sandrawg

Yeah no one ever has all good stuff in their life. Maybe there are good things you're not noticing. So how can you say the bad outweighs the good?

I have no partner either. I have a job but my hours got cut, with a salary decrease, and now I'm having trouble making ends meet. My dad has cancer. My x whom I love is killing himself slowly with drugs and alcohol. My car probably needs a couple thou worth of work.

On the bright side, I'm not starving. I do have a roof over my head. I have some friends. I'm probably missing a lot here. I know I am. Like..I can walk (well, just barely, I have this one disgusting bunion but I'm sure you don't wanna hear about that-lol) etc.

But yeah, if you feel like the best you can do is keep pushing...then keep pushing. We're here for you.

Faerie

Clay, as per the PMs we've been exchanging you DO have compelling story ideas [he's talented people!] So what if you have to take a job outside of writing for a while, it's only temporary, you can work on your writing in your spare time and send your finished work off to publishers. Eventually one of your brilliant stories will get published and the floodgates will open. And no money does not equal joy, being practical, it does make life easier but it is hope that equals joy.

Congrats on getting through another day without drinking!

littlefish

Lots of writers take jobs outside of writing to have something to write about! The numbers of writers who have done that is well documented in the books and articles they have written doing something else than writing.

Bamboozle

Keep writing and plugging away at it and find venues to submit your work. Make an effort to get your work out there.

I have a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts...and I flip burgers for a living. Fast food is not what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.

I did printmaking in school and I miss it so much. I can't wait to pull some prints again....but until I can afford my own press I'm doing nature photography...and I love it.

I'm in this for the long haul. I have a sh!t ton of photographs and I need to do something with them. Once I get the details worked out I'm going to show my work and find places to sumbit my photos to. I'm only limited by my imagination and the amount of effort I'm willing to put into it.

Keep writing, Clay. Write about your experiences with depression and addiction. That always makes for interesting reading.

Don't resign yourself to working a job you hate.

My job isn't me. My job is only so I can pay the bills.

I am a creative person...I am an artist. I cannot live without being immersed in the visual world...it's so much a part of who I am. I won't let it go.





Keep writing.

littlefish

Clay, you know as well as anyone you are entering an extremely competitive and frustrating occupation. Making it as a writer is par on making it as an actor. The game is the same.

It's a highly competitive field, big egoes are a must, survival skills also a must and along the way there are plenty of pitstops doing other things to make a living.
I chose a similar occupation minefielded with the same risks: graphic art and fine art.

It seems you are already geared to face all the challenges and frustrations. That surprises me however because it is so unusual for someone so young to be so highly realistic to the point of tipping over into the negative. If anyone else hasn't mentioned it, I will: you appear to be starting your life's journey with a deep sense of resignation and lack of enthusiasm.

When I started out it was all stardust and rainbows and then I got smacked down to realism as I went along.

Would you consider a year off after graduation? Just a self-discovery journey all about exploring yourself or the world, or both....

FightingIrish

Dunno, you seem to be pretty good at writing authoritatively about things that may or may not be true. :-)

tyler

Geez Clay, you just described me!!! Gotta agree it's depressing place to be. I've been in a funk all week. I'm waiting to hear back on a cell phone sales job (not exactly the defination of my "dream job") but hopefuly it will help pay the bills. My degree in in Mass Communications Radio/TV, but after working in that field for 10 years I got fired and wasn't really sure if I wanted to get back in, even though it was what I dreamed of since I was 12.

Kinda just fell into sales, don't really love it, but it helps pay the bills. The nice thing about being a writer is it is something you don't necessarily have to do on a full time basis. Sure that would be excellent if you could, but you can get a "job to pay the bills" and still prusue writing on the side as you build your portfoilo.

While you are in your current state of depression it will be hard to come up with ideas for magizine articles or fiction, but once you get it under control, and you can get it under control, I'll bet the ideas will start flowing again. You couldn't have made it to almost graduating if you had absolutly nothing to write about, that's the depression talking.

All of the above things you mentioned about yourself are fixable. You will get a job, might not be a great one, might not be as a writer, but you will get a job. I've found that as awsome a person as I am (scarasm) the ladies just aren't knocking on my door. You gotta get out and do some stuff. It will also help with your depression. Are you gonna get shot down, sure!! But F 'em, their loss. Fat, keep up that gym work, do more of it, it too will help with your depression. Undesirable, work on the 3 previous things and I can promise you will become MUCH more desirable.

