Living with Depression

Posted on by K.E. Ireland

I do my best, but sometimes it gets to be a lot and I think that maybe I wouldn’t move if a bus were coming at me. Lately has been one of those times. (I don’t feel like going into that right now, though. Go read My Best Friend is Dying and Grief if you really want to know.)

I don’t want to talk about my depression online, mostly because I feel like I’m just whining for attention. Talking about it makes me feel like I’m in high school all over again. I feel like I shouldn’t dwell on the negative when it comes to my depression. I feel like doing so just drags me back down into that pit I’ve taken years to crawl out of. Further, the way I deal with this disability is… not the common method as far as I know and given that I live in the South (albeit a more progressive area) I don’t like to be lectured on what religious beliefs I should be using instead. However, I’ve been thinking lately that maybe I’ve learned some things over the years that might be useful for other people suffering from depression to know.

I’ve had depression for as long as I can remember. I didn’t have an actual word for it most of that time. I just knew I was alone and lonely. I turned the frustration I had at the world on myself. After all, moving from one place to the next as a child meant that I didn’t have a nemesis or mortal enemies to blame for why I felt bad. The only consistent thing in life was me, so therefore I must be the problem. Even though looking back now as an adult, being the new kid in every grade made me a prime target for bullying, which might be where a lot of this stems from.

To cope with this horrible emotional hole I was stuck in, I developed several methods over the years.

Day-dreaming: I’d make up friends. I’d make up people who would listen to me and play with me. I had a friend that was only with me when I could remember her name. She was an Elvin princess who liked to hang out with me in order to experience life on Earth. She was from another world and would tell me about how her world was beautiful and full of nature. Earth was pretty, too, but not in the same magical way. The trees in her world had blue leaves and the flowers glowed. I never questioned why she would hang out with me, but I appreciated the company. I do still remember her name…

Writing: After I discovered that reading could be enjoyable, I’d begun putting my fantasies onto a blank Word document. I frequently drove myself to tears writing my terrible stories. The catharsis was good, but still I was wallowing in misery. I never wrote anyone from my real life into my stories because I was writing to get away from them. I don’t know how good my stories were. I’ve got hard disks with copies of my old stuff on them. The technology is so old now, I’m not sure how I would get access. The series I wrote most often included a self-insert character that could do anything she wanted. She was beautiful, tall, long thick hair, and everything I wasn’t. People loved her, she was a force of nature, a hero that saved those who needed saving whenever she saw trouble. She stepped in and did the right thing, whether it was what anyone else wanted or not.

Mental imagery: This was the beginning of when I’d grown tired of living in agony. Life was much like walking through a sandstorm. I could see vague shapes of other people in the dust, but felt like even if I called out, no one would hear, my mouth would only fill with sand, they were too busy with their own concerns and wouldn’t help me anyway. Every day, the wind would pelt me with sand, wearing down who I was and my energy until I was nothing. Many days I imagined just falling face-down and letting the sand bury me because continuing was pointless anyway.

The problem was that something inside me didn’t want to give up yet. Things kept getting worse and worse at one point. I’d been torn apart by a bad relationship, fired from a job, and still needed to pay bills in order to have somewhere to live. I felt like my chest was being torn open by my soul as it tried to escape my still-beating heart. I had my reasons for not killing myself that night. I really wanted to, but I’d deliberately put safety backups into my life. I had a friend living with me and I cared enough about them to not make them be the one to find me the next morning. So, something in me still wanted to fight.

The biggest hurdle to getting better was that there was a stigma against taking medication. I felt like this was all in my head. I should have figured out how to live with myself by now on my own. Everyone else seemed capable of functioning on a daily basis without having to go cry in the bathroom at least once before lunch. Yeah. Depression IS in my head, but it took me far too long to realize that I was ruining my life and relationships by refusing to get medication. That’s my biggest regret. If I’d had better mastery of my emotions, what could I have achieved sooner? I probably wouldn’t have lost as many jobs or lost out on as many opportunities as I have. There are so many things I started and abandoned because I couldn’t follow through. I hate that I wasted so much time.

Enough on that though. I wanted to talk about how I started getting better!

