Gratefully Working To Get My Sh×t Together After 15 Years of Depression, Hello!
Fifteen years is a long time. Long enough for depression to rewrite every chapter of your life, twist the narrative, and leave you questioning if you’ll ever get back to the version of yourself that once felt whole.
Even if that baseline reality was energy–consuming, hyperaware fear, and Academy-Award–worthy masking on top of functional depression.
So, here I am, still in the cyclic nature of depression as I write these words—still trying to right the ship, still learning how to navigate after years of drifting inside and outside the “Depression Death Star, or simply The Dark Side.”
It’s not easy. Some days, existing feels impossible—let alone living.
But I’m still here, and for now, that’s enough.
My last “official” full-time job ended nearly two years ago. And if I’m being honest, I haven’t felt truly content in a long, long time.
I’ve had depression all my life. At this point, I don’t even know what life feels like without it.
The irony? That realization is depressing in itself. Go figure.
I won’t sugarcoat it: in 2024 alone, I had considered suicide more times than I can recall.
It’s a dark, exhausting place to be, and the weight of it is relentless. But somehow, some way, I keep going. I create. I put things out into the world, even when it feels impossible.
And for someone who’s spent a lifetime as a neurodivergent, MDSI, INFJ, that’s nothing short of a solar eclipse miracle on the tip of the North Pole while wearing a bathing suit in January.
The Regret of Not Documenting the Journey
Looking back, one of my biggest regrets is not chronicling the things I’ve worked on over the years. I’ve spent over a quarter of a century online, thirty years to be precise—creating, designing, building—and yet, I failed to document so much of it.
I didn’t blog about it.
Likewise, I didn’t catalog the process, the struggles, the breakthroughs.
And now, I wish I had.
How amazing would it be to scroll through a personal archive of projects, lessons, failures, wins—an entire career mapped out in real-time, across decades?
I do have the present moment. I’m alive. And as long as I am, I can share my work, my thoughts, my struggles. So, I’m doing that now. These words are proof.
Reclaiming My Artistic Self
For the past few years, I’ve been trying to reconnect with my roots as an artist. I won a statewide crime-fighting poster contest in 5th grade culminating in a Fine Arts degree, painting concentration—and having one of my paintings added to my college’s permanent art collection.
Back in college, I painted like a madman, pouring everything I had into my work. Then the Internet came along the year I graduated from college—1991—and design took over my life. It consumed me, swallowed me whole.
And before I knew it, I had gone decades without making what I would truly call art.
That’s beginning to change. Slowly.
It’s taken time to rewire my brain, to make space for creative ideas to return after a two-year absence.
Time to remind myself that I’m allowed to create for the sake of creation—not just for work, not just for survival.
And now, as I rebuild, I’m weaving everything together—a website, a YouTube channel, and a podcast.
These aren’t just separate projects; they’re pieces of the same puzzle. They’re reflections of the larger journey I’m on.
The Challenge of Invisible Work
The weirdest part? I’ve been working my ass off for two years, and yet, there’s still not much to show for it online.
But that’s the nature of building something real. Most of the work happens in the background.
It’s the silent grind, the unseen effort, the endless trial and error.
The results don’t always come fast. Sometimes, they don’t come at all. But that’s the gamble.
The only thing I can do is keep showing up. Keep creating. Keep pushing toward something bigger, even if I don’t know exactly what that something is yet.
None of us do, really.
Every project, every idea, every dream—it’s all a leap of faith.
The only thing that matters is having the cojones to put yourself out there and the consistency to keep delivering, keep going.
What’s Next?
No clue. And that’s okay.
For now, I’m here. I’m doing the work. I’m embracing the unknown and trying my best to turn years of struggle into something meaningful.
Here’s to whatever comes next!
Until then, be well.