Tag: Depression

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Depression Diary

Work is stressful. I don’t feel appreciated.I have spiraled that off to being colder, harsher, and blaming others. I don’t like this feeling, because when it happens I spiral right into depression. Work doesn’t get done at all. I lose friendships and opportunities. My enemy is me.

I sit at my desk as I type this, ready to work a weekend, and the next week, while everyone else gets off. I feel no one cares. My mind wanders about and looks for excuses on how I can get out. I know that I am responsible for my feelings, but my depression wants me to hold on to the worst of things.

I want things to crash and burn – even though I know it will ultimately make things worse. I want to quit with nothing else lined up. I feel like that will show them my worth. I know it won’t, I know life will go on, but its a gripe I want people to feel.

The most odd thing about this post is when I started to write it I was angry, and I feel the depression leaving me. It’s a wonder what this blog can do. My depression won’t leave me, it is a part of me, but I have to work with it.

I wonder what the method to this madness is, I want to figure things out. That is the interesting thing with depression, it dances with you. It takes different forms. When  I call it out, and admit that it exists, it starts to work with me, it gives me the power to write,talk, and create with some depth. This post was 30 words and I started with “Freedom” as if this post was a resignation letter. As I write it, I realize this is a depression diary.

This is an interesting insight. I enjoy knowing it, playing with it, seeing it. Maybe it will lead me to better work. I want the best.  Thanks for reading.

 

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Depression: Don’t Worry To Much

Depression is a part of me.

It isn’t here because something is wrong, its just a piece of me that isn’t going away. I surrender to it – and in that I become aware, and know how to manage my behavior in spite of it.

It changes me in two very distinct ways.

Depression makes me a very good editor. I do not mean that sarcastically either. My eye for detail increases, and I can see holes in my work I hadn’t seen earlier. I appreciate this part of it because I generally rush things, and because of that, I miss out on opportunities to improve. This levels it out.

Deep diving becomes more of a thing for me. I know it is starting to come into my life because I read Yahoo’s front page more often. As a matter of fact, I become too up to date with the general news. Now, I know more about gossip,sports,and heart wrenching stories than I ever care to admit.

In a weird way it becomes a part of my creative cycle. It sucks, but it makes me a more complete creative when it happens. People worry because I tend to stay inside when it strikes. Its a defense mechanism, I am quick to anger when this falls over me.

Those who are worried: continue to reach out. Please, do more of that. Contact with those I love help me out. It gets me into a better mind state, and it makes me even more aware that I have people around me that want me to do well.

If you have any thoughts on this – feel free to comment, RT or reach out on Twitter @TheHonorableAT.

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Depression Effects

Depression effects me in several ways.

1) My emotional state is disturbed – I tend to be more easily annoyed. Quicker to anger. Harder to laugh, harder to smile

2) Deeper subjects come up to the surface creatively. On stage this week I have discussed the effects of racism, the differences of equality, black vs white context, sexual issues, my depression and its habits. Generally I am a lot lighter on stage, but when I hit this mode I know I am going to go deep.

3) Becoming a complete loner. I don’t enjoy people like I usually do. First one to find an exit as soon as possible.

4) My physical state crumbles – I seem to be unable to do as many push ups or any gym related activity while this lingers.

5) Willpower shrinks. My checklists become optional instead of required.

6) Mind going a mile a minute, even more so than usual.

7) More apt to hurt feelings

8) Once I start working, I hit a zone – do not disturb, something interesting will come out.

9) I stop reaching out to contacts, think everyone doesn’t want to hear from me.

10) My apartment becomes a mess.

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Dark Clouds

Small things lead to bigger things.

Both good and bad.

I tend to let the good go, like most people. one negative blow can knock down the force of 100 positive ones.

Letting that energy ride has been a problem for me –

In times of good I have a tendency to sit back and let the bad times roll.

For example – today I sat in my shower and visualized 3 bad things that happened years ago, instead of appreciating that I have some time off coming up, I can cover my dental surgery fully next week, and I am back on track with my habits.

