Depression
Hilarious that the month of invisible illness awareness I should get depressed again. Ha ha.
I emailed a psychologist friend to ask for a referral to a psychologist. Preferably someone who can prescribe drugs. I'm not at all sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I believe depression (and its ilk) is a imbalance in the brain, and that drugs help bring it back to center. Ergo, it's like any other medication for any other disease. On the other hand, I feel like my brain is working just fine, it's with me the fault lies. I'm simply a failure for not being able to fix it. I'm weak and stupid and just like everyone else, except that everyone else is able to keep it together and enjoy their life, and I'm too weak and too stupid and too much of a failure to do so.
Maybe the drugs will help with that, too.
What's worse is that I had a great summer. From last Christmas on, things have been fairly balanced. Around July or so I started to feel run down and overwhelmed. I went home in late August for two weeks, for a much needed break, and nearly had a breakdown while I was there. I came back a wreck. It took 6 weeks to get back to "normal." I was good for a month. Though when I say "good" I don't really mean good, I mean I spent a lot of time hanging on by my fingernails. I see my past through rose colored glasses, but if I go look through my calendar I think, "Oh yeah, that week. I spent a lot of time hiding that week. I guess I wasn't totally happy."
Last week I got my royalty check. That was the trigger this time. "A Little Weird" came out Jul 10. That would be the tail end of 2nd quarter. When I got my royalty check for 2nd quarter, I noticed a lack of sales. Because they come so late, though, I think I assumed "Weird" had come out 3rd quarter and didn't worry about it.
Reviews started rolling in. Fantastic reviews, both from professionals and from non-professionals. People asked me for signed copies. I got emails. This never happens. NEVER EVER EVER. My hopes rose. I was hoping that maybe I'd sell 300-500 copies over a quarter; that would be pretty good, and would put it up in "By Degrees" range depending on where it fell in there. BD didn't get the response "Weird" was getting, so this seemed possible. I started to think that maybe this would be my break.
Royalty numbers came. I sold 25 copies from Aug-Oct. 25. Not 300. Definitely not 500. I did .5% as well as I'd hoped. I emailed the publisher, and she said the distributors (which make up >75% of sales) were running a full quarter behind, so those numbers were actually for Jul. It was out for 20 days in July, and didn't sell a single copy. Of the 25 copies sold:
2 were to friends
4 were to me
Those 25 copies over 3 months were sold through the publisher.
Now, the reviews and my marketing didn't come out until Sept, so maybe it'll catch up next royalty check but... I'm not hopeful. If it was going to do well, the sales through the publisher would have reflected that. 19 through the publisher isn't bad, but it definitely isn't great.
I was absolutely devastated. That was the trigger for the depression this time. I basically haven't stopped crying since. Occasionally I have a good day, or a good few hours. Friendsgiving on Saturday was good, and I was hopeful that things were turning around, but I went right back to depressed shortly thereafter.
When I was home in Aug, my mom made this comment: "Maybe the universe doesn't want you to write. It wants you to train dogs." Ironically, she's said many times since then, "You really don't have a choice in writing, because if you don't write you can't sleep."
That comment has haunted me, because you know what? My writing isn't doing so well. Now, for gay romance, it's doing well enough. I keep telling myself that I'd already decided to stop writing gay romance and switch to fantasy, because I've wanted to anyway. That doesn't seem to matter to the sense of loss and grief and mourning that's struck since I got those royalty numbers, though.
People keep telling me I should train dogs. Quin points out when I come home happy because some dog had a breakthrough, or because I gave a talk and people were interested. But the thought of training dogs when I'm fifty fills me with this sense of sick dread even when I'm not depressed. It's the best way to bring myself down, in fact, is to think about training when I'm fifty. I love training dogs. Putting all that energy into owners? It exhausts me. And it seems like most of the time, the owners don't do what I say and training slows to a crawl, if it doesn't stop completely. The reason I'm so excited when I get breakthrough cases is because I know I won't have to do it forever. I know that this owner won't burn out, because the fix is easy. But god, I get tired of telling people the same damn thing over and over, and trying to do it in a nonconfrontational way that won't get people defensive (because defensive people don't change).
