Local author, former teacher and businessman John Shuchart has found success in many areas of his life, but amid the high points has been a deep, underlying sadness. Shuchart has suffered from depression for most of his lifetime but has found a way to cope by focusing on the lighter side of everything that weighs him down. Humor and laughter have become his rescuers.
Shuchart’s new book, “‘They’re Going to Cut You Open Like a Chicken!’ …And more depressing things my parents and others have said to me,” tells stories from his life that were, to him, very painful and caused his depression to worsen. But once he changed his perspective, the life stories that were once so debilitating became his method of dealing with his depression.
“It’s all about how I’ve learned to use humor in my personal struggles with mental illness and its stigma,” Shuchart said. “Everyone likes telling jokes and receiving the feedback from people laughing. But I never thought my stories were funny until people laughed, then it changed my focus.”
“Every time I feel the dark hole of depression coming on, I remind myself to smile and turn to funny stories, which stops the slide into that depressed state. We are all born with the ability to smile, and it’s much easier to smile than to frown. And I found it’s absolutely impossible to laugh and be sad at the same time,” Shuchart said.
The title of the book begins with a quote, and Shuchart explained that sentence is in fact something his father had said to him.
“Picture this: I’m a 5-year-old lying on the gurney, scared out of my mind, and I’m being wheeled to the operating room with my father walking beside me. Just before we get to those double doors that lead to the OR, my father leans over and says very matter-of-factly, ‘They’re going to cut you open like a chicken.’ He wasn’t joking around. He wasn’t smiling. He just said it and walked away as I started screaming my lungs out. I was terrified,” Shuchart said.
Each chapter reframes events from Shuchart’s life by telling the story of what happened to him and how he looked at the situation then versus now.
“I learned how effective it is for us to take our painful life stories and reframe them, tell them differently to ourselves, add some humor and get ourselves laughing instead of crying,” Shuchart said.
Shuchart emphasized that his goal with this book is not to “fix anyone.” He wants to change the stigma associated with depression and all forms of mental illness.
“People do not understand that my depression is not my fault. One who has pneumonia can no longer stop it than one who has depression can stop it. Tragic events in our society associate mental illness with violence and shame but the truth is less than 1 percent of people with mental illness ever even pick up a gun. Most people don’t seek treatment because of the stigma and they are too embarrassed. My hope is more than anything to make the public aware that sufferers are not violent and they are mostly successful people.”
Shuchart was one of the key volunteers who worked with Jewish Family Services to establish the Greater Kansas City Mental Health Coalition, which has now grown to almost 20 partners.
“Our chief aim is to curb the stigma attached to mental illness. As the website [www.itsok.us] says, ‘we need to start the conversation’ about mental illness and its stigma,” Shuchart said.
“I want to show people we are human. We have an illness. I want to help people understand that it’s OK to talk about it and we need to learn about it. The public is paranoid yet people are suffering,” he said.
The book will be printed and distributed around Jan. 15, but excerpts are available now on the website, cutyouopenlikeachicken.com, for free.
“We have one chapter up now and will begin rotating them starting next week [Dec. 7] so we’ll have five chapters (out of 12) available for people to read,” he said.
The project is completely not for profit and Shuchart said it will not be available through retailers, but rather only through nonprofit organizations or via the website. For every book sold, $5 will benefit the nonprofit of the buyer’s choice or organizations devoted to mental illness.
“Mental illness is a hot topic. The suicide of Robin Williams along with many celebrities and athletes who have now admitted to living with mental illnesses has indeed got the conversation going. We need to keep the momentum,” he said.
Shuchart said he received a call from a woman who read a chapter online and she thanked him because she suffers from bipolar and feels she can’t tell anyone.
“That is terribly sad,” Shuchart said. “It’s OK to talk about it because there is help. It doesn’t matter if you can be cured, but you can manage and people need to know that.”
For more information, visit www.cutyouopenlikeachicken.com or email Shuchart at .