I suffer from depression.
Actually, let me expand on that. I occasionally have to deal with myself during stretches of time when I'm a miserable fuck. The length of these moods varies. I don't have a great grasp on what causes them, what prolongs them, or when they started. I recall being upbeat as a kid. I remember being a dour, reckless, semi-rebellious, drug-addled teenager. I don't really know when the moods set in or where they came from.
I don't like to call it depression because every kid I went to school with called their hormonal mood swings depression. Every time someone was sad or upset, they were depressed. Depression, both as a word and a mental issue, has lost all meaning for me. I liken it to petty emotional immaturity. If you're suffering with depression, and I mean really suffering from real depression, I feel bad for you. But, then again, buck up. You have shit to do.
The reason I bring this up, particularly here, is because the moods tend to impact my writing. By impact, I mean my moods tend to cease my writing. Not because I'm not feeling creative, or because I'm not still working out stories in my head, but because the work of it, the actual putting pen to paper (or putting digital words on a blank page) becomes a struggle.
I also bring it up because writing is the only sure way I've found to fight them. It's hard. Almost insurmountably hard. I have to force it, and occasionally I've found that only some outside stimulus will give me the boost I need to even get that far, but it works. Without fail. A day, or a week, or a month after I start forcing myself into the routine of writing the mood will vanish.
I feel that the healing power of creativity can't be understated. I could have just pointed out that Stephen King attributes a lot of his recovery after being struck by a car to resuming his writing, but I think his is an extreme example. I can't relate to that experience because I've never been hit by a car. I've never endured that kind of physical agony, or the months and years of rehabilitation. He also mentions that writing helped him thorough beating his drug addictions, but while I've used a number of drugs recreationally I've never been through an intervention. I've never had that experience. It doesn't speak to me.
So I'm sharing my experience. I'm sharing the kind of struggle I've been through, one that you, as a reader and a writer, may or may not relate to, because I think we've all struggled. I think we've all dealt with pain.
I'm sharing it because putting your mind to the task, putting your fingers to work, may be the one thing that can save you from your own pain.
When it comes right down to it, you can work through your pain, your issues, with your creativity. With your writing. You didn't embark on this journey because it was going to be easy. You did it because you have to do it. You set out on this road knowing there would be obstacles. Trials. Tribulations. Triumphs. This is just one more of those.
So buck up, you have shit to do.
Yours,
-S.R.