Maybe writing them out helps.

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Failure

I’m sick

Coughing sneezing and my throat is seizing up quite nicely.

On top of that, I had an audition yesterday, which i tanked – more or less because my stage presence wasn’t there.

The booker said my writing was fine – I just had my hands in my pockets and couldn’t keep my head up. These are things i stopped doing months ago – but through my cold, I fell back on old habits because they felt safe.

This resulted in my failure.

Failure has been a boon to my depression. It has been waiting for an opportunity to rear its head.

Even so, as I wake up now, home from work, I just breathe. I want to work with it. Use it as fuel to keep me pushing.

I see this as an opportunity to live and let die. Failure is just be feedback.

And I bet I never put my hands in my pockets again.

Further Reading

Zen Habits

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Depression – Friend or Foe

The darkness of depression isn’t to by toyed with.

I doubt we can fight it either.

It is a part of us, whether we want to deal with it or not. It comes with us through the good, shows itself during the bad, and then spirals us through the ugly.

We push it out of the circles of ourselves. Knock it to the side. Through this it seems to get stronger.

It fights because we try to vanquish it like it is our foe – when we should treat it like each of our other emotions.

Try to be understanding.

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Chilly.

Got the AC on. My apartment feels like an apartment should feel. After a day of sitting around in a sweat-box, I feel like we have some central air going. I don’t think I am going to turn it off either. I want it constantly cold in here so I don’t ever have to wait.

I tell myself that every summer, and I wonder why I hardly ever follow it. There has got to be something there, why I always turn off the AC, anytime I feel like it is getting even slightly chilly. Honestly, if I just suffered for a little bit, I won’t have to worry about much after that.

I have the next 6 days off. This should be fun, considering I did all of my errands Monday and Tuesday. I used to be able to just go somewhere, and try to hang around friends, but lately, I don’t feel like doing that. I feel like working on my comedy career, doing a few creative things, and focusing on making these habits stick.

6 Days alone, with no one telling me I need to go anywhere, feels like the perfect opportunity to get stuck in my habits, so when work begins later next week, I can just follow through, and use less brain power as a whole getting anything done.

Are you improving? Today I read a post on The Mistake Bank that asked that very question. I constantly get lost in other metrics, in everything I do. Its easy to ask yourself, what did _____ get, and how did he get that.

Logically, I know that is the quickest way to bad emotion. What I mean by bad emotion, is unjust depression. Jealousy fuels you into making mistakes. I don’t need to make any mistakes when it comes to anything, whether it be comedy, design, or writing. If I only focus on my own metrics – just getting myself better, making the race about me, I feel like I could get a lot farther.

Truth is though, that is a lot harder than it sounds. People push thier success around and my depression makes it a lot easier to listen to, and to feel defended by. I think one of the main things i want to work on this year, besides habits, is to build a relationship with my depression, in order to help mitigate those feelings.

I want to be focused on me, and I think that means guiding my depression into another direction.

Going to make some comedy stops today. I figure with the time off, I can make some connections, shake some hands and kiss some babies. I want to audition at a bunch of clubs before the end of the summer, and this campaign helps.

I really want to get into some of the more, shall we say, obscure comedy clubs in the city. A lot of people want to get in at the Comic Strip, and Stand Up NY, but I would like to see if I can get into the rotation at places like Tribeca Comedy, LOL, HA, and Laughing Devil.

I want to build some more confidence in my material, and get used to working longer sets when I can. I also want to get into more bar show rotations, and get some of my skill up that way. I think that is the way to get me going, and to improve the fastest.

Those clubs make me nervous, but I have to realize, that I have to start getting myself out there, and a no just means come back in a few months. I have to start taking more chances, and I need to actually get out there to start taking them. If I can, there is a lot more stage time in my future.

Get that stage time.

Deciding on output is the hardest thing to do. I want to make the best move in terms of getting something out there, but I have to say that in doing that, I am freezing myself out of making any real potential progress.

