Writing about depression with depression

It’s more of a “write what you know” scenario than a “this is trendy so I want to try it” sort of thing. It’s just depression. It’s not trendy, it’s painful and boring and very limiting. But it has given me something to write about in my fiction.  

Writing from experience allows the words to flow, though sometimes even that is a chore. I know what I’m talking about (which is rare). I can confidently draw up a character who suffers from this mental illness because I know how it goes—the appetite that spontaneously shifts from excessive to minimal, the extreme need for sleep or a total lack of it, watching the same movie over and over again (we’re talking 20 to 50 times), and the emotional numbness, to name a few. These things also stop me from writing.

So it’s a slow process, writing a character with depression when you suffer from depression. If I’m really in the thick of it, I’m not writing. I’m not doing much of anything. If it’s moderate, then I can usually manage a page, maybe less. I plunk around on the keyboard with little results, which sometimes encourages the idea that I’m a bad writer or I’m not creative or worse, I have no business trying. Depression is a filthy liar. Usually when this happens, I shut my laptop and go do something else.

Truthfully, writing about depression while treating depression is not a fun experience, but it is therapeutic. It allows me to delve deeper into the emotions, to bring them to the surface and make them more meaningful. It makes it make sense, because clinical depression often makes very little sense when it comes on or even why. I can’t imagine writing a neuro-typical character because, frankly, I can’t imagine what it’s like being neuro-typical.