Getting Help
The Chimes of the Failed
Currently playing: REPO continues to be good and stupid and hilarious, and their newest update delivers on all fronts. Meanwhile, I’m considering diving back into Path of Exile 2, as I need a good podcast game, and ARPGs have never failed to fill that slot.
I’ve lived with depression for almost 20 years now, and I will continue to live with it until the final days. This is a fact I’ve come to accept. For almost 20 years I went to sleep every night hoping I wouldn’t wake up, and for almost 20 years I woke up every day utterly disappointed that I did. It didn’t matter how much good or bad there was in my life, the song remained the same. Sleep for me is a mentally and physically painful trial I force myself through on a daily basis. I am constantly sleep-deprived, causing me to have somewhat-regular auditory and visual hallucinations. For almost 20 years, I have clung to sanity with a vice-like grip, railing against my own mind, forcing myself to recognize that the face appearing behind me in the mirror, the human head I find in my closet, or the hand on the floor just poking into view from behind the doorframe aren’t real.
A few months ago, I finally got help. I thought I could handle it on my own for all those years. I kept telling myself it wasn’t that bad, but when I spoke to the VA over the phone about my symptoms and my day-to-day experiences, the person on the other end got me the first civilian psychiatrist appointment she could instead of waiting over four months to speak to a VA psych. Apparently, it was that bad.
The thing that finally pushed me to get help, though, wasn’t from some self-created moment of clarity. It came from a letter from my own wife. See, I recognized I was getting worse, but I couldn’t figure out why or how much worse. So I reached out to the VA to increase my benefits, but I needed a letter from her to help. All I asked of her was to honestly describe what life was like with me.
I read it, and it was brutal. I wouldn’t have wanted to live with me, and I don’t know how she persevered through it all. Her own testimony was enough for me. I had to get help.
My biggest fear, as I explained to my psych, was getting help and getting on medication would fundamentally alter who I was. Much of that is me worrying I would lose whatever creative edge I had — not that I told my doctor that. I was reassured that meds wouldn’t change who I was, that it would only “soften the edges” around life.
Regardless, taking that first pill was terrifying. I waited for the change to happen like I was Dr. Jekyll dreading the transformation into Mr. Hyde. My sense of humor was gonna disappear, the combination charnel house/abbatoir in my mind that fuels so much of my writing would be torn down, and I would become a shallow husk, a laughable mockery of my former self.
Nothing happened. At least, nothing I could perceive until something came along that would normally send me spiraling down that familiar black pit of despair. Which it inevitably did, but I didn’t spiral nearly as quickly as I used to. I talked to my doc, and my meds were adjusted, and again, nothing happened. But this time, quite literally nothing happened. I didn’t spiral. I remained myself. I still feel pain, life still sucks in the face of all the chaotic misery in this country, but I’m okay.
For the first time in almost 20 years, I’m okay. And I can tell you with full confidence, dear reader, that the combination charnel house/abbatoir is still churning out dark fantasy plot at 100% productivity. I’m just no longer in danger of turning its engine of violence upon myself.
Medication may not be for everyone; I understand that. But getting professional help — be it spiritual, psychiatric, or something else — is for everyone. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but many of us need another set of eyes to see it for us.
In writing: I found a new cover artist for FIREWIND’S ACCORD! It’ll be a few months yet as she’s currently booked up through August, but I am so looking forward to working with her to make my book look readable. It took months to find an artist who was open for commissions, responsive, and worked in the exact style I was looking for, and I happened to stumble upon her after subscribing to a starter pack on BlueSky. Support human artists, people. Pay them for their work. It’s what you’d want people to do for you.
Meanwhile, I’m finishing up very loosely drafting another MS while I have my others getting read and simmering in my drafts. I have to do this, otherwise I will die. The creativity must flow. It must.