Depression & Writing

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” 

― Kenji Miyazawa

This is a thank you to people who’ve found the courage to speak up and put their feelings, their thoughts, their fears into some form so that others can relate. This is for the reader that is searching for something they aren’t quite sure they need to hear yet.

I sat down at a bar a while back in Tinley Park to the tune of two dollar tacos and cheaper beer with our fine editor Alli. During the course of the conversation I remarked that I don’t always feel funny and that feels frustrating. I tend to write things that I reread and they appear cynical, miserable, and sometimes scathingly honest. They scare me sometimes. It can be uncomfortable confronting myself at times. I can be at best an optimistic torch carrier of all things alive altogether with this beast of anger and misanthropy flowing through me. It goes beyond a simple duality and feels more like blending a myriad of colors into a bowl of milk and soap. Alli, like any good writer had a way of summing it up and putting me at ease.

“You can only write where you’re at sometimes.”

I will begin by saying that I am not the owner on the manual on combatting depression. I have a tendency to speak in verbose metaphor and lofted language. I’ll try to stray from pretense as best I can. 

I haven’t been the best at handling depression myself, I have found that writing has been a healthy outlet in my life. Writing has been like unspooling a tightly wrapped ball of yarn into an itchy sweater. I’m always uncomfortable with what I’ve done but it feels like an accomplishment.

 When others write where they have been, they help others who are experiencing the same thing. I watched a video about Adam Driver, Kylo Ren in Star Wars, talking to American Troops about his journey from a soldier to a civilian and how reading the thoughts of others in plays and literature helped him transition. I have no combat experience and at best I’ve had a few scars from some well-earned fists mashing my face. I can empathize with struggling to put words to emotions. Having the ability to put words to something incomprehensible can be a powerful tool. The demons that be can be squelched with a sentence, a phrase, a mantra. I remember a story from a while back about a child with autism finding solidarity with a character in Guardians of The Galaxy. I loved that.

 Depression is something altogether fascinating and terrifying to me. It’s like a welcome home party in your child home with a family that isn’t yours. It can feel like being a crash test dummy at times. Opening up about depression can be uncomfortable for all parties, if I’m not mistaken there are people akin to me that have been told to not tell people so as they don’t get “the wrong idea.”

Medication is a devil in itself, like earning your stripes for some you aren’t depressed unless you’re encumbered by medication. It’s as if you can’t wear the pants without that specific belt. 

I will say that I have met people with far worse problems than I ever have. The parable of complaining about the type of shoes you have when others have no shoes is something I believe most of us live by. I believe most of the people on Earth are good people thankful for the lives they have. More often than not when someone admits sadness or depression, they’re looking for some form of help. Often times in moments of kicking a blues jam the words of others tend to put me at ease. Reading and listening to music is not a secret to finding comfort. Exercise. Meditation. The older I’ve got the better I’ve got at dealing with it. 

The varying levels of depression are often a point of contention, an at least for some. We measure our pain like a pyramid, as if it's supposed to be barricaded by a fence. I remember reading about Sylvia Plath a few years back and one of the points of discussion was how someone who was well off could find themselves in such a predicament. As if money was the alleviation of depression. People think differently. For some money means absolutely nothing. The first time I saw Forrest Gump, I was a five year old. I had barely begun learning to ride a bike, losing teeth was my only source of income beside the celebration of my birth once a year. I presume I was heavily selfish for the most part, it’s hard for a child not to be at best a psychopath. I remember having too many toys and fighting with my brother and at times carrying it over into the streets like our house was a circus tent filled with abused animals. Forrest Gump always kills me. I have to make fun of that movie. If I take it seriously it ruins my whole day. I went down into the basement and wrapped myself up in my car city carpet to cry because Forrest Jr. lost his mom. Being confronted with mortality in that manner was something I look back at now with respect. Good storytelling can do that.

I’ve consistently read things that I never knew I needed. At times I’ve been floored and elevated all at once. I’ve found laughter when I needed it and a good cry. 

Maybe you’re like me. At times you’ve felt like sinking. I guess all I can do is say to keep kicking. Keep kicking. Keep floating. Keep fighting. Keep swimming. Don’t fear the sharks, be a shark and you’ll find yourself taking a bite out of something. 

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