Crash Test Girl

by Kari Byron

  In hindsight, I wish I’d fought back. I was young and vulnerable, and he was the boss. Maybe if I’d done more, or rallied everyone to unite against him, we could have crash tested a way to fight the power. I was just too fearful I’d lose my job and I didn’t have the experience or confidence to realize that this wasn’t how the workplace was supposed to be. It was my first TV job, and, for all I knew, it was typical for the boss to give his employees shit, torment them, and cause physical harm. I wasn’t the only one who let him get away with murder. Whenever Tory, Grant, and I talk about Colonel Kurtz now, we shake our heads in disbelief that we put up with him. We think we all had Stockholm syndrome.

  The stress, fear, and powerlessness triggered a deep depression. Since the source wasn’t going away, I envisioned misery without end. When I got home from work, I was a basket case. Paul would drive me to a field of flowers where I would cry it out for hours. It was hard on me, but equally hard on Paul. He was just as powerless to help me, which was stressful and frightening for him.

  * * *

  MARRIED WITH DEPRESSION

  The worst thing to say to any depressed person: “Cheer up! It’s not so bad!”

  Depression isn’t a choice. Why would I choose to be miserable on a beautiful day, with everything going for me, in love with an amazing man?

  Paul’s challenge was to understand that depression happened to me, and to him, but it was neither my, nor his, “fault” and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Of course, he was frustrated, and often blindsided. Depression isn’t predictable. It can strike when you least expect it, and it’s never convenient.

  His learning curve was steep. He’s an arty weirdo, too, with his share of bad history, but he’d never been this close to depression until me. I wear my heart on my sleeve with him, so he’d see me at my worst, no holding back or hiding. He was surprised and a little scared when I would go on and on about what a hot mess I was. After a lifetime of not sharing with my parents or anyone, I was too honest with him. We had some fights and struggled to accept each other, good, bad, sad, and ugly. It took years, but we got there.

  How to Deal with Depressive People:

  Make this your mantra: “It’s not about me.” Do not take a depression personally. It’s most likely not about something you said or did. It’s not going to stop because of something you do or say. Just be patient and loving.

  Take care of yourself. You have to deal with depression, but it doesn’t have to drag you all the way down, too. Do what makes you happy so that you’ll have some good vibes on reserve.

  * * *

  Paul encouraged me to try pills again, this time, for stress relief. He saw me in pain and reached for the tools we had at hand. If I couldn’t figure out how to calm down about the boss, I might lose my chance on the show, a consequence I’d fight tooth and nail to avoid. So I agreed to go down the psychopharmacological road again. Even though I was freaked out by the long list of the pill’s side effects—too vivid nightmares, suicidal thoughts, weight loss, weight gain—it seemed worth a shot. It felt like I had to take the pill to keep my job. If that meant being an employed zombie, so be it.

  For millions of people, pills are excellent tools to combat depression, stress, and anxiety. If drugs work for you, great. For me, they were deadening, again. I felt like the light went out. My jaw muscles were so tight, they ached. Electrical currents seemed to rocket through my body and shock me over and over. I hated the second round of pills even more than the first, and stopped taking them after only a few weeks. It was a long hike out of the Valley of the Dolls. Coming off them, even after a short stint, was a nightmare of cold sweats, anxiety, and insomnia. After a rocky couple of months to get back to baseline, I realized that our “Pills: The Sequel” crash test was flawed at inception. Work stress caused the depression. Instead of treating the depression, I should have focused on eliminating the stress.

  In that work environment, it wasn’t so easy. I did whatever I could to avoid the bad boss, and used other de-stressors at my disposal, like exercise, healthy eating, and spending time with Paul and our friends to remind me what I had to be happy about. I was able to get my anxiety and stress under control, and felt like I’d taken my power back by proactively addressing my reaction to the problem, if not eradicating the problem itself.

