Depression Lurks

Depression can be hard sometimes, man. Just when I start to think I’ve figured some stuff out and am making some progress, it’ll come back and hit me harder than ever. And then I realize, yep, I’m definitely still depressed, though I might have fooled myself into thinking otherwise for a brief moment. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely in a better place than I was a few months ago, but during some particularly tough days it doesn’t feel that way, for sure. Depression has a harsh way of giving you a reality check every so often, just to make sure that you know you’re not out of the woods yet. Depression’s not something you can cure over-night, so it tends to lurk in the background, waiting for its opportunity to strike, even on your best of days.

That being said, I continue to spit-ball ideas on how I can improve. I feel like it can be slightly therapeutic every now and then to just let it all out and be sad for a little while, giving yourself some space to genuinely feel how you feel. But of course too much of that can be taxing as well, and a lot of times when I am in the sad zone I can basically become a zombie with no motivation to do anything, including not only anything productive but often not anything fun as well. I’ll just end up sitting in the same spot for a period of time just listening to sad music and doing nothing. Not a good look, I know. But sometimes that’s the only way to really get it all out and even that might be better than bottling it up forever. Outside of that I do think maybe just actively trying to have a more positive mindset could help. I haven’t put this plan into action yet, but this is a theory of mine that if I just tell myself that I am happy, even if I don’t believe it, then I might start to feel more happy in general. I used to do a better job of this back in the day, but the longer I’ve been depressed the harder it has become to even muster the kind of energy needed to give off such positive vibes on days when I’m not feeling it.

I do hate to be negative, so all of that was not to say that I’m in a worse spot than I was last week or the week before that or even the month before that, because I’m not. My point is really that it’s okay to not be okay, though I’m still finding ways to deal with that myself. For people who are depressed, one or two happy days certainly won’t make it all go away, though it certainly doesn’t hurt to have those happy days become a more common occurrence. So ultimately what I’m always working towards is trying to get myself into a position in life where I can experience those happy days more often than the sad days, where happiness is more of the norm for me rather than the exception.

Not that I have the most time in the world to work with on top of working, running two YouTube channels and this blog, but I was wondering if there might not be even more ways for me to channel my experiences and feelings into something creative. Particularly, some form of creative writing is what I had in mind. My only concern with that is I’m not sure if I have the knack for it nowadays. Other than the one screenwriting class I took in college, I literally haven’t done any creative writing with any sort of consistency since grade school, so my confidence in putting together some worthwhile stories isn’t exactly there at the moment. But hey, couldn’t hurt to challenge myself, right? The only problem with that is, like I said, trying to fit that in on top of everything else I’m working on, when I already don’t have enough time to enjoy some of my other hobbies as much as I’d like to. But that’s definitely something I’ll be thinking about in the coming weeks.