Year in review: 2024 - Dawn of a new depression

As a new year rolls in, I find myself reflecting on the last year… the past few years in general, and I wonder where the spark has gone…
I wake up tired.
I cannot sleep.
I sit in front of my desk all day trying to produce work… and at the end of the day I find I’ve made very little progress.
My dreams are still big. I am still chasing them…
And yet, even though I’m closer to them than I was yesterday, my dreams are all the more elusive.
Some days they feel down right impossible.
My view of the future turns bleak, and all I see in the road before me is desolation. My vision spirals. Choices become few.
and then I realize - I’m pretty freaking depressed…

BUT

…admitting the problem is the first step to recovery.
And things WILL get better.

2024 started strong ended pretty bad.

I worked on a lot of projects and made fast progress. I was quickly on track to release 2-3 books this year, start vending with my art and begin a new positive chapter in my life. I worked a comfortable day job, had a blossoming social network, and my relationships and home life leaned towards security and positive growth.
A lot can change in a year.

I started the year off becoming close friends with a writer of some renown in our very small close knit horror community. He became someone I wound up speaking with on a near daily basis. One of the projects I was planning on releasing featured him as a protagonist, and his name appeared in my debut release.
Then this writer acted in monstrous ways mimicking the despicable characters we write about. A predator, he betrayed the trust of his friends and the community at large.
And in part I felt connected to his actions. As someone so close to him, someone he spoke to regularly, one who supported and encouraged him as a creator, one who admired his success and coveted his friendship; my ability to trust became diminished. Every action I took I reflected on that ‘man’ and worried if I could somehow be the same simply through voluntary proximity.
I started to find myself no longer connecting with fans or becoming friends with other writers. I didn’t trust myself to not become the same kind of monster - not that I believe his actions were justified - but if I didn’t see it coming in someone else… would I be able to see it coming in myself?

All the while I dealt with the ramifications of this connection, yet another connection brought with it new flavors of poison. Another writer, one who I’d decided to collaborate with, also found themselves slipping into the deep end of some very hot water. They wrote a book so vile everyone close to them warned them not to release it. The author was begged to change elements and yet they held true to their vision; for better or worse. Their entire brand essentially became terminal. Their name became controversial in a group whose soul purpose is to push boundaries. Riffs among close knit groups of friends formed and lines in a the sand were drawn. The author found themselves viral for all the wrong reasons and their accounts were suspended. To be associated with this person was the same as sharing a bed with a leper.

Months of work on two projects hit grinding halts.

Should I change the names of the characters in a story, where part of the allure is the way it used the controversy to create a meta narrative? Perhaps I should throw the whole cursed project away? And what to do with the collab? Pull my parts to not be associated with troubling accusations? Tell the writer, who’d never been anything but kind to me, they are a cancer and exile them to float alone, a pariah in sea of friendless controversy?

It all became too much.
I shut down.
And I couldn't get back up. I pulled away from the communities and stopped talking in groups. I ignored DMs and couldn’t bring myself to read - because what if I feel in love with the work of a monster? I couldn’t take that risk.
Without trust, who can you be candid with? If someone who you called friend can turn out to be so far against your own beliefs and world views… then can you even trust yourself?
My writing went from an easy, consistent, 2000 words a day down to 500, down to…
none.

I couldn't get my projects where I wanted and I bit off more than I could chew. Instead of successes I found stagnation. I pushed as hard as I could, and eventually, I burnt out.

My personal life took major hits. To stop "being distracted" I cut ties from anything that didn’t have a direct link to my success. I stopped interacting virtually and digitally. I locked myself into my personal cave, and toiled away, only ever making slow progress.
"... If I just work harder, I'll get there..." became my mantra, yet counterintuitively my work grinded to a slow and painful halt.
The words couldn’t come.
I lost motivation.
I knew the end goal, but the passion for the journey faded.