  PROACTIVITY, NOT PILLS

  The epilogue on Colonel Kurtz: Karma (not Martin Sheen) came to get him in the end. He burned too many bridges and was eventually asked to leave—and then claimed to be the victim of circumstance, not the bully he actually was, proving the theory that all tormentors are just insecure people who lash out at others to make themselves feel better about themselves. Ironically, his actions hurt him more than any of us, and now he’s basically blacklisted from working in TV. It took much longer than I expected, but he burned his reputation from one network to the next. Now, he’s mostly an online troll. Can’t wait for him to pan this book. It will only expose him if he does, though. To paraphrase Carly Simon, “You’re so vain, you probably think this chapter is about you.”

  GIVE BIRTH

  Bear with me. This crash test has a backstory.

  I’d been at MythBusters for several years. Kurtz was long gone. Things were great at work, and we were busting bigger and more complicated myths every week. We decided to re-create a luxury car commercial. One car raced across a desert. Another car was held aloft by a helicopter, and then dropped. The idea was that the car on the ground would hit the mark at the same time as the dropped car to prove how fast it was. I used physics to figure out the terminal velocities for dropping a car from the sky on a horizontal or vertical configuration (in relation to the desert floor).

  On test day, I was in the Big Dawg helicopter, a Sikorsky Skycrane, with the drop car on a quick release hook, hovering over an X on the Mojave Desert floor. Grant and Tory were in another helicopter, remote-controlling the land car. I was looking at the landscape, in awe of it, and with the fact that this was my job. I had one of those wild moments when it all hit me, the craziness of what I did for a living, how much I loved my coconspirators, and how cool it all was. I had to take a breath to get my head back in the game.

  Our timing was precise, and we executed. At the right fraction of a second, I released the drop. The car fell. The other car came roaring across the desert, and they hit the mark at (close to) the same time. It was a huge success. I started screaming in my chopper, so overjoyed. When we landed, I didn’t even wait for the cameras. I jumped out of the helicopter and ran over to the boys. They ran over to me. We started jumping up and down, screaming, hugging in a circle, celebrating like little kids.

  The essence of our job was to play and have fun and do these crazy things. We had only one shot this time (we wrecked our one test car), and we pulled it off. We were ecstatic. Later on, we went back to the hotel with the crew and ordered dinner and drinks. I remember sitting in the hot tub, drinking a beer, eating pizza, thinking, I can’t imagine life getting any better. It was beyond anything I’d imagined and I wanted it to stay exactly like this.

  The next day, I had an eight-hour drive home in a truck full of equipment with my cameraman Scott. I was watching the Sex and the City movie on my laptop (don’t judge) to make the time pass. In a scene, Big gives Carrie a pair of shoes, and for some reason, that little love gesture made me start bawling uncontrollably, the kind of sobbing when you snot yourself.

  Scott just sat there and listened to me sobbing and sniveling over Carrie Bradshaw’s shoes. He didn’t say anything and must have thought I’d come unhinged. I didn’t understand what triggered the emotion. It wasn’t depression, I knew that. So what was it? A thought popped into my head: What if I’m pregnant?

  The night before, in the hot tub, I’d turned to Tory and offhandedly asked, “Wouldn’t it be messed up right now if I were pregnant?” My unconscious is a lot smarter than I am.

  I got home and bought a pregnancy test, which confirmed my suspicions. I was completely knocke
d up. No wonder emotions were so high doing that experiment. I’d been running through the high heat of the desert like a kid, toasting to the happiness of my life right now, and that long day culminated with the news that life was going to change dramatically.

  I told the cast and crew while we were sitting around the office. People were telling real off-color jokes, as usual (TV productions are pretty lowbrow). Someone said, “Good thing there are no kids in the room.”

  I said, “There might be one.”

  The heads swiveled in my direction, everyone saying, “Whaaat?”

  I remember nodding and kind of shrugging. A mother on MythBusters? How was this supposed to work? I guess I have a long history of making huge life decisions quickly and just going for it, and then problem-solving the adventure as I move along.