Now I need to go out and follow some of my excellent advice myself!! BTW, there are lots of girls out there that see past the superfical outside appearance and don't need a guy with a 6pack belly and Brad Pitt good looks. But again, you gotta get out there and find them. Join some writing groups, volunteer for something (you've got the free time now!!), but if you're hoping to pick someone at a drunken bar, I wouldn't count on it. That's prime hunting ground for the superficial ones. Anyway, take care. I gotta go mow the lawn and hit the gym. Gotta try to get my quarter barrel ab's down to at least a 12 pack!! Baby steps!!!

least

I hope you can keep from drinking, as your depression is doing the talking right now and if you drink, that depression voice will be screaming. I used to drink to 'medicate' my depression and anxiety but all I did was make it worse. I am trying to break that cycle. Today is day three. I'm not going to drink today. If I drink, my antidepressants are not effective. I want to be LESS depressed, not MORE, so I'm not picking up a drink. Been there, done that, don't want to go back there.

I hope you can stay sober. Give your meds a chance to work properly.

Rocket8ight

I know you’re about to graduate, and by the way, that’s something you ought to be proud about.

I’m wondering if maybe some of the problem your having is getting your writing into the right hands. My brother was an English major, and by the end of his senior year, he was trying to get some real world experience into the literary marketplace. The problem is, unless your in a fine arts school that specializes in cinema and has a connection into a motion picture studio, it can be very difficult to know where to start.

He was very resourceful and went out and looked for books on how to get started on getting published. He was able to get a literary agent uopn submitting writing samples and start writing for a few small independent companies writing comic books and then did magazines and ultimately became an editor/ writer for a publication that was mass marketed and produced. This got his name around a few important people that had connections in the industry and now is working on is first book deal.

My point is, it may be worth your while to really look into it because even as I spoke to him just a few days ago, he said there are tons of jobs and publications and publishers that are desperate for good writers. It’s just that most people don’t go through the proper channels in getting their work into the right hands.

As far as your depression, I’m so sorry you have to deal with it the way you do. My wife had terrible depression after her brother committed suicide and it was years of therapy, counseling and medication that helped finally got her back to a somewhat normal life. To this day she still has terrible nightmares and suffers from PTSD.

When this first happened she was seeing a lot of psychiatrists that were very keen on dispensing medication but short on any counseling or therapy. So she became her best advocate and did both. If money is short, you can get the counseling and therapy I believe virtually free thorough your county health and human services.

We care about you Clay. I see a lot of my self in you when I was in my early 20’s. I was overweight, unemployed and single. The real kick in the pants came when I had finally pulled myself up by my bootstraps and got a bicycle and started to really lose some weight. I had started at 350 pounds and just as I had lost my first 20 pounds, I was in a serious bicycle accident that made me lose most of the use of one of my legs and had some pretty bad head injuries.

After some rehab on my leg and hip I knew I’d never ride again and running was out of the question.
So I got myself an arm cycle and started loosing weight that way. I lost 100 pounds doing that.

I’m in my late 30’s now. I’m married with a beautiful 3 year old daughter.

I’ve still got a lot of chronic hip and back pain..it was one of the reasons why I drank about a liter of vodka almost daily for about 12 years. I’m 4 days sober now, and reading your posts, it tells me you have a brilliant mind, you’re just finding a hard time getting the things you need answered, answered.

Please get some additional counseling, help, or keep writing here. What ever you need to do to address this depression. You CAN recover. If it was incurable there would be no survivors. Hang in there Clay we all care so much about you.

-Rocket

ClayTheScribe

Thanks, but I've pretty much given up on having a steady writing career until I can get stable in my journalism career. I don't have the tenacity or writing ability to have a good chance of my work getting published, but mostly I'm just too lazy, apathetic and I don't have the tenacity to chase after that. Plus to be a writer for a publisher, you have to have stories or a novel to show people and I only have really one story. I have plenty of journalism clips, but next to no fiction finished.

I'm open to any more specific suggestions for how to break into the publishing world. I wouldn't mind being a copy editor. Please PM me with whatever suggestions you have. I can say I'll try it, but I'm not expecting much. And if they're so desperate for writers, where the **** are they?

And I'm sure your brother didn't struggle with depression so it was naturally easier for him to get where he got.

ClayTheScribe

I'm sorry, that last comment was rude and presumptuous. I don't know how hard it was for him to get to where he's got. I just know it's going to be more difficult for me likely because of my illness and nagging self-doubt. A good portion of stuff I've written in the past I've deleted or thrown away because I didn't think was worthy of being seen, even if it was, which is how I relate to myself in regards to my appearance. Sometimes I'm better not seen to the world. And then I wonder why I'm still a virgin at 24. Blah, blah, blah, woe is me. The self-pity is so tiring. Another reason I don't like myself.

ClayTheScribe

I actually want to do that, but travel involves money I don't have. That's why I wanted to get a job for a few years, save up some money (something I've never done) and then go backpacking and traveling. Another option was teaching English in another country, but one, I don't think I'm ready to travel a long way from hope and two, I'm not very outgoing, and you have to be to be a teacher. My friend who did it for a year says I'm ready, but I don't feel ready. What if I lose it and start drinking again in a foreign land. Thanks for the suggestion but I just don't have the courage or money to do it. And I don't know if I have the courage to truly meet myself and accept me for what I am. And doing that might not bode well with my parents, even though I am an adult. I think they want me to just find a job.

sandrawg

Hi Clay! How are you feeling today?