I want to write. It's what makes me happy.
I sleep, these days. This is the first time I've said that anywhere but my own head. Even if I don't write, I sleep. Sometimes when I do write, I don't sleep. I'm afraid to tell anyone that. I'm afraid that they'll say, "See? You should just train dogs." Just writing these few lines has me crying, because "just train dogs and stop trying to be an author" is such an awful proposition, like the shattering of dreams.
Or I get people saying, "You've been published! Your books are selling! You should be happy!" Except they're not really selling. I get a hundred bucks a month, if I'm lucky. That's not from one book: that's from six books. As I add books, that number doesn't rise. I get the same amount of money, which means the old books aren't gaining in popularity, and the new books aren't even as popular. Look:
Book a: New! Sells 15 copies!
next month:
Book a: Old! Sells 5 copies.
Book b: New! Sells 15 copies!
See how there's 20 copies sold? My royalties should go up. Instead, they stay the same, which means:
Book a: Old! sells 5 copies.
Book b: New! Sells 10 copies, instead of the 15 the last "new book" sold.
At this point, it doesn't matter that I have books published. One person, the editor, said, "Hey, I like this," but the rest of the world said, "We don't." It's like posting fanfic and getting NO RESPONSES.
How about this:
"Don't you write because you love it?"
Yes. I love telling stories. Telling stories requires an audience. I don't know when this idea of the pure artist who does it for love came about, and I'm sure there are artists like that, for many of us it's about sharing something. It's not about just writing the story: it's about sharing it with people, and us all saying, "Yes, this is awesome!"
All of these feelings have been swirling and boiling and adding to the depression. I canceled the last half of my workday today, because I couldn't stop crying. This just means I have to work on my off-day next week. My chest hurts. I mean actually hurts. It feels like there's a brick on it, and it's hard to take a breath, and there's an ache I can't get rid of, and I can't stop crying.
I feel like such a failure.
I can't keep the house clean, either, or the dogs walked or bathed. (God, I'm so embarrassed at how dirty my dogs are.) I can't get the laundry done, the dishes done, food made. I can't even seem to eat semi-normally. And people "help." "Try this thing to eat normally and just set aside five minutes a day for cleaning, and..." And I want to scream and say, "With what fucking time?!" And that's not great either, because then I realize I have a lot of time most people don't. My day when I don't train ends at 6pm. I know that after that I'm probably not going to get a lot done, and that's okay. I work 30 hours a week at most outside the home, and another 6 or so doing paperwork. If I sit down and figure it out, I'm NOT working a 40 hour work week unless I count writing. Oh, but I pretty much stopped writing, because I was feeling so overwhelmed.
Maybe that's the big difference. I haven't written steadily since this summer. First I was overworked, and then I got that under control (mostly) but I was already depressed and overwhelmed, and there was so much to get done. I didn't write. Then I continued to feel depressed and overwhelmed, so I decided that I'd take it easy on myself and stop trying to write: if I wanted to I would, but I wouldn't force it. I'm just getting more depressed. Is this it? Maybe I sleep okay regardless of writing, but I'm depressed all the time? Jesus. At least that I could fix.
Anyway. I emailed a friend. I'm not getting better, and I can't function like I am now. Maybe meds will help, though I might need therapy just to be able to take them. I don't know what to do. Or rather, I have an idea of what to do, but I don't know how it will work, and I can't see a world where things will be better just yet. I'm having anxiety dreams and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. About the only thing going right is Quin and me, so I guess that would be the shoe I'm waiting for. She's struggling too with her own stuff, and sometimes I think, "I can't do this right now. I can't be supportive girlfriend because I want to curl into a ball and cry." And sometimes I don't even know how to do that. The default kicks in and instead of saying, "Honey, I'm sorry, I can't process your bad day with you right now because I'm struggling, too. Can you call a friend?" I smile and say, "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh," and then I'm even worse off. I've gotten better about that. If I know that the default will kick in, I just don't pick up the phone. (Which, in turn, adds to feelings of isolation, but...)