  I chose my doctor specifically because she was clinical and not nurturey. I wanted straight answers, not sympathetic looks. My friend Lisa had gone to her and asked a million questions about food, and autism. The doctor looked at her and said, “You’re not that special. The odds are, you’re going to have a healthy baby.” I thought, Yes, I want that lady.

  I had some questions for her myself, like, “So, when do I have to stop shooting guns? Is it when they get, like, little ears?”

  She said, “I don’t know. I’ll look into it.”

  I ended up searching for policewomen with kids, and interviewed them to get my answer: At around five months, you had to stop shooting guns due to the noise and you had to be very conscious of the potential lead exposure.

  Another question for the doctor: “If I’ve got twenty-five pounds of C-4, what distance do I have to be so that the shock wave won’t affect the baby?”

  She said, “What did you say you do for a living again?”

  I basically had to figure all this stuff out myself (what else is new?). At around three months, I started to feel baby kicks during filming coinciding with my adrenaline rushes. At five months, my bulletproof vest got real tight. During one show, as I zipped up my flak jacket over my huge belly, the voiceover said, “It’s a little late for protection now, Kari!” Emmy-worthy writing, right there. It didn’t make the final edit of the show. It should have!

  Throughout pregnancy, I didn’t have a single depressive episode. It was happiness on tap. Everyone on the show was thrilled for me, too. For many of them, my pregnancy was the first one they’d been exposed to. It was a fascinating novelty to all of us, and we made our own fun with it.

  Around five or six months, I smelled beef stew at a restaurant and had to have it. I went from being a lifetime vegetarian, to eating beef stew for a week straight. Maybe I had an iron deficiency? I went into work and told everyone about it, and suddenly they all broke out in groaning or cheers. That’s when I learned they had an office pool about when I’d break down and eat meat. I was also their test case about how fast a belly grows and whether a mother’s stamina and personality were affected by pregnancy. Baby-making is creating and building at its most elemental. They all wanted to share in the joyous experience.

  I worked until the week of my due date, forty weeks pregnant on a bomb range, getting chased by an out-of-control robot. The robot was pretty slow, but I was really big, so it was a fair match.

  I took four months off MythBusters after Stella Ruby was born. My first day back, I shot a fifty-caliber gun off of a cliff into a runaway car and hit the engine block dead-on, stopping the car.

  It was a fantastic “I’m back, bitches!” moment, but it wore off by the time I got to the car to drive home. I could barely get excited about it. I had severe postpartum depression—headaches, extreme fatigue, crying jags. It started soon after giving birth, and was later compounded by my stressful back-to-work schedule.

  Along with filming all week for MythBusters, I had a spin-off on the Science Channel called Head Rush on Saturdays. I’d get up at 5:00 a.m. to drive to my parents’ house and drop off my daughter, and then race to be back for an 8:00 a.m. shoot. I was also breastfeeding and pumping throughout. I’d put on makeup to cover my dark circles, stuff all the stress, sadness, and anxiety into a compartment in my mind, smile, and dive into filming. I was a zombie.

  I remember talking to a producer and opening up to her about what was going on. “What can I do? I can’t stop crying. How do I smile when I want to crawl into a ball?” I asked.

  She’d worked with news anchors who’d had to keep it together while covering wars and atrocities, on top of whatever they had going on in their personal lives. She looked me in the eye and said, “You just do it. You dry your tears, clean yourself up, and keep telling yourself that you’re not you on camera.”

  And I did it. I just fucking did it. But by the end of the workday, I was a wreck. I’d worked through migraines, flus, and broken knees, but this was worse. On TV, you don’t have a choice. It wasn’t just my paycheck at stake. The twenty people behind the scenes working around me needed me to “show up.” I remember swallowing my hurt and forcing myself to get perky. It was like pretending to be happy in high school, except with cameras and a thousand times the pressure. Occasionally, I locked myself in a bathroom or outhouse to cry for a minute. Then I dusted myself off, and faked it.

  After five months of it, I was at my wit’s end. Postpartum depression proved to me to be the grand mommy of them all, and she was a huge bitch.

