1595: Other Side Up

A sense of low self-worth tends to coincide, oddly enough, with those times in your life when things aren't going all that well. The time when your actual worth is lower than it could be, in other words.

I'm going through one of those phases right now, and it sucks. There's only so much I can do about it in the short-term, though. But there are probably at least a few things I can do, starting with outlining all the things that are causing me stress, anxiety and depression right now. This isn't for the benefit of any of you kind enough to read my self-indulgent ramblings: I'm simply hoping it will prove to be something of a cathartic exercise, or something.

Okay. Number one on the list of Things That Are Getting Me Down is the lack of job. I still technically have a job until the end of June, of course, but after that I'm on my own. Far from making me feel relaxed, though, I just feel incredibly awkward about the whole situation. I've pretty much been cut off from the rest of the staff — partially voluntarily, since I didn't really trust myself to contribute meaningfully to staff meetings when at risk of bursting into tears at any moment — and am being largely left to my own devices. With the site's shift in editorial direction, I don't have to worry about news stories, either, so that takes a bit of pressure off, but it's still a bit of a weird situation.

The main thing causing anxiety in this instance is the fact that I don't yet know what I'm going to be doing after the deadline of the end of June is up. I have a few applications in, but I've only heard from one so far, and that was a rejection. I have some more positions I need to apply for, but I also have to contemplate the possibility that I might not get any of those, which might leave me in a position where there doesn't appear to be anything worth applying for. What do I do then? Aim lower? That doesn't sound right, but it might be the only option.

My issue, as I've pondered on these pages once or twice in the past, is convincing employers that the work I've done for the past few years is directly relevant to something that is… well, not directly related. I am good at writing about video games. I am good at writing in general. However, I worry that there's still a certain amount of "stigma" around professional games journalism, like it's not a "real job" and that, when attempting to apply for a position at a "real" company, I'll be judged negatively for the hard work I've put in over the last few years.

This is an irrational and probably completely incorrect assumption, of course, but as I said, I'm simply spouting off the things that are causing me anxiety right now.

Unrelated to the work issue is the fact that I'm just generally feeling pretty shitty about myself at the moment, particularly with regard to my body image. I'm painfully aware that I've put on loads of weight over the last few years, and I can't shift it. When I get depressed, I often turn to comfort eating, and it's a difficult habit to break. Right now, I'm making a conscious effort to try and eat more healthy things wherever possible, but sometimes you just want a chocolate bar or a cookie.

I can feel the additional weight translating into unfitness, too. I get breathless, my legs ache and creak, and I feel crappy most of the time. I need to get up, about and being active again, but I know that for a good while after I start doing it, it's going to hurt. It's going to be difficult, I'm going to be gasping for breath and I'm going to feel like I'm not making any progress. And the prospect of that is putting me off doing it in the first place — which, of course, is making me feel worse about myself.

I think I need to try and ease myself back in with something reasonably "easy" like swimming, and later graduate back to the gym and running and the like when I've built a bit of strength back up. I feel like a useless lump at the moment, so I don't know how long that is going to take, but I feel like I probably should start on this sooner rather than later. This week, perhaps; I already joined the gym in town shortly before we moved, so I just need to try and get into some good habits, getting up early and going in the morning.

If I can stick to that, that solves part of my semi-conscious objections to indulging in regular exercise and the like. My main issues are that I get too ambitious too quickly — deciding I'll go to the gym every day every week, for example — and then lose motivation quickly, and also that I feel like taking time to do exercise is time that I'd rather spend doing literally anything else. I don't really enjoy exercising while I'm in the state I'm in at the moment; it's demoralising, embarrassing and painful. I need to work through that pain, somehow.

All of the above, then, is conspiring to make me feel monumentally crap. I wish I could say that I knew things were going to be okay, and I have plenty I should be grateful right now — not least of which is the fact that Andie and I now own our own house, and with a little more work on it, it will be very much how we want it. But there are more immediate concerns weighing on my mind before I really feel like I can relax and enjoy that, and I need to figure out how to address those sooner rather than later.

