Depression Event Horizon

I really do hating starting off these posts with why I haven’t written.  The answer is almost always the same Depression.  Over the last few months I feel like most of my energy has been to struggle to keep myself from falling into the black hole that is crippling depression.  I've been right at the edge of the event horizon, right before where I would be stretched into pieces, what is called Spaghettification.

I have tried to write blog posts.  I have a least a half dozen half written one still on my computer.  Each time I get part way thought and voice that says, this is boring, no good and no one cares shouts me down.  The post gets saved away with the promises that I'll come back to it and fix it.  A promise as you can tell I rarely keep.

And it doesn't matter that good things have happened.  It doesn't really need a reason.  I can be having a nice day, things going smoothly, and then out of the blue, I'm gripped with this general melancholy.  This sadness with latch on any kernel of worry or anxiety I have and grow.  It becomes an anchor around my soul.

I have finally decided that I needed to call in for backup.  As much as I love and need the support of my friends, who are wonderful, I needed and still need a professional.  For the last couple of months once a week I talk things out with a therapist.  I was reluctant to go to one, because I have tried to enlist professional help before, with mostly limited results.

Over the last 10 years, this is the third time I have sought professional help.  I never really clicked with the first guy I saw.  I soon realized that the stress of coming up with the co-pay was more stressful and a more of a hardship than the depression I was fighting.  A few years later I tried again.  Again I found I didn't have3 a great rapport with the therapist.  Worse than just not clicking with her, she was very forgetful.  Every visit I spend haft the time repeating what I had told her in past visits.  The final straw was when she double booked me.

Luckily it seems that the cliché is correct this time and the third time really is a charm.  My current therapist Heather is much more attentive and remembers what I have told her.  While I find the hour to be a little tough at time and draining, its been very productive.  I think we have found the root of some of my issues and anxiety.  It's going to be long slog to get a handle on these thing, but I think in time, I will be happier and healthier.

I'm also learning to focus on the positive things in my life.  Here are some highlights since the last time I posted:

• I have started dating a good friend of mine and things are going great on that front.  I Have never dated someone whom I was really good friends with first.  We had been friends for almost a decade before we got together, so all of the getting to know you stuff is out of the way already.  The best way to describe it is to use a drinking metaphor, odd for a teetotaler I know.  My past relationships were like doing shots of Jagermeister.  It was all good times and excitement, woo-who, Spring Break!! Than out of nowhere you find yourself feeling awful and there are some fussy bits about how the night ended, but you know it didn't end well.  What I have now is more like a nice glass of wine you drink with a fine meal.  You feel a little bit of a buzz and just sort of warm inside.  It's nice.
• I've been going to the gym lately.  In fact i have gone every week day for the last three weeks.  now it's just been 25-30 min on the bike so far, but I'm hoping to start lifting again soon.  Getting these workouts have been a big help to my mood.  Now if I can just start eating right.
• To bury the lead, I published my 8 page comic!!!  You can buy it here or here or on freaking amazon for your kindle.  Of course as soon as I released it I was caught in a powerful wave of depression and did little to no real marketing.  But it is awesome that it is one the shelf at my local comic shop, Comics and More
• But this does not mean it was a failure as it has gotten me a bunch of lettering jobs.  Including a story featured in an anthology coming out later this year.  Once it's out I'll share more details.  I also have set up a page full of samples of my work.  Please take a look and I'm open to feed back as to things I could do to improve my technique.  I'm still learning as a letterer.

I learned a lot doing the comic and these lettering projects.  I hoping to take that knowledge and applying it to a continuing bi-monthly series that is a follow up to Dangers of The Road.

OK I think that's enough blogging for now.  I hope to have some more post for you soon.

T.