Can I say, I know you see yourself as undesirable, but I see your picture up here on the forum, and actually you have a really nice smile.

I was recently reading William Styron and it reminded me that he suffered from terrible depression. Don't know if you've ever read any of his writing. He's an amazing writer. For me, as a writer, I've always focused on "writing what you know." I would like to write out my experiences of loving an alcoholic. Don't know who I could shop it to, but maybe someone would be interested in it and maybe even find it helpful.

Do you ever write/journal about your feelings of depression?

Just curious.

ClayTheScribe

I have written about my depression in the past, but I'm not a big fan of writing about myself or my problems. In some ways it makes me uncomfortable. I'd rather write about someone else and their problems. I don't know who would be interested in my memoirs anyway since I'm not famous. I feel if I'm talking with my therapist about my depression, why do I need to write it down? Maybe I'll give it a try, even though it makes me uncomfortable. I do have a few story ideas floating around that involve depressed characters, but they're just ideas. I was planning on checking out William Styron's book on depression as a writer, and another one about writers with depression.

Thanks. I'm feeling better today, but still on the mend. It's hard to crawl out of that cycle of depressed and self-loathing and self-pity thoughts once you're in it. Going to see my therapist at 1 so hopefully I can get some good tools.

ClayTheScribe

In my session with my therapist we did roleplaying. At first I played the negative part of my mind--the depression--and she played the positive part of me. I found it very easy to be the negative part--although I was questioning some of the things I was saying--yet she was winning as the positive side. Then we switched roles. She was much more of a stronger negative side, but I kept coming up with positive thoughts to counter it. For one of my responses I referenced Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer who was falsely imprisoned for murder in the '60s. In the movie The Hurricane, my favorite movie, there's a scene when he's put in the hole for like 90 days and he starts to lose it. He sort of hallucinates in his head one part of him, The Hurricane, who he references in his book as his angry, self-destructive side, he's Rubin the true self, and Carter, his hurt, wounded side. Rubin's trying to console Carter who's frightened, while The Hurricane keeps telling him to shut up and stop acting like a sissy, while Rubin retorts back to leave him alone. Then The Hurricane basically threatens to kill Rubin, so suicide, but he tells him to go away and cries through the night. Later on in the movie when Rubin decides finally to put his all into fighting for his freedom, The Hurricane is talking to him telling him he can't do it, that he'll fail and Rubin simply says "It's time for you to go."

I realized that if I simply let my negative thoughts pass, while acknowledging them and labeling them, and stating the positive, that voice will grow quieter. It's just been hard this week because that voice has been so loud and controlling. If I punish myself anymore, it's going to be harder for me to come out of the hole, so to speak. I still feel the need to drink though and I know it's going to be hard not to tonight. I need to find another way to celebrate my liberation from the job that doesn't involve drugs or alcohol. I think I'm going to start actually writing my ideas out.

sandrawg

Clay-this is awesome!

Good going.

I like your therapist-this sounds like a really useful technique. When I start to feel depressed, it's like that little devil on my shoulder that whispers about all the negative stuff in my life.

BTW Hurricane is a great movie. That guy really dealt with so much pain and suffering...I can't even imagine being accused of a crime you didnt' commit. I love stories like that, where the person is vindicated in the end.

I'm in the process of writing a novel that's based on a pretty low time in my life. It's about me but I'm going to fictionalize the characters. I'm trying to balance the darkness of it with humor, so it won't be too heavy.

If you want, we could swap writing tips PM me anytime

FightingIrish

Good deal!

ClayTheScribe

Starting tomorrow with Day One. Still drunk. I'll let you know how it goes when I crash.

tyler

Clay, you are going through so much of the same **** as I am right now. I think I finally have a decent theripist to work with. I've been down all week, suicidal thoughts, not really seriously thinking about doing it, but still thinking about it as a way out.

Hard session today. Touched on some stuff in my youth I am very scared to look at. I start tremoring just going there. She helped me do some breathing exercises to calm me down and make a pledge not to hurt myself at least until we meet again next week. I had already planned on drinking tonight and followed through with it, so I guess we are in the same boat.

I don't have any suggestions or advice for you, just wanted to let you know you are not alone in this. I'm spending tomorrow with my son, so it will be a good day for me. I hope you can have a good one too. Take care.

ClayTheScribe

I'm sorry you have the burden of a son, but glad you're able to be there. Lucky enough no woman on this Earth wants to f*ck me so that's no problem. ;-) I don't care which way my life goes goes really. It'd be be nice if it went my way, but it doesn't really matter, unless it leads me to suicide again, which it may. The drinking just makes me feel obilivious, I like it. I have to get up by 7:30 a.m. to take my cat to the vet, so that holds me somewhat more responsible. I just don't care if I succeed or fall into the deepest of abysses. Either way I'll be disengaged. Back to Day One. Yay!