I distracted myself from my looming doubts by throwing myself into work. I logged longer hours at my day job. I fought to focus, knowing I was slipping in certain aspects, and pushed myself longer and harder to meet the minimum expectations. I tried to prove myself viable. I rain checked on in-person gatherings of friends and loved ones to make sure I was ‘doing enough’ and then this year ended with me getting laid off.

all that work… for nothing…

Needless to say - I ended 2024 pretty depressed. It became a year of on again off again apathy, self loathing, and unfulfillment, ending in a loud crescendo of defeat.
Now I am jobless looking at a job market on fire.
What I thought would be a great opportunity for growth instead has been full of doubt and fear. I question my worthiness and skills and parts of me wish I knew how to surrender…

My attention span is shot. My ability to write much more than a paragraph at a time is in the dumps, and without a job, the stress of how I'm going to make ends meet is higher than ever...

BUT new year - same me.
I’m far too stubborn to give up or give in.

Depression is nothing new. I'm not too proud to take any job that’ll pay the bills, so I will be alright. Perhaps a change in career, a shifting in the course will be much more positive than my fears tell me it would be?
only time will tell…
And in spite of it all I'm still writing. I have a number of books on the way, and I'm working on getting a few manuscripts to a point to where they might actually snag an agent.
It is a slow process, but every mountain ever climbed has been scaled one step at a time.

I’m being honest with myself and understanding how I work best and what I truly need. I'm trying not to judge myself even if I feel I should.

Although I’m an introvert I’m also a community driven individual. I create for the enjoyment of others and to build a connection within a group. Some make art strictly for themselves and would do so even if there was no one around to engage with it; others create purely for the engagement, and if no one was around, they wouldn’t create.
I am the latter.

As much as I am self motivated I am peer motivated.
I miss exchanging “juicy” paragraphs like pokemon cards traded among my peers. I want to wax philosophical about noun choice and verb “feel”. And above all, I thrive on being able to playfully compete - and yes, I want to win.

There are not many things I KNOW I am truly good at. I have struggled being a creative, because I never felt I possessed an ability to be an “award winner”. Always some savant showed up and their casual output dwarfed my years of effort. Peers and mentors always mention my potential, hinting at a spark of greatness, but I could never see it.
Not until I started to write.
and I need to know I am truly good at this.

So whenever I can challenge myself against the efforts of others I push myself to match or even exceed them. I struggle with this motivation tactic - because how is that anything less than a toxic trait? But yet, by pushing myself to match or even exceed the output of those I admire, I learn and grow.
And its okay to admit that.
Sometimes the ends justify the means, and it doesn’t make me a terrible person for wanting to be better than someone else. Especially not if I in turn am eager and willing to offer them a helping hand.
I want us all to win.
I just want to win a little bit harder :)

And thus I am learning to admire again. To appreciate and connect.
Even if it is only to stroke a very deflated ego.

Depression coupled with neurodiversity comes with a lot of guilt. Self loathing plays a huge role in a person’s downward spiral and their subsequent ability to climb out of the darkness. Most are well aware of the negative and detrimental impacts their actions have. You may not remember the plans they cancelled or the time they acted out of turn after a drink too many. You thought nothing of the response left on read or their lackluster appearance at a party. Yet these negative images often play on a loop in the empathetic perpetrator's mind. Even if you never perceived their actions as something noteworthy, they view themselves as terrible for their "awful" actions (ask me how I know) and this guilt can cripple their efforts of recovery.

"…I can't message that person ever again because of what I did…"

"…I was supposed to do x,y,z... I promised. Now they hate me."

"... the bridge with that client must be burned forever..."

And so to kill the guilt, I speak truth to power.
The first step in my new years recovery is learning to forgive myself in order to move on.
There is no guilt if there are no secrets.
Embarrassment? Sure. Shame? Why not. But you can apologize and do better from a place of disappointment. You can do nothing with rumination and self loathing. And by sharing the loathsome thoughts you shine a light on disproportionate amount of guilt compared to the crime.

So...

Hi guys.

My name is Jayson Dawn.
I’m a writer. I’m depressed. I struggle. I’m human.
Would I even be a writer without debilitating dark times?
And yeah; it sucks.
(Damn that fish that crawled out of the water and gave us sentience!
I want to be a rock :( )

But I’m getting better.

At the very least, I'm trying.
And I know we are not alone.

If you relate. its okay. Things will get better.
and if they don’t… well… that’s how you become the protagonist in a horror novel.