1565: Pressure Valve

If you'll pardon me, I need to vent some pressure in my head. I don't know whether or not it will make me feel better, but I feel like I need to do it anyway.

I feel like shit today with regard to the situation in which I find myself. I can't, in good conscience, say that I know everything is going to be okay because I don't know that everything is going to be okay, and that's frankly kind of scary. Andie and I have bought a house; that is not something you can just abandon if things get a bit difficult. If you mess things up with regard to money, that's a shitload of cash down the drain with nothing to show for it. While I doubt it will get to that stage — I at least have a little cash saved, though I had hoped I'd be able to hold on to it for a bit longer — it is still a concern.

I don't feel like shit in the sense that I want to just break down and cry, though. I mean, I sort of do, but it's not coming right now. Instead, I'm in that sort of bleak, nothingness phase of depression; that phase where all you really want to do is stare into space, but the things going on around you are irritating. It took a considerable amount of mental strength to haul myself up off the bed and come to write this post, and I'm not entirely sure that doing so is helping matters any. But we'll see. I've started, so I'll finish and all that.

I hate being laid off. I mean, I seriously doubt there's anyone out there who loves it, but it's shit, and I've been through it several times in my life. I at least have a little under two months to find myself something new to do this time around rather than waking up one morning to discover the site I write for is immediately closing (alas, poor GamePro), but the immediate reaction is one of being upset and disappointed. It is, in effect, being told that you're not needed or useful any more, so kindly off you go, on your way, off you pop. This is a fact of life and business, of course, but it doesn't make it any more pleasant to deal with. Being told that you're suddenly surplus to requirements doesn't do a great deal for the self-esteem, after all; it makes you question whether you've been useful for the time you were employed.

This isn't fishing for compliments, by the way; I know that the exaggerated emotions in my mind are just that — exaggerated — and that I was useful throughout my time at USgamer; I also hope I will continue to be so for my remaining weeks there. It just feels extremely weird to still be part of a team and yet not; I don't feel like I belong any more, and that, too, is a horrible feeling.

Still, I haven't been resting on my laurels. I have been gradually putting together a side project to tinker with while I look for new work. I'm not quite sure it's ready to reveal to the world just yet — perhaps over the weekend or early next week, depending on how much time I have to work on it, or perhaps I'll just say "fuck it" and flip the switch later tonight. We'll see.

Said project is not something that's going to make me any money in the short term, but it might be a useful means of gauging interest for something I might be able to do in the future, whether on the side or even — stranger things have happened — full-time. While I'm not expecting overnight (or even overmonth) success with it, it's something that I personally am pleased with so far, and am enthusiastic about developing further. As I say, we shall see if it actually goes anywhere. (In the meantime, if any of you reading this have any success or horror stories about Patreon as a funding platform, I'd be interested to hear them.)

For now, though, we have reached the weekend, and here in the UK it is, thankfully, another three-day weekend. Tomorrow morning I'm heading off to Kent to get away from things for a few days; some friends and I are going to hang out, play a ton of board games, play some Street Fighter, play some TrackMania, drink, eat and fart. I will be blogging over the weekend, Internet signal permitting, and will be back on Monday.

Here's hoping things look up a little next week; I made the mistake a short while ago of feeling like things were going along quite nicely. Now I'm back to sleepless nights filled with anxiety again. Fuck that shit.

1536: Looking for the Calm Lands

I'm having one of those occasional periods where I don't feel my mental health is in a great place. I'm feeling a bit stressed out (for no specific reason), I've been feeling wracked by anxiety before I go to sleep for the last few nights and I find myself occasionally lapsing into depressed feelings during the day, particularly if I stay in working for the whole day.

