I spent my whole life, and I mean thirty-five years fighting the stereotype of the neurotic, moody, unstable artistic type who labors out his creations on the edge of sanity, goes in and out of the hospital or rehab, and dies tragically of suicide, or of a drug overdose. More than likely he dies in poverty with a trail of wrecked relationships.
In the middle of adolescence I saw this as a distinct possibility and tried to avoid it. The main step in avoiding it was to take care of my sanity problem and try to clear the depressing and disturbing thoughts from my mind. Or avoid them as a writing subject. Meanwhile I tried my best to avoid writing about the things screaming in my mind or visions that brought tears to my eyes. No, that wasn't going to be my life. I was going to be someone who had it together, who could hold down a real job and write.
In an important way I succeeded. I avoided drugs and alcohol throughout my life. I might have been hospitalized, but I was never in rehab. So I never complicated my illness with drugs. Nevertheless, I totally failed at everything else. I ended up putting myself through thirty-five years of writers' block, social withdrawal and loneliness. I stopped writing, stopped even reading. I held terrible jobs because I couldn't get myself together enough to get and keep a good one. I went bankrupt due to massive spending mostly on things I didn't even keep or on pure whim. I gave a lot of money away too. Few remembered it.
I ended up imploding. I quit my job and my sister and parents had to rescue me from homelessness. I never asked them. I'm thankful. I might feel differently at times, but I was lucky then to have my tattered, dysfunctional family.
It was the same family I started with. I've never been married. Relationships have been difficult creating that loneliness problem.
I went into the hospital and had the depression zapped out of me. Rebooted with flat-wave DC current, I realized I had to approach my life differently. Maybe it was self-censoring my darkest thoughts, emotions and fears that ran my life into a concrete wall, that embittered me and that took away my pride.
I'll never say I had the most miserable life. Objectively speaking, it isn't close to being true. Though I can't be called blessed, most people have lives worse than mine.
But for some reason, the dark moods and the traumatic memories are a storm of excess emotions, words and visions. I can't ignore the creative energy of it and be successful as a writer. Or be successful in relationships, or strangely, have any pride. Truth is, it's most of what I am. I write till it hurts, if I don't have tears eyes writing it, it's no good.
Yes, and so, I'm in a terrible state today. And what do you know? It's great for writing horror. I hope the fact that I feel better now that I've written this hasn't disrupted the flow.
