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I wrote this poem to show awareness of those suffering from mental health. This poem is about depression, and what it feels like when it gets out of hand.

Quarantine not only creates the perfect environment for depression to worsen but limits people’s health resources.

(Picture above – “A hug from mother nature” – Juliet McGauchie)

 

 

The Death of Myself

 

The wrath of melancholy blankets my raw body.

I feel nothing, for I have become bedridden.

I lay upon ice and swords of steel, 

black ink seeping out my shallow wounds.

 

A hollow pulse,

   a hushed cry,

      a bleached breath.

         I ask myself, what have I done?

 

A girl stands above me, watching as I sink deeper into the Lethe of hopelessness. 

Her tears like the river of Hades, trickling down onto my chest.

She holds my hand and opens her mouth and whispers ever so softly,

what have you become?

 

She looks so disappointed, so upset with what I’ve done.

I have lost all sense of what it feels like to be happy.

All sense of what it is like to be normal. 

All sense of myself. 

 

Weak in the knees, she sits down beside me. 

She kisses my forehead and stands up once again. 

Her face a mirror, a reflection of my former self.

I watch as my ghost walks out of the room.

 

I have become frivolous. 

I have become the person I deemed never to become.

The room becomes darker, and the cries become louder. 

I yell as loud as I can but the darkness inside will not budge.

 

I am possessed with barren emotions.

It latches onto my veins.

Blood no longer flowing, my heart no longer beating.

I can feel the emptiness swallow me whole.

 

I seep into the floorboards, 

my mind merely untouched.

I am now nothing but dust on your shelves.

The air thickens with silence, the emptiness deafens. 

 

I have given up.

   Lost all control,

      all mortality, 

         all feelings. 

 

I am now one with the rest,

those who are broken with pain that had never left, with cold hearts but warm tears.

Those who have failed at loving oneself, those who were afraid to seek help,

those who we think are okay.

 

The wrath of melancholy fills the room,

and all that remains is ice and swords of steel,

for the darkness had gotten ahold of another one who was too afraid to 

 

                                                                                  ask for help.  

First off music is a huge part of my life. I spend as much time noodling as I do writing. With that said the only thing you really need to listen to is Song for Caden. It sums everything up so beautifully. What do I mean by everything? You decide.

        “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” It’s an innocuous question. Pick one: Someone created the chicken that laid the first egg or a chickenoid animal laid an egg that evolved into the first chicken. What is a chicken though? When does a chicken stop being so chickenlike that it ceases to be a chicken? If we glue feathers to a man can we say “behold a chicken”?  I find that I’m in a similar situation myself. On October 10th 2019 I was diagnosed with bipolar (on world mental health day of all days. A sign? It’s -kind of funny in a cosmic sense.) so 2020 was bound to a(n) — adjective of your choice — year. Experiencing an unimaginable range of human emotion for much of my continuing adulthood has had an undeniable impact on the developing of my world view, however, where does my bipolarity end and where do I begin? If I were able to say “behold myself!” all would be saved or lost. For some reason I have an inexplicable fascination with duality and all that comes with it. Was this some innate attribute waiting to come out and my bipolarity accelerated the process or maybe this created something new. Physics says no but metaphysics says possibly.

        Exploring such an intense range of human feelings creates such conflicting views of the world I live in. I’ve felt the full insignificance of myself and my actions, felt powerless, been swallowed by pessimism but I’ve also drowned in self-importance, “transcended” past the concrete and abstract constraints of being human, and viewed the world through a rose-tinted kalopsopic telescope. So, what’s an enby to do? It’s a confusing as all hell, especially when I get mixed states where both sides somehow decide to happen at the same time. Both sides have some valid points and some believable lies. Filtering that is too much work. Deep introspection like that is a one-way ticket into a philosophical stupor. Being self-aware is pretty much useless in terms of trying to be your honest self. It means you’ve gotten good at deceiving yourself. Another issue is that as time progresses things becoming needlessly meta and always ends up becoming “I am self-aware that I am self-aware that I am self-aware” which is nothing perpetuating nothing for the sake of itself. Having no reference point to what is “normal”, (Re: standardized) I’ve come to the realization that I need to act as if both sides are absolutely true or else. Now there is no need to honestly filter what I am. I.e.  Politics Isn’t About Right Or Wrong; It’s About Winning (To be used only for good.)  