I think part of the cause is the working from home aspect. It may sound like a dream situation to be able to sit in your pants all day every day tapping away at a computer without fear of interruption from man or beast (well, occasionally from beast if I hear the rats causing mischief in the other room) but in actuality, it's a ticket to Stir Crazy-Town, and thus every so often I just feel the need to get out of the flat and go work at the coffee shop or something. Somewhere. Anywhere but here.

It's an underacknowledged aspect of working from home, this stir crazy business. And I think it's particularly apparent if you live in a fairly small environment such as a flat. In our flat, my study is just one wall away from the bedroom, which in turn is just one wall away from the living room. The temptation is always there to just wander into the living room, flop down on the sofa and stare at the TV for a few hours — or, on particularly bad days, to just go back and lie in bed for a bit. But, as I've established pretty firmly for myself, that's a terrible idea, because if I don't get up as soon as I wake up, I'll fall asleep, wake up five minutes before I need to work and make the whole anxiety-depression-stress thing a whole lot worse.

Going out to work at the coffee shop, like I did today, helps largely from the "change of scenery" aspect, and also helps remove a lot of distractions from the immediate vicinity. While distractions can sometimes be helpful motivators — "I'll do this, then reward myself with [distraction]" — they can also be… well, distractions. You know how it is. Today I felt like I got a lot more done than usual for sitting down, focusing and concentrating on what I was doing, even if sitting on one of Costa's arse-numbing chairs for most of the day hunched over my laptop isn't quite as comfortable as working on the big screen of my Mac in my rapidly-disintegrating-but-still-quite-comfy office chair. But at least I can break to get a coffee or a cake or a sandwich when I want to. (I know I can do this at home, too. But I have to make them myself.)

It doesn't really help that I feel like I have a lot on my plate at the moment. There's a lot of games I need to cover, and my inbox is full to bursting every day with PR pitch after PR pitch that I just don't have time to contemplate in the depth they deserve. Pro-tip to anyone eyeing a career in the games journalism biz: reviewing games is the worst part of the job, despite the freebies. Review commitments make it very difficult to play the things you want to play, and in many cases they even make it difficult to explore the review titles in as much depth as you want. At the same time, I feel it is important to give consideration to a lot of the titles I end up reviewing, as many of them are often dismissed outright or treated somewhat unfairly by other critics, so it's a tough balancing act at times.

Oh, and the air quality around here is shit at the minute thanks to a combination of a Saudi Arabian dust storm (apparently) and a big fire just down the road from us earlier today. This isn't helping me recover from the plague that laid me low recently.

I don't know. I'm just having a complain. Things aren't too bad really, I guess. They've certainly been worse. Like I say, it's just one of those times when my mental health is getting the better of me. I should probably just go sit in bed and play Steins;Gate until I fall asleep or something. That sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

1467: Broken

Lara's death hit me pretty hard. Or, to be more accurate, it was the tipping point; the straw that broke the camel's back and other such cliches: the bad thing happening that caused all the other bad things in my head to overflow, boil over and spill out like some sort of pitch-black overcooked soup of eternal despair.

To clarify: today has not been a good day. After spending yesterday rather upset at our dear little furry friend's passing, I woke up this morning not feeling any better. In fact, feeling significantly worse. It was that kind of bleak feeling where it's nearly impossible to move, speak or function at anything more than the most basic level. I cried for no apparent reason on two separate occasions; it helped a little.

Right now? I'm at least functioning somewhat better than I was earlier, but I still feel like my brain is broken (and I have a headache, too, which isn't helping matters). I've had a good day at work — got an article shared by TotalBiscuit, yo — to distract me from the bad things rattling around in my head, but they've still been there lurking on the periphery, waiting to lay me low once again.

I haven't felt this bad for quite some time, and it sucks. It's not entirely due to Lara's passing, either; while that did indeed make me very sad and it still makes me tear up a bit to see Lucy by herself in her cage, as I say that was little more than the stimulus; the additional pressure that caused everything to come gushing out.