  I was holding on by a thread but this job was bigger than just me now. The guys talked me down from the ledge a few times. I stuck it out, reminding myself that it would pass, but it was sure taking its motherfucking time. In hindsight, I think I knew that if I didn’t go to work, engage in challenges, be active, and learn new things, my depression would have been even worse.

  * * *

  SCIENCE THE PROBLEM TO SOLVE IT

  Wisdom and maturity have allowed me to be better equipped to deal with my depression. I learned the hard way what works for me by experience and experimentation. I can’t just throw off the weight, but I can ride it out and push it away faster if I follow my four-step protocol that minimizes my symptoms.

  Step One: Healthify. Drinking copious amounts of alcohol and eating junk food doesn’t help, duh. I eat a healthy whole foods diet and avoid wine or Ambien, anything that’s a downer.

  Step Two: Exercise. Science tells me that endorphins released from sweating help. I do yoga, Pilates, or go on a bike ride every day. Sometimes the real hurdle is to just get out the door when all I want is to sleep and watch TV. Going to a class makes me socially accountable. It’s bad form to leave in the middle of one, even if you’re crying. I’m forced to stay for the hour and work my body and give my mind a break. I have ridden my bike until the tears dry in salty streaks across my face. Sometimes I will go down a hill that scares me, so I have to get out of my head and concentrate on not crashing. My Juliana mountain bike and a yoga mat have saved me countless times.

  Step Three: Socialize. Surround yourself with people and talk to them. To be social, you have to get dressed and sit upright around a table and tune into the conversation. It gets you out of your head. At work, I have to put on makeup and smile in front of a camera or crowd. Sooner or later, my brain catches up to my smile. I also rely on my dog for interaction. I get companionship, love, and exercise in one furry, cuddly package.

  Step Four: Create. Give those clammy hands something to do. I’ve sculpted through sadness (and happiness) and made some heartfelt works. You can see the darkness in some of my pieces from certain time periods and, interestingly, those are the ones people always ask me about and are drawn to. They have become reminders for me of rechanneling emotion into art. I had these feelings, they were turned into this piece, and now it’s on the shelf.

  My mood disorder has been a hindrance, no question. I won’t sugarcoat that. But, like all my faults, I had to learn not to blame myself or hate myself for having it. There is a side of my life that’s unpredictable, frightening, and dangerous. But so is life, so in a way, I’m innately prepared. It made a big differe
nce when I stopped seeing my issues as burdens and recast them as problems in need of solutions—and I’ve gotten really good at finding inventive solutions. I mean, it’s what I do.

  * * *

  I psyched myself up by thinking about Stella. I told myself, “I just had a baby girl, and I’ve got to do this for her. She needs to see me as a brave, hardworking woman who doesn’t give up!” I learned in due time that my daughter didn’t care that I was working so hard for her. She just loved me—and I was head over heels in love with her. My particular type of postpartum depression didn’t include ambivalence or hostility toward my baby. I adored her, and that love was the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. I never had a doubt that I wanted to be a working mother. I just didn’t realize it would be this hard.

  After six months, my put-on-a-happy-face became genuine, and the depression started to lift.

  It was gradual, but even small improvement was huge. What a relief it was when my biggest working mom problems were logistical only, like finding a convenient spot to pump on a bomb range or in the desert, and where to store the bottles. I put them in the cooler where the crew kept their drinks. One guy (talking to you, Matt) accidentally spilled breast milk on his hand, and he ran out screaming like he’d been doused with toxic waste. When I heard myself belly laughing at the sight, I realized I was genuinely happy and the dark period was really over.

  I fell back into the camaraderie at work. I brought in a batch of homemade cookies and the crew inhaled them as usual. I said, “Isn’t it so cool that I baked all those cookies using my breast milk?!” and then I watched them all dry heave and gag. They believed me! I had to tell them I was kidding before they raced to the bathroom to vomit. (My nurse friend says that new moms have brought her boobie milk cookies a few times. Eww. We are weird out here in California.)