Life post today, folks. You’ll have to excuse me; I’m typing this as an exercise in putting down the myriad of thoughts bumbling about my head right now. It’s not liable to be well organized or have a proper flow (‘cause don’t all of my posts have that just down pat). It’s a bit of a dual problem here, but we’ll see how long it goes on for.
I have a friend, a good friend, who happens to be in a bit of a slump right now. It’s…confusing to see happen. The friend is going through a very great deal of stress at the moment and sufficient to say they have a slightly complicated past to make matters just that much more convoluted. They’re fond of using diversions and distractions to keep from dealing the overburdening pressure of stress – sort of a miniature vacation for the mind so to say. They’re a writer too and that being something we have in common it’s habitually been the method I’ve interacted with them to attempt to help out.
Hammer sees nail. Hammer always sees nail. Hammer smash.
I’m not very good at this stuff, I know. I’ve tried talking; that was naturally the first course of action and not one that’s stopped along the way, but it’s eventually gotten to the point that I’m not certain I’m having any affect. They had up until recently (the past few months) done quite well handling the stress, all things considered. I won’t go into personal detail here for a variety of reasons, but the matters were very serious and very real. I can’t advocate fighting mountains of stress with distractions, but given the options available to the individual involved, it seemed like the best course at the time. Money and location provided impassable walls to finding more professional help or better ways to alleviate the issues at hand.
So I committed myself to helping the best I could in the way they found most appropriate – helping with distractions and the like. This wasn’t entirely without reason. The situation did look to be of the sort that might grow better with time. At that point it’s simply a matter of making the intervening time pass as painlessly as possible. The common interest in mind this took the form of creating stories. Explaining the process would be largely irrelevant but you could say we worked back and forth on the project to mutual entertainment. It worked for a while – a year or two long line up of nasty surprises that would whole heartedly warrant the need for better help than mine. But it’s begun to falter and fail.
They’re finding it impossible to get into the mentality required to write again, and from all I can see on my end of the spectrum they’ve falling into just passing the time with repetitive mindless tasks. Busy work for your entire day, every day. It started maybe four months ago, perhaps a bit further. Initiative was one of the first things to go, followed closely by confidence. Dedication and any shot at persisting when things look glum followed in the later months. I found myself trying more and more to keep things going on my own – but I’m frankly not that good. I like to fancy the idea of being a writer but in the face of the depression they’re handling I’ve found I’m losing my focus as well. I can’t address any of the work I have with them without feeling lethargic myself.
I hadn’t noticed how far matters had gotten until I started writing here again last week. It felt like a breath of fresh air to simply be putting words to type again that I was at first shocked. It’s only now I’m realizing that all the creativity was still there, just being hampered by the worry and irritation that came up every time I put my mind to helping the situation. They’ve recently admitted that in the last couple weeks they’ve lost all will to write – or rather, I should say ability. Or so it seems to them anyways, the will is apparently still present, but it’s as if all the ideas that previously came so easily have slipped away. Staring at a blank page with an equally blank mind hasn’t proven to be the equal of the distractions from before.
It’s here that I find myself in a similar rut with different reasons. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to bring back even the unenviable time when we fought stress with distractions. The more I try to work out a solution the more it begins to affect my moods and work habits. I can see the months and years left before things are likely to become stable and happy again on their end of the world and I’m left wondering if I can ever hope to fill up all that time all on my own. I’ve always had so many ideas, so many little mad plans I’d like to bring to fruition – and of course so many failures for the majority of them. I’ve always been able to handle those in stride because others would so quickly replace them. I have a room full of random shit that stand as testimony to whatever my passion happened to be for that week or that month. But after just a handful of utter failures in the mood that comes whenever I try to help my friend, I’ve lost it. There’s nothing more coming to me. No back up plan, no follow up.
I’ve been told in the past that it’s unhealthy to dedicate yourself to making some one else’s happiness for them. That unless they find a way to build up their own mental support you can’t succeed; it’s building on quicksand. I could spend too much time pointlessly toiling away for nothing. Not even no personal gain, no gain at all. That doing so can drag you down to a similar level and just leave two people trapped. These arguments aren’t without evidence, certainly not without countless examples.
But I’ve faced this before. I’ve seen people in depression surpassing anything I’ve ever felt. But by not going away, not giving into excuses I may have helped in some way to bring them back. I can’t empathize – I haven’t felt the same way, I don’t know precisely what it’s like, but that doesn’t mean my brain shuts off. That doesn’t mean I can’t help in every way I know how and any new ones I think up along the way. It can be done; the world isn’t without success stories. I can proudly say I’m either too stupid or stubborn to recognize when things become a lost cause.
However, all that said I’m still stuck in this rut. I want to help but I’m just not. I feel like there should be something here, a new idea that I could get everyone involved in to get things rolling again, but I don’t know how to look for them. I never had to, really. They were just continuously added to an internal list of shit that needed checking out. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the end of that list. I even tried to get them to blog too; hoping that giving them a new outlet to drive the mind forward would help them just like it did for me. The idea was shot down. I’d like to say due to logical reasons that can be understood, but honestly it seemed more like apathy than anything else. Lethargic depression killing a chance before it even started. I’m only a man of ideas and thoughts at his very best; what can I do to fight something like that?
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