It's hard to know how to keep feelings like this under control. For the most part, I'd been feeling reasonably positive recently, but apparently I'd been repressing more emotions than I'd thought. The silly thing — and one that will be familiar to anyone with depressive tendencies — is that with all the confusion and chaos these emotions bring, it's impossible to come to some sort of rational explanation as to what is making you feel so bad. This, of course, makes the answer "what's wrong?" extremely difficult to answer with anything other than a non-committal "I don't know", but it's true; more often than not, when I feel like this, I really don't know what it is that's making me feel so bad.

Today should be a positive day, though, for a couple of reasons: Andie and I went to find out how much the bank would lend us for a mortgage earlier today and it turned out to be more than we were expecting; and I wrote an article that's been pretty widely shared and attracted a ton of potentially new eyes to USgamer, which is great. So I should focus on those positive things and less on the negative, and use the rest of the evening to do things that cheer me up and make me happy. Then hopefully, eventually, the dark edges will fade and I can get back to some semblance of normality again.

1325: Focal Point

I'm sure any writer pals reading this can probably relate, judging from some things I've read recently: it is infinitely easier to focus on negative things than it is about positive ones. And those negative things absolutely dominate your thoughts, almost completely obliterating any good work the positive things might have done.

Let's take an example. Recently, I wrote a lengthy article about "otaku games" — that particularly misunderstood aspect of Japanese gaming where people who don't play them constantly judge them as being nothing more than pervy fanservice. To be fair to their opinion, there often is a fair amount of pervy fanservice in them, but it's pretty rare that is the sole or even the most important part of them. Check out the piece here.

On the whole, response to the post has been very positive. I've been very happy to hear from a lot of fans of Japanese gaming who thanked me for giving a reasoned, rational take on the subject — with input from people who are actually involved in bringing these titles to the West — and for treating both the games and their fans with respect. I've had people tell me it's a wonderful article, compliment me on covering something that other sites don't bother with (or take the more common "This is Bad and Wrong, LOL JAPAN" stance on) and generally express a very genuine-feeling sense of appreciation for something I worked hard on.

So what do I find my brain focusing on? The guy who tweeted at me saying "TLDR" (seriously, that is pretty much one of the most disrespectful things you can say to a writer, especially when they've worked hard on something — try giving some constructive criticism or, even better, actually engaging with the points made in the piece), and the commenter who complained about me "not talking about the game" in my Tales of Xillia review and lambasting me for promoting an "incest simulator" in an article about visual novels. (Said "incest simulator" was Kana Little Sister, an incredibly moving work which I've written about at length in a number of places on the Internet; to refer to it as an "incest simulator" in a distinctly Daily Mail/Jack Thompson-esque way shows an astonishing lack of understanding, my keen awareness of which was what inspired me to write the "otaku games" piece in the first place.)

I wish I didn't feel this way, but it made me feel somewhat better to read this piece over on Hookshot, Inc recently. Here's what was, for me, the most pertinent part:

"Reader feedback is, in many ways, wonderful. It pulls writers down from pedestals and/or ivory towers, and it democratises a whole medium. Every voice is heard, and charlatans are uprooted. A culture of reader-fear has, arguably, been fostered – but ultimately people raise their game, and those much-suspected dirty deals are (by my reckoning) far less likely to occur today than they were five years ago.

"The problem is that all this is incredibly unhealthy for writers with… what you might call an ‘amiably complex psychological disposition’. I’m one of these people (it’s hugely common in my field – and indeed any creative arena) and I couldn’t even count how many of my working days have been ruined by an angry person venting steam beneath a piece I’ve written. The black dog starts barking, and your creative mojo runs away.

"Sure, the trolls are generally a minority – but when your mind has been built to concentrate on negativity rather than happy, happy, joy, joy (and you work at home, on your own) then comments threads are a mental plague pit.

