| Home | News & Blog | Book | Other Works | About |
An article I wrote on the development of radar during World War II, and the sharing of radar technology between Britain and the US during that time, is now available on the History in an Hour website. My thanks to the History in an Hour series editor, Rupert Colley.
Outstanding, inspiring talk tonight by @doctorow.He made me think, and you just know how I hate that.
— Adam Purple (@writer_not) February 24, 2013
This is a hard one to write. It happens each year to me about this time, when my normal, low-key mood—the one that I live with daily, the one that is propped up by medication—threatens to take a precipitous dive. An unfortunate, collective trough in the rhythms of calendar and body and brain chemistry. It will pass; it always does.
As a young man, in my teens and twenties, the trough was my normal state of being. Around age thirty, after years of therapy, I started with medication, and have been medicated almost continually ever since. It allows me to function through the everyday-ness of life, an ability that previously had eluded me. More importantly, I am able to maintain healthier relationships, including what is perhaps the most important relationship of all, that to one’s self. And I wish to be clear: I am grateful for such medications. I would truly be lost without them. And to be just as clear: I hate them. But I accept them as a way of life for me, the functioning adult.
But it is at this time of year when I most acutely feel the seductive pull of depression. It is a time when I can find rationale in opting for a depressed state of mind; a time when it feels false to be anything but depressed. And in my pre-medicated days, that is how I experienced depression. Awful, yes. Debilitating. But real. As if happiness, or anything but a state of depression, was inauthentic, a means of fooling one’s self.
I read these words now, remembering my feelings and mindset from that time, and I recognize the language and thinking of an addict. Depression was something that no normal person could understand; it was, oddly, an elevated, superior state of being. For how else could one truly accept the truth: that life was fundamentally, profoundly, unavoidably sad? After all, wasn’t depression a fount of creativity? Wasn’t I a better writer then? Wasn’t some of my best stuff about that very pain of life and relationships? (Truth be told, it wasn’t, and I wasn’t. But at the time, it certainly felt so.)
The language of an addict, and of the arrogance of youth.
During the first years of anti-depressants, I felt remarkably better, much more stable, capable, and confident. I also felt an intense frustration, for I had lost a significant part of my emotional repertoire. It was as if I had suddenly lost a long-cultivated skill, such as the ability to play an instrument, or speak a second language. As irrational as it was, I missed it, and felt trapped in an emotionally stunted place, though in fact I was more emotionally whole than I had ever been. But the “pleasures” that I had once sought out, the experiences that had a saddening, and therefore real, impact on my emotions, repulsed me when I was properly medicated. It angered me that I couldn’t enjoy, or even contemplate, particular music or books or movies anymore. Worse, my ability to write or do anything remotely creative seemed banal, if not bankrupt. It impacted me so that I repeatedly, selfishly, took myself off medication—without consulting a doctor, without even telling any of my family or friends—to damaging and painful effect. For lack of a better word, I repeatedly relapsed. With intent. And I can’t begin to apologize for what that did to the people I cared about, including my then-young children.
I eventually understood and accepted the reality that anti-depressants would always be a part of my life, the way a diabetic cannot avoid insulin treatments. None the less, I hate it, in the same way that I assume a diabetic hates insulin. Or, perhaps more accurately, the way I assume a drunk hates the fact that he cannot ever drink.
I also learned that depression, like other types of addiction, is an indefatigable liar. I could, in fact, be creative again. And I realized that what I thought was creative at the time was often nothing more than juvenile, mediocre writings, a body of self-centered cries for attention. Almost embarrassing to me now, but none the less, life experience put to paper—something to learn from, across the safe distance of time.
And so, I have been largely healthy and stable for about a decade now. I don’t have a 10-year coin or token. I so misunderstood the importance of my medication that I didn’t think to note the date that I got on them for good. I say without irony or equivocation that I am a better, healthier, and happier—for my family as well as for me.
Sadness comes and goes, as it must for everyone. And I can generally accept and experience sadness without spiraling downward. But the greatest challenge comes at this time of year, when the seasonal influence of my depression is at its height. It is at this time that I need to forcibly remind myself to keep clear of environmental triggers, especially particular pieces of sad music. Yet I want to hear that music again. I want to remember the haunting orchestral beauty of Vangelis’ Memories of Green, the pained vocals of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis singing New Dawn Fades, the aching piano of Sufjan Stevens’ Redford (thanks for nothing, Red Bull commercial). Most of the time, these pieces have no hold on me, and I have no interest in them. But sometimes, times like now, I find myself wanting to just immerse myself in a deep, soaking tub of despondency. Because now, even a decade later, I miss that part of me that I can’t quite touch anymore. And that in itself, is sad.
But I can’t. Shouldn’t. Won’t.
Sound advice for any occasion.
From my lovely wife, a vintage Royal model KHM typewriter. Judging by the serial number, it was manufactured sometime during the second half of 1936. It’s in working condition, but could use a little love. My next tinkering project: clean it up, replace or recover the platen and rollers, and treat it to a new ribbon.
At one end of the spectrum I see pocket knives and slingshots. At the other, missiles, RPGs, bombs, and chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Somewhere in the middle lies a reasonable, appropriate, and “well-regulated” limitation that both honors individual rights and makes societal costs tolerable.
As a nice counter to all the doom and gloom in the world of bookstores these days, Portsmouth Book and Bar opened for business on December 1. As the name implies, yes, you can browse through the many books on their shelves, and have a drink at the bar.
I’m now lucky enough to live within walking distance of the public library, and two (count ‘em!) indie bookstores.
And a new bookstore opening? Yes, of course I was there. Here are a few pictures:
While RiverRun Bookstore will always have my heart, I’m delighted to see another bookstore in town. Do visit both when you are in Portsmouth.
My writing/rewriting cycle:Hey, this is pretty good→OMG, this is crap.Repeat.#amwriting
— Adam Purple (@writer_not) November 20, 2012
I write, and do most things, with an agonizing lack of speed, so the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in a month is beyond me. But my own, long-incubating novel, which I started almost two full NoNoWriMos ago, is now ready.
Agents be warned, I am making November my personal querying month.
Post Categories
- Flash fiction
- Galleries
- Gutter cleaning
- It's that thing of like when
- Self-aggrandizement
- Uncategorizable
- Writerly inspiration
- Writing in progress
- Writing, itself. Reading, too.
Sites I Visit
- Advice to Writers
- Agent Query
- At Your Library
- Betsy Lerner
- Forgotten Bookmarks
- GalleyCat
- Grub Street
- Janet Reid
- McSweeney's
- Nathan Bransford
- NPR Books
- NYT Books
- RiverRun Bookstore
- Stewie The Motivator
- The Oatmeal
- xkcd
Blogroll
- Claudia Del Balso, Writer
- Dead End Follies
- Jamie Ford, Author
- Jennifer Hillier
- Sara in Vermont
- That's Why