#lol depression

[icyxthot]

trying to "set your heart ablaze" my way out of a depressive episode

[isleofmisfitvoldsoy]

It do be like that

[drtanner-dickery]

IT’S TIME FOR A POST ABOUT DEPRESSION BECAUSE I AM VERY FRUSTRATED TONIGHT

One of the things that folks who don’t have depression don’t often realise about it is that it doesn’t always come through by way of The Sads™. I’ve had to cope with my depression for most (if not all) of my life, and whilst it may certainly be true that The Sads™ are a hefty part of it, by far the larger and more annoying portion of my mental illness is the fucking chronic lethargy.

Like, my day-to-day mood has improved so much since I started T, and I only really get down when I have to do things that involve other people being able to see my shitty meat spacesuit and I remember that I don’t look at all like myself but that’s what people are going to see when they look at me whether I like it or not. I still have random evenings where my brain just takes a massive, watery shit all over itself and makes me feel bad for no reason, and I still have a lot of anxiety symptoms that keep me from getting out of bed at a decent time if I so much as hear another person in the street outside my house, but I really am doing so much better than I was since I started T last year. It’s amazing.

And yet, functionally, I still have a lot of the same problems.

Like my brain’s apparently natural proclivity to gravitate towards doing fucking nothing, for example. Even with things I’ve enjoyed doing, if I take a break from them for any reason, my brain goes, “Oh, cool. Not doing that thing feels so much better than doing it did, so let’s never go back to it ever and make it really hard to pick it back up again.” Which is how I altogether stopped playing Neko Atsume, and how I stopped playing ARK, and Minecraft, and every other game or hobby that I’ve taken pleasure from in the last several years. I had a great time with those things while I was keeping up with them, but then I stopped for all of maybe a month or a week or even just a couple of days, and my brain just fucking revelled in all the energy it didn’t have to spend on doing those things anymore. Doing nothing is always, always more rewarding than doing literally anything, no matter how good or fun it is.

Because of that, everything feels like a fucking chore, and getting started on anything is like pulling teeth. It’s fucking awful. It’s currently 11:15pm and I’ve been trying to make myself turn 90° to the right to face my tablet and draw since a little before 8pm, but since not drawing feels so much better and is so much more rewarding than drawing, I haven’t done shit yet and I’m getting increasingly annoyed at myself for not being able to engage in a fucking hobby.

Every day is a fucking battle to do the most basic fucking things. Like, it’s a huge ballache just to do things that I enjoy, so you might imagine the kind of chance I have of getting anything done when I’m not 100% crazy about it.

It must be fucking marvellous to just be able to do things when you want to.

[casuallyfalling]

Very tired , sad , and not okay . But what’s new

[its-so-savy]

Haha depression

I think what has been so devastating about Arin and I’s breakup is the fact that I knew I cound’t give him everything he wanted even when he admitted that it wasn’t a problem. I think the talk I had with him and his possible future dickbag boyfriend kinda gave more realization to that concept. I don’t exactly have a dick and I can’t have kids either. I even said if we tried getting back together it just wouldn’t work. He can’t give the affection I need and crave and I can’t give him the sex or the life he wants. We were never meant to be together in the end. I hate to admit that but it’s true. Its hard facing the fact that I cant bare children. I’m happy at least that he can still have that chance of having a family. I’ll most likely end up with a bunch of birds alone and sad like my mother. At least I can look forward to being the bird lady even if ill be sad.

[unconventional-dominiqueer]

If I were to write a memoir about my life up to this point, "Incomplete" would be the title. Sums up just about everything in my life.

[isleofmisfitvoldsoy]

When you start feeling that existential dread during covid

[drtanner-dickery]

I’M TIRED AND SAD SO IT’S TIME FOR A BIG FAT VENT POST

tl;dr - Everything seems like too much effort, not because I’m lazy but because I’m chronically exhausted, and the realisation is dawning on me that I may, in fact, be too sick to do the amount of creative work required to draw in enough of an audience that I could theoretically make an income from that work.

I mean, that’s about the shape of it, really. I’ve been working on these pieces for Pride merch all evening and every mistake I make feels like a punch in the gut because I’m just so fucking tired, I’m so fucking tired and making art is so fucking hard; it takes such a long time and it takes so much concentration and effort, and it’s not even worth it in the end because I’m so thoroughly fucking mediocre at it. Like, I know that talent isn’t really in the equation here - if the god awful people behind Twilight and 50 Shades can make a fortune from their horrible mediocrity, then I have every right to do the same - and that people who are far less skilled than me have bigger audiences and make more money than I do, but it’s disappointing to me to spend so long making things that just... don’t look that good when they’re finished.

This hurts me. I’m actually quite desperate to make a living from my art and writing now that I’ve got the time and opportunity to work on them, because I can’t imagine anything that could be worse for my health and happiness than going back in to regular nine to five work, but it’s creeping up on me that I might not physically or mentally be able to make a living from my art and writing. It’s like the realisation that I was already too old to become a weighlifter just as I was figuring out that I’d be pretty good at weightlifting all over again; it feels like everything has already passed me by, largely because of my mental illness. I’ve had years robbed from me by it, but more than that, I’ve had opportunities robbed from me, too.

Who knows what kind of life I could have had if I hadn’t spent my childhood and teenage years suffering and struggling?

And that’s to say nothing of the relationships that have been spoiled because of it. God knows there’s plenty of people I used to have friendships with who have gone on to become much more successful and well connected than me, and they’ve done that without me, either because I actively fucked things up with them and tainted (if not outright destroyed!) our relationship at some point in the past when I was Much Worse, or because I’ve just been too tired to keep up with them and we’ve drifted apart. Where might I be by now if not for that?

I don’t really try to connect with people anymore, if I’m honest. I can’t stand the feeling of being an outsider trying to worm his way into a new circle, of trying to win approval from people so that they’ll let me inside, which will invariably end up being a pointless effort in the end anyway because I will inevitably say or do something embarrassing and see no alternative except to quietly leave and never come back, inwardly convinced that everyone there will be glad to see the back of me because obviously they were only tolerating me in the first place and never really wanted me there to begin with. The only new circles I tend to be happy and comfortable in are the ones I create with myself at the centre, because at least then I know that everyone in that circle wants me to be there. They wouldn’t have come if they didn’t want to hang out with me. I never have to feel like an outsider begging for scraps like that.

I don’t know. I’m tired. I’m tired of trying so hard for so little, tired of yelling into the void in the hopes that someday the right person will hear me and open the door to my Big Break™. I’d love to make an income from the things I enjoy, but the things I enjoy don’t seem to resonate enough with people for them to share what I make. Maybe there is a market out there for the content I create, but it’s never going to find its way to me like this, is it? 

Every time I put my stuff out there and get no response, it feels like I should be taking the hint. It’s embarassing that I keep trying like this, really.

Oh well.