I don't know how to end this, either. There isn't really light at the end of the tunnel right now.
J
I emailed a psychologist friend to ask for a referral to a psychologist. Preferably someone who can prescribe drugs. I'm not at all sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I believe depression (and its ilk) is a imbalance in the brain, and that drugs help bring it back to center. Ergo, it's like any other medication for any other disease. On the other hand, I feel like my brain is working just fine, it's with me the fault lies. I'm simply a failure for not being able to fix it. I'm weak and stupid and just like everyone else, except that everyone else is able to keep it together and enjoy their life, and I'm too weak and too stupid and too much of a failure to do so.
Maybe the drugs will help with that, too.
What's worse is that I had a great summer. From last Christmas on, things have been fairly balanced. Around July or so I started to feel run down and overwhelmed. I went home in late August for two weeks, for a much needed break, and nearly had a breakdown while I was there. I came back a wreck. It took 6 weeks to get back to "normal." I was good for a month. Though when I say "good" I don't really mean good, I mean I spent a lot of time hanging on by my fingernails. I see my past through rose colored glasses, but if I go look through my calendar I think, "Oh yeah, that week. I spent a lot of time hiding that week. I guess I wasn't totally happy."
Last week I got my royalty check. That was the trigger this time. "A Little Weird" came out Jul 10. That would be the tail end of 2nd quarter. When I got my royalty check for 2nd quarter, I noticed a lack of sales. Because they come so late, though, I think I assumed "Weird" had come out 3rd quarter and didn't worry about it.
Reviews started rolling in. Fantastic reviews, both from professionals and from non-professionals. People asked me for signed copies. I got emails. This never happens. NEVER EVER EVER. My hopes rose. I was hoping that maybe I'd sell 300-500 copies over a quarter; that would be pretty good, and would put it up in "By Degrees" range depending on where it fell in there. BD didn't get the response "Weird" was getting, so this seemed possible. I started to think that maybe this would be my break.
Royalty numbers came. I sold 25 copies from Aug-Oct. 25. Not 300. Definitely not 500. I did .5% as well as I'd hoped. I emailed the publisher, and she said the distributors (which make up >75% of sales) were running a full quarter behind, so those numbers were actually for Jul. It was out for 20 days in July, and didn't sell a single copy. Of the 25 copies sold:
2 were to friends
4 were to me
Those 25 copies over 3 months were sold through the publisher.
Now, the reviews and my marketing didn't come out until Sept, so maybe it'll catch up next royalty check but... I'm not hopeful. If it was going to do well, the sales through the publisher would have reflected that. 19 through the publisher isn't bad, but it definitely isn't great.
I was absolutely devastated. That was the trigger for the depression this time. I basically haven't stopped crying since. Occasionally I have a good day, or a good few hours. Friendsgiving on Saturday was good, and I was hopeful that things were turning around, but I went right back to depressed shortly thereafter.
When I was home in Aug, my mom made this comment: "Maybe the universe doesn't want you to write. It wants you to train dogs." Ironically, she's said many times since then, "You really don't have a choice in writing, because if you don't write you can't sleep."
That comment has haunted me, because you know what? My writing isn't doing so well. Now, for gay romance, it's doing well enough. I keep telling myself that I'd already decided to stop writing gay romance and switch to fantasy, because I've wanted to anyway. That doesn't seem to matter to the sense of loss and grief and mourning that's struck since I got those royalty numbers, though.
People keep telling me I should train dogs. Quin points out when I come home happy because some dog had a breakthrough, or because I gave a talk and people were interested. But the thought of training dogs when I'm fifty fills me with this sense of sick dread even when I'm not depressed. It's the best way to bring myself down, in fact, is to think about training when I'm fifty. I love training dogs. Putting all that energy into owners? It exhausts me. And it seems like most of the time, the owners don't do what I say and training slows to a crawl, if it doesn't stop completely. The reason I'm so excited when I get breakthrough cases is because I know I won't have to do it forever. I know that this owner won't burn out, because the fix is easy. But god, I get tired of telling people the same damn thing over and over, and trying to do it in a nonconfrontational way that won't get people defensive (because defensive people don't change).
