Depression

Type, type, type … delete. Delete is the best way to keep myself in my hole.

Here’s my truth: I’ve been depressed.

I know it because I say inside my head and to other people: “I’m depressed.”

I want to make that phone call, I want to write that email, I want to publish that idea for an article … but instead I curl up under a blanket on my coach with my Roku remote looking for whatever movie I’ve seen 10+ times before that will just take the edge off.

Yes, I self-medicate with Netflix. And (ever since I quit weed, alcohol, candy/baked sugary treats, caffeine and meat a few months ago) 2–4 pounds of frozen mango per day.

I was on such a hot streak to start the year. I was sticking with my 3 commitments: talk to someone new and tell someone something I’m grateful for EVERY DAY + publish something publicly EVERY WEEK. I got hopeful, downright optimistic, and published a couple times on integrity and how awesome I was doing with my commitments.

And pretty much immediately after that second integrity article where I started expanding my commitments, I fell of the wagon — I fell hard. OW!

For me, depression is a looping conversation in my head that not so long ago was excited and creative but has now somehow gone stale. The same big ideas and plans that felt like my ticket to getting outside of my head and into action now feel like enormous unmovable weights pinning me tears inside my eye lids. The tears coming out spell temporary relief, usually because they’ve been pulled out by a loved one or ally, but the pain and stuckness often remain, morphing into depression, and now I’m in a cycle of trying to overcome my depression, rather than working toward those big ideas and visions that had initially gotten me all juiced.

I‘m scared to admit I’m depressed. Along with depressed, I’m also non-income-generating (the entrepreneurial equivalent of jobless). I’m scared that by admitting I’m depressed, I make it even less likely to become income-generating (who wants to do business with a depressed guy?).

A while back, I was publishing and talking to people and expressing gratitude. I was in Flow. And then came a problem: what I’ve wanted to talk about are my experiences of failure and depression and frustration and sadness. What if the only person who reads this is the person who would have otherwise paid me for something? Rather than deal, I shut down, shut off, blanket up, frozen mango out, and Netflix-in.

Yesterday was a lonely, blank stare kinda day, lots of dark self-critical, self-hating, self-sabotaging head talk … except one remarkably inspirational and moving podcast experience.

The podcast is Ear Hustle. It’s recorded and produced inside San Quentin penitentiary. Episode 13 ends in a restorative justice conversation between a trafficker and a victim. What they talk about is hard stuff, but the way in which they talk really inspired me.

They are straight-up raw and honest. They express themselves and listen like there is no tomorrow, no second chance.

It made me ask myself: how long am I going to wait until I express myself? Until it’s too late? Until I have nothing left to lose? I’m hiding behind my earbuds and cracked iPhone consuming their words and being consumed by depression.

Ever since I spent my teen years lying about a sexual relationship with my high school teacher, I’ve endeavored to be honest, to speak truly, not to manipulate people by manipulating the truth.

The problem for me is that truth exists not just in what is said but also in what is unsaid. My silence, when masking an opinion or feeling or idea, becomes a lie.

And so now, I have a choice. My fear tells me to rewrite, clarify, run this by other people. It also tells me just to give up, not bother — what possible tangible benefit is there for anyone, let alone a non-income-generating entrepreneur, to press publish on this.

My love tells me I need to break through: Even though the rubber bands snaps back, keep stretching it.

Who cares if a silent lie is marginally less shitty than a verbal one? Maybe I’m not technically-linguistically using the word “lie” correctly. Whatever. Silence is the cesspool in which lies breed.

I’ve been depressed in my life, including very recently. Being honest about that opens up some space for me. So I’m just gonna go ahead and press publish and see what happens.

Love!

-Josh