"As a writer – what can you do about this? Well, you can start making your review scores more conservative for a start. Oh, and you can definitely avoid rocking boats that contain angry devotees of certain platforms, genres and franchises. Oh, and how about excising all humour for fear of miscomprehension from angry dullards you’ll never meet?

"OMG HANG ON GUYS OUR COLLECTIVE INSECURITY JUST BROKE GAMES WRITING.

"So basically: say what you want to say, and suck it up. There’s no wrong opinions, only a lot of people who think you should be fired for having a right one."

I was simultaneously surprised, delighted and slightly depressed to read that. I wish it didn't have to be that way, and I wish it was possible to train oneself to be more like, say, Jim Sterling — someone whom I greatly admire for his no-nonsense attitude and at least outward appearance of having thick skin. (For all I know, Sterling might finish his day job and cry himself to sleep over the torrents of abuse he receives on a daily basis, and I wouldn't blame him if that were so — but I somehow doubt that's the case anyway.)

Ah well, as Will Porter writes in that excellent Hookshot piece — seriously, go read it if you have a few minutes — the only real thing we, as writers, can do is say what we want to say and suck it up somehow. If we start sanitising our own opinions, thoughts and even writing styles to appease the lowest common denominator in the comments threads, then the world of writing would be a boring one indeed.

1274: Get Out

As I mentioned a few days ago, I'm feeling a little low. Whether this is a symptom of some sort of summer-related Seasonal Affective Disorder or if it's just a symptom of my ongoing depression I don't know, but I am feeling a little low.

One of the reasons I'm feeling low is because I feel fat and gross. I always feel fat and gross, to be fair, because I am fat and gross, but there have been times when I didn't feel quite as bad about myself as I do right now. Those times had one common factor: I was indulging in a regular exercise routine, either at the gym and pool, or out on the roads running.

I haven't done any real exercise for quite some time for various reasons — mostly a lack of motivation related to depression, which just feeds the cycle and makes it worse, I know, but also just recently the blazing hot weather we've been having every day hasn't been helping either. The last thing I feel like doing when it feels like a greenhouse outside is picking up my pace to anything more than my usual walk, let alone persisting at that pace for 30-45 minutes at a time.

Consequently, most of the good work I've done on running in the past has been largely undone, and I'm a mess with regard to fitness. I don't really know what to do about it, either; I just feel completely unmotivated and have absolutely no desire whatsoever to go out and "better myself", but at the same time know that if I don't I'm going to continue along in this funk not really wanting to do anything.

This Oatmeal comic got me thinking somewhat, because I recognised a lot of the things he was talking about therein. It's almost — almost — inspired me to get up and go out this evening, but I'm not really feeling it right now. I may make a start on some sort of regime tomorrow, however.

What I'm thinking I might do is rather than jump straight back into the demoralising experience of being a fat guy trying to run, I'll just try and do a long walk each day. That's something that feels "doable" and "achievable," and from there I can always work my way up to doing something a bit more strenuous. I'm not talking about a casual amble, just to be clear; I'm talking about a brisk walk for a significant distance for somewhere in the region of 45 minutes to an hour. I live right near Southampton Common, which is the ideal venue for such perambulations, so I may just start taking advantage of that fact.

Here's my plan, then, which it remains to be seen whether or not I'll be able to stick to: I'm going to try and get up reasonably early-ish — i.e. considerably more than half an hour before I'm supposed to start doing work — and head out for a walk in the morning before it gets too unbearably hot. Then I will come home, have breakfast, relax, chill out and start work. Hopefully that small change will have some sort of impact, if not on my body then at least on my mental state.

I'm making no promises as to whether or not this is actually going to do anything, but having good intentions is a first step at least. Let's see if they lead anywhere.

1270: Black Cloud

Been struggling a bit with depression again recently. It is my own fault for not proactively doing anything about it, but once it sets in there's really not a lot you can do about it save for just riding it out and hoping it passes.

