A Real Human Boy!

I think I could handle everything - depression, anxiety, the fact that the world is burning down around me, if I could just sleep. I've had problems with insomnia on and off, and I realize now that I keep saying I've had problems "on and off". Has my life been a series of problems waiting in line patiently for their turn to mess with me and now they're re-enacting the big fight at the end of Avengers: Endgame ? Who's going to come through the next portal? Terrible self-esteem? Thanks for joining the party! Stress-induced stomach problems? Welcome! The one thing I haven't done is just emotionally collapse because I see something on TV where a dad is nice, but you know that's just waiting for Doctor Strange to wave him in. I don't know why I'm blaming Doctor Strange for this. But as it is, I'm lucky to grab two hours of sleep a night. Usually it's somewhere between zero and one. And I'm super busy at work right now, so I'm ...

“I'm going to get around to talking about a nice thing this time. But to get there, I have to talk about how depression flattens out your emotions. It's not really like you're sad all the time, even though I that's my short hand. I feel things less than I used to. It's like that Ren & Stimpy episode where Stimpy just keeps repeating "I don't care" in a frankly hilarious monotone. It's all kind of flat. Side note  - mentioning Ren & Stimpy reminded me of this recent thing that's been happening where I've been looking up creators I was really into in the Nineties and seeing what they're up to and it's always a game of "Sex Creep / MAGA/ Dead", because they all seem to be one the three. John Kricfalusi? Sex creep. Bob Burden? MAGA. Mark E. Rogers? Dead. It's always a depressing game with a bad outcome. Anyway, this is kind of turning me off of things that I enjoy. The depression, not the sidenote. Because I ...

On some level, I think I thought that writing one entry would help me manage my depression and everything would be OK. That turned out not to be the case and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  The last 24 hours have been bad. And I feel like I need to emphasize that I am not actually in any danger. Self-harm is not in my bag of tricks. This is not a cry for help and nobody should be worried about me. I mean, a little worried because, as noted, a podcast ad read made me burst into tears. But nothing worse than that. All that said, even on a good day I have problems with sleep. For so long, I would just stay up ridiculously late watching TV or playing video games and then get up very early for work and just eventually catch up on the weekend. I know it's not super healthy, but that was me. That segued into insomnia and about two years ago I discovered that I could sleep better if I slept on the couch with the TV on. Which is bad for seratonin or something, but it worked for me....

I’m not super clear why I’m doing this and I don’t expect anybody to ever read it. There’s a lot of stuff on the Internet and you can surely find something better to do with your time. But I’ve been writing online for thirteen years and I’m trying to get a writing job and also turning a pilot script into a podcast and lately I can’t write anything because I’m depressed.  So I’m going to try writing about depression just so I can stay in the habit of writing.  This is extremely self-indulgent, I know.  But I expect this to go unread, so what does it matter?  I’m not apologizing to a non-existent audience. And let me clarify that I’m not an expert in depression.  I know how I feel, and I didn’t know that’s what depression was until I saw that episode of BoJack Horseman about his internal monologue.  I’m a giant Midwesterner and I don’t know how feelings work or how to talk about them, so I can only learn from TV. Point is, I’m not coming at this from a pla...