As I said before mental imagery was my key. After getting on medication, I began changing the mental landscape I’d given myself. No longer a sandstorm with a ruined dead tree at the center. I gave myself a peaceful place in the mountains overlooking a lake. I built a tower. At first my tower didn’t have windows, but then over time I opened it up to the light. I like being able to see into the distance. I need the sunlight and the wind. I need to reach into the sky and touch clouds.

Just like I rebuilt the landscape, I rebuilt how I thought of myself. Within my mental tower I began putting bad thoughts into cardboard boxes and taping them up. I’d throw them out the window. I didn’t need these evil things in my head, ruining my paradise. The world is harsh enough. I didn’t want these thoughts cluttering up where I live too.

The final thing was when I asked myself some serious questions. Do I have any basis to say I’m worthless or a hag or any of the mean things I’d tell myself? No one ever said any of these things to me that I remember. So why was I? Who was I punishing?

The answer is that I was only hurting myself and it wasn’t even fixing the things I hated. The people being punished were the ones who loved me, not the ones I wanted attention from. The fact that I wanted attention wasn’t a problem either, but how I was seeking it WAS. Honestly, there were better things I could do with my time and energy than sit and hate myself in the dark.

The answer is that I was only hurting myself and it wasn’t even fixing the things I hated. The people I was punishing were the ones who loved me, not the ones I wanted attention from. The fact that I wanted attention wasn’t a problem either, but how I was seeking it WAS. Honestly, there were better things I could do with my time and energy than sit and hate myself in the dark.

Like I said at the start of this, I have days where I don’t know how fast I’d move if a bus were hurtling towards me, but my good days outnumber the bad. I use my imagination to deal with the anxiety and depression that leak through, even on medication. Mostly, I write. I can live new lives through my characters and grow and change with them. Instead of heaping abuse on myself, I destroy them and it is a much better use of my time. Writing lets me express myself through a filter. Unlike these essays where I just feel exposed. Where I feel like I’m standing in the front yard in my panties. I prefer to hide behind the characters. Maybe I do sympathize with Likka. Maybe I don’t. It’s a work of fiction so I don’t have to say one way or another. Whether its healthy or not, it’s how I live with my depression.

Roasting in 3 2 1

Posted on by K.E. Ireland

Norsemen – only on Netflix

Maybe it’s someone else’s cup of tea, but it certainly wasn’t mine. I got through 1 and a half episodes before I had to quit. Like it was bad enough I was considering putting out my eyes like that one slave guy in episode 2.

The whole whopping pile of problems started with the writing. They had crowd scenes that felt empty because the other actors weren’t given any direction in what they should have been “talking” about. They were drinking, but it visually didn’t look like they were having any kind of party where people were drunk or getting drunk. No one was laughing too loud. No one was collapsing off their bench and getting laughed at. I could FEEL how confined the filming space was and could tell when they were deliberately framing shots to avoid showing anything from the modern time period.

The dialogue itself was very stilted. There were awkwardly long pauses between characters speaking, leaving space for any joke there might have been there to fall on the ground and die, gasping in the void. It felt like they were improvising their lines, but weren’t very good at it and didn’t have any grasp on who or what their characters were supposed to be. The only one who was tolerable was that one slave guy with the short beard, though even he couldn’t decide if his character was mentally deficient or incredibly savvy about surviving being a slave.

The times I did catch on that there was supposed to be a joke, it only consisted of “Look at these godless barbarians! They have tiny pricks and limp dicks! Worse, they can’t keep their wives in line!” PRAISE ODIN when their accents weren’t slipping.

When they weren’t making fun of the lack of sexual prowess of the men, the physical comedy setups were telegraphed so blatantly I saw it coming a mile away – like that slave that got his eyes shot out in episode 2. Additionally, they took too long pulling it off – like when the arrows were pulled out of that guy’s face in episode 2. Too long. Not funny. It should only take a few seconds for the audience to see the trap before it is sprung on the victim. Not five minutes later after an extended monologue about the common use of eyes listing all the common words and phrases in the English dictionary.

