I don’t experience depression like I used to. I used to spend many hours feeling bleak, down, stuck in the boggy quicksand trying to see where in my life there was value. If I were to let you go over my poetry from that period you would see some of it was incredibly…well depressing.
Now it’s kind of a different beast. It’s not as all encompassing, dragging me down for days at a time and I no longer try to hurt myself in an effort to relieve it. Though admittedly there are days I really wasn’t to hit something. I also know my life has value, I have an awesome family so how could I think otherwise.
So what is my problem you may wonder? Mostly I guess in one way or another you could classify it as self-doubt. I know what makes me happy. I know where my dreams and passions pull me, but I’m not even close to fruition and so I wonder. I doubt. I question. Why can’t I give up? Why do I think I can do these things? Am I a good enough writer? Can I actually act? And around the questions and doubts circle.
I sometimes watch something and wish I could be doing that. Other times I see someone on a screen and think their acting is terrible yet they get paid to do what I love so does that mean my acting is worse? Self-doubt, self pity, depression.
Fortunately it doesn’t often last very long because I know I can’t really give either of them up. I know, I’ve tried. Also I hold desperately onto the words of those who owe me nothing – the director who’s worked in the West End who said I have the ability; the theatre manager who said the show I wrote was good; the writing mentor who rang me up to tell me to keep writing because the only reason I didn’t get the mentorship was because there was someone who wrote in his genre and he felt he was better equipped to help them.
And all the people who have told me that my words have touched them.
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