11/06/2020 - Making the Best of Time

My mood has continued in its downward track. This is another way of saying I’m having a depressive episode. This isn’t what I wanted to talk about but- when I was still working full time and I started getting signed off work due to depression, I got really annoyed when the doctors wrote ‘low mood’ as the reason. It felt like such a weasel-y euphemism.

‘Aw, is your mood a little low bab?’ – Doctors, presumably.

I don’t mind the phrase so much anymore, probably because I’ve lived with this nonsense for so long now that I’ve become quite confident about how I’m feeling, which I definitely wasn’t when I first went to the GP.

Anyway. That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about was making the best of a bad situation. I woke up at 4am today having had a nightmare about writing. I think I’m stressing about the next project. I don’t want to start it, because I’m feeling really negative about writing at the moment. The problem is, writing is also the thing where a lot of my self-worth comes from, so I only ever abandon it for short periods.

In order to try and break from some of the negativity I’ve been feeling, I’m doing a few writing exercises, although I’m not thinking of them as writing exercises, because that’s writing and writing is bad in my head right now. I’m just writing stuff down in a notebook, who can tell why? Certainly not me, the person doing it, who made a plan to do this in order to trick myself out of my own negative head space.

It’s weird having depression. I don’t know how everyone else deals with it but for me I occasionally have to just lie to myself like this in order to get anything done.

So, I have the setting, the set up and what the story is going to be about for the next project. I won’t go into details here because whenever I’ve done this in the past I’ve been mortified whenever I’ve gone back and re-read such entries.

Stop getting distracted, Michael.

Sorry, Michael.

Ssh, you’re doing it again, Michael.

Yes, I am.

So, I’ve got those bits I outlined above. What I really need now are characters and a plot outline. The plot outline can come later. What I’ve been working on today are ideas for characters, details of the settings and ideas for cool scenes that I can use for writing exercises (shh, they’re not writing exercises, Depressed Michael, don’t worry about it, shhhh)

If this entry has come across as a little confused and disorientating, that’s appropriate because I am both confused and disorientated. I have a headache.

I wonder if this entry is interesting or just a bit sad.