Working with Depression

There’s a point where your life just shuts down, and you’re drowning in existence. You can feel your lungs stretch to try and cover the job of your intestines, and your stomach crumble under the pressure. And all of that can start from a simple “Hey.”
An entire existence undone by a mere platitude.

That is how depression feels. A void of terrifying nothingness. And thats how I’ve wound up having to live my life; tightroping against the all encompassing darkness of its cruelty, aswell as the harsh light of reality. All you want to do is scream for help. But you don’t want any attention. No one can know  your pain, not out of any machismo or egotism, but through the simple fact that even you don’t know why.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is see that your friends and family are aware of it, but don’t ever truly acknowledge it as a concern. That twitch of a concerned look before you carry on can make a world of difference. It can feel cold to the person giving it, but it can show to us that you know we’re lying when we say we’re okay, and you care about us, but its no big deal, and you don’t see us as any different for it.

I’ve always been someone who plays his demons as his puppets, writing out my real life under the wallpapering of fiction, but that has got harder now I have some degree of an audience to my work. The truth is, I create my world’s to help conquer my demons, spinning their terror into a silky little yarn I can laugh at to myself, knowing the sinister truth behind it, but now they didn’t seem so bad under this wallpaper. Yet now, there’s another eye on my work, one who wouldn’t have this added benefit, so there’s an added pressure to bare my demons on my sleeve, but let them tell their own tale without feel like I’m pandering, or failing to keep it entertaining.
There’s been multiple times now where I’ve been writing and had to stop and cry. Rarely even a notably dark scene of the actual tale, I nevertheless have to face something more head on than I can be ready to deal  with.

I now have to let deadlines fall by the wayside in order to deal, but procrastination nestles, and workloads grow. I’m trying now to find a place to face it all head on, my feet rooting to the earth deeper than ever before.

I don’t have anywhere witty or clever to go with this, but know that if you’re suffering, sometimes you have to accept your personal deadlines have to change, but never let it disappear. Take up another distraction to keep draining out your demons, in my case drawing, until you feel any blip in their hold on you, then go back to your main focus, even for just 10 minutes. It will remind you what you’re fighting to keep. And for those who know someone, sometimes a little space, can show you will always be there.

My 2nd book, Midnight Heat available here

I also dick about on Instagram with toys sometimes here