Some people describe their experiences with depression as being strangely comforting; those negative feelings acting as a sort of blanket that surrounds them and cuts them off from the outside world. I can sort of empathise with that, but at the same time it's frustrating.

Here's what dealing with depression is like for me.

I'll wake up in the morning, usually after a semi-to-very vivid dream that leaves itself half-finished. At this point I have a choice; go back to sleep and finish the dream, or get up and start the day. If I choose the former option, I'll find it very hard to get up for several hours, regardless of how many alarms I set. If I choose the latter option — which is often quite difficult to do — I'll generally start the day in a more positive manner.

The day will then proceed as normal, so long as I keep myself occupied with something or other that stimulates my brain — whether that's work, watching something on TV or playing a game. If I stop doing things, I'll find myself staring into space, and that same feeling I have when I'm trying to get up sets in; I just don't want to move. I feel myself being tugged in different directions: the depression wants me to just stare into space and feel sorry for myself, dwelling on all the things that I don't want to dwell on, or that are completely unnecessary to dwell on; the rational part of my brain tells me that I'd feel better if I just reached over and grabbed the PS3 controller, or stood up and got a glass of juice, or put my shoes on and went outside for a bit. Sometimes the depression wins; sometimes the rational part of my brain wins. The rational part usually wins the war, as I am still able to function and do the things I need to do each day, but depression often scores a few victories in skirmishes along the way.

By the end of the day, I'm often left feeling mentally exhausted from having to keep the depression at bay. Sometimes, despite feeling tired, I don't feel I can go to bed until an ungodly hour because I know I'll just spend hours unable to sleep, my mind awhirl with conflicting emotions and anxieties. Sometimes, I'll try and exhaust myself before collapsing into bed; other times, I'll just pray for the best, lie down and hope that sleep claims me before too long.

Being depressed is frustrating, because there is often no particular cause for it. "What's wrong?" people will ask. "Nothing in particular," I'll reply, because it's true; there is nothing wrong, but that just feeds into the whole cycle. I start to feel guilty about feeling down about, well, nothing at all, and then I feel bad about feeling guilty; if you've been there, you know what it's like.

I'll get over it. I always do. Just needed to vent a little today.

1113: Thin Skin

You know one of the people I admire the most on the whole Internet? Jim Sterling. While I may not always agree with his opinions and the way he argues them, that's not why I admire him. No, the reason I admire him is how he can say something which may end up being controversial in some way (either due to subject matter or by going against popular opinion) and then not let the subsequent barrage of vitriol flying his way bother him. Or, if he does, he manages to hide it exceedingly well and simply brush it off as part of the job. (I have a sneaking suspicion that if it really did bother him, he wouldn't still be in this business.)

I last wrote about this topic back on day 795 of this blog, and the things both I and Sterling said back then still ring true. I'm envious of Sterling because of the way in which he can rise above the abuse and not let negative comments get to him, because I am the exact opposite.

Let me explain to you what it's like to browse a comments section when you suffer from anxiety and depression in various forms. First of all, you find yourself hoping that there are comments there at all. It's nice to know that something you wrote has resonated enough with someone to compel them to respond. It's even nicer if said someone comes along and agrees with you. Everyone likes to be agreed with and made to feel like they're "right", even in topics where there is no clear "right" or "wrong" answer. It's particularly pleasing to know you've made a connection with someone who is often a complete stranger, and that you've been able to bond over the words that came out of your head and onto the page.

Now let's say there's a dissenting comment in there, too. It doesn't have to be a vitriolic or abusive one, just one which disagrees with you in some way. Immediately, all the good work done by the positive comment is undone. Immediately, you feel a knot in your stomach as you start to read the dissenting opinions, and immediately you start to feel like a failure as a human being because your thoughts didn't coincide with someone else's. Should you have written that article at all? Should you continue writing at all? Or should you just pack it in altogether, because every time a dissenting opinion comes along, you end up feeling sick to your stomach?