I have this fear, that people will laugh, just by speaking up. Logically, I know going through this will only make me stronger, speaking out, asking dumb questions, and getting the ideas to work again next time. Getting a hundred thumbs down is bad, but at least you have a bar to begin with.

Logically I know that. Emotionally, I don’t. I keep myself shielded from failure because I don’t want to experience someone calling me stupid, or telling me that you can never try again.

In the modern world, that just doesn’t make sense anymore, because there are a million venues to try, and a million ways to get what you want. The road always goes somewhere. Just have to make that work.

New 99u Book is out. I plan on reading it, and reading it a lot. Hopefully that can be done by the end of this weekend.

Done: 3 Things Wrap Up Push Ups
Not Done: Meditation To-do 16/8 Water Thank You Vegetable Juice CPAP

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Ritual and Perception

After reading the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, I have been really interested in finding more about the subject. There seems to be a real power behind it. Because of that, I have been reading Daily Rituals by Mason Currey.

This book on routine is really interesting. I am currently reading about the routines of great creatives, whether they are writers, painters, philosophers etc. and it seems like the great ones always had a routine to create output. A recurring theme is inspiration is for amateurs. James Joyce, who wrote Ulysses, says it took 20,000 hours to get it done.

Would you sacrifice 20,000 hours to write something that would last 1,000 times that in terms of enjoyment for the rest of the world? It was all based in habit, to get it done. And that is the discipline that I need.

It is the reason this blog has been going on everyday since I finished The Power of Habit. I need to create that output, to have something to show if I am asked for it. All this work in the dark leads nowhere if I have nothing when I have a light shown on me.

600+ words a day help. I am starting to see that I have to keep this pace, because by establishing the habit, and making myself used to pushing out something, I build muscles. These muscles will allow me to do some of the heavy lifting it takes to become more cerebral, and get more creative.

Learning how to build these muscles is why I want to diversify myself out here in Comedy. I have been looking for other ways of output other than stand-up. I think this will sharpen my skills with a pen, doing things like writing jokes, penning sketches, or shooting and directing videos. Stand-up is my love, but trying to make a living at it becomes a lot easier when I can create.

For the sake of that, it is imperative that I have something going. I think it can be really simple, something like 30 minutes a day to keep me growing as an artist. It is surprising how much a little everyday can do to build your skill. I’ve read stories of someone learning how to improve their violin skills with just 6 minutes a day.

With that said, I have figured that each sentence down means something. After reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, I got a little insight into that way of thinking. As she wrote about, at length, you need shitty first drafts. Getting that out the way allows me to learn.

In short, I am looking at the rest of my twenties as a way to build, taking as many hits as I can along the way. The hope is,by the time I am 30, I would like to be able to be ready to unfurl some stuff to the world as a creative.

I hate that I get so defensive. I sometimes get myself in a mood, where everything touches my skin with the intensity of a sharp stick. When I feel this coming, everything becomes a little more meaningful, for better or for worse. I get hyper perceptive. My mind becomes a net for all communication, from body language down to tone, and I receive it.

Last night I found myself in that mood, hanging around people I work with as comedians. I felt the showbiz thing – that phoniness, that I feel from people. It doesn’t really bother me when I am around other people. Honestly, people are people, I do not expect much from a stranger. He doesn’t know me and I do not know him.

I really hate it though, when it comes from someone I know. There is a look, body language, and a tone shift, if someone finds out I am not on this show or that show. Now, it has become apparent that I don’t work hard enough at this skill, in the sense that I don’t put myself out there enough.

But I have an understanding that people don’t change because of one thing. That is to say, if I know you yesterday, and then tomorrow I end up auditioning at some club you want to be at, I haven’t changed, you haven’t changed, our relationship should be the same.

Sometimes people don’t do that. And it bugs me. Maybe the trick is to level off expectation? I really don’t know.

Done: Wrap-up Water 3Things 16/8
Undone: Todo

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Late Depression

I was late again today.

I have to really control my lateness. I think once that is handled, a lot of my other habits will fall into line. Like today, because I was late, I ended up catching a late train, that broke down, that made me even more late.

