Bones · 3:05am Feb 7th, 2019
Before I say anything let me preface this with a statement warning that this blog will talk about depression and suicide. If that is something your either uncomfortable about or cant handle this is the point that you should stop reading and move on.
I am making this blog post because what I am going to talk about here is currently just too difficult for me to talk about in person with me starting it. To quote a great moment, in fact the moment that made me realize that I needed to say this eventually to those that have been there for me, from Echowing's A Daring Day from his Quiververse,
" It’s easy to not open up to others, to hold it all inside and keep things to yourself, but it doesn’t net you many friends.
You don’t have that problem. When you’re ready, open up to them. They’ll be there for you, one writer to another. But don’t wait too long, or you’ll regret it. "
I need to say this. In fact I've actually tried. I just couldn't push myself to say much beyond basic admittance of the most recent event and I need to say more than that. However I'm running out of time, or so it feels due to happenings in life. So with it so hard for me to actually talk about this is my fallback option. A post somewhere where I can say "here read" rather than try to force myself to talk about it. A thanks to Heartshine for encouraging me to do this. The first thanks of many however the rest will be at the end. Before all of that comes however is what needs to be said.
No, that title is not a reference to a character from Star Trek. Its the name of a song. One that too perfectly describes where I am and very likely will be for life. Its this song from Aviators:
The scars, demons and monsters "in my bones" happens to be depression and social anxiety. That most recent moment that I refereed to earlier happened 2 weeks ago. Before going to work that Wednesday I read chapter 5 of RQK's Divergence
and it was profound. It wasn't the saddest or most depressing fanfic that I have read but none the less it was a rather powerful chapter to me. I only mention it because I think I left myself vulnerable after the fact. A mistake on my part and nothing against the story at all. That night I go to work and outside of oddly feeling a bit drained of energy I otherwise felt fine. Until about an hour in when depression hit. I wasn't ready for it in more ways than one. What energy I had was gone (I work a physical job so no energy is doubly bad) and my mental state just tanked.
For at least 3 hours I was fighting depression while at work. Eventually I started to mentally panic as I was struggling in the fight. Thankfully a break showed up in work. It allowed me to step aside and gather what I could of myself up. I then told myself to ignore everything mentally and focus on work for the rest of the time I was there. Eventually I got out the other side of that battle. However it really shook me up. It took an hour after work of just sitting there to calm my nerves down enough to even sort of relax. Even then it took more than a day to fully recover mentally. While it wasn't a particularly strong instance of depression it was the biggest fight I'd had with depression in nearly 6 months. I wasn't expecting it when it came out of the blue and I wasn't at all ready for it by the fact that I handled it so poorly. It scared me. It scared me because of my history with depression.
While I won't give my entire story of depression in this post for the sake of brevity (some 20 years worth to talk about) I need to talk about my history some to adequately explain why it scared me so. For over 5 years I was suicidal. Only a few things kept me alive. One of them being my desire to not let anybody get even an idea of how much mental pain I was in. Which meant that I didn't want my death to even give a hint that I had deliberately wanted to die. However I was still looking for ways to die. I would see or hear about people that had passed away too soon and wished that it had been me. While traveling from place to place I would be hoping that I could spot a tragic accident about to happen and take someone else's place. Not to be a hero but so that I could finally be done with it all and die in a way that nobody would ever suspect thus know the truth of my pain. That somehow I could take their place and be done with this and give them more time to live their life.
However for years I was in denial of all of that. That, while I had depression, it was never that bad. It took finding this community and reading stories like Monochomatic's fantastic A Thousand Words of Noise,
personal accounts of dealing with depression via other persons own blog posts and just blog posts others made talking about depression that got me looking back honestly that I realized just how bad I was and that it is frankly a miracle that I am even here today. Those same memories for years I was desperate to forget, or at least avoid and not remember.
That is why that fight scared me so. Because it was my first fight with depression after I realized the truth of my depression. How bad it, and I, really was. It is also why I am concerned about depression in regards to my future. I would be lying if I didn't say that. We can all think of examples where people's lives ended too soon due to depression with many instances the person seeming to be fine not long before. The frightening reality is that if I am not careful that could be me too. Depression will be something that I will be dealing with for the rest of my life because there is no cure for it. No way to be rid of it. There is only one of two possible ending outcomes. Either depression takes my life or something else does before it can because I outlast it. I would much prefer the latter over the former and ideally it be old age.
I started climbing out of the depths of depression a little more than 10 years ago. It has been a painfully slow and constant struggle slowed by my own denial of how bad I was and my inability to talk about it. However the very short time that I have been exposed to this community has helped to change me faster than any time in the prior years. The past almost year has easily been the most positive extended stretch of time in my life. For example for the first time since I was a child my birthday and the holidays weren't filled with mostly negative emotions. Rather they were largely neutral emotions. Hey, its a massive positive so far as I am concerned. I aim to build on this going into the future. It starts with this.
That said the less than year I've known of this community as a whole, not just FimFiction but the entire community including art and music, I've grown so much as a person because of the help that I have gotten from it. First to Monochromatic, Novel-idea and Heartshine. You three collectively were the primary sources that helped me to look back for the first time at my depression and realize honestly how bad it was. That was a critical step for me to take and I don't know if I ever could have done it without you three unknowingly helping. You three gave me the ability to look back at memories that I once was beyond desperate to forget if not avoid altogether and finally not just look back at them but look back at them in a positive light. To you three a completely inadequate but personal thank you. To all of the rest of you in the community who helped in largely unknown ways otherwise thank you. Its hardly sufficient but thank you. To those that are creating, or even have created in the past, any form of art whether it be written, visual, acoustic or some other from based off of or inspired by the show thank you for sharing your talent. It truly means a lot and quite a bit of it has genuinely helped me as well. To those in my life that I have said something to the effect of "here read" thank you for sticking with me and being there. There were times where just your presence in my life alone was critical to me. Even though, again, its hardly sufficient thank you.
Finally to those that either have worked on or are working on the show that inspired and brought together this community a message. While you never may have intended it off of your creative vision a community has grown that has reached out and helped others in various ways. That is something to be proud of. Let that inspire you to continue to make such inspiring works of art and encourage you to openly share it. You don't know where your message will go. However it will eventually reach out to those that it will help and for each and every person it reaches, no matter how far out of the way or down the road, it should fill you with pride. So thank you for creating this wonderful world and thank you for letting us join in and create within the world you made and even share it.
Oh.
Wow. I had no idea Divergence had that effect on you.
Depression is tough. I don’t know much about it myself; I do know it’s definitely not a simple thing. You’re very brave to have gotten through it, and I’m glad that you did.
Thank you for sharing~
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Rest assured that Divergence is not a trigger to depression. I've read it a few times since and was fine. Thank you for sharing your stories. They are among my favorites.