EYES ON ME

An unflinching portrait of survival under the weight of anxiety and depression.

The album

“In August of 2017, I experienced the greatest crisis I’ve faced over the course of roughly two decades living with depression and anxiety, an experience that convinced me that I needed to walk away from my 16-year career in elementary education in order to preserve my health. Even though I had been successfully managing my illness with medication for years, various circumstances converged in such an unfavorable way that I reached the point where I could not function and was becoming a danger to myself.

Fortunately I already had a constructive relationship with my personal physician. I was able to go directly from what turned out to be my last day at school to his office, where I told him what I was experiencing and about my crippling feeling that there was no way out. I can still see the gravity and empathy in his face when he looked at me squarely and slowly emphasized, “There is always a way out.” He immediately excused me from work for the next two weeks and made a significant change in my medication. I began regular cognitive behavioral therapy. My doctor extended my time away from work, I was able to use the many, many sick days I had accumulated to remain employed under disability, and we eventually concluded that a return to the classroom was not in the best interest of my health.”

The songs

“The synthetically spoken phrases that are sprinkled throughout this opening instrumental are verbatim quotes from my experience in education. Most of them appeared among an ever-growing list of bullet points in the morning memo that was sent from our building administration to the entire faculty.”

1) ALL THE WORK YOU DO

2) ALIVE

“Celebrating the most important aspect of my mental health crisis: I survived. Which is not to say that life has been altogether wonderful ever since, of course. But when you’re on the brink, concrete survival is an unqualified improvement.”

3) MONDAY MORNING

“Relief at my survival was almost immediately tempered by an emotional descent into cold reality. While life went on as usual for everyone else, I found myself unexpectedly unemployed, alternately numb and highly anxious, and without a clue as to what I should and could do next. Every Monday morning was a stark reminder that I had walked away from the career from which I’d thought I would retire.”

4) EYES ON ME

“My final years of teaching were spent at a school serving an economically and socially disadvantaged community. Once while cleaning up my classroom, I found a scrap of paper on which was scrawled, ‘Mr. Hunt needs to die.’ Its author had no idea how destructive those words were. The audio effects featured in this song include recordings of a school bell, chalk on a blackboard, and children conversing excitedly, all examples of sounds that would put me on edge in the aftermath of my crisis. For years after I left education, I experienced cold-sweat nightmares about teaching from which I would awake to soaked sheets.”

5) DON’T GO AWAY

“A song of abandonment, of haunting remorse for leaving everyone behind with the knowledge that I would never return.”

6) CAPTIVATED

“Through it all, my wife was the rock upon which I built a new foundation of mental health. This song is the story of how we met, two introverts who found themselves drawn into a whirlpool of attraction. When she first looked at me in a way that telegraphed her affection for me, I was hers forever.”

7) FRYING PAN

“The pessimistic anchor of chronic anxiety under increasing pressure. Even when things improve, the tension is still there. ‘Don’t think it’s getting better; you’re just out of the fire and into the frying pan.’ Where, like the metaphorical frog, you won’t even notice the incremental rises in temperature until it’s too late.”

8) IT’S ONLY ME

“The album is only getting darker from here on out, so some comic relief is necessary. The title of this song refers to the fact that it features no instruments. Inspired by the great Todd Rundgren’s album A Capella, my vocals, straight or electronically manipulated, are the only thing you hear on this track. A quick, silly bit of mania to counter the depression!”

9) DOWN DOWN

“In addition to a life-changing adjustment to my medication regimen (it totally eliminated my longtime, recurring suicidal ideation), my post-crisis intervention included biweekly sessions of cognitive behavior therapy (with the kindest and most supportive therapist, I am fortunate to say). Indeed, there is no miracle pill.

10) VOICES

“It all comes to a head in the harrowing final track. If you ever wanted to know what ran through my mind during the darkest times, this piece is an accurate recreation. I still experience a certain duality in my perception, a struggle between unbridled confidence and complete despair, but I have worked to embrace the sane middle ground. Listen carefully to the shattering glass that accompanies the final repetition of “I am breaking free.” There’s another, subtle sound effect in there. Can you tell what it is?”