The Thing About Depression

Oh readers. I haven’t forgotten you. I look longingly and with a heavy, guilt-ridden heart at the stagnating space here, grasping at straws and reaching any place I can for some writerly inspiration. I know that there is so much more to say and to share, even if at times, mental illness builds labyrinthine walls between my core ego and the things I want to explore and share. Walls like “I’m too tired to write today.”

“I don’t have anything else to say.”

“What’s the fucking point, anyway? This world is awful.”

“Yes, by all means, continue celebrating your failed adulthood by pretending to be some kind of pro-bono Internet Sex Oracle.”

And the thing is, I know all these internal monologues are the products of illness, not of reality, truth, love, compassion, or kindness. Even being on a (mostly successful) regime of medication and therapy, I find that my mental health still cycles through periodic dives, especially in periods of stress and uncertainty. My time in therapy has given me tools to help me work through these times; my practice of mindfulness helps me to sort of ride it out, but while hanging on and trying not to completely relapse, everything else kind of…. stops. All of my energy turns inward. Socializing gets really hard, and then I get very lonely, and then I start feeling more doubts and sad things about my worth as a person and the value of my friendships. It’s a delicate walk on a knife-edge that demands so much of my mental and emotional energy, I find myself often sleeping twelve to fourteen hours at a time. This doesn’t create much of a fruitful headspace for writing, because I don’t feel like I can trust the thought-products of my mind.

I don’t feel safe or confident writing about sexuality and kink during these periods, either, because my own drives take such a sharp turn toward self-destruction, self-annihilation, and I am still in my own process of learning how to manage and channel the urge to self-destruct in a healthier, more compassionate and self-caring way. Kinkster friends and readers, do you have experience with this kind of thing? Learning how to express and work through self-destructive impulses and drives, without having to deal with the immediate dump of shame-bricks? It’s not easy.

But I am still here, and I’m still determined to fight my way through this latest round of neurochemical assholery.

Thank you for hanging in there with me.

 

 

• depression
• mental health
• mental illness
• safety
• self-care
• shame
• writing