Out of the depths

A health update

Hello my friends,

First, an apology. My substack and podcast have been quiet for several weeks. I know that you aren’t signed up and paying monthly for no content, and I apologize to everyone, especially my paid subscribers, for not producing what you expect me to produce.

Because many of you pay me, here’s a health update:

I am in a season of horrible, horrible mental illness. In fact, “mental illness” is too polite a term and doesn’t do this justice. This is closer to insanity; to madness. I am in an incredibly dark, painful, suffocating place, and I’ve been fighting for weeks to get out of it. I’ve been paranoid, plagued by nightmares, anxiety, and impenetrably dark thoughts and moods. I’ve spent most of my days crying. My life has been reduced to a tiny fearful pin prick of survival. I wake up every morning with debilitating anxiety and horror. I utilize all the skills I’ve developed in life to reduce the anguish, but it seems to barely move the needle. I get up in the morning and hike for miles and miles in the wilderness, trying to outpace the hell, but it’s always on my heels. I’ve despaired of ever getting out of this headspace. I’m struggling.

 I’ve gone through the demoralizing routine of therapist shopping and the harrowing guess work of psych medications, some of which have felt like state sanctioned forms of torture. I keep thinking I’m getting better, and then I slide back into the pit. I have an ok day and think “hey maybe this improving; maybe I can get back to writing and recording and being human again.” And then the chasm in my brain opens again.

I have moments of lucidity, like now, when I can see more clearly, and I’m able to put words on the page. In this space, I can see that I’m ill and that the thoughts and moods are cruel liars. But I’m not always this lucid - usually in the morning and afternoon. It’s like a demon takes control of my brain, and I have no idea how to take it back.

I’m writing this because I don’t know what else to write. I’m in hell. My only consolation is that I’ve been here before and each time it didn’t kill me.

I guess this post is multiple things. I guess I’m asking, bluntly, for human kindness. And I’m asking for understanding, especially from my paying subscribers, as I’m surviving this time. I also hold no ill will towards anyone who decides to cancel their subscription due to this long hiatus.

I hope to start writing again soon. But I keep thinking I’m getting better and then sink back into this hell. So, I can’t guarantee when that will be. But I’m not walking away from creating on Substack. Writing is a form of sanity, and I’m desperate to return to it.