Tag: friends

Depression

I am going to start this of with a warning. I don’t plan on getting too dower or bleak, but this is a very triggering topic for some. If you are someone who has a tendency to get upset by talk of suicide, depression, or the state of the world, consider this a warning and remember that I love you. Call a help-line, talk to a psychiatrist, or get hold of a friend. You can even just leave a comment with a statement as simple as “help” and I will make sure to reach out.

Also, this is not a request for help. This is not a sign of warning, nor is it an answer. It’s more of a series of ideas and questions posed as a blog. I am not an expert, and I do not pretend to be. Again, resources are available if you need them. The one thing I am very passionate about is that talking to someone is, not just a step, the best step. That includes morons, like me, on the internet with too much time on their hands.

Okay. You have been warned. This is the last line that I will post before launching into my thoughts. I promise you that they will be upsetting to someone, and I refuse to be sorry for them.

If you couldn’t tell from that 3 paragraph intro, I have a lot of thoughts on depression, suicide, and mental health in general. Again: I am the furthest thing from a professional, and I have never been diagnosed as depressed. If that is a deal breaker for you, have a good day.

When I say that I have never been diagnosed with depression, I mean that in the most clinical definition. Am I depressed? Almost definitely on paper. The thing that keeps me from confirming the suspicion I have of depression is a sense of irony. It would almost be too perfect if I am depressed because my outlook on life is so bleak. I don’t care what happens after I die; I am dead. I cannot believe in an afterlife no matter how hard I try. I guess one could argue that I lead a hedonistic life, but that term seems too definite to me.

If I refuse to define my life as headonistic, how do I define it?

Well, I would say that I live a life of insecurity and stats. I obsessively watch things like YouTube subscriptions, video view numbers, stats of interactions with Twitter, and fancounts on FaceBook. I will spend the next week obsessing over the engagement that this post receives, as I have with every post I have made to this site over the last five years. The first AND last thing I do in a day is look at book sales, which haven’t shown a single number in three months at this point.

I have tied my worth as a human being to a series of number and engagement ratings. I hide my personality behind paywalls and am constantly disappointed with how poorly I am doing according to the numbers today, as opposed to seeing how they may have increased over the last year. The other day, I noticed that I lost two followers on my Twitter a month ago (the one stat I don’t keep up with) and spent hours re-reading the 40 or so posts I have made since they vanished to see what I might have done wrong. Damn, there is a chance that they were never real people. Alternatively, there is a chance that they WERE real people that realised how pointless Twitter is and disabled their account to go do something cool, like eat a sandwich.

I have a hard time disassociating likes, followers, and view numbers from accomplishment. I should be proud of the fact that I have 10ish releases of music and a book under my belt, but I find myself hung up on how I am very broke, rely on family and friends, and am very broke. Ironically, money is something that I cannot attach myself to. I have had the same Patrons forever. I appreciate them very much, but I don’t plug or push donating to that because I am trying to make stuff without relying on that. Even though I do have three dogs and a cat that would like to be fed.

So far, I know that this post has seemed like waffling. Those opening paragraphs seem like nothing more than fodder to keep the morbid few reading further into this post, but I swear there is a point to all of this. I cannot talk about my own mental shortcomings without defining where my head is at the point.

Back to my point of “who cares what happens after you die?” That is actually something I have been struggling with a lot as of late. Therefor. I have very little regard for life. I cannot find a reason to care about what happens after I die. If my identity gets taken, if my book gets plagiarized, if my unreleased work gets finished by someone else and published under their name: I will be dead and therefore cannot reap any benefit or dismay that it might generate. If anything, I do not have to deal with the fallout and heartbreak of it not going as well as I think it should.

So, if I have this very “selfish” view on life; why keep going? If I am so convinced that there will be no repercussion that I have to deal with, why even risk the heartbreak? I should be willing to take my own life. I should be already dead. I should die quietly and make sure that I go in a quiet manner to make sure that I matter as little in death as I did in life.

One word.
Tomorrow.

I’m curious about what tomorrow brings. I’m curious about what I can accomplish. I’m curious about what my friends will do, and if the things I have (or my friends have) done will matter in the long run.

If you can’t find reason to live, just remember that the reason could be as simple as what the butterfly effect might bring in the next moment.

