Excuse me if this post is a little short. I gave myself a good hour to write this, to then only spend seventeen minutes tinkering with my network settings, site analytics and, of course, Twitter.
There are two moments in my life I can’t (or won’t) write about:
- Divorce
- Depression
Both events converged, or one led to the other, this time in 2006. Since then, I’ve tried to use these painful moments as fodder for either fiction or creative nonfiction, with varying degrees of failure. With respect to divorce, a part of it is not wanting to air out the difficulties I had with my ex-wife, nor do I want to somehow make myself the victim and crown her the “villain,” or vice versa. To be honest, if I were to write about my divorce, or the feeling of being a divorced man in my mid-twenties, or the mindjob of believing, for a time, that love and marriage was, perhaps, not in my best interest, I don’t know if I can take these things, roll them up into prose and transmute them into something creative and relatable. What should I say that is in contradiction of, or more meaningful than, what the word “divorce” connotes? Certainly, like all things in life, we all have our personal experiences and, as writers, it’s our job to speak on these things in our way. Claim them as ours, rather than bemoaning the fact that 10,000,000,000 people before us wrote about the same thing. But “divorce” as a word contains so much meaning, it conjures so many images and feelings. Either I can’t do them justice or the exercise seems superfluous. And unless I can write about it in a way that protects the identity and pride of all parties involved, myself included.
Depression, oddly enough, has a completely different set of problems. One would think there’s a certain amount of privacy attached to the illness; who would prefer to open themselves up to stigma and potential ridicule? That’s not my issue because there’s nothing I can do about being a depressive. While, if I choose, I could pretend it never happened, and act as though it doesn’t haunt me more times than I’d like to admit, clinical depression is as evident on me as my melanin. There’s no such thing as a “former depressive” (and I’ve learned that the hard way). I’m a recovering depressive or my depression is in “remission,” however one wants to phrase the idea that once you go through it, you have to monitor your health and take preventative measures. Because the likelihood of suffering another depressive episode has now increased since experiencing one three years ago.
Writing about depression isn’t impossible, but it demands the “show, don’t tell” cliche. It’s an illness of subtext. What’s difficult is to be honest about the illness’ impact within the prose. I wrote a 4000 word story about a depressive. It was as accurate as possible and what I had, at the end, was a character who did nothing. Who felt powerless and paralyzed in her movements. Depression truly has this effect on people but, as you can see, it doesn’t translate well into fiction. If I were to approach it again, maybe I’d tell it in first person, have her inner thoughts on display and let the train of thought “show” she’s depressed, meanwhile having to deal with whatever problem faces her via the plot. Thing is, I want you to know she’s depressed and I’ll spend the bulk of my powers trying to make that happen. It’s a case of proselytizing and, as a writer, I can’t afford to do this. I want to be an advocate of people in need of good mental health. But I don’t want to preach and I don’t want to navel-gaze.
Both of these moments are “big” events in my life and, truthfully, the inability, or unwillingness, to write about them continues to cripple my once prolific nature. It’s like my mind is saying, “Sure, boss. Go ahead and write about THAT. But you still need to write about THIS and THIS, too. Your work is meaningless until you do.” Maybe I need to write a story or, God forbid, a novel about both, throw it in the desk drawer and move on.
Anyway, talk to me. Anything you don’t want to write about? If so, what are the reasons? Feel free to be as open as you feel necessary. No judgement here and I don’t tolerate trolls at all. I love deleting comments. So speak your mind.
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