Explanations and Admissions
And so, a month later, a tumbleweed rolls through the center of the website and the sheriff rides back in on his horse and the townsfolk look at him slightly askant and say, “Where’ve you been?” And he looks back and says, “Well, there’s a tale in that…”
And there is, but it’s not even a really good one. I mean, my reason for stepping away is valid and explainable, but it’s not exciting like, “I was called away to Antarctica for a black ops mission and couldn’t keep my stories about punks updated while I was fighting Lovecraftian horrors—sorry.” No, the reason I’ve been gone for a month is so commonplace (particularly amongst writers) as to be almost laughable:
Depression.
I mean, yeah, other things like my finances (which are crap at the moment) fed into the situation a little, but it’s mostly depression. And that’s a hard thing for me to admit to publicly, because even though I’ve fought it before (and looking back on it, I’ve battled depression when I didn’t even know that’s what I was doing), I always considered it a sign of weakness. Depression’s not something you admit to and it’s certainly not an excuse—pull yourself up by your bootstraps; do you want everyone to think you can’t hack it. And logically, I knew that none of that was actually the case, but when did logic ever figure into matters of either depression or pride?
The main trigger was right around the end of last year, when I had to quit commissioning Cristy Road to do any more of the beautiful illustrations that you’ve been enjoying with the stories, mostly because I’m cripplingly broke. That sent me off down a spiral where I couldn’t get myself motivated and I just spent my days thinking: “What’s the fucking point?”
Yeah. That was the kind of depression it was. Not the physically self-destructive or suicidal kind, but the insidious variety that paints everything in shades of grey (which sucks because I live in Vancouver and the sky is a non-stop grey tableau between October and April) and strips direction, motivation and purpose from your life. And I slid. I let myself slide. I didn’t leave the house. I didn’t work on anything important to me. (Though, on a slightly positive note, I did periodically shower, shave and get dressed. That’s something, right?)
What, then, dragged me back from the edge? What gave me enough gumption to turn the internal writing machine back on?
Well, I decided not to be a slave to or ashamed of my depression anymore. I made the conscious decision that I wasn’t going to let it be the monster that hides in the closet and manipulates my life from the shadows while being invisible to everyone else (and, let me tell you, over the years I’ve gotten really good at keeping my true trials and tribulations hidden from most of the rest of the world). And while I know that overcoming depression isn’t simply a matter of saying “I’m just not gonna be depressed anymore,” it’s still a step. A first step. Not the first of twelve, but one where I do admit I have a problem. I’m not going to look into meds, but I am going to look at other options to try to beat/treat it. Because this isn’t how I’m going to live my life.
On top of that, my good friend and wonderful artist Karlene is going to be doing some illustrations for my book. And she’s excited about it. And her excitement made me remember why I was telling this story to begin with and reminded me that there’s plenty of people out there who, I think, will enjoy the book and I need to work past the depression to be able to tell the story to them.
So, sorry for rambling on at length about something as gauche as this, but for the people out there who’ve enjoyed the stories so far and are looking forward to the book, you deserved an explanation. And it’s something I evidently needed to get off my chest. I’m not looking for sympathy, but for those of you I know IRL, if I could hit you up for support now and again, I’d appreciate the hell out of it.
There are updated plans for the website in the works and I’ll tell you about them really soon, but on a closing note today, I’ll just say this:
Life’s too short to be owned by your depression. To paraphrase and mix ‘n’ match Black Flag, you’ve gotta break free or it’s gonna kill you. Rise above.