On the plus side, the costumes were really well done. However, I’d count that as a negative too. I really wanted to take the show seriously since they’d put so much effort into the costumes. That was the only thing they put effort into, though. They only knew one supposedly Norse word that they shouted all the time unless they were sprinkling “Odin” or “Loki” into their lines liberally. There WERE other Norse gods, yknow, and I don’t think anyone praised Loki with joy upon seeing their father back from Viking. The buildings were wrong as well. How hard is it to stack sod and put a roof on it for a show, guys? You just needed 2 walls to get the illusion. Instead they went all out with wood planking on the outside and just kinda… made stuff up as they went.

I would have more to say on how terrible this show was if I’d watched more, but I’m not a masochist. I’m just … disappointed. It had potential but their writers need to be fired. … at the stake. How I think it could be improved? Embrace that you don’t know much about Norse culture and have someone discuss whether chickens are anachronistically accurate. Have someone using a prop sword to scratch their ass. Throw in someone standing in the background holding a Starbucks looking lost as last year’s Easter egg. Have an extra accidentally walk into the boom mic or trip over a prop. Take a page or two from Monty Python.

But DO cut out some of those awkwardly long pauses between lines. Those didn’t work at all.

In response to J. D. Huffman

Posted on by K.E. Ireland

J. D. Huffman wrote a thought-provoking piece on self-promotion here.
I’d like to add to it.

I too hate self-promotion. It’s a drag. Its time consuming. It’s terrifying! I’ve mentioned before that I have anxiety and depression. I don’t like speaking in public; mostly in situations where I’ve got to draw attention to myself and address a large group of people. But it’s something I gotta do.

My childhood was spent moving every year. I had to learn to rely on myself for entertainment. I learned to dig deep into my own mind and sometimes that was a curse; I was aware of my flaws and I didn’t know how to communicate with other people. But also, I knew myself. I was confident in being myself and didn’t really care about conforming. I didn’t know how to conform. In middle school, I got picked on a lot for this. These days, I’m pretty sure they were just jealous that I didn’t care and I did what I wanted.

As Huffman said, I love writing. I love that I wrote books, but also, after writing my first book I was so scared to promote it. The social stigma against self publishing back in 2008, when PTH first came out, was very hard to push through. Whenever I mentioned I had a book, people would first light up like “Oh neat!” and then I say I’m self published… and the disgust on their faces just made me feel dirty. I didn’t try to go to a major publishing house. I didn’t query anyone. The general consensus back then was that people only self-published when they were bad writers and couldn’t get anyone “in charge” to buy their crap.

However. I have absolutely no regrets on taking my work this direction. I still stand by the fact that both the big and small publishers of the day would not have taken a chance on NFS. If I had the chance to go back and do it again, the only thing I’d do different is that I’d push harder to get my work out there. The early 2000s was the prime time to get popular, as someone on the front lines of self-publishing in the new millennium. I regret not knowing then what I know now. I can only go forward, though.

While it has been a hard battle to get any kind of respect, the ease of self publishing has at least made people more open to the idea. They’ve become more understanding of the amount of effort, time, attention to detail, and formatting it takes to create a book they devour in a few days. Making something worth reading goes way beyond just a keyboard smash and a quick spellcheck. These days, every time I mention that I’m published in public, I inevitably get someone who says “I’ve always wanted to write a book…” and we both know that the reason why they haven’t done it is because they KNOW its hard. Not just getting the file ready to put out into people’s hands, but the work before that. The work of getting past your inner editor, that awful voice that says “No one wants to read this, you’re kidding yourself.” That’s really the first step. Then there’s the “Halfway” point where you look at the last 30 pages you wrote and resist the urge to delete it all because, honestly it sucks. Anyone who has created a book and put it out there should be proud of themselves.

Anyone who has done it can tell you that the work doesn’t stop there. Even with a major publishing house, you still have to self-promote and build your Brand. You can’t just be a recluse and write books. Today, you still see J. K Rowling out there on twitter, talking to fans. You still see R. R. Martin doing interviews on the Ellen show or whatever. Yes. It sucks, but we live in a digital age where the inner lives of our idols are on display 24/7 and we’re just two clicks away from seeing them drunk and vomiting in a public bathroom. No one is perfect. Nothing is perfect. But it also means that anything out of sight is out of mind and easily forgotten.

