• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Scream Phoenix

From The Ashes

My Depression Pt. 2

February 9, 2020 by Nick Leave a Comment

Unraveling

The messages in my head pull themselves into reality. Thoughts of shame and failure grind away my energy and resources until my life loses stability. It becomes harder and harder to function. Days run into one another, becoming weeks and months of misery.

Every moment is exhausting. All of my spare time is spent sleeping, to ensure I can get through each day. I want to sleep until I feel better, but am never rested. I spend my limited energy carefully.

Watching my wife work harder in my absence is painful. I feel guilty. My brain reminds me that she and my kids would be better off with a healthy man.

I feel like I’m thinking through syrup. Everything is slower than it should be, and every thought feels just out of reach. It takes extra effort to pierce this barrier, which soaks up most of my mental energy.

My speech comes out jumbled. Words and ideas feel like interwoven clusters. I am unable to finish one thought and begin another. I cannot tell which point in the stream represents those places.

I apologize often to those around me about my inability to communicate, and my mixed messages.

One morning, I force myself out of bed and stand in front of the bathroom mirror, talking myself through the next steps of washing my face and brushing my teeth. The face in the mirror looks too real, and I see the entirety at once. Every hair and pore seems over-rendered, like a HD video game character with too sharp a texture.

This face does not feel like it belongs to me. Regardless, I finish my hygiene tasks and continue the day.

I question how much other people can see written on me. I feel stripped bare, all the way to the bone, every insecurity on neon display. I avoid eye contact during interactions, afraid of what I might find there.

I worry that this episode will last too long. I imagine waking up one day, finally feeling like myself, to the rubble of the life I once built. I’ve been there before, on the very edge of losing my family.

I spend every day aware that I live in a world which does not understand or care about my illness. People will wear sad, thoughtful looks on their faces as they remove me from a job for not meeting the expectations laid out in their rule books. They will feign care while cutting away what is too weak.

This is the way of the world, so fear grips me as control spirals away. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice whispers, “Death is so much easier.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized

My Depression Pt. 1

January 14, 2020 by Nick Leave a Comment

These writings and illustrations represent a personal account of my experiences with major depressive disorder. In the series I will explain my symptoms and how they impact my life, and finally my coping strategies.

Hijacking Reality

I have episodes of depression that can last days, weeks, or months. On a good day, this is like waking up from a bad dream and reassuring myself that it was not real.

On a bad day, it feels like the curtain has been pulled back and I am alone in a barren void. The universe looms over me, unblinking in its infinite apathy. My world will always return to this truth. Good days are fever dreams, meaningless and temporary.

Everything I believe in or work for is a lie. I am ashamed of my vanity. This feeling underpins every thought in my head. It constantly reminds me that my time is short, and everything I do is pointless. I harm what I love.

With that backdrop, my thoughts are free to explore the exact ways in which I am not good enough. My brain wraps the feelings of self hate in supporting memories. Every failure, every embarrassing moment plays in my head, a highlight reel of stupidity.

Each memory pounds at my chest and gut. I am choked with anxiety and loathing, forced to relive events even as I tell myself they are in the past. Thinking of something else lasts only moments before jumping back.

The feeling of emptiness soaks through my entire life. As I sleep, it seeps into my dreams. Every thought marches toward a single conclusion: The world would be better without me.

Filed Under: Personal Stories

Hoisting the Black Flag

November 4, 2019 by Nick Leave a Comment

This is the part where I am supposed to tell you how my products will make your life easier, but I can’t. I intend to ask a great deal of you, myself, and anyone working on this project with us.

I can’t promise to solve any of your problems. In fact, if I hit my mark, I hope to leave you feeling disenchanted with the world we live in. I expect to create problems.

I think that art and conversation right now must lead to the inevitable conclusion that something is terribly fucking wrong. I think the antidote is to stand fully in the truth, share the real stories that connect us, and stop pretending that it is a kindness to accept anything less.

The path to stronger people and communities is through friction. Taking the harder path, valuing experiences, and valuing ourselves enough to accept no less. Iron sharpens iron.

That is what Scream Phoenix is for. I want to share art and stories from the most raw, honest, broken, and powerful pieces of my soul. I want to share conversations with the people who stoke my passion and help me reach for more. I want to take all of this and use it to improve the world.

From the ashes of each iteration will rise something stronger and harder, better suited to change the world. We submit to this process, and reach out to grasp every ounce of our potential. We scream Phoenix!

– Nick

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

Copyright © 2021 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in