There is, of course, a specific example I'm thinking of in this case. As you may be aware, I write a regular column about visual novels every week for Games Are Evil. I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, just someone with a strong interest in the medium and an urge to tell others about the great experiences I've had with them. This week, I decided to write about the treatment of sex in visual novels, which often tend to be very explicit on the erotic content front. The first comment I got was from a regular commenter on the column, and fell into the first category I described above. A subsequent one fell into the second category, telling me that I'd chosen bad examples to back up my points and accusing me of not knowing my subject matter. The comment itself was relatively respectful in tone, now that I've had a few hours to stew on it, but I came away from initially reading it feeling pretty shitty about myself. I'd worked hard on that piece and had put myself out there by sharing my opinions, and to have them shot down in that manner and accused of not knowing my stuff was actually quite upsetting.

I am aware that I broke one of the cardinal rules of the Internet by looking at the comments section at all, I am also aware that it's highly possible that I will never see or hear from that commenter again, and I am also aware that everyone is entitled to their opinion and no-one is obliged to agree with me — but that simple failure to connect made me rather upset and has left me feeling quite glum all evening. It's a total overreaction, I know, and I should learn from Sterling's example and grow a thicker skin — or argue my corner better — but, well, that's the experience of living with anxiety and depression. It only takes a few poorly-chosen words to make someone like me feel like crap, and it's mostly our fault for being that way and not doing anything about it.

You should, of course, be able to freely express your opinions just as much as me, but just think about the way you're saying the things you want to say before you hit that "post" button, please?

1105: Braindead

It's coming up on 1am and I'm struggling of things to write here. But write I must.

Well, let's review how things are going. That's usually a good way to fill a day's post, as nothing especially interesting has happened today. Unless you count letting our pet rats out for a run around in the hallway and going to Yo! Sushi (not at the same time) as being somehow "interesting". I guess both of those are sort of interesting — I mean, I enjoyed them both — but really, you sort of had to be there in both instances.

It's coming up on the end of the first month of 2013, and we're still in that weird sort of limbo where it doesn't quite feel right to talk about the year being 2013. I mean, I'm not sure what I'm really expecting to "feel" different, after all, but a new year is always a symbolic sort of thing, after all.

This year has already started somewhat differently, though, because I'm in a nice flat in the city I wanted to (and indeed used to) live in. I'm close to my friends (geographically speaking, obviously) and have even had them over to visit more times in the last month than I did in the year and a half I lived in Chippenham, which is good and makes me happy. I feel like I'm in a relatively comfortable situation — I enjoy my job, particularly as I get to work from home; I have an awesome girlfriend who puts up with my idiosyncracies and shows an interest in the things I'm passionate about; I have two surprisingly entertaining pet rats to whom I probably attribute far too much in the way of perceived personality; I'm relatively comfortably off money-wise, having cleared a bunch of longstanding debts last year (though student loan is still outstanding and probably always will be, gah); and, to cut a long, tedious and fairly directionless list short, I'm feeling fairly positive about the future.

As anyone who has suffered with one of the various forms of depression and/or anxiety will attest, though, it's not always that easy to keep feeling positive, even though things are generally seemingly going sort of all right. It's easy to lapse into negative feelings or self-doubt, and wonder if the things you're doing are really the right things. It's easy to want to make big, grand gestures to define yourself and feel like your life is moving in the right direction, but at the same time it's difficult to either carry those things through — or even to know if they're the right thing to do in the first place.

I'm content for now, though, occasional lapses in mood aside. It's a pleasant feeling. I know I still have some way to go before feeling "better" — if it's ever truly possible to feel "better" from these sorts of issues — but I at least feel like I'm heading in the right direction. When I look back at some of the posts I made over a thousand days ago, I see someone who was desperately unhappy and struggling to make it through the day for much of his time. It's hard to let memories of bad times like that go, but I'd be lying if I said things weren't massively better than they were way back then.