You don’t hear much about that Eragon author anymore. What’s he done lately? Who knows. What about the person who wrote Divergent? Can’t even remember who wrote Hunger Games. I bet that you do remember what that one singer did recently that’s been all over the news; because it keeps getting brought to your attention.

That’s the reason for remaining active on social media and writing posts for your blog. You’ve got to bring attention to yourself, even though it’s uncomfortable.

Take heart, though. If you’ve written a book, or you’re posting stuff on Instagram, if you’re trying to become YouTube famous, you’re out there creating something, and people who like what you make will eventually show up as long as you keep making things and making yourself visible. Be proud of yourself for doing it. You’re not an impostor. You’re not faking anything. You’re not stealing from anyone. There are at least 10 people you personally know who are gonna say “I always wanted to…” but never done anything about it because they’re scared of the work it’s going to take.

Anyone who doesn’t like what you’re doing can sod off.

Grief

Posted on by K.E. Ireland

I put my cat to sleep. She was 11. This was the Monday after Thanks Giving, after spending all of TG with her sick and knowing this was her last week.

It was suggested I write about my grief. How difficult it has been for me to get used to being without her and how I feel about making that decision to end her life. I think that’s a bit gross, though. I think its…My pain just isn’t something I want to share with everyone in the world.

I don’t like to share my emotions when they’re so messy. I don’t have the right words to convey what I mean, or how I’m thinking, or the processes behind it. For the most part, I’m just really depressed; fending off thoughts of jumping off bridges or digging my cat up just to touch her face again.

I get she was just a cat, but I still can’t stop feeling this way. She was with me 11 years. She was obnoxious and horrible to everyone else and I knew that it wasn’t possible to rehome her. I was the one she loved, so I couldn’t just die and leave her. I was going through some terrible times in the last few years of her life; unemployment, extreme depression, and no insurance. She helped me keep going.

The one who suggested I share this stuff said it would be real. I’m wondering: Real… or just raw.

I feel like sharing pain in this way is like selling snacks at a public execution. People are drawn to the macabre. I know they’re not here to laugh at me, but they’re here for the spectacle, watching someone already unstable implode. My pain isn’t for other people’s entertainment. All of this might wander it’s way into one of my books. Possibly Shaxia, but as it is, I just can’t focus on much right now. However, actually talking about my depression and such is just… difficult. I didn’t have a terrible childhood or life or anything and part of me thinks I’ve no right to feel as terrible as I do on a daily basis. This is how I am, though, and it really isn’t anyone else’s problem, or business. I try to be positive. I force myself to be positive and find something nice to say to people daily. I push aside the bad thoughts because hating myself doesn’t accomplish anything. I’m not punishing anyone. I’m just rolling around in my own filth.

Still.

I miss my kitty.

I got a kitten about a week ago. She’s so adorable and she makes the pain slightly easier to deal with. I’ve got someone new that relies on me. I’m actually kind of excited to go home from work so I can see her.

My best friend is dying

Posted on by K.E. Ireland

I am about to lose my friend of 11 years.

She’s been a pain in the butt the whole time, hurt me physically on multiple occasions, disrupted my life and schedule, destroyed my property, but she’s also been there for me emotionally. Loving cats is a weird thing. 

When I determined she was sick and needed to go to the vet, she spent the night under the blankets with me. She never does that. She usually sleeps on top of the blankets next to my hip. This time, she was stretched against my side between my arm and my torso. I didn’t sleep much that night. I kept waking up because I was worried about her. Worried I’d miss her last breath. I want to be there for her, so she knows I love her. After I took her to the vet, I spent the whole day crying my makeup off at work.

My cat is old. Nothing about this situation is surprising. I had some warning a few months before when she got a UTI and they checked her phosphorous levels etc and discovered they were elevated.

Now, she’s gone into full renal failure. However, it looks like she’s going to bounce back from this at least a bit. The thing is, renal failure can’t be cured, just managed and the doctor is talking months left with her. Saying that this is going to be a yo-yo of health where she gets better and then declines and gets better but not as good as before and declines. This is really just a controlled fall more than improvement. There’s nothing that is going to make her entirely healthy again.