That might sound stupid, juvenile, or even selfish; but it helps me see tomorrow. Yes; I have a wife that I love very much. Yes; I have my family, friends, and possible prospects in writing. Yes; I have a small collection of people that might read this line. I love all of you very much, and I appreciate you coming to my articles. I know that I have been a bit more rambly as of late, and much less directed. I am sorry for that, but please remember that I appreciate you.

Also music.

~MOVED

As some of you may have read, I moved back to Cambridge, ON today. I am NOT excited for the move, but not for the reasons that some may have anticipated.

First, I am EXCITED to have all of my friends near by. I have missed you, and I am finally within a decent distance to most of you. In fact, I think there are only two that I am farther from, and only one that will actually feel the sting of my moving.

So, why am I not excited? I am 30, married, and had to move in with my parents to keep existing. I love my family, I really do, but it is embarassing to go almost three years on your own then throw in the towel because life “got too hard.”

ANYWHO, I am going to need the week to organize myself. I have a post going live on Sunday only because I wrote it a little while ago.

heh.. So much for taking the month off. I think I posted more that I have in months prior.

That time they messed up…

A few years ago, a bunch of friends and I went to see Animals as Leaders and Between the Buried and Me in Toronto. I came with full expectations to have my face melted and my pride to be destroyed, but I left with nothing shy of unbridled hope.

CAFO, and this should shock no one, is one of my favourite songs of all time. It starts with a bang and never really lets up, not to mention that is has one of the strange syncopation bits dead centre of the song. My goal, before I ended up in hospital, was to learn every bit of that song. I knew full well that I would never perform it for anyone but me, but by jove! It would be such an accomplishment.

AaL jumped into their set and I was far from disappointed. Every accent was a perfect match, every solo was nailed, every motion was beautiful.

By the time they got to CAFO, I was expecting them to have already called it a night. I could not believe the stamina, not to mention the level of dexterity, that I was baring witness to. Sure enough, CAFO was going beautifully. I could not believe how fast every member had to be to keep up with the incredible pace already set by the recording, and they had amped up the speed for stage.

For those who know what tempo is, they moved the slider up 40-50 BPM faster than the recording was. To match that speed with the single=stroke rolls present in the beginning of the song is, for lack of a better term, stupid.

Then, they got to the part I could never quite match. They could not do it either, and just made a bunch of noise to mask the drummers flub. Some would say that it was a disappointment to witness a hero fail at a performance.

I was elated. I could not have been my pleased to see a mistake in my life. It was at that moment I realized that the person I put on the highest pedestal was just that, a person. It sounds stupid: foolish even. I argue that we are all guilty of idolizing someone, and we all need to remember that they are just people, even if they are the best at something. They had to become great, and were potentially worse than you when they started.

That is not to say that you should give up and never try, just be easy on yourself. know your limits and do not get too discouraged.

With all of that said: it is not a bad thing to think that you are not good enough! In fact: I would argue that no one ever is good at anything, but can always get better at it! The biggest catch is to not give into feeling inadequate and giving up. That is always difficult, but just realize that there is always better.

Take drums, for instance. You could be the best at what you play, held on high as the epitome of what is possible in the genre. Then, you come across Maps and Atlases, or Chon, and realize you strive to be the best over in that world, as well. So, you start at the bottom of another ladder that is totally unrelated to where you came from.

Now, that may sound daunting and debilitating, but the point is that you should enjoy the journey. There is no end, and you should not try to find one. That would be boring.

~PATREON SUPPORTER TALE :: Bree Harrison

Bree and I go back a number of years. Early me playing drums for the Twin, anyway. She was that girl with the expensive camera, pushing her way to the front of concerts, trying to get fantastic photographs of bands. She was very good at taking pictures. To my knowledge, she never monetized the practice, but she could have.

I digress.

So, as I was saying, I saw her around long before I talked to her. She started hanging out with members of my band. Me, with the license, got to know her over driving her from the concerts back to my vocalist house. She grew on me, much as a fungus would grow on a rock.

No, that analogy paints a bad picture. Let me try the metaphor again.

Her and I became quick friends. We both rarely slept, and would spend many nights exchanging solum looks while we helped people through many different stages of inebriation. We both had a similar outlook on life, friends, music, and family. I am not saying that her and I had the same woes, but we would find the same things funny.