“If you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake you are no longer authentic.” 
― Jean-Paul Sartre,  
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” 
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night 

        You might be thinking to yourself “Wait hold on. This sounds awfully close to some Orwellian 2+2=5 doublethink type stuff”, and you would be correct. There’s nothing wrong with that though. This is your head we’re talking about, not some oppressive totalitarian regime trying to gain power. There’s nothing wrong with that either. It’s your life so taking control of so it is probably high on your list of priorities to do that anyways. The world fucking sucks, so, some delusion does us good. 

Self-deprecation is a scarily good example of this phenomena.
—”I am stupid”
—I know I am not stupid I just made a simple mistake
— If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. – Some dude, I think it was hitler someone that propganda-ed around
—”I am stupid” 

Change that with nice and good and cool and nice things and your perception of yourself has changed. 

        Okay but what does this have to do with writing aesthetics and 2020? Something probably. Well, I already was spooked and incapable of going outside not much has changed in that regard. Without the… distractions for lack of a better word, there’s a lot of time to sit around and wade through the confusion. My neuroses (Although, I’m not particularly neurotic. I thought I would just throw that out there.) are fairly prominent in my regular life and I’ve learned to analyze them so it’s morbidly interesting to me how social isolation and information fatigue affect people and have brought out those neuroses that would have stayed hidden otherwise. Combine that with my experiences and there’s my explanation for why I love media that loves to unravel how people work. It should cut through me like a knife. There’s always a part of me that’s aching to be discovered. That’s why I think experiencing things so deeply helps me a lot in that regard. I end up having a lot more mental/emotional material to work with and writing it all out helps ease that pressure. 

        Notice how time feels like it’s not even real. Yeah, that’s me. Not in it’s my doing but rather that it’s something I experience on the daily. When I experience the “big sad” time moves like molasses. It’s a meditative molasses but a molasses nonetheless. I spend a lot of times watching walls and waiting for the day to pass by. In essence I am a human sundial, however, I do not get much sun because I stay inside and isolate so much. Everyday ends up, or seem to, be the same day repeated and repeated over and over. Then there’s the complete opposite where I move so fast it feels like the world can’t keep up. The wonderful dancing of free-flowing ideas (which uh oh I’m experiencing now), clang association, extreme sociality, and talkativeness is addictive. However, the world is slow, it cannot keep up with me, other people cannot keep up with me. It gets lonely to be like this. As the adage goes: “those who dance are thought to be mad by those who cannot hear the music.” If only there was someone who would dance with me 

There’s some magic here. Something about my anxieties towards domestic life? The effects of LSC on society? Who knows. Not me. It speaks to me.

        so, that’s something I like to play with a lot: the passage of time. The paradoxical nature of time has revealed itself even more than it usually would. Does it go faster? Does it go slower? Who’s to say? It’s like in Adam Sandler’s (NAME DROP BITCHESSS) Click where we see the time and have control over it, or rather what we do with it, to an extent while it relentlessly moves forward. A lot of what I write doesn’t make sense timeline wise. It’s all very manic. Time jumps around along with setting, things are impossibly over described in an impossibly short amount of time, does this section go in this part of the story, is it happening at the same time, etc. Does it matter in the first place? According to eternal recurrence no. 

Sorry talking heads is one of my favourite bands 

        I’m an incredibly claustrophobic person. If claustrophobia were a person it would be me. I don’t mean like afraid of tight spaces, or maybe I do. I do, but that tight space is me. Myself. The self. Like I wrote in that Kafka (I refuse to say it) story it sometimes feels like I’m looking through a window that is my eyes rather than just looking out my eyes. This disconnect makes me feel the same way I do towards other people. I suppose that’s why I look at other people a lot. To transcend existence is not exist at all. As Charlie Kaufman said in his movie Adaptation “You are what you love, not what loves you.” and my way of finding purpose and meaning is falling in love with everyone I see, taking myself out of the equation. Otherwise, I see no other outcome than becoming a stranger to yourself. 

