Chronicles of a Procrastinating Novelist Volume 13: Follow up Piece to "Musings on Guilt and th

When you go to follow up a depress fest post with an "I'm better!" post and your ideal peer reviewer goes, "Erm...I wouldn't believe that," you have a problem.

"But I AM better!" your mind wails. So you look at the draft and realize it's a blanket paragraph of mewling platitudes. Let's fix that shall we?

The trouble with following part one of this little foray into depression analysis, I can't just conjure the misery that produced the first post back to life. The trickiest part of my bouts of melancholia is that when I'm depressed, I can't imagine happiness, and when I'm happy, I can't remember how I got depressed. So let's go with the written evidence and parse out what's wrong with the musings of a diseased mind.

"That's what I really want. To be free of guilt."

So you feel guilty, do you? Since guilt is a result, you need to source it. You feel guilty because you "...only have ...solitude because of the sacrifices of other people." Okay. But what have you done with that solitude? Have you used it to plot the genocide and mass exploitation of dust bunnies? Are you a drug addict sponging off the emotional and financial resources of others? Are you a toxic vampire who manipulates people around you into fulfilling your every need? No. You went to school. You got a Master's degree and an EKG Technician certificate, you got a job using said certificate, you write almost every day, and you are a published fiction writer currently shopping a novel. So why is it you feel guilt instead of gratitude for the help you've received or ownership over your own accomplishments? Are you too proud to appreciate the help? Are you convinced you should have done it without help? Was the idea that you are lesser because you needed help taught to you and programmed into your head so hard that you can't forgive yourself for things you can't help?

"...I don't bother chasing mindlessness...and I feel guilty for never finding it."

You feel guilty for not achieving "mindlessness." Be blunt here. That advice was gendered and given by a man. According to medical research,

"The female brain, in part thanks to far more natural blood flow throughout the brain at any given moment (more white matter

processing), and because of a higher degree of blood flow in a

concentration part of the brain called the cingulate gyrus, will often

ruminate on and revisit emotional memories more than the male

brain." (Lantz)

This is neither an inferiority, nor set in stone for all females. It is simply a mark of a difference in initial hardwiring in a human brain. What it means for you, oh neurotic I-need-to-be-mindless-one, is that a) the fact you go wallow in an emotional mire is likely hardwired in. It means that your odds of achieving so called mindlessness are lower than the average straight cis male. On the physiological level, you can't do it. So if mindlessness is beyond you, why feel guilty over it? If you must have an employed mind, just make it a healthily employed mind. There's nothing wrong with that, and therefore no need to feel guilty and miserable.

"I hate hope somedays."

So you hate hope do you? Then avoid it. Examine your hopes. Are they fruitless, selfish, or rooted in damaged, toxic places? If so, abandon them; they're not hope in the sunshine rainbows Pinterest board sense. They're mental anchors you're using to keep you emotionally stagnant. Don't entertain possibility. Do. Let go of hopes you can't achieve or may not even need. Be present and do, and then there's no need to torment yourself with the insubstantial, the non-concrete. Leave that angsting for literary fiction. It reads far better than it ever feels.

"It's as necessary as air."

The only thing you got right in this doldrum drivel is that the writing and therefore the solitude are essential to your existence and its "absence breeds dysfunction." But you don't get to feel guilty for your gift. In fact, it's your duty to use it and a gross waste if you don't. Enough said.

I'll never escape the dark days entirely, and to chase the goal of doing so is a recipe for downfall and a ticket straight back to the blackness. But I know the things to do that make me better. Here in lies the only obligation. Take care of myself. Be mindful. Don't put it all on my shoulders. Commit the sadness to bigger hands than mine and know that it's okay to do so.

Easier said than done, but isn't everything?

As always,

Thank you for reading.

B