Nostalgia and Mood Swings

I like a post title that sums up every major plot development in my life. And those, if only because 'uneventful and frustrating' is a lamer choice.

Whether it's actually SAD (that thing a lot of people 'get' over the winter where you're just bleh for no obvious reason) or just old wounds or even fairly new ones, it's hard to say. I just made it through my mom's birthday, the first one since she passed away on her birthday last year. I suppose some people get extra sad on these morbid milestones but, like holidays, a day by itself means absolutely nothing to my moods. I miss her. A lot. Mostly on weekends when the habitual part of my brain that still connects weekends with visiting her has to get smacked down.

Depression has been... an odd part of my life since sometime in my early childhood. I say 'sometime' because memories have no real method or reason for me. When my parents split up, I didn't feel anything. Obviously, my dad was a mess and I could see how traumatizing it was for him, but there was nothing there. Don't get me wrong-- I was a hyper-emotional child, but for some reason I'll never get, it just didn't take. At least not until my own mind stopped making sense to me. I'm not going into early childhood trauma here, but it seemed a lot of ugly things were suddenly noticed and the backlash was the first word of this paragraph. Sorry; lightweight research time.

Again, don't know if you can attribute it to puberty or not, but I became pretty volatile. Up until my mid to late twenties, I was misdiagnosed, overmedicated and getting worse. Up until I stayed in a psych ward, if only because I needed to be separated from my current life to figure out what the hell was triggering me. I had no actual clue, just that it hurt here and here and nothing was working...

I got one of those Quora emails that I sometimes poke at when I need to make myself go to sleep. It amazes me the personal crap people will unload on there with the promise of anonymity. However, one comment links back to my lifelong battle with depression.

The question had been along the lines of what is actually a bad tip for someone with severe depression. The answer? This person took umbrage with the usual advice to 'Keep doing what you enjoy', claiming it was harmful.

Let me tell you why it isn't bad advice. The one thing that has kept me from drug addiction, more trips to the emergency room and hospital stays is this: I kept doing what I 'enjoyed' even though I initially thought it was bullshit advice myself. Supposedly, it is harmful because you will feel like a failure if you can't enjoy it. I can almost guarantee there is not a single fucking thing you can do when you're severely depressed that doesn't feel like cataclysmic failure though. Did I enjoy doing it? Nope. But I also avoided the guilt of doing nothing. There is nothing that keeps me locked in depression like that guilt, that I haven't even tried. In fact, much about my hobbies and things I enjoy involves failure to progress. If something, including depression, is making my work or hobbies suck, then it doesn't suck more simply because it's precious. In fact, I may actually amaze myself by how much I don't suck and it will pull me in the right direction.

I can kind of understand why you might want to avoid things you enjoyed prior to everything sucking, but those things are also the path of least resistance. You have some skill or knowledge that has stood the test of time there. Do you really want to try new things when you're there? Maybe, but I'd say that's another 'tread carefully' suggestion. I wouldn't try rock-climbing for the first time when depressed and mainly because I never feel completely in command of my body when I'm at a mental low and I wouldn't trust the adrenaline to kick in nor the temptation to jump to be avoided.

Menial tasks are probably a safer bet if you're not a hobby/work sort. Hey, maybe you're outright boring, but that's not a crime. Productivity is really the key to slogging through depression. Wash dishes, dust shelves that have already been dusted, vacuum and possibly while listening to music that you enjoy. I know it's crazy but this works too. I used to be a very messy person, but I conditioned myself to clean while listening to music, a sort of Pavlovian reward system. Hear the music, start to clean. And that's just it. What gets me through episode after frustrating episode over the years is conditioning myself to live with the consequences of those down times. In the same way that it sucks to come home from vacation to a messy house, it's hard as hell to rise up out of depression to a messy life.

So do the things you enjoy even when every part of you swears you won't enjoy them. You may have noticed, I'm insanely productive. I have also been simultaneously depressed and I know how dangerous it is. Just because the method works for me, it doesn't ever mean I'm safe from the absolute stupidity of my shitty subconscious. So take my 'bad advice'. Thing is, you have to poke the bear from different angles every time. Sometimes doing what I enjoyed does nothing. Sometimes I have to veg out on bad food, bad movies and poke at a tablet (this set in extreme moderation-- if it doesn't gratify instantly, I abort ship). Again, what keeps me functional seems to be my willingness to get that I will never quite understand the nature of the beast, but I'm still willing to go to battle.

I don't want to end on a grey area here. Grey areas are usually my favorite areas since extremes are not. However, I would like to say I have been productive. Maybe too much. Sleep hasn't been coming easily, but I've released three books that were held up in my queue and, well, if you've seen my updates, you know that cover art and drawing has made a comeback.

Just wanted my readers to know this-- find comfort in some of the crazy. When I stopped seeing every difference in myself as an anomaly, I was able to embrace my plans and ideas and find the courage to share them. Success for me is in small victories. The idea of a huge fanbase or aggressive marketing actually scares the shit out of me. Sure, financial success is yay, but I still want to grow into this role naturally. More than anything, I want people to see my versatility-- in writing, in drawing, in the genres I play with. I'm not a one-trick pony and I want to try a lot of things as an artist. Oh, and finish what I start. That is still rather new to me, but somehow I'm doing it. Wonder of wonders...

Anyways, keep writing. Before I ever entertained having the status of an author, it was always a great comfort.