I’ll be writing about depression and mental health stuff here.
My work and my internal state are deeply connected. I guess that’s what you get for striving to be indie. The ability to follow your deep desires, if acted upon, melts work and life together.
I have not managed to release anything this week. I tried, but it did not come together. I assume that this abandoned construction site will, in time, become part of the fertile soil from which I can do actual work in the future.
This is how it has always been, I’ve just forgotten. The drive to release something pushes me down into a few intense days of work that culminate in nothing but half-realisations and disappointment.
This is the part of the process I’ve been ignoring, that I’ve managed to actively forget. Eventually, all of this failure will coalesce into something that succeeds. Maybe.
On wednesday, depression hit.
I stayed sober by overeating. Instead of drinking alcohol or smoking weed, I ate. My physics teacher told me, many years ago, that once your stomach is over-full, all your blood travels to the stomach to help with digestion, leaving your head empty. No thoughts.
Did depression hit because the work was failing? Was the work dragging because depression was knocking? Work and life, no matter how separated by weekends and free evenings, are deeply connected.
I was just standing on the very same balcony where I comitted, many years ago, to make PRODUCER 2021. I remembered the joy of that process, the multi-faceted work, the many challenges and the glorious weeks of deep personal fulfillment I experienced during finishing the project. It started snowing while I was standing there and I dreamt again of graphic adventures, of rigid menus, hyperreactivity and pixellated collages.
This dreaming, this bodily yearning, is something I have not felt in a long time about my work. I had similar dreams about my active embrace of socialising, of dating, of going out into the world. Like the dreams that drove me to make PRODUCER 2021, they were not truly fulfilled. Once achieved, they left me with a kind of emptiness, a kind of “so what?” or, more precisely, a kind of “what now?”.
What now?
I have to remind myself, that I am still going in the direction I want to go. More stable. Sober. I seem to have regained control over myself today, I can feel joy at the sight of the snow. Even while depressed, I managed to clean my appartement and wash my clothes.
I enjoy writing these blogs. They help me to see myself clearer. I am aware that they can also seem like a cry for help, the kind of misery that compels you to reach out to me, to check in on me. I appreciate that, but I just want to clearly state here that I have a great support network in my family and in my old friends from childhood. I want to share how I am doing, but I do not want to worry you. It’s impossible, I know.
I just want you to know, and I have to remind myself of that as well, that I’ll be okay <3