Back Down the Rabbit Hole.

Months ago, I wrote a post about journeying through mental health. For me, being a writer is about sharing stories, about reaching out to other people with those stories, real and fictional. That post still stands as one of the most viewed posts in this blog, and if I managed to help one person or show one person they were not so alone in feeling that way, then the post was a success.

I wrote another blog post a couple of days back about how work has been getting me down lately. But that I'm also there a lot. So I've been trying to find some meaning in the workplace that sees me so much more than any of my friends and family. Because shouldn't there be meaning in something you are spending so much time doing?

I've been applying for internal positions within the workplace. I've been watching my stats and making sure I'm pretty much the best damned me I can be, and thinking that within a meritocracy those efforts will pay off.

Maybe they would, if I was in a meritocracy.

Unfortunately, I'm in a corporateocracy. And that seems to translate into 'high school for adults'.

I didn't really like high school the first time round. High school was... me not really understanding what was going on a lot of the time, except that there was a popular group and I was not in it. Like many of my friends these days, I was never really how to get in it. Maybe there was a special letter sent out to some peoples' homes, like for Hogwarts.

I escaped high school with as much as I could of me intact, having gotten out of it what I had come there for: My education.

I expect I'm supposed to say that I am getting out of work what I came there for: My money.

The work place seems to be another popularity contest but, other than that, things aren't as clear. I went in without a very clear idea of what I want to get out of it. At the beginning, it was something that was going to supplement the income of my household, but then my fiancee got a pay rise, and I had to think of what this work was doing for me. Independence, then. Or else something to keep me sane through writer's block, or just to keep me talking to other people who exist outside of my Word documents. Trouble is, my idea of what I'm doing there isn't clear enough, so I'm left without a clear aim of why I'm staying in this high school for adults.

And, as if that isn't enough, the black dog seems to be back to chase me down that familiar rabbit hole. I've been lucky. I've had a fairly clear couple of months there, so clear that I stopped even taking the St John's Wort that was such a life saver for me last December. I had a stellar last session with my counsellor who was pleased I was in a much better place than when I'd first come in. We've even had good news with my partner's cancer, though that's more his story to tell.

I suppose, with all the good things going on and moving forward around me, it makes sense for me to look inward; I'm no longer quite so needed to stand strong as a support for other people. And maybe that's the reason I'm a little bit more realistic and admitting that it's not just their upsets that are getting me down, but rather I'm not so happy with my own layout of life as I appear to be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy being a writer and--while my job was low hours and low stress--I quite enjoyed work too. But I'm not where I want to be as a writer. Not yet. One book does not mean 'successful', and I'm looking forward to Revelry following after Gothic and getting to parade that new novel around like it's a new prize pony. Work was supposed to be there as a complement to my real work. It isn't. If I was writing my life as a story right now, work would be the main antagonist.

Here is me. I'm trying to do fantastically in both areas of my life, barely being mediocre in either one and trying oh-so-hard not to let depression get on top of me again like it did last year. Because I had a break, but it wasn't nearly long enough.

And so I write this post, to mark the day and make sure I start doing something about it before it gets worse.