And I feel bad about that but not for the reasons everyone seems to think.

I feel bad about keeping her around. She’s not going to fully recover, so letting her limp along for months seems cruel.

I also feel bad that I want her to go so that I can get to mourning instead of crying every other day over it.

Because I don’t want her to go. I don’t want to lose her.

But I don’t want her to suffer either.

Worse yet, I can’t articulate this to my family. People keep interpreting my feelings as “I don’t wanna put her down” but it is actually the opposite… ish. I want to spare myself the pain of watching her get better-ish, then deteriorate again. I’m stuck between being selfish and selfless. Where’s the middle ground on this?

I’m going to have to choose when to put her down. Her life is in my hands. I’m actually okay with that part. It’s the part about having to wait, to choose WHEN this will happen. Her lifespan is now my decision. 

I’d like her to pass on her own, but also the waiting for that to happen is just… agony. And not going to happen, according to the doctor. Kidney failure is long and painful and it isn’t pleasant to die from naturally. 

If my kitty could just tell me when she’s ready to go, I’d listen to her. But her brain is the size of a walnut and her capacity to communicate with me consists of walking on my tits in the middle of the night to let me know she’s “low” on kibble. Or sometimes she does it just because SHE’S awake and thus I should be too. “Oh, and refill my water dish while you’re at it.”

 

She actually hates when I take pictures of her. I took a whole bunch anyway. I only have 1 picture of my previous cat before she went missing, so I made up for that by over-photographing this beast. 90% of the pictures are of her in the same position, from the same angle. Mostly because I was usually stuck under her while she took over my lap. 

So there’s that. I have loads of pictures of her at least. 

Unfortunately, it looks like this Thanksgiving will be her last weekend. We’ll see…

what kinda crap….

Posted on by K.E. Ireland

I’m working on short story collections for NFS. I need covers tho. I’ve put together a little over 20k words for an NFS 3.5 story. Grabbed the first scene from Shaxia, since I wrote a different scene to start that off. 

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on getting the print version of Touched by Death done. I’m kinda late on that due to a combination of overtime at work and lazitis. But the files are in review and should pass shortly. I’ve got another author lined up to publish. But that won’t be until the new year at the earliest. I’ve started ads for books on kindle, hopefully that will get some bites. 

My kitty hasn’t been doing great lately. I wish i could tell if she’s just tired and old or not feeling good or outright dying. I hope that I can be there when she passes. :-/

I redecorated my house slightly to improve feng sui and attract wealth. It seems to be working slightly. I had a friend over this weekend who sells things on the internet and she sold like 5 things in the two days she was here, some of the items having been on her shop for 2 years. My house is still dirty though and needs swept/mopped/dusted. Maybe that will happen before December. I’ve got a couple days off for TG. 

As for TG, and the accompanying Black Friday, I keep seeing really good deals on stuff, but like, they’re things _I_ would want for myself. So I can’t buy them. I’m not like my dad, buying everything I want before Xmas so that no one has anything to give me for Xmas. -eyeroll- … Thus far I want a Kitchen-aid mixer and a PS4 would be nice, but the mixer for certain I would use the heck out of. I haven’t made cookies lately just because my previous housemate took her mixer with her when she left (not on bad terms, her mom needs more constant care…) 

I picked up a friend at ConFuzion. He does 3D modeling and stuff. If I could hook him up with my other friend who is really great at making props and texturing things, I think with Clockwork Joker, I’d have the start of a gaming division for Moirae. Except we still need someone who can do the coding. I’ve got no idea and no time to learn that, so I’ll have to find someone.

I’ve been working on my leadership skills, but there don’t seem to be any easy resources that talk about how to be a good leader. How do I improve the whole telling people what to do and when to get it done aspect? I feel so awkward trying to tell people to do things. 

I’ve also got a line of products I’m getting Moirae’s JR artist working on. Cards for the Totality series. I think that’ll be fun. Gotta get the cover for book 2 of that series started too… Huffman already has the text written and I just need to read and do a quick edit on it. 

