Doyel: Stupid idea will help me have a happy Thanksgiving

It was a stupid idea – but then, this story is full of dumb ideas. Starting with my idea to see a therapist.

You couldn’t find someone less into therapy than I am, but a drowning person will grab onto anything, and a few years back the water was up to my neck. Not to get too personal – OK, we’re already way past that – but the third week of October 2014 was rough. The divorce became final that Oct. 17, a Friday. The job here at IndyStar started on Oct. 20.

So much was happening, all at once: Pack my house near Cincinnati, get it ready to sell, move to Indiana. Help the ex-wife move into her new home back in Ohio. Help my younger son move with her – while my older son is starting his freshman year of college, three hours away.

It was too much. That first year here in Indianapolis was the best year of my life, professionally – and the worst of my life, personally. The stress overload had made me a basket case: volatile, emotional, confused and overwhelmed by the speed with which life was changing. It didn’t take much to set me off in those days. Tears of joy, tears of pain, it was hard to tell the difference.

So, anyway. The therapist.

Poor Dr. Vogler. At the end of my first visit she said she had something for me, something she gave to first-time visitors. Try it, she was saying, or don’t. It was a CD of meditation mumbo-jumbo. A soothing voice suggests an affirmation – “More and more, I am able to not worry about things I cannot control” – and then pauses so the listener can repeat it out loud. I remember walking to the door, knowing I’d never return.

I didn’t come here, I told her – waving the CD like an eviction notice – for this.

June 13, 2016: Theodore is good at using his litter box

That’s how it started, that sentence about my cat and his litter box. On this story, we call a bold-faced sentence like that, one that breaks up a longer story into smaller parts, a “subhed.” In my life, I call that sentence something else: a “gratitude.”

Another one of Dr. Vogler’s dumb ideas.

What we need to do, she’d told me over and over, is change your thought process. To which I said, over and over: Good luck.

We’d been talking for several months when she suggested a tweak to my daily routine: Before going to sleep at night, write down a few things from the day, a few things you’re grateful happened. When you wake up, she said, read it and remember. End one day with a positive thought. Start the next one the same way.

Sounds like a journal, I told her, and I’d like you to hear that word, journal, as I said it: like it has four letters. But, whatever. The affirmation CD hadn’t been a total disaster – I kind of liked it – so, fine: Before falling asleep to my CD of affirmations, I’d jot down highlights of the day.

Wrote a story that made me smile, started reporting another one.

Bosses want me to stop writing so much.

Theodore is lying on my arm as I write this.

It wasn’t working.

Nov. 30, 2016: Bad day, but I’ve had worse

Don’t look at me like that.

If you’ve never faced depression, whether yours or a loved one’s, congratulations. But don’t be mean and dismissive about the topic. Don’t be stupid.

Don’t be me.

About a decade ago an NBA player, Michael Beasley, announced he was suffering from depression. Expert that I was, I fired off a short blog post at CBSSports.com where I listed just a few things going for Beasley – fame and fortune – and concluded with the most ironic thing I’ve ever written: I’d love to be that depressed.

Some things, apparently, I have to experience to understand. Pineapple on pizza was one. Appendicitis was another. And so it goes for depression.

By no means am I an expert on this or pretty much any other topic, but depression apparently can be chronic or acute. The chronic kind, folks are trying to manage it as they live out their lives. The acute kind, we’re trying to survive until it’s over. Mine was acute. Situational, almost. And here was my situation, after trying the CD of affirmations and the journal of gratitudes and realizing it wasn’t working:

My boys, I told Dr. Vogler. I can’t stop worrying about them.

She started asking questions. Here were some of the answers: They’re both in college, attending the same school, making good grades. They have friends, their health, each other. People like them. I love them.

Sounds like they’re doing well, she said.

They are, I said. So why can’t I stop worrying?

Good old Dr. Vogler. I’m drowning, and she throws a book at me.

Nov. 19: Texted the boys

Look at that pathetic little subhed. Who would make that a subhed? Never mind that: Who would make it a gratitude?

Well, I would. And did. And will do it again, the next time I text my boys.

It’s all about the way I was thinking, remember. My depression wasn’t the chronic kind. Not chemical, not genetic. Near as I can tell, I was doing it to myself. Good things were happening to me, but not sticking with me. A wonderful email from a reader. A positive annual review from a boss. A nice moment with an athlete or parent or coach. Noticed, all of it. Noticed and appreciated and even jotted down at night in my journal.

But not sticking.

What was sticking? Guilt was sticking. My parents divorced when I was a little kid in Mississippi. My dad eventually moved to Wisconsin, then Georgia, then Florida. I was 13 and followed him. My sister, 16, stayed in Mississippi.

Never, I thought, would I do that to my boys.

In October 2014, I did that to my boys.

It was Dr. Vogler who threw the book at me. How, I had asked her, do I manage this worrying about my boys? This guilt? She suggested a separate column for my gratitudes: a column specifically about the boys. That was Dec. 2, 2016.

That night, on the left side of the page under the date, I wrote:

Dr. Vogler gave me an idea.

And on the right side of the page, under a new heading – Boys – I wrote:

1. Called Jackson.

2. Got Macon some gloves.

That was what, almost a year ago? Days became weeks became months, and let me tell you something about this stupid notebook of mine: It’s working. Habits are forming. Thoughts are changing.

Even so, when my boss asked me to write something for Thanksgiving, something about gratitude, I was stuck. She said it could be personal, or related to the people I cover. Nope, still stuck.

Then I remembered: Um, dummy? You have a book of gratitudes. Go through there and just pick something to write about.

May 14: Jackson showed me a funny cartoon.

July 24: Told Macon he looks like Jon Snow.

Oct. 18: Center Grove's Eric Moore was so awesome.

Nope, nope, nope. The book is full of small stuff, the tiny stuff we forget, nothing big enough to turn into a story. Unless, well, wait a minute ...

Maybe the book is the story. The book, and its impact on me.

Not that it has been some sort of magic pill. It hasn't. Low moments won’t go completely away. That’s not realistic. How do you handle them? That’s the question.

For me, the answer changes every night. On Thanksgiving night, before turning off the light, I’m going to open my book of gratitudes and write the last sentence of this story:

Nov. 23: I’m grateful for being grateful.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.