Like Katie, I considered Bree a sister. Unlike Katie, Bree lived in the same town, and I would see her almost everyday some months.

She moved across country to BC a number of years ago. Between that event, and me getting sick, I have only seen her a couple of times in the last few years. I miss her dearly.

I also have to mention that SHE DONATED $100! I asked her swiftly if that was on purpose, she assured me that it was, though temporary as her work was seasonal.

So, I conclude with: FUCK YOU, BREE! I love you and I hope we can spend time together soon.

Thanks to her donation, the next ansP releases will be back to back months. So, to clarify, September, October, November, and December will all see releases. We’ll see what the donations are like, and I’ll see if releases continue in this pattern for the new year.

I did a bad

So, I was doing all this planning and research for my next update. It was going to be another top-10 list of albums that I highly recommend listening to. I was planning on going about it entirely differently and I was genuinely excited to share it.

Then: I did something horrible.

I do not have a strong excuse, but it did not save I probably hit the “be a moron and throw away hours of work?” button when it came up.

REGARDLESS: I spent seven hours getting together some amazing albums, finding songs, and writing blurbs about each one. It probably was not all that good, but I thought it was fantastic.

I have talked before on this site about the importance of doing something you enjoy to survive another moment in this bleak existence. I have three sources for distraction: music, writing, my wife. That is not to say that is all I have in life, quite the opposite: between friends and family, my calendar is rarely empty. I will say those are my favourite and most time consuming things because I make them so. I would not have it any other way.

I wanted to die…

Okay, I admit: I made that title to catch the attentions of those around me who still care. To make people look up and maybe read this confession and, in some way, help someone.

Now, to explain how that title is, and was, accurate.

I have been thinking a lot about a conversation I had with an ex. We were dwelling on the hardships of life (as you do) and I stated how I wanted to die before I turned thirty.

The bleakness of the statement stopped our several-hour-long ramble dead and created a silence that physically hurt us both.

“Don’t you think thirty is a bit young?” she asked, almost pleading me to take my proclimation back. The most awkward part was that I could not do so. I was twenty-two. I had already released seven albums, played over one-hundred shows, and met literally thousands of people. I had felt heart break, I had felt love, I have destroyed and been destroyed. I was tired.

My only response was “…why would I joke about that…?” and we resumed staring at the wall for the next several moments.

Now, in my thirtieth year, I can honestly say that statement I made eight years ago was juvenile, uneducated and rash. I am not taking it back: at that moment, I could have taken the embrace of death with a smile and a nod. In fact, to be clear: I still do not fear death. I would love everything to end. I saw thirty of being just another goal, and at that time I saw it as an end goal. I knew very few reasons why, if I continued on that path, that I could justify living even that long.

Then; I did die. Twice. That girl left me while I was in hospital (for very justified reasons) and I lost the use of most of my body to which I am only just regaining pieces and parts back. That situation helped me meet my wife, write a book, realize that I have some amazing friends, and do things that I could never expect me ever doing.

Is this me accepting what I have been through? No. A thousand times: NO. I have, however, used the situation I am in to realize what I can do, what I have done, and what I will do. My life is far from perfect in almost every way. I am broke. I am in horrible debt. I am useless to society as a whole seeing as I CANNOT work. I am tired. Oh, let me reiterate that one: I AM TIRED. I refuse to let these things stop me from doing what I can. I refuse to have the possible brain damage that I sustained in my battle with encephalitis five years ago slow me down. I still have enough of my faculties to write and live. I like to think I am an okay husband, and I hope that I am an okay father one day too.

Final thoughts: I am just going to keep doing everything I am currently doing, only better. I will make this life my bitch. I will do everything I need to because I want to not because I have to.

I will just die later.

POST BLOG NOTICE!

Remember up above where I mentioned how I am in horrible debt? I cannot afford to renew the site right now. I am working on everything with what I have right now, but do not get too thrown off if this blog vanishes for a couple of weeks. To make things easier, look at my Patreon page. Also, get hold of me on my personal pages with marketing offers. I am not opposed to tastefully selling-out. I am sure there is a more politically correct way of saying that, but I am heavily medicated right now. I will fix it in the morning.