Ugh. I also need to work harder at Moirae’s website. But coming up with articles and content for it is difficult, since it has a higher level of difficulty than writing for my own blog where I can just word-vomit and talk about things that are going on in a more informal way. I’ll get onto our Editor Adele again later to see if she’s got those interview questions done. She’s been busy lately too. Tis the Season…

good NEWS everybody!

Posted on by K.E. Ireland

I’m trying something new. Maybe it will keep me on track for producing content on a more regular basis? At Imaginarium this year, I went to a couple panels talking about marketing strategies. Really marketing boils down to just being consistent with content. Ugh. I’m the queen of inconsistency.

Anyway, here’s my idea.

I’m going to start posting something on this blog twice a month. The 1st and the 15th. That should give me enough time to actually come up with a post and write it.

As it stands, here’s my announcements for today!

On my Patreon, I’m going to start posting the draft chapters of Shaxia (from chapter 1) in the $5 tier. If you want to beta read and give feedback, join us! My Patreon has a bunch of other cool things too; such as artwork from Clockwork Joker, and other writing-related things. If this experiment goes well, I’ll start posting Foreseen Champion on Patreon in the $5 tier as well once I get Shaxia finished.

Another promotion I’m starting on Patreon is join our $5 tier and you get to pick an item from our merchandise and we’ll ship it to you. So that’s TWO good reasons to join our Patreon! You get a gift of your choice for signing up and you get to read Shaxia draft and more!

Speaking of gifts, I’m going to be at CONFUZION this year in Muscle Shoals. Come find me and receive a special gift!

I’m going to start making my short stories available on Kindle soon. I was going to bundle what I’ve got available for .99c, which will include the shorts you can read on this blog for free, and the one story I posted on Patreon. A good reason to buy it is that they’ll be all in one place and they’ll be in order timeline-wise and you’ll get to read the one I locked away on Patreon (and I’ll do another round of editing on them all to make them nice and spiffy).

My next project will be the little book about all my aliens. I’m still not sure what I’m going to call it, but I do know I want to get it printed.

K. E. Ireland for President

Posted on by K.E. Ireland

I’m announcing my intent to run for President of the United States of Murika in 2020. I think I would be the best thing ever to happen to this country considering I don’t think I could do much worse.

  • I promise to bring fresh cat memes to the White House.
  • I promise not to promote my children to office, since I have none, that won’t be hard. Although an infant’s temper tantrums would be more understandable and reasonable.
  • I will, however issue one feline companion to every person working in the White House and install a kitty flap in the door to the Oval Office.
  • I’m opening applications now for Secretary of Litter Control.
  • I will only hire cabinet members from Old Friends Sr. Dogs Sanctuary and other local shelters. Their pedigree of cute will be all they need on their resume.
  • I vow that I will not go on Twitter and insult foreign nations.
  • Nor will I start fights with the American people then block them. I will only be on Twitter to deliver terrible puns and proclamations that my cats are assholes.  
  • To all people who buy and review my books on Amazon, I’ll issue ONE Presidential Pardon Coupon. They’re not really worth anything, but it’ll be something to put on the wall.
  • Although, Presidential Pardon Coupons can be exchanged for a free 11×17 poster of choice if you see me at a convention.

(BTW, this is a joke. My vote will forever go to Deez Nuts.)

TOTALITY

Posted on by K.E. Ireland

I started a publishing company, as a few people may be aware. I’ve signed 2 authors, and, as of today, have one book in review for printing. I’m aiming to have it for Imaginarium. I hope there are no delays…. x.x 

So that’s super exciting going on. I’m looking forward to selling it. The cover was done by our lovely NAni, they’re going to be the artist for the TOTALITY series. super fun :)

I’ve gotten my new covers for books 2 and 3 of the Natan Fleet Show fixed and in review now too. I’ve still got copies of the old cover left to sell, so there’s not so much rush to get those done as it was for PTH. Which IS done. I’m taking 48 copies to Imaginarium. The two copies that got presold are in their owner’s hot little hands. I sincerely hope they enjoy! :)

in the meantime, I’m going to rest a moment. Its been GO GO GO for so long I’m tired.

IN THE MEANTIME PLEASE CHECK OUT DANGER AROUND MOUNT PALLIN

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