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Serena Campbell @maddsc11

Age 29, Female

gaymer girl

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St. Petersburg, FL

Joined on 11/24/06

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Depression and Anxiety

Posted by maddsc11 - December 16th, 2017


It's hard to frame this simply as "me sad. cry cry," since nothing is that simple. I find myself remembering the times I used to "contribute" to this website. It was an artistic outlet that I took advantage of. I don't have anything like that these days, and probably may never find any kind of inspiration or motivation to create as I once did.

As a child I guess it's easier to create without fear of judgement, because you can look at your work outside of the scope of the entire existing body of work that has already been made. I could just make shitty things and feel good about them (despite receiving criticism and even feeling bad about it in the moment). It was freeing and exhilirating, as creating should be. I don't know why these days I have an overpowering mental block from creating anything. I have attempted to do as such, but to no satisfying end. I set my standards impossibly high and inevitably fail at them. I ridicule myself for even having the idea of myself as an artist, because I've never accomplished anything truly meaningful in a creative sense. It's a saddening thought.

So it's no wonder that I tie my depressive episodes to this idealized version of myself in the past as a bold, fearless creator. I drew stick figure comics and made flash cartoons and games whenever I could get my hands on the tools to do so. And now I have more access to creative implements than I ever did at that age and I find myself just wasting all my time on meaningless bullshit. I continue to struggle with understanding this block that I've experienced these past several years, but I still have hope that I can gather the strength to lift it away and truly pursue something that has meaning to me. I know that I want to create. I don't know what or how I'll create, but I know that it's what I want to do, and that knowledge is the spark that lights the way through these dark times.

I have never felt more antagonized by impossible darkness than now. I feel the overwhelming sense of dread that I will never be able to exist authentically in this increasingly dehumanizing world. The structures of power which guide society in the way that they do fail to change visibly as time goes on, and the weight only seems to get heavier for everyone to lift. I have all hope for and faith in humanity, but my pessimism lies in these megalithic structures which can only be chipped at, particle by particle, evermore slowly.

Self-loathing is a hell of a drug, and I find it far too easy to slip into dramatic episodes of unease and dread at my own existence. Transient but increasingly stronger each time they occur. Self-harm and suicidal thoughts happen, but are intensely compressed into small moments, and the remainder of the episodes are long hours of emptiness and hopelessness.

Anxiety is more of a constant. Like sandpaper grating the insides of my organs, forcing my heart to pound slightly too much, and my body to tremor somewhat at inapproprate times. My breathing is irregular and my thoughts are tainted with fear and uncertainty. They rise and fall as the tide in a kind of circadian cycle. Sleep comes easy if I'm tired enough, but I still have overarching cycles of insomnia and hypersomnia.

I find comfort in drugs. Be they literal drugs, such as marijuana and alcohol, or metaphorical, such as companionship and mindless media consumption.

If our finances suffer, then the drug pipes run dry, creating an uncomfortable dependence on disposable income which almost never exists.

Perhaps it is these stresses which uphold this mental block keeping me from fully opening up creatively. Who knows.

I do know that I have been enjoying writing quite a lot, though.


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