CW: Depression, anxiety, suicide
Some spoiler alert
Last weekend I saw Dear Evan Hansen while in New York.
I’m a total sucker for a Broadway show. Particularly musicals. I cry every single time, even at the happy ones. It’s what I do. I love watching the cast, how the actors’ over-express emotion to get their story across, seeing how the choreography enhances the story in ways you could never imagine. It’s magic and it’s alive! I’m likely going to NYC for work in a few weeks and already thinking how many I can see in 48 hours.
This show… This one... Wrecked. Me.
It took me five days to even fully grasp how much this show has impacted me.
I knew it was a heavy topic, I knew it addressed depression and anxiety. Otherwise I was avoiding any reviews, summaries, I even avoided listening to the soundtrack (I didn’t even know there was a suicide).
From the very first song all these thoughts and feelings and pain welled up. I had two tissues going, the one to wipe my nose, the other one soaked from tears. I knew Evan Hansen. I knew him because I have been him.
When the show was over I couldn’t move right away. As the audience filed out I was sitting in my seat collecting myself. I was going to meet up with friends that were at Miss Saigon. I had to pull it together before walking into a bar and having a drink to celebrate GNO.
As I descended the stairs and could see the street outside I felt very disoriented. I got onto the sidewalk and could not really grasp where I was, what direction to walk in, that so many people were moving about and I was right in the middle of the sidewalk. As I got my bearings and started walking to our meet-up place. I felt light headed, everything around me was hyper-enhanced…lights, sounds, touch. I texted my friend that I was disoriented and processing a lot. Once I was with them and shared a bit about what I was feeling it snapped together, I was returning to my body, to my brain, to reality. We laughed, we toasted, we bonded and closed down the bar.
In the back of my mind I knew I wanted to write like, 20 different posts! There is so much experience covered in 8 characters and how each one is relatable. I didn’t know where to start. I would figure it out on the train back to Boston the following day.
But I couldn’t do it on the train.
Or when I was back home.
Or when I took note cards to map it out at dinner.
I tried listening to the soundtrack and could not get through a full song.
The day Norman and A came into town, I would finally have someone to talk to, someone who had also seen it.
That’s when it clicked.
I had shoved it all down. All the emotion. All the thoughts and impact and the pain of watching what unfolded on stage. I was disconnected from my thoughts and feelings from the show and taking any kind of action.
I was numb.
(lightbulb pops)
This. This is what I do.
My most comfortable coping mechanism is to suppress and ignore.
So much of my recovery has been learning what an emotion is, how to identify it, and then to sit in it and experience it (so much yuck). Those feelings charts with faces therapists use to help their clients figure it out, when I started it had the six basic emotions. Over time the pages changed with more faces and more nuance of emotion and feelings. I eventually worked myself up to one with 70 options (this is long before emojis where a thing).
When I finally got to talk with Norman the tears came out again. I reconnected with all that emotion. Like a dam breaking. I have been able to listen to the soundtrack.
So this is where I start telling my Dear Evan Hansen story. It’s where I start with my own depression and anxiety — to recognize it is there in the first place.
Then take the next step. Here I go.
