This is a story about my depression. A cruel shadow living inside my mind who wakes up from time to time to remind me how worthless I am and how I'm constantly failing at every aspect of my life. Of course I know that's not true, even when I'm in the darkest abyss, I still know, but somehow the voice of the shadow is stronger. It covers me with a heavy veil of doubt and guilt and helplessness, throws me into the darkest corner of my mind and makes me question every decision I ever made. My only choice is to wait until it goes asleep and to stay lucid enough not do do any stupid thing until it's all over. It's never completely over, though. It's there, sleeping, I can feel its breath like a cold wind blowing through my hopes and wishes. But I know.
So I decided to try and get along with it. To accept it as a part of me, to explore it. So I try to draw while my mind is haunted. I usually refused to create anything when I was depressed, sometimes I still want to throw away everything, all my creations , all my life, because everything seems to be worthless. But now I decided I would draw without any expectations. Crazy lines, splashes, quick sketches, everything I can, only to document the feeling. This is how the Dark Sketchbook was born. Here is the first sketch:
Since then, I made a few more drawings. Sometimes I use it even when I'm fine but I want to catch a certain feeling or an idea, or when I reach a dead point in developing a larger work. I try to identify those things who could escalate and wake my monster up. I just sit and draw, sometimes without even knowing what I'm doing, I just let my mind play on a piece of paper instead of her own darkness. I don't know if that will help me tame the shadow, I will tell you after it wakes up. Yes, it will...
I have to add a happy end to this post. As deep as my darkness is, my light can be brighter. Sometimes I'm not just fine, I am more than that: I experience the pure joy of being here, in this world, feeling the wind caressing my face, watching a ray of light through the dancing leaves, observing small details in the city walls and on people's faces; just watching the world breathing... What a miracle that we are at all!
It will come again, but I know...
Take care and be creative!
Virtual hugs,
Alina
Hello welcome to steemit!! it's really nice to have you here enjoy the platform and explore the community.....wish you all the best.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Welcome on board
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi, alina.iftime! I wish you an awesome journey here in this culturally diversified yet mostly unified community :) Have fun
By the way, there are several groups you as a newcomer can join. They will stay with you for your journey, helping and mentoring along the way.
@greetersguild invite link https://discord.gg/AkzNSKx
@newbieresteemday invite link https://discord.gg/2ZcAxsU
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you! I had no idea there were groups here!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Oh, they are not here, what is Discord?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Very cool drawings :-)
Do you find that creatively outlasting your feelings in this way lifts you up from the depression itself?
I would say, as someone who writes mainly about mental health issues that my writing itself keeps me calm when I have severe anxiety issues going on and something about that raw connection with what you create, its like a little cocoon away from the world and all its madness.
Upvoted and Followed :-)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you! My experience is a bit different, I can not use my art as my "happy place", because my art is part of the problem. Because of my insecurities an that feeling of worthlessness I can not even think about making art during my depressive episodes. I told my brain I'm doing research. And that's what I do, trying to document that state of mind, to put those raw feelings on the paper. You can see the rough sketches, they are from the darkest days. The detailed ones are usually made after the storm is over, just looking back at the whole episode, or during the good days when I'm trying to keep the shadows away. Everything happens in my head, so going out in the world and taking long walks has proved to be quite helpful. But what really keeps me from falling too deep is the fact that my family needs me, so I need to be there and to be well for them.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You are drawing my thoughts. I love they grey.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks. I hope your thoughts are not always like my drawings <3 Stay on the bright side!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hello Alina. Welcome here in steemit world. Im newbie also best luck both of us. Your art is full of darkness but full of meaning.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you! Welcome to you too! I enjoyed your post about your hometown, it would be great if you could share some more beautiful places from where you live!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I am so sorry you suffer from depression. I have friends who are also depressed and it is a mystery why this happened to them. Someday maybe we will understand depression better and find a way to conquer it. Best to you.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you, Kathleen! I am pretty sure that people who experience depression are born with it. It does not happen, it's a part of us. Sometimes it sleeps until it finds proper conditions to manifest itself. It has been with me since I was a kid, although I had a happy childhood and I never looked depressed. I kind of learned how to live with it and I am working on minimizing its effects. But I am among the lucky ones, I know some people become totally dysfunctional because of it. Human mind is such a complex place, I don't know if it can ever be fully understood...
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I know there is an ongoing debate about the usefulness of chemical solutions; from what I can tell they don't seem to work very well, but we have no other tools. I know one person who became depressive after a long illness - as though the repeated patterns of fear and negative thinking had become permanent. Could it be that negative patterns of thought start in early childhood and eventually the person so identifies with them they they are the "normal" and the person gets stuck in them?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The medicine for mental health functions a bit different than the "normal" medicine. I never needed it, but one of my friends had an ugly breakdown once. She had her treatment changed a few times before they found something that worked for her. A psychologist told me then that it is always like that, because even if the symptoms are the same, the cause is different for each and every patient. So is with depression too. We found a name for it, because the symptoms are similar, but the mechanisms behind it are different and sometimes hard to identify. I said that we are born with it not like we are born depressed, but rather that our brains are more sensitive. Some people are more susceptible to mental health problems than others. Our bodies are processing the negative inputs in very different ways.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Ah. I am glad you were able to avoid medicine which, as you mention, can have unpleasant side effects. An Indian sage I once new told us that the natural condition for humans is contentment. After 20 years of meditation practice, I was able to attain that simple condition. It took every day practice of reprogramming my mind, but the results eventually came. It only worked because I actually enjoy meditation; otherwise I never would have been able to force myself to do it.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
That is pretty amazing if you can manage to feel that level of contentment via meditation, any time I try to meditate my mind just takes over, any advice? :-)
Upvoted and Followed :-)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi @georgemason. It looks like you are in England. I belong to an international meditation group called "Heartfulness". We have centers in India and many other countries including the U.K. Here is a source of information: https://www.heartfulness.uk/ The meditation classes are free. You may want to give it a try. It worked for me. Best to you.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Sometimes we fall into the trap of overlooking our own uniqueness but it’s true, those treatments and how they are prescribed point to the fact that our mind is extremely complex. Our genetic makeup combined with our life experience creates an infinity of combinations which determine our emotional baseline.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm already in love with both sides of your art. Following ♥
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you! Now I'm following you too <3
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
beautiful and bleak, my favourite genre * ___ * welcome to steemit o/
hope you will have much success here, alina <3
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you! I hope so, too :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
It is hard to recognize that you are truly worthy of yourself. I feel for you when you say you sometimes feel stuck in dark thoughts. It may not be so bad if it can help you process this tortured reality we live in. I hope you can strike that balance between light and darkness.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I learned to live with it, sometimes I can even avoid falling too deep, and I am experimenting new ways of dealing with it. Even posting about it here is an experiment. I never talked about it. I know I'll be fine, but the shadow is a part of me.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Let’s hope the experiment pays off (no pun intended).
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Welcome to Steem, @alina.iftime!
I am a bot coded by the SteemPlus team to help you make the best of your experience on the Steem Blockchain!
SteemPlus is a Chrome, Opera and Firefox extension that adds tons of features on Steemit.
It helps you see the real value of your account, who mentionned you, the value of the votes received, a filtered and sorted feed and much more! All of this in a fast and secure way.
To see why 2325 Steemians use SteemPlus, install our extension, read the documentation or the latest release : SteemPlus 2.12 : Rewards Tab.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Congratulations @alina.iftime! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPDownvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Welcome to Steemit @alina.iftime :)
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit