40 Seconds (Youtube Rap)

When I said this is long, I meant it. But I don’t think it’s boring whatsoever. If you are suffering severely with depression, there is no doubt in my mind you will read all of this. If you aren’t and just liked the song, and thought “Damn, that was deep” I think you will see that everything I write here applies to you as well.

In case there is any confusion about the suicide statistics I provided in this song, I’d Like to clarify :

According to the last research that was conducted on suicide, someone SUCCESSFULLY commits suicide every 40 seconds. For every successful suicide, there is roughly 15–25 unsuccessful attempts. This is what I meant by “Someone tries suicide every three seconds.”

I’ve recently read that the number is closer to 20–25 attempts for every successful suicide, so there are probably people attempting suicide every 1.5–2 seconds rather than 3 seconds- Sorry guys I can’t book a session at the recording studio in order to update one word.

Anyways, this song was extremely hard for me to write. This is my strongest attempt at raising awareness on mental health. Many people believe that anyone who talks about their experience with depression is simply seeking attention. That really isn’t the case. I never wanted pity during the years I was extremely suicidal. I simply didn’t want to be judged as being lazy by my family and friends. I was sick of hearing people saying “everyone has problems but life goes on and you have to get your life together” There are problems such as not liking your job, and there are problems such as having 20 panic attacks a day and googling suicide methods for hours.

I ruminated about suicide 24/7 from ages 13–21 and I hid it from all of my close friends (but I thought I wanted attention right?). No one wants to be viewed as a nut case. I only started opening about my depression with lyrics when I was 21 which many people found very touching, but even then, some people still thought I just wanted pity and attention. It’s a shame the only way to raise awareness is by making something creative and powerful, but it is what it is. There are many people out there who cannot write powerful lyrics or do something artistic in order to express themselves. They are being judged unfairly and I hope this song helps them.

This song is relevant to ALL of you. Even to those of you who have been lucky enough to never suffer have an experience with severe depression. Why is it relevant to you? Because most of you will have kids one day. I’m pretty sure I won’t, but most of you will. I love my mother and she is the main reason I am still alive, but she didn’t do the best job at raising me. My mom is an amazing woman, but that doesn’t change the fact that I slipped in between the cracks.

She always had good intentions. She had 3 kids that were very close in ages. Two of them were functioning and doing well in school, the middle child was suicidal and misunderstood. She wasn’t evil, in fact she was very caring and loving. However, she was always extremely stressed and very demanding. My family was extremely ignorant towards my mental health. So were my friends. Many of you will have kids who will suffer from severe depression at some point in their life. Some of them will be hit by it at a VERY young age. So as bad as I feel for talking about my mother’s parenting, I believe it’s important that many of you learn from her mistakes.

If you don’t believe me about kids suffering through severe depression, then try googling the following:

1. 8 year old commits suicide.
2. 9 year old commits suicide.
3.10 year old commits suicide

11 year old commits suicide. 12 year old commits suicide. 13 year old commits suicide…you get the picture.

You will be shocked by how many stories there are out there. People don’t realise that young kids can be in the same stage of depression as a 40 year old man who just had his wife and children murdered. Many of you would undermine your kid’s problems as “he’s just a kid that’s a little insecure, he’ll grow out of it.” Don’t take that chance! Keep a close eye on your children. Talk with them about their feelings consistently. If you have a couple of children, don’t make one of them feel less loved because he has a harder time functioning.

Don’t obsess so much about your kids’ GPA in 6th or 7th grade.. Your kids’ grades don’t matter until high school anyways. And if your daughter/son tells you they can’t function due to their mental health, trust them! Don’t push them, trust them! There are many great intensive programs out there for teenagers. I guarantee you if your kids overcome their depression when they are young they will feel like College and life is a piece of cake. They’ll feel like anything is possible.

Every year that your kids suppress their mental sickness in order to meet your expectations will make overcoming their problems much harder in the future. Every year that you suppress your depression, it becomes more deeply rooted in your brain. It’s like quitting smoking after smoking for 15 years compared to someone who has only smoked for 3 years. The longer you don’t address your problems, the harder it becomes to tackle them in the future. I truly wish I took a break from school when I was 14 and learned more about my OCD and depression.

To this day my proudest accomplishment in life is getting a high school degree. I’ve done many things in life that most people would be more proud of. I’ve made half of an audience cry from one of my songs at an open mic. I’ve made a full room of people crack up hysterically the first time I ever did stand up comedy. I’ve made a lot of money playing poker. But getting a high school degree under my circumstances, is by far the craziest thing I’ve ever done. I had panic attacks and mental breakdowns in the school bathroom on a regular basis.

Anyways, If you choose to push your kids beyond what they feel capable of doing, at least show them unconditional love. Don’t make them feel like they have less value as a human being just because they’re struggling to function at school. It’s hard to care about pre algebra when you are obsessing about jumping off the roof of your school’s building. Growing up, my brother was a natural leader. He was very well liked, motivated, disciplined, and won a couple of prestigious awards in middle school. My sister was very smart, good at dancing, and very popular. They both got very good grades in school. My mom was very disappointed in me for “being lazy” even after I opened up to her about my depression. So I didn’t get straight A’s. I got B’s and C’s. But there are still many traits I possessed that they didn’t. I was always creative, witty, had a good sense of humour, good at sports, writing, and a deep thinker who was extremely empathetic. It could have made an enormous difference if my mom told me these things regularly when I was growing up.

Try to find what your kids are good at or whats unique about them. Maybe it’s something as small as being good at painting. Maybe they’re good at stacking cups. Maybe the make the best damn paper airplanes in the world. Doesn’t matter what it is. Give them compliments, make them feel talented, make them feel loved. You can still push them to fulfil their potential while being supportive. And even if one of your children isn’t very talented, make them feel loved regardless. Why? I don’t know… uhh… maybe because they came out of your fucking stomach/penis?

They did not ask to be born. YOU brought them into this crazy world. If you just want a kid because they’re cute babies and you want to brag about all of their future accomplishments, then I strongly suggest you NOT to have kids. You might have a kid that’s schizophrenic. You might have a kid that gets addicted to cocaine. You might have a kid that becomes a porn star. These are possibilities and risks that you are deciding to take when you choose to have a child. If you raise your kids with enough love and guidance they will probably turn out fine. But if they don’t, it is still your responsibility to make them feel loved. If they end up suffering with a severe mental disorder, that isn’t your fault. But the way you raise them can be the difference between them overcoming/coping with their problems, compared to making their problems SIGNIFICANTLY worse.

I want to finish up talking about ignorance to depression in general. Most people don’t go through major depression until they are older. It only hits them when they’re 25, 35, etc. This applies to anyone who has a friend that is severely depressed and to all of you who are suffering immensely with depression. So many people still view anyone who opens up about their depression as an attention seeker and I would like to address that.

I have been ruminating about suicide most of my life. I’ve been extremely close on multiple occasions. I’m not going to go into depth about what a panic attack is but imagine what you’d feel if someone was holding a gun to your head and told you he was going to shoot you any second. I’m sure you can put up with the psychological symptoms for a couple minutes, but imagine going through that experience for 30 minutes 10 times a day. I’ve had points in my life where I laid in bed all day and had 20 panic attacks a day. I didn’t eat. I lost 30 pounds in a couple of weeks. The “suicidal depression diet” is extremely effective, but it’s an absolute nightmare.

Major Depressive Disorder is a serious mental handicap. Let’s compare it to someone who has a physical handicap for a second. Trust me, this is a good analogy. Let’s say you’re playing basketball and there is someone on your team who is missing an arm. Now imagine you pass him the ball and he doesn’t catch it. You wouldn’t yell at him would you? It’s not his fault for not catching the ball, he’s missing a fucking arm!

A person without an arm doesn’t want people to hug him all day and tell him they feel bad for him. They just don’t want people to pass unfair judgement on them. The difference between being considerate towards someone without an arm and being considerate toward someone going through clinical depression is that you can SEE someone is missing an arm whereas you CANNOT see what is happening inside someone’s body or mind. This is why people can be so ignorant and view someone “who quit work due to severe depression” as a mentally weak person who makes excuses for not functioning.

Another reason there is there is so much ignorance towards depression is because of how the word is used in society. “I’m so depressed, this girl Michelle rejected me.” “I’m so depressed, the Patriots didn’t resign Tom Brady.” Most of you define depression as “ sadness” instead of defining it as extreme mental sickness. I wish they invented a new word which gave Clinical Depression/ Major depressive disorder a clean slate. Regardless, I am not embarrassed about my depression whatsoever any more. I am proud that I’m trying to raise awareness in order to help other people who have more difficulty expressing themselves than me. But guys, if someone tries to kill themselves every fucking two seconds, you guys should realise how serious of an issue this is.

Another problem with society and ignorance is that people are only considerate towards depressed people when they have LEGITIMATE REASONS to be depressed. For example, if someone’s parents died in a tragic car crash, so many of you would be extremely sympathetic towards that person. If he needed a break from school you guys would think “Of course he needs a break from school, his parents just died! just imagine what he’s going through!” But what if someone is going through the same amount of suffering over a stupid reason? Imagine a situation where two girls are arguing and one girl calls a depressed girl a “Slut.” Let’s say this depressed girl breaks down and starts crying hysterically as a result. What if this small incident gives this girl the exact same amount of suffering in her body as someone else who’s mother was killed?

Why is it that so many people will make fun of her? Why will her friends talk behind her back and say shit like “Wow what a nut case. I mean, maybe i was out of line calling her a slut, but I can’t believe she ran away crying! She’s so sensitive! I bet she needed to take 3 Xanax just to make it through Finding Nemo.” How do you guys know she wasn’t verbally abused when she was growing up? Maybe thats why she’s overly sensitive? I don’t get what the fucks wrong with people like you. Why not have sympathy towards someone who can’t control their sensitivity?

