Anxiety, Depression, and Expression

My TV has been off since this morning. When I woke up, I watched an hour and a half documentary about the coral reef dying, the ocean dying, and I should have known that wasn’t the best way to start my day. I should have started with mantras and positive thoughts, stretching, writing, and coffee with cinnamon.

The thing about writers is that they always seemed to be writing — on napkins, in notebooks, in margins on menus. You rarely see a writer really sitting down to write something composed and compounded. That’s the part of the art they keep private, the part the audience doesn’t get to see.

I only recently started to think of myself as a writer, and writers as artists and art as an approachable concept. I had always written — on napkins, in notebooks, in margins on menus. I have sat and written my fair share of composed works in several different forms. I had always known I would write a book one day. First, I just need to start it.

In high school, I dreamed of writing works of fiction, teenage tragedies, and love stories with the line between fiction and autobiography worn thin. As I aged, I failed to think creatively. I couldn’t come up with something believable because I could hardly get a grasp on life itself. With so much disbelief in my day to day activities, I didn’t have it in me to come home and spew some more bullshit.

I was exhausted — emotionally and physically. The last couple years had found the back end of a spiraling rhythm of the years before. I was still stuck in the same trap of working a retail job I hated, of college classes after work that seamed to suck the soul out of what was left in the shell of my existence.

Sometimes, randomly, my heart races so fast in my chest that I can see it beating in my ribs, beats so hard that I’m nauseated from the thump thump thump in my throat. I breathe in slowly through my nose. I count for seven seconds. I sit perfectly still. I wait for it to pass.

Anxiety.

It’s easy to find stories of writers and influencers turning their passion into projects after a life altering event, a brush with cancer, a car crash. Was this my low? How many days in a row can I struggle to get out of bed without trying to pull myself out of this slump? How many mornings can I wake up sobbing? How many more nights can I spend grinding my teeth?

As my depression worsened, I found myself thinking about cycles. I kept thinking about your hair growing and falling out and leaving traces of your entire life behind, of a new hair growing back — shedding the old and creating the new. I started reaching for new mediums. I began self photography and sketching. It all sounds a lot more sophisticated than it was — I began taking pictures of myself, tracing them, and covering the negative space in words and phrases that had stuck with me throughout the day. I thought it might be interesting to do this every day, to try and see my own evolution throughout the years. It was only a few days before I lost commitment to that, too.

How come I could take a Xanax and feel like I took an Adderall — suddenly brave enough to face average situations, finally able to take in enough oxygen to breathe out comprehensive thoughts. I suddenly had the confidence I had lost along the way, catching small glimpses of the self I used to be, which would some days give me hope to go back, and other days make me feel so far away and isolated that I couldn’t see that self ever resting here again. It was a blessing and a curse. I didn’t know which outcome I’d prefer, a new self or an old self, but I knew I hated the self I was at present.

It’s hard to make progress when you don’t have goals. It’s hard to make goals when you have no will. It’s hard to have will when you can’t even decide what you want. I felt as shallow as a fishbowl.

I had gotten really good at finding old notebooks, at organizing them in a neat pile on my nightstand. I was really good at making sure I always had a Moleskine when I left the house, and two good pens. Always black ink. I wasn’t very good at opening the journals and writing anything down.

I debated getting a new notebook, if only to delete the excuse of having to face the past to begin anew. It was a stupid excuse, really, because I could tear some pages out or put a bookmark in place, find ways to deter the past in pages just as well as I could avoid the past in real life.

Let’s try this again.

I miss film and darkrooms. I miss looking for beauty. I miss trying to capture something. It was easy to find a feeling of accomplishment in photography, it was easy to find a sense of purpose with a camera in your hand. I am here, to experience, to document, to absorb and regurgitate these moments back to the audience with hopes of both recognition and curiosity. A good photographer knows how to make people look at their picture, just as a good writer knows how to make people keep reading.

I admire empathetic souls. I understand artists with too many emotions, who suffer to express. I hope I can join you here.