Onwards and upwards, then. The end of January will see us take ownership of a new sofa that will hopefully fit up the stairs into our flat, have our Internet properly connected and subsequently feel like we're "properly" settled in.

Bring it on 2013, I'm a-ready for ya.

#oneaday Day 898: Contemplating the Darkness

I'd like to share a couple of posts with you. First of all, this piece by Jeff Green, published today. (If you don't know who Jeff Green is, he's currently PopCap's director of editorial and social media and used to work on U.S. games magazine Computer Gaming World, later Games for Windows Magazine.) Many people expressed surprise at Jeff posting this, because, to quote several commenters, "you wouldn't know he had depression." I've only met Jeff maybe once or twice, but it's true; he "hides it well," as it were. That doesn't diminish his suffering in any way, of course — it simply means that he's found ways (and help) to deal with it in a way that doesn't affect his public persona.

Second of all, and related, this post from January of last year by me. I shan't talk about that post too specifically right now since you can just go and read it, but I did want to contemplate the subject a little further today, as reading Jeff's post shortly after he published it (and undoubtedly went back and forth on whether or not he should share it with the world) got me thinking.

I am a lot better than I was. I hit my lowest ebb just over two years ago when my wife and I decided to split. I won't go into the specific details of that right now, but suffice to say that it was a mutual decision by the pair of us that was partly a consequence of, ironically, my own depression. I had left a job I hated, gone to PAX East for the first time (and had an amazing time) and then came back home to no job, no prospects and a thoroughly bleak outlook for the future. Depression at my situation (which was at least partially self-inflicted, I will freely admit — I could have stuck at the job I left, but it probably wouldn't have been good for me at all) sapped my motivation and just made me want to curl up into my own private little world and not talk to anyone. It wasn't the first time it had happened to me. It was a recurring pattern. And, realistically, there are times when it will likely happen again in the future.

The one thing that people don't seem to mention about depression is that it can be addictive. Sometimes, when given the choice between 1) getting up to do something positive that you know will make yourself feel better and 2) slumping on the sofa staring at an interesting spot on the wall for several hours, all your brain wants to do is 2). It gets into the habit of doing 2) and it becomes a natural, conditioned response to anything that upsets you or frustrates you. Over time, it gets harder and harder to not do 2) even though there's usually at least a small rational part of your brain saying "STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!" That rational part gets drowned out by the bit going "staring at the wall is comforting, safe, and you won't have to talk to any people."

Getting over that stage is the difficult part. Fighting against the desire to do nothing and wallow in your own self-pity is one of the hardest things anyone suffering from depression has to do. Only then can you figure out exactly what to do when you pull yourself up off the floor/bed/sofa and make a conscious decision to do… something. Whether that's simply trying to "get on with your life" or actively seeking help to if not "cure" your condition then at least improve it.

Sometimes even the most straightforward tasks can be made to feel like insurmountable obstacles to those suffering a depressive episode. That in itself can cause people to feel ashamed of their condition and not want to talk about it. Thankfully, I've seen a heartening trend recently: people overcoming the stigma attached to talking about mental health issues and publicly baring their souls about these important topics. Jeff Green's post is just the latest example of people with higher profiles than me publicly "coming out", as it were, and talking about this aspect of themselves that, however unpleasant it may be, helps define the person that they are.

Feeling able to write about it publicly and talk about it face-to-face are two very different things, however. I know that personally speaking, I still find it difficult to talk about depression with anyone except my very closest friends, but I'll happily (perhaps the wrong word, there) post things like this to an (admittedly small) audience the world over.

The important thing to remember if you have ever suffered from depression, though, is that you most certainly are not alone and that there is nothing to be ashamed of. You may hate the condition and what it does to you, but that doesn't mean you should hate yourself or feel you should lock yourself away in isolation. On the contrary, you should seek out people you feel able to talk about it with and then get some things off your chest. And you should seek help if you need it.