Control: Depression Symptoms…

I, Dalton Lewis, suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. Doctors diagnosed me around twenty years ago. I hear voices. During the last week or two, though, a different mental health issue showed up a little bit: I got depressed.

This happens to everyone. Feeling down is part of life. I had just finished Adepticon, the biggest wargaming miniatures tournament of the year for me, and I finished a novel that I was writing. I had spent twelve years and various rewrites finishing Teenage Nightmare Chronicles. I worked like crazy to create an ambitious and difficult novel about violence and death in today’s America. In the novel a group of characters gather in a mental health facility for troubled teens and are targeted by a serial killer/slasher. Finishing the novel scared me. I wanted people to like it very badly.

I lay down.

I lay there, doing nothing, in the middle of the day, for no reason at all.

I published a novel that I spent twelve years, on and off, creating.

First day sales?

Zero.

I started to lie down over and over and do nothing.

I started to eat more and work out less.

I made peanut butter toast over and over, eating it again and again.

I stayed up late until the night.

I played the same internet videos over and over.

The same things happened, day after day.

My leg started to hurt. I had to limp around the house, unable to function, barely able to walk and in light pain a lot of the time.

I played the same video games over and over — the same exact ones. I played the same scenes over and over.

I stopped watching most new movies. I just watched the same ones over and over.

I stopped watching new television episodes of new shows, just watching repeats of shows from yesteryear.

Why did this happen?

I don’t know.

Then, slowly, I started to fight back.

I went to the doctor’s office. She recommended a knee brace. I bought one and bam — the leg pain went away, just like that, like magic. I have no leg pain anymore. That shouldn’t happen — but it did.

I started to take walks now that the weather has gotten slightly nicer. It’s not winter anymore, anyway. I felt better after taking an afternoon walk.

I started to watch a few new shows, including Picard.

I restarted playing Starcraft 2, a game which requires me to play against a non-computer opponent and engage in a skill-based strategy game. I lost immediately and overwhelmingly. I needed to try very hard to get back to competing in bronze league games.

I hung out with friends, playing Marvel Crisis Protocol, a game that we like.

I got back into life. Am I great? No. But I’m clawing back, fighting. I’m giving life my best effort.

Thanks, and take care, friends.