I want to write. It's what makes me happy.
I sleep, these days. This is the first time I've said that anywhere but my own head. Even if I don't write, I sleep. Sometimes when I do write, I don't sleep. I'm afraid to tell anyone that. I'm afraid that they'll say, "See? You should just train dogs." Just writing these few lines has me crying, because "just train dogs and stop trying to be an author" is such an awful proposition, like the shattering of dreams.
Or I get people saying, "You've been published! Your books are selling! You should be happy!" Except they're not really selling. I get a hundred bucks a month, if I'm lucky. That's not from one book: that's from six books. As I add books, that number doesn't rise. I get the same amount of money, which means the old books aren't gaining in popularity, and the new books aren't even as popular. Look:
Book a: New! Sells 15 copies!
next month:
Book a: Old! Sells 5 copies.
Book b: New! Sells 15 copies!
See how there's 20 copies sold? My royalties should go up. Instead, they stay the same, which means:
Book a: Old! sells 5 copies.
Book b: New! Sells 10 copies, instead of the 15 the last "new book" sold.
At this point, it doesn't matter that I have books published. One person, the editor, said, "Hey, I like this," but the rest of the world said, "We don't." It's like posting fanfic and getting NO RESPONSES.
How about this:
"Don't you write because you love it?"
Yes. I love telling stories. Telling stories requires an audience. I don't know when this idea of the pure artist who does it for love came about, and I'm sure there are artists like that, for many of us it's about sharing something. It's not about just writing the story: it's about sharing it with people, and us all saying, "Yes, this is awesome!"
All of these feelings have been swirling and boiling and adding to the depression. I canceled the last half of my workday today, because I couldn't stop crying. This just means I have to work on my off-day next week. My chest hurts. I mean actually hurts. It feels like there's a brick on it, and it's hard to take a breath, and there's an ache I can't get rid of, and I can't stop crying.
I feel like such a failure.
I can't keep the house clean, either, or the dogs walked or bathed. (God, I'm so embarrassed at how dirty my dogs are.) I can't get the laundry done, the dishes done, food made. I can't even seem to eat semi-normally. And people "help." "Try this thing to eat normally and just set aside five minutes a day for cleaning, and..." And I want to scream and say, "With what fucking time?!" And that's not great either, because then I realize I have a lot of time most people don't. My day when I don't train ends at 6pm. I know that after that I'm probably not going to get a lot done, and that's okay. I work 30 hours a week at most outside the home, and another 6 or so doing paperwork. If I sit down and figure it out, I'm NOT working a 40 hour work week unless I count writing. Oh, but I pretty much stopped writing, because I was feeling so overwhelmed.
Maybe that's the big difference. I haven't written steadily since this summer. First I was overworked, and then I got that under control (mostly) but I was already depressed and overwhelmed, and there was so much to get done. I didn't write. Then I continued to feel depressed and overwhelmed, so I decided that I'd take it easy on myself and stop trying to write: if I wanted to I would, but I wouldn't force it. I'm just getting more depressed. Is this it? Maybe I sleep okay regardless of writing, but I'm depressed all the time? Jesus. At least that I could fix.
Anyway. I emailed a friend. I'm not getting better, and I can't function like I am now. Maybe meds will help, though I might need therapy just to be able to take them. I don't know what to do. Or rather, I have an idea of what to do, but I don't know how it will work, and I can't see a world where things will be better just yet. I'm having anxiety dreams and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. About the only thing going right is Quin and me, so I guess that would be the shoe I'm waiting for. She's struggling too with her own stuff, and sometimes I think, "I can't do this right now. I can't be supportive girlfriend because I want to curl into a ball and cry." And sometimes I don't even know how to do that. The default kicks in and instead of saying, "Honey, I'm sorry, I can't process your bad day with you right now because I'm struggling, too. Can you call a friend?" I smile and say, "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh," and then I'm even worse off. I've gotten better about that. If I know that the default will kick in, I just don't pick up the phone. (Which, in turn, adds to feelings of isolation, but...)
I don't know how to end this, either. There isn't really light at the end of the tunnel right now.
J