Depression, Apps & People
Hello, everyone. Sorry it’s been a while. I upset someone with a blog post back when I was daily, and it kind of turned me off the process for a while. That said, I’ve had a couple of flashing neon signs that I’m not maintaining my okay as well as I should be as a depressive. The blogging helped (though I need to think about how I talk about people I know will read this — sorry again) so here I am.
So, the core of my depression is self-worth and my lack of it. I have theories and ideas about the roots of that, but as far as the blog goes; that’s the issue. I've found lately that if I come across an obstacle or a little too much alcohol, I get into serious self-hating, self-destructive mode. This is not okay, as it hurts not only me, but the person I love.
Getting my feelings out is helpful, but it’s a big burden to have someone bare if you're not paying them. I am looking into the paid option, if you’re wondering. Until then, blogging it is.
I’d like to start out by recommending a couple of tools I've discovered to help day-to-day. Admittedly, they're tools newly-added to my arsenal, but I’m finding them rather helpful.
Superbetter.com
In the video above, Jane McGonigal talks about a medical ordeal she went through, and her decision to gamify the process of recovery rather than surrender to her new limitations. Once she achieved that recovery, she made that gamification available to everyone in the form of SuperBetter.
SuperBetter allows you to decide what your big challenge in life is, and then tackle it like a superhero. You have daily quests, bad guys and power ups for dealing with bad moments, bigger issues and the maintenance of your ‘okay’. This gives your day-to-day work on, say, depression, weight-loss or acceptance of something out of your control much easier to stomach. It’s like making new years’ resolutions every day, and having a place to turn when you just… can’t on any given day. I’m explaining it poorly, but if you feel like you’re someone who might benefit, watch the TED Talk above, and check it out. The website is free, but you have to pay to go mobile (different amounts depending on your region).
Stop, Breathe & Think App
So Stop, Breathe & Think is an app a friend recommended to me with the proviso ‘sometimes it seems a bit hippie and crystals with clouds and things, but I really have found it helpful’. (If you read this, please excuse the paraphrasing.
This app is designed on the theory of mindfulness, which is learning to pay attention to what your body and mind are doing at a given moment so that you know what deserves your attention and what does not. This is particularly good for a lot of bad self-talk, anxiety, anger, depression and related issues. The principle element in Mindfulness is meditation.
This app has a series of guided meditations based on a variety of different mental states you might be experiencing. I tend to go with the ‘How are you?’ function, which asks you to list your top five emotions, and then provides you with a few suggested meditations to get you through it or to help you find some kind of equilibrium in amongst it.
I’m not a total adherent to mindfulness, having a tendency to give my thoughts far too much credence (and having addressed them with CBT and CBT-like methods in the past). Having said that, I’ve found the five-minute bursts of just focusing on my breathing and the feel of the chair under me and the abstract ideas of the recorded guide rather calming in stressful situations. They allow me to take a step back when my first reaction is to react. If counting to ten isn’t working for you any more, give this one a go. It’s completely free on the app store at time of writing.
Puppies/Gamer Gate/SJWs
I have to admit, I have a bit of a tendency to get into arguments on Twitter. Sometimes it’s by expressing an opinion on a given hashtag, and other times because I go looking for it. Nevertheless and regardless of the reasons I get into those discussions, it’s always by expressing what I feel. That has lead some people to label me an ‘Social Justice Warrior’ or ‘SJW’. I wanted to talk about that for a bit.
Firstly, I think the outcry of ‘SJW!’ is just a modernisation of the traditional outcry of the same people: “It’s political correctness gone mad!” I actually Googled the phrase in the hopes of punctuating the point, but I found it rather more depressing than I anticipated, so I’d rather not if it’s all the same to you.
Now, while I appreciate that there are extremists on both sides of any PC debate — the actual bigots, racists and misogynists — I also appreciate that they aren’t the majority, and that any conversation between us will inevitably come to naught on both sides.
Having said that, there is a far more reasonable quotient that still seems to think that political correctness or a belief in social justice (yes, I said the thing) is somehow logically fallacious or unfair to the straight white cis man. As I said before, I say this full in the knowledge that there are man-haters and heterophobes in the same way that there are misogynists and homophobes on the other side. These are unchangeable people with whom dialogue is fruitless.
Okay, so that rambling introduction aside, I’d like to give my opinion, but first, here’s Louis CK on the subject:
In his own very flippant way, Louis described white male privilege. He points out that a white man can jump into a time machine and go to any era in history and find the best table waiting for him. Think about it. Certainly in the West; that’s hard to deny.
Based on that knowledge and the understanding that the Western world is more diverse than it has ever been, why can’t white men let a few others into the party? So women and LGBT+ people want to be better represented in games, books and TV. What’s the harm? What is being lost? There will never be a dearth of grim white men with stubble of iron shooting baddies and cracking wise. That is never going to be in decline. Hell, I guarantee you haven’t even seen half of the examples of that in your favourite medium or genre.
Maybe more diverse media is getting more awards because it’s the taste of the public at large or maybe responsible companies are trying to give the microphone to voices that are so rarely heard. Either way, straight white men are the drunk guy hogging the stage at karaoke: yes, maybe he means well, but there are other people in the bar too. Let them have a turn.
Okay, that’s my two cents.
CampNaNoWriMo
So I gave NaNoWriMo a try again. Today is the 20th of April and I had planned to do 1000 a day. That did not happen. I’m currently just over 10,000, which is half of what I should have.
That having been said, I’m feeling rather good about my progress, even if my MC is a bit of a dweeb who may get a makeover if I ever get to rewrites. I think the numbers goal is pretty much behind me as work stressors and my own issues have lain me a little low for more than half of this month. That said; I still have one goal. I want to keep writing.
I know that seems obvious, but that’s what I want right now. I want to keep working on this manuscript until it’s done. Then I’ll either squirrel away the awful mess or I’ll begin working on a rewrite. Maybe both.
It’s ‘cthulhupunk’ I suppose, now that Google has told me that that’s a thing. I’ve been thinking of it as ‘cyberpunkish with a dash of Lovecraft’. I guess Google’s is snappier. There’s a dweeby writer guy (because duh) and a Ramona Flowers girl in the lead, with some polyamory, some mystery and some monsters going on in the background. I guess I’m writing to my interests at the moment, though it’s leading to some interesting stuff.
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Okay, folks. I’ve been writing this post for a week, so I think I’ll wrap up there. Any comments or questions are always welcome. Please be good to each other; you never know what kind of day they’ve had. Peace out.
