Cyclical Depression and the Joy of Writing

No blog posts until just before Spectacularly Broken was released, and that was over two months ago. The hell?

Unfortunately, this happens to me sometimes. Without trying to make it sound pretty – I have depression, severe anxiety and adult ADD. There is a lot going on in my head. I’ve struggled with this most of my life, and it has all steadily gotten worse to the point where I can no longer function without medication. I still try to keep the amount of meds low, taking some of them only on an as-needed basis (which is cleared with my health professional, of course). Unfortunately, even the meds can’t fully pull me out of the valley when my depression hits a low point, and then I tend to distance myself from the internet. Facebook posts are less frequent, I don’t tend to answer emails, I just plain don’t interact. That goes for real life too. I don’t generally leave the house much during these episodes, unless I absolutely have to, or I make myself take a walk in an attempt to feel better. So if you’ve tried to contact me, please forgive me for not getting back to you right away. I will eventually. At some point, the hypomania hits, and then I’m productive and full of energy, I clean the house, I cook and freeze food like a crazy person. I dance a Vienna waltz around the kitchen with my son.

(No joke. My kitchen is huge. It’s the largest room in my house, actually.)

Most important of all, I write. I get close to despairing when I’m in the valley because my head won’t let me write, and when I force myself to do it anyway, what comes out is the worst piece of writing in the history of mankind, or at least it seems that way to me. And then, once I’ve managed the climb, I’ve got ideas and energy and I write and write and it’s awesome.

I just wanted to put this out there. Now I’m gonna go back to writing about an artist and a baseball player and a little sister who steals condoms to use as water balloons.

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