I hope next time you see someone brave enough opening up about his/her depression that you view it as a cry for help instead of a cry for attention. There’s a BIG difference.

Anyways I’m doing much better now. I haven’t had a panic attack in a very long time. The last six months have been the first time in the last 17 years that I don’t consider myself suicidal. Don’t get me wrong. I’m fucking miserable. I really am. But I don’t consider suicide an option in the near future. There’s too much shit I want to say about this stupid world before I leave it. Plus, I do not feel ready to permanently ruin my mother’s life. There is still a strong fear that my depression comes back as strong as ever and that I lose control over my body, but I’m not dwelling on it. I want to do everything in my power to make a positive impact on people who have dealt with similar experiences as me.

Its pretty crazy that I am actually appreciative of my terrible situation. My life is hell, but it is so much better than it was a year ago. It hurts me so much to know what some of you are going through right now because I have been there many times in my life. If any of you are in a very dark, suicidal, stage feel free to send me an email: reztherapper30@gmail.com. I am going to try and set up a couple of zoom support groups and hopefully group people together that are dealing with similar problems. Whether if its Drug abuse, Sexual abuse, OCD, General Anxiety Disorder, please send me an email. Your diagnosis doesn’t matter, what matters is finding people you can relate to since other people can’t understand.

There’s one last thing I want to say to those of you who are extremely suicidal. I do not believe that committing suicide is selfish. PLEASE DO NOT MISINTERPRET THIS. I’m simply saying this because I know how much it angers you when people who don’t understand what you’re going through say “suicide is selfish.” I know exactly what you’re thinking.

“Oh, I’m selfish?! Why isn’t my family selfish for wanting me to survive for them when I can barely fucking breath and everyone’s judging me for being lazy? Why aren’t they fucking selfish for wanting me to keep living when I can’t control my breathing so they can watch Netflix and live their perfect fucking lives. Sure I’ll just slit my wrists the next 20 years while they rewatch the Wizard of Oz!” For the record, I’ve never slit my wrists, but I’m sure many of you have.

Living in with these intolerable conditions feels impossible, and unfortunately it is intolerable for many people. But living a miserable life simply so other people that you care about can live a normal life is HEROIC. It truly is. In addition, there are millions of people who were convinced there was a ZERO percent chance that they will ever get over their problems, but they overcame them. They lived happy lives, they got married. They even lived better lives than many people who never suffered with depression because they appreciated their peace of mind so much more.

And again, this is coming from someone who strongly believes he will never be able to reprogram his brain. I strongly believe I will be miserable for the rest of my life. But I am still doing everything in my power to overcome my problems. Like I said, I don’t think killing myself would be selfish. Everyone has a certain amount of tolerance for suffering. I have an extremely high tolerance for suffering and I have decided to be HEROIC for my parents. And I don’t give a fuck how anyone judges you. Even if you’re jobless and your parents pay for your rent while you stare at the ceiling all day, you are a hero in my eyes. Suicide seems so much better, but you are willing to accept the suffering so they won’t have to go through it. Fuck what other people think, they don’t understand mental sickness.

Simply being alive and occasionally seeing your parents so they can live a normal live makes you a hero. Shit, sorry guys’, I haven’t written an essay in an Essay in 6 years. I forgot that you aren’t supposed to be repetitive in your writing. I’ve said hero like 5 times in the last two paragraphs. I’m still going to send this to my old english professor, because she was extremely supportive of my writing.

So Mrs. Stanton, I’m really sorry but I have to do this: HERO HERO HERO HERO HERO. Let me throw in som randum tiepos; along with using a semi colon terribly. oR how about if I capitilze the second letter to start a sentence rather than first letter of the sentence? mAybe this can be my signature writing style? wHere you at Emily Dickenson? Straight Up!

I guess it will be hard to take my last paragraph seriously but, “I got to use jokes to grab peoples attention.”

Anyways, my current plan is honestly to survive until my parents die and after that I don’t know if I’ll kill myself. I am hoping along the way I will find more reasons to live for myself. I am hoping I can keep getting better despite how detached and alienated I am from humanity. I am hoping I don’t lose my sanity before my parents pass away and give up on life, but I’m not going to dwell on the future. But a simple quote that got me through high school which I still say to myself occasionally “Every day I survive is a day that my mom doesn’t suffer.” SHITTTT, I know it ain’t witty fam. It isn’t some Thomas Edison shit like,

“I haven’t failed, I just have found 10,000 ways that don’t succeed.”

But shit, that simple quote about living for my mother always prevented me from killing myself. Literally every day I survive is a day she can have her own peace of mind. And I can’t die with the the guilt knowing how much it would ruin her.

“Don’t do it Jamie, i know what you’re feeling
Cope with the pain so mom won’t have to feel it,”

Be a Hero. Keep living. Be a guinea pig and try every fucking medication out there even if some of them will make you feel much worse. For many people its just about finding the right meds. Don’t pay attention to the ignorant idiots who have no idea what REAL depression is. You are not alone. Many people love you. Never give up. You are a warrior. Be a HERO HERO HERO.

Love you guys,

Rez