There are two reasons that I have written—and, likely, will continue to write—about my struggles with depression:
- Writing is, for me, therapy.
- Someone might read my words and find something in them. What, I don’t know, but maybe something.
I was talking with a friend today on this very subject. Said friend said:
I don’t know – I think [depression]‘s pretty common, and I also think that it’s important not to let our experiences isolate us by imagining that we are the only ones who feel/have felt a certain way.
That led me to think again about why I’m writing about such personal things “out loud” in the Weblogosphere.
Writing is Therapy
For me, to vocalize the thoughts I’m having is extremely, extremely important. It helps me to examine the feelings in a dispassionate way. I get to read what you have to say about what I write, and to the extent that you are not a part of my incessant internal dialogue, you are a disinterested party. However, many of you are people that care about me because you know me, so you’re not that disinterested.
I also get to use one of my favorite realizations, brought to me in a quote that my senior-year English instructor, Mrs. Richardson, used to often drill at us:
Reading maketh a full man; conference, a ready man; and writing, an exact man.
–Sir Francis Bacon
I can read about people’s issues all that I like, and I can even talk them over. However, because I don’t have a personal panopticon—yet!—I haven’t a complete record of things that I say. While my writing may be inexact, it is out there, and you can read and reference it–and also upbraid me when I am inexact in my exactness. 
Someone Else Might Glean Something
In this vein, I am reminded of—wait for it—a song quote.
So I write a book of life,
Using the best words I can find.
For some struggler to snuggle up
When the world becomes unkind.
When the world becomes unkind.
–Caedmon’s Call, “Not Enough“, Caedmon’s Call
“Not Enough” has long been a favorite of mine–it has the appropriate amount of realization that, really, my one life is rather insignificant against the glory of Heaven and the totality of the Universe. That said, I can, in my own broken way, point to Christ.
If you haven’t noticed, my whole issue with depression mainly comes from my own self-importance drowning out the voice that reminds me that I am not my own creature.
That’s why I make this mount of Athos–to shape His form against the sky.
It is most certainly “pretty common” says the man who works in a doctor’s office.
If you want a disinterested third party, you could have Reilly come read your blog. Well…maybe he’s more “hostile” than “disinterested”.
Geof, your essay on writing as therapy got me thinking about how we are all different but really just the same.
Difference: I don’t experience depression, least not in any way approaching what you describe of yourself. My writing is for the sheer joy of it, and the wonder that others might occasionally care about what I have to say.
Similarity: The realization that we’re all “crooked deep down.” We’re all cracked and crumbling. I may not have clinical depression, but I’m just as broken somewhere else. And there are probably ways my writing and conversing are therapy for some of that that I just don’t see.
In the meantime, there is grace. Hallelujah.
For you writing is therapy; for me it is talking. What would Mrs. Richardson say about that? What would Sir Francis Bacon say?
I do not know. Well, to each his own way, so long as there is a way.