Writing about the creative life and the stories all around us
listen to this poem here:
You say the sun is always there.
Above, only sullen nimbus grey.
My left hand grasps at shadows
right hand trapped by work’s iron fist
behind, a thousand tiny ties bound to the past
below, soul-sucking mud swallows every step
hateful reality burns down my dreams.
But you say, keep going
I’m doing great, so tell me
will I see the sun again
do you promise?
Sometimes life is more than you can bear, piling one stress on top of another. You barely have time to recover from one blow before the next one falls.
Holidays are often the most difficult time as you try to cope with high expectations that far exceed the resources available. You’re surrounded by glossy images of people and lives that don’t match your reality. It’s painful.
As a creative person, you suffer from creative block. New ideas don’t come and making anything at all feels like swimming through molasses. This only adds to your sense of failure.
You limp on, but every day is harder. It’s harder to get out of bed, harder to attend to commitments, harder to care about anything or anyone, including yourself.
You want it to end. Your spirit threatens to shatter under an immense load of bad thoughts, feelings, or events.
The sky is dark.
Your strength is gone.
What can you do now?
Maybe all your brain wants is oblivion, but your body only knows one thing. Even when broken, even at the extremes of pain and suffering, the body strives to go on.
Supporting your body can help your mind.
Often we neglect our physical wellbeing when we feel low. We’re caught up in mental and emotional battles. Our physical needs are just another burden to carry, so we ignore them.
Acknowledge those battles, and set them aside for now. Rather than being consumed by thinking and feeling, do something practical to help yourself.
You need to focus on survival. It’s strange but true; the mind rests easier in a body that is usefully occupied. You need both working together to feel better.
Mens sana in corpore sano.
A healthy mind in a healthy body.
If you are feeling some December blues, or even depression, don’t fight it. Instead, do something for yourself. Be reflective. Let the emotions exist. And be encouraged that, like me, you can get to a better place, but it can take time.
Brad Feld
I know this isn’t easy. I also know that you can work through this and come out feeling better than you do now.
You will be distracted by the pain. Tell yourself you will come back to it later, and concentrate on the task at hand.
Don’t try to empty your mind of all thoughts. Mindfulness means noticing your thoughts, letting them go, and returning to one point of focus. Imagine thoughts are like clouds in the sky drifting past.
Counting breaths or steps, reciting prayers or mantras, all help to still the mind.
Helping others can be very therapeutic. But we can’t give what we don’t have. Practise self-care so that you’re in the best shape to face the world. Making yourself your first priority is not selfish, it’s essential to your survival.
Remember we’re all different, and YMMV. Try different things and see what works for you. Return to it when life gets tough, before things spiral too far downwards.
Sometimes we sink deeper, and it takes more effort to climb out of the hole. Get to know your early warning signs, and act on them.
When you follow these steps you will find
A break from pain frees up mental energy you can now use to address the underlying issues, with professional help if needed.
I hope you find something here that helps you move forward. This is not meant to be the only answer, rather it’s a set of suggestions to get you started.
But if you really feel you can’t go on and ceasing to exist seems like the only way out, please stop and reach out.
Help is available here. There is always another solution.
Sometimes, just surviving another day is the victory. Let your body carry your mind until you feel better.
Have a comment or question? Drop it below.
Creative Cafe Creative Challenge #48.5
“Depression is being color blind and constantly told how colorful the world is.”
— Atticus, Love Her Wild
This is a good day.
Hardly a cloud to mar a sweep of sky blue, warm winds sigh against my skin and tug at my sails. Hardly a shadow, with the sun near its zenith. Up here in the wide above, birds call and all is bright. The sea glitters blue and silver, reflecting sunbeams. Anything is possible. Viewed through the positivity telescope, the horizon beckons.
Another day.
Plenty of steel blue sky, but more grey clouds now, not yet weeping fat raindrops. Time to batten the hatches and haul in my sails against gusting winds and imminent storms. Water shivers in the air, cool against skin goosebumped despite my thin coat of hope. The sun hides. It is still there, I think.
Days go by.
I crouch in my frail boat, tossed on angry swell, shipping cold uncaring wet. The sky touches the sea and all is grey, colour washed away. Torn clouds shed raindrops to mingle with tears on my chilly face. And when the giant wave finally snatches me into pitiless ocean, I am not surprised. It was always coming.
Time passes.
I drift endlessly. No map or compass, no lifebelt. Helpless to fight the long slow slide, sinking deeper into the blue, I lose the last vestiges of light. Down, and down. Eyes blinded, nothing to see. Marble skin, numb to feeling. I could shout at the void, but there will be no reply. The blue darkens still more. It is the black shadow that has chased me every day of my journey.
Swallowed in nothingness, I lie resigned on unyielding ocean floor, a certainty of sorts.
Help isn’t coming.
first published in The Creative Cafe on Medium, 8 November 2017
Why do we talk of feeling blue? Depression is not blue. It is impenetrable fog grey, the ghosts of ships unseen on a black tide, the lighthouse beam obscured by solid clouds that touch an angry sea. It is thick and puckered scars that yield only to the sharpest, deepest cut. A slash of knives draws no pain from this unfeeling carapace. Far below, if you bridge that distance, oily dark blood oozes, curdled with loss and longing.
None of it is blue.
Walk on muffled leaden boots, here in the below. Strain my ears, hear no sound. Eardrums burst from the pressure, under the sea, bottom of the Marianas trench. Deeper yet, in the Laurentian abyss of my soul. I gazed into the void, but it did not gaze back. It too has forsaken me. Weighted like an old style diver, I wade through the sea of futility. Up above, water sparkles Caribbean blue, gold sun shines in a brilliant azure sky, birds sing. Down below, impenetrable dark and blind monsters. Nothing to see.
It feels like home.
Push past doubt, anxiety, fear. Now we reach the bone, skin nibbled and hanging in tatters, only a flash of white beneath grey and rotting flesh. Eaten alive but already dead, the marrow leached away, colours bleached away. What’s on the other side none know but me. My pulse thickens and slows, matching the absent drumbeat of null.
It is calling me.
I have forgotten my life topside, in this my true reality. When will my heart beat its last, when will I join? Let the nothing take me, let the absence consume me, let me be assimilated and so vanish, zero sum.
10 steps to let your body carry your mind
Sometimes God or the universe sends you more than you can bear, piling one pain atop another. It doesn’t kill you, but you want it to end. Your spirit bends, quivers, threatens to shatter under an immense load of bad thoughts, feelings, or events. The room is locked from the outside, and you can’t even find a door because the light flickers and fades. It’s dark and frightening.
Your strength is gone. What to do now?
This mind, with all its anguish and desire for oblivion, is housed in a body that only knows one thing. Even when broken, at the extremes of pain and suffering, the body strives to go on.
No matter how many people surround you, depression is a lonely, solitary place filled with funhouse mirrors. Your world is twisted and distorted, pain reflected back from every direction.
The body can help.
While the mind searches for solutions, focus on your body for a while. Often we neglect it, for various reasons. We lack motivation, we are at war with a body that does not work or look how we want it to. We’re preoccupied with fighting whatever battle is consuming our lives. Acknowledge that and set it aside. This is not the time to address those issues.
First we must survive, body and mind together. And it is strange but true; the mind comes to rest in a body that is usefully occupied.
I hope you find something here that helps you feel better. But if you don’t, if you really feel you can’t go on and ceasing to exist seems like the only way out, please stop and reach out. Help is available here (in many countries) and there is always another solution.
The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die.
Juliette Lewis
(first published in Invisible Illness on Medium, 18th June 2017)
