The people I work with just don't care

That bugs me. They're watching YouTube videos and chatting on instant messaging thingies while they're supposed to animating a television show that could be really good. But probably won't be because they don't give a shit.

That's the real bad side to using computers in animation - too much distraction. I'd love to throw them out and get them all back to the drawing desks and see how long they last.

The flip side

When I was first diagnosed with depression, I was told not to do anything life-changing. It would create too much pressure. On top of that, I was in no place to really make rational decisions.

And that's the really tough part. Because there can be outside factors. When you are diagnosed with depression, you start to question yourself - am I unhappy about a certain thing because of the depression or because that something is wrong and should make me unhappy? The difficulty is that, in times of depression, there is no way of knowing.

If I had acted on my feelings at the time of my first diagnosis, I would not have the lovely wife and child I have now. I would have nothing.

Yet now, I'm medicated and there is one part of my life still not right. Sometimes the pills don't help. Because sometimes, you really do have to address parts of your life that plain suck.

And life does suck a lot.

Just as well I don't use my real name

An employee fired for blogging - http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=322407

She's not the first either.

The clear mistake she made was posting pictures of herself. Looks like I'm going to have to go underground and disguise myself.

The pissing contest

Willy waving over depression drugs seems pretty common. Well, I refuse to pull my lad out and let rip. You see, I'm only on Lexapro right now. And just the girly 10mg ones.

They worked fine for me before but this time they seem to have come with some side effects. I'm itchy. That's at the bottom of the list for Lexapro side effects. I've also had a couple of others I won't go into right now. Some of the side effects listed are great:

Diarrhoea, Constipation. I hate to think what happens if you end up with both of these at once. Bowel explosions or something. A lot of clean-up involved.

Increased sweating. Pit stains alone are liable to cause depression. Nobody likes pit stains.

Mania, confusion, agitation, anxiety, depersonalisation, panic attacks and nervousness. Hang on, aren't I taking this to get rid of that stuff?

Wallace and Gromit TV movie

Couldn't cut it on the big screen, guys?

Ponies, tricks etc.

Oh, and what happened to that Tortoise and Hare movie you were making?

Why I am medicated

I wasn't in a bad place this time around. I had been off the pills for a good few years and was doing pretty okay. But I could feel a little downward slide. Just a little.

But that wasn't the main issue. This was the main issue:

I had neve been so prolific in all my life. I was bombarded with ideas, stories, characters. All great stuff. My mind was racing at 1000 miles per hour. It was amazing and something I should be really thankful for.

The problem was that I couldn't shut it off. I tried. I tried all sorts of methods. Even hypnotherapy. But I couldn't sleep. My head just kept on going at a steady 1000mph. And I couldn't sleep. Eventually, it became too much. I had to risk the loss of productivity for some calm in my life. Having been through this several times before, I knew it was related to the condition. I knew getting on pills for six months or more would just slow down my brain.

Did it work? Yep. But, as I feared, the ideas have slowed. Some of them are still there but I need a lot more effort to dig them up. I still don't know if the trade off was worth it but I'm enjoying the ability to sleep.

Depression

Maybe I should give a little introduction to depression. I'm talking full-on clinical depression here. That's what I have. Or I should say, have had, though I consider it an ongoing condition. I have had two major incidents of it but I'm always on alert.

According to Wikipedia, clinical depression affects 7-18% of people some time in their lives. Okay so Wikipedia isn't exactly the most reliable source on the planet as any idiot can edit it (and many do) but it's a good place to start.

It mentions Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which is feeling down in the Winter time. I actually thought I had that once. When it lasted through Summer and into Autumn, there was a problem. Turns out, what I had was Depression with Melancholic Features.

Oddly enough, I didn't really feel sad as such. I felt totally empty though. Completely disconnected from life and the world. I felt like I wasn't really me. I wasn't sleeping and had a bunch of other symptoms that led to the diagnosis. It was the first time I was diagnosed, though I had it years before and only knew what it was when I finally got that diagnosis. So, according to Wikipedia, here are the main symptoms:

"Melancholia is characterized by a loss of pleasure (anhedonia) in most or all activities, a failure of reactivity to pleasurable stimuli, a quality of depressed mood more pronounced than that of grief or loss, a worsening of symptoms in the morning hours, early morning waking, psychomotor retardation, anorexia, or excessive guilt."

Try living with this for 6 months. Or a year. Or every year. That's what people with depression live with.

Some people get to such a stage that you can't miss it. But there are a lot of people out there living with it that you just won't know. They plaster on a smile and get on with their day, secretly dying inside. You just never know what's going on with people.