I recently had my start time at work pushed back, which works for em, but I still find myself late. I need to find some sort of hook to bring this habit under control. Pushing the time late didn’t wuite help, so I have to find something here.

Before I really put any focus on that, I still didn’t do my todo list today. That fear is really gripping me. I hope by writing about it, I can get it out into the world and just do like my other habits, but it is something I will have to just do to make it work.

There was a list of habits I wanted to start up with I wrote maybe a few weeks ago.

*
1) Exercise 2)Creating a Post in this Journal.. 3)Thanking someone via Social Media/Text/E-Mail 4)Meditation 5)Eating Breakfast.*

I haven’t really gotten started on this, other than the journal thing, something that I am getting into every day and it excites me( its why the posts are getting longer). I suppose I should take that into the win column to push me further – but sometimes it is really hard for me to do that.

I also put down hopping into the shower first thing on the weekends – which has been working. There has only been 4 days to do this but it has gone well so far.

With that said, I have revised the list because breakfast is out (with the 16/8 thing I prefer to start at around lunch time) and the post a day is about half way ingrained ( habit locks in about 45 days, I am close to 20 now). There are some more things than need to be added

1) Exercise
2) Thanking Someone via Social Media/Text/Email/Phone Call
3) Meditation
4) To Do Lists
5) Getting up 2 hours before I need to leave the house.

The last one would help with the late thing – To get to work on time, I need to leave at about 9 (for example I woke up at 9) and would allow me to do some more of my morning habit stuff at home.

I think that will get me going.

I talked about my depression yesterday with my therapist. It still haunts me, and even though as a whole, days are better – it still pops up.

It has been a struggle accepting the depression as a part of me. I wrote about it, and I felt triumphant getting it down into paper, but the part that has been most difficult has been the application.

Today I felt the depression creeping up as I got to work, and it was almost full blown by the time I sat down in my seat and started to work. A phone call from a mentor did’t quite help, and even after a phone call and some work being done, there is still a lingering feeling that floats on top of me.

Everything that has been said has been amplified, and everything positive I have done has been let go. I have fallen into a self defeatist attitude. I even had thoughts of just suddenly quitting and using some poster I saw earlier as the reason I did it from Farnam Street. (http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/04/11-ways-to-be-remarkably-average/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+68131+(Farnam+Street))

Remembering the empty boats thing has helped. I really am glad I read that post from Zen Habits (http://zenhabits.net/are-we-there-yet/)

It is a process, and a tough one. I’ll get there one day though.

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Understanding Depression?

In writing this I almost opened up another window in order to procrastinate. I stopped short of it. I touched something that makes me want to wander. Tough questions tend to do that – lead you to a softer place. That isn’t something that is necessarily to be fought either – it exists because we want to be in a state of homeostasis at all times, and stress eliminates that.

I discussed my week with my therapist – and it allowed me to stumble upon a question worth asking.

At what point does positivity become lying and negativity become wallowing?

The genesis of the whole thing came from a discussion between my roommate and I about Eminem. In a song he talks about how he felt like quitting, even though he got a ton of money doing something he loved.

It made perfect sense to me – His depression was still there.

I have depression.

My depression really catastrophizes things- and nothing is there to stop it. Not money, comedy, music, anything. Those things tend to be panacea to the actual issue at hand. My depression is a lingering thought, a demon that exists whether or not things around me are great or terrible.

For that reason and that reason alone, it is apparent that it is something I have to work with.

Yes, work with.

It is no different than anything else within me that creates this blog, or writes code, or investigates startups, or even makes me people laugh. I wouldn’t fight against any of those things or even for them. They are what they are, and they exist within me as part of a sum.

My depression is a part of that.

How do I work with something that seems to be fighting me at every step? Well, understanding works.

Its something I want to try. I don’t quite know how I want to go about it, but I want some sort of understanding.

Day one of 16/8 went successfully. I am going to go with day 2 today. Lets see where I end up.

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