Marketable Depression
Today Raymi the Minx tweeted about her book Marketable Depression which I bought and still have and back when I first read it in 2005 made me feel
seen and
heard and
okay, maybe.
She was out there talking about her fucked-up mental health and how she was making it work and making a living off her blog and her social life
(today we'd call her an "influencer" but that language didn't exist yet)
I'd read her blog and see that she didn't care about nudity and sex and drugs and alcohol and depression and getting drunk and high and partying too much and used to think
she's so strong. I can turn my sadness and weakness and fear into something like this, maybe.
Maybe.
At the height of my Raymi-reading days I was living in Hamilton and it was a mistake and I was lonely and the part I regret the most is how I treated Peter who just wanted a nice, easier girlfriend without the baggage and anger and sadness
but it was me and it was us and it was then
so I'd drink too much and sit on MSN Messenger or paint or blog on my old old old old blog
(like this, maybe)
hoping that screaming into this empty void
I'd feel a sense of purpose
of value
of humanity
Like if I leaned into my sadness maybe it would make me unique. Special.
Give me the sense of purpose I was desperately looking for.
I thought
like Bukowski, like Kerouac
my value was in forfeiting my pride
to document the depth the human experience
as shitty as I could make it it could be.
I sat in our one-bedroom apartment drinking by myself wishing I lived in a different city and was a different person and wishing I could maybe go back to Winnipeg so I could party away these sad feelings
and then I did
for longer than I wanna say
and I made my life hard and complicated and chose drama and the wrong
friends
partners
jobs
situations
mostly because I didn't think I deserved better and thought that having "friends" who partied for days and encouraged me to shirk my job and overstayed their welcome and drank all my booze and would make out with me even though I had a boyfriend
(who wanted an open relationship so contain your gasps folks)
was somehow what I wanted, deserved, was the best I could do
maybe.
More like I was addicted to the drama and to feeling bad and being around people who reflected my low self-worth back at me and whose drama and beefing made me feel okay and valued and
gave me something to talk about, write about, obsess about
I was really messed up.
Tonight I picked up Marketable Depression for the first time in years and read through it like the first time and holy shit that book covers a lot more messed-up stuff in a 2020 context but it reminded me that
the only way to make an experience permanent is to
document it
publish it
blog about it
because if there aren't words to capture yr experience
what the hell is there?
