Writing and depression

The relationship between writing and depression, how it's helpful and how it's not.

I've often thought of depression and writing as related, two sides of the same coin, uneasy bedfellows. Both are largely internal processes, hard to articulate, and hard to quantify outside the extreme evidence of their existence (a stay in a hospital ward, a published book or award nomination.)

The skill to living with both, I've found, comes from developing muscle memory, and trusting yourself.

I want to make this really clear, that while for me, I see a relationship between the two, I don't believe there necessarily has to be. I certainly don't think that the relationship is one of cause and effect. In fact, the fastest way to get me to leave a party or the pub is to say 'you know I just really think creative people are more inclined to mental illness ... '

Seriously, fuck off.

I'm creative in spite of my mental illness. It's the thing that gets in the way of me creating, it does not enhance it. But I can't pretend that for me, the two don't have a relationship with one another.

Half the battle with writing I find is trusting that when I finish for the day, when perhaps I've reached my limit, I'll come back to the page the next day, and the next. And much of that trust comes with practice.

This of course, is how I feel about my mental illness. Yes, everything seems hopeless and like you can't leave bed. But ... you will leave bed eventually. In ten minutes, an hour, ten days, it will happen. And so, you learn trust that not only will you leave your bed, you will also, at some point, want to.

A simile that was articulated to me when I was at my worst, was the notion of moods and feelings as clouds passing by in the sky. That bad moods pass as much as the good ones.

So now I know, that even if I feel like writing is impossible that day, that week, a time will come when not only is it possible, but I will also want to do it. Probably sooner than I think

The response to both is probably to calm the fuck down and have a herbal tea (still working on making that internal voice a bit kinder) and in the meantime trying to enjoy things a bit more.