. You know me, I ALWAYS take care of things like that! I had the money in the bank; I just couldn't find the energy to sit down and write out checks. That kind of avoidance of a simple task is not like me.

"I was losing things like glasses and keys constantly. Usually this is simply a sign of aging or of a too busy life, but in my case, it was a clue that my spirit was exhausted. 

"I guess what I'm saying is that I lost my focus. I wish someone had said, "Otis, this behavior seems out of character for you." I thought I was stressed. I didn't know I was heading 90 mph towards a brick wall."

Burdensome circumstances were rolling into Otis's life like thunder clouds piling in from the west. He was experiencing some difficulties in his closest relationships. He's lived with serious back pain for years. He'd suffered insomnia for months and was physically exhausted. 

Then his job threw him a curve. Several years previously, in a certain sequence of consultations and decisions, he'd fired an employee. Three weeks ago, going through the same sequence, he fired another employee.        

A day later his supervisors abruptly told him he didn't have the authority to do what he'd actually done before with their blessing. He felt attacked and devastated on the one front that had always worked for him, his exceptional competence as an office manager. 

Numbness washed over him like a tidal wave. The next morning he called his psychiatrist and his therapist to report that he felt as if he might harm himself. Both were out of the office. A receptionist told him he should call a hospital. Does anyone think a falling apart person will really do that?

This is where he wants to tell you that if you fall this low and if your professionals are out of town, call a friend. A drowning person does not have to arrange their own rescue. There are people on earth who would have moved mountains to help Otis through that terrible day. He didn't think to call any of us. 

"I told my secretary I was going out for a few minutes, then drove home and swallowed all the pills I could before I passed out. You know how they sometime say suicide is an angry gesture against people who have hurt you or let you down? Well, it wasn't like that. I wasn't thinking of or angry at anyone. I was just exhausted. I was numb. I wanted everything that hurt to stop."

One of Otis's coworkers, a young woman just out of college, watched him abruptly leave work. Unlike everyone else around him that day, she decided this wasn’t the way good-natured Otis usually acted. So that woman also left the church office to drive to his house where she discovered him in time to save his life. He was rushed to a medical hospital and a day later he was discharged to a mental hospital. 

Kudos to people who notice and act. 

At Pine Knoll (not its true name) they received him into a wheelchair, then rolled him into their admitting area. At that point he was wearing only a hospital gown, socks, and a blanket. And that is where he sat the next 4 1/2 hours -- answering the same questions over and over again to eight different admittance persons. No one brought him so much as a cup of tea or a cookie. His partner had brought a suitcase of his own clothes yet no one gave him a moment or a place to change into jeans and a shirt. 

The food was adequate but never tasty. Patients ordered - two days before they would eat it - what they wanted for each meal. Dinners were pre-frozen single entrees, microwaved before serving. Breakfast was plastic-wrapped Danish's and muffins. Are human beings hunger units to be plugged with hermetically sealed food-packets?

I thought the point of hospitalization was to figure out what went wrong and to illuminate unhealthy patterns of dealing with pain, sadness, and sometimes abuse. Of course medications will be prescribed but they are to support and stabilize a person's moods as they work towards understanding their own stories.

Otis says I have it backwards. 

"We were warehoused while psychiatrists prescribed and monitored drugs to chemically pull us out of 'unhealthy' moods"

Is this too harsh? Maybe. Otis is one person who spent two weeks in one mental hospital. Yet in conversation, I've heard this from others. That because health care is so expensive, mental hospitals, just like medical ones, seek the least expensive bottom line. Most institutions arrange themselves around the most cost-effective ways to get calming, dulling, soothing, numbing drugs into people. 

"After breakfast we went to group which you'd think was therapy but wasn't. The ward I was on could house about twenty men. Everyday some were discharged and new guys were admitted. The faces in morning group changed daily which is no way to build a sense of trust or community. Some guys just cut group altogether.

"In the afternoon we'd meet with a psychiatrist for about ten minutes. He was there to regulate meds, not delve into our stories.

"We were supposed to attend four classes a day, and I always did.

“The classes were different for one week then repeated themselves, taught over and over again by the same expert. Some lectures were about the drugs we were taking; some were about managing stress, some were to learn relaxation techniques. We'd sit on folding chairs to listen to a guy run through exactly the same lecture he'd given umpteen times before. The pharmacist had given his spiel so many times that he sounded like those speed-talkers on commercials." 

One afternoon the pastor and committee member who had first insisted he'd over-reached his job -- the incident that had precipitated the crisis - visited Otis to inform him he could either voluntarily quit his job with a decent exit package or they'd fire him. They wanted his decision by Monday morning. This was a Saturday. There were no professionals at the mental hospital for Otis to talk to until Monday. 

Otis found some healing in that hospital anyway.

"I have seldom felt the kind of acceptance I found from other patients. I'm a middle-aged gay man and suddenly I'm on a locked ward with straight men from all walks of life. I saw this huge, tattooed biker coming down the hall at me and I wasn't sure what would happen. But by the end of that day we were playing cards, telling stories, comparing our medications - everyone in a mental hospital is an expert on drugs!

"I heard other people's stories which helped me see my own more clearly. I made some friends. I think it's like what war vets talk about. They don't know how to cope with what they experienced so they get together and their stories leak out and some of the burden begins to lift away."

The hospital staff was never cruel. The place kept people safe from themselves. Modern, effective medications were prescribed and that's nothing to ridicule. 

Yet it's odd that the end of this hard story is simply this. Grace continues to be where it's always been -- in the stories and interweaving of regular people who are broken enough to care for each other. 

And now it is September 2025

What we didn’t know back then is that depression is often a first symptom of Parkinson’s which is the disease Otis didn’t know was developing in him. 

What is there to say twenty years later? Otis answers. “After 44 years together and married for two of those years - three days after our wedding George went into the hospital for 10 days - resulting in a peritoneal port and kidney dialysis every night for the rest of his life. That’s not what I expected from my honeymoon and our life together. These days my moods swing in spite of excellent drugs!

“Two years later, even with dialysis, George is unsteady on his feet, grumpy , demanding, and dependent on me to remember and organize his life. So, absolutely, this is hard.”

I asked him more questions about Parkinson's. Depression is often a symptom of Parkinson’s because as dopamine reduces in the brain it throws off the chemical balance that effects moods. 

“I see my psychiatrist every three months and know I can see him anytime between scheduled appointments. The neurologist and I take about my mental health every time I see her.”

“I’ve learned a lot about how to take care of myself. I walk a lot - outside if I can or on my treadmill when the weather is lousy or if I feel weak and want to be able to hang on. I eat healthier and over the years have lost about thirty pounds, which helps my health. I’ve made friends in this tiny town where we live; I try to help others and that keeps me busy and popular! 

“I guess the things I’ve learned with Parkinson's, the depression, the poor health of George, is that life really is one day at a time. Strong and healthy people forget this. Those of us with limitations find our way through.

“A couple years ago that Vincent Van Gogh Immersive Show was making its way in museums across the nation. We went to the one in Chicago. I was so struck by how gorgeous his work was and is. And so struck that being sensitive is a lot of work, dangerous work, but also such an incredible gift. So I take it, one day at a time.”