         Compared to other parts of the world “the west” has a very solitary culture and that leads to a lot, like a lot a lot, of alienation between people. With covid that alienation has gone up and it ends up feeling like we’re fading away as opposed to feeling ourselves disintegrate. 

        I would leave it here but Kafka says it better than I ever could in his  story The Street window in regards to my last paragraph.

Best wishes to you all,

Cee

 

 

Ps. Do I sincerely believe everything I said? Maybe. Doesn’t matter, go be your own unreliable narrator.

I never realized how much I value the company of others, until about halfway through this year when I found myself sitting alone in my room, wishing more than anything that I could bask in the presence of another human being…

11:59pm New Years Eve, as my family and I watched the clock count down on the kitchen stove, I thought to myself; “this is my year”. 2020 was a new decade, a new chance to actually start my life the way I want. I remember running downstairs and, as per my own little tradition, writing down all the things I wanted to achieve in the new year:

1. Lose weight / actually use my gym membership
2. Get over my fear of letting people down
3. Learn to love myself / develop a selfcare routine and stick to it
4. Be more social / make friends
5. Move out

The list covered several pages, but these were the most important to me. Take a stabbing guess at how many were actually accomplished this year…

This was going to be the year that I finally begin my life the way I want. To give some background context, I have a really big issue with the desire to please and put the needs/wants of everyone I love above my own. I’d rather make myself completely miserable then let someone I love down. For example, when I was 3, my mom put me into piano lessons. Since then, I’ve been unable to quit, as the way she tells people how proud she is to have a daughter who is a musician, and the way she lights up and cries when I play for her, pretty much makes it impossible for me to tell her that I really don’t enjoy piano. It got so bad that I actually went as high as getting my Grade 10, and now currently teach piano lessons in a studio of my own. It’s not like I didn’t try to ask if it’s okay if I stop taking lessons over the years. But every time I brought up the conversation, it would be matched with anger and the words “waste of talent and potential”, not to mention how many people would be disappointed if I quit playing the piano. Perhaps that’s where my fear of disappointing people stems from…

This year I had decided enough was enough, and I was finally going to begin my dream of starting my own business, quitting school, overcoming my fear of letting people down, and finally begin living my life for me. A few things this year made these goals a little tricky…

I had finally saved enough money to afford three months rent and move out. This beautiful modern apartment down by the lake fell right into my price range, and I had even taken a tour and put down the first months rent. Then quarantine happened…

Businesses were shut down, new health regulations were put into place, and families had to choose to either isolate together, or isolate separately and not see one another for who knows how long. I, being young and having never lived on my own before, decided to wait and move out once this whole thing was over (or at least until everything calmed down and I could hire a moving company). I was thankfully able to get my rent cheque back, but put my dreams of living in this gorgeous two bedroom apartment by the lake on hold.

The world shut down, and life moved online. It was a new experience for everyone. Universities now required the discipline of the students to watch the recorded lectures, and stay up to date on assignments and deadlines from the comfort of their own homes. Schools, doctor’s offices, therapy sessions and music lessons all moved online and fell at the mercy of high speed internet and good wifi connection. Even shopping for groceries and necessities in person became a thing of the past, as renting someone else’s time and energy to do your shopping and deliver it to your doorstep became a must for many. Life changed so much, and people’s mental health and wellbeing were put to the test.

A lot of small business were hit hard by these new rules and regulations. As we made the switch at our music studio from in-person lessons to online, a lot of students didn’t feel comfortable making the transition, so decided to postpone their lessons until this whole pandemic had blown over. I went from having 103 clients to 46 in less than a week, as my bills and monthly budget remained the same. Soon, my little nest egg I had built over the years to move out had been given away to cover expenses I could no longer afford, and couldn’t even cancel due to Covid19.

Who would have thought that going from working with other people face-to-face every single day, to working alone and only seeing people through a screen, would be so destructive to one’s mental health. My job as a piano teacher involves building a relationship with my students. I become such a big part of their lives, and we develop a bond together as time goes on. The transition from in person one-on-one lessons to online has not been easy for a lot of my younger students, so in order to keep their focus and attention at home, I’m almost dancing like a clown in our online lessons. But as difficult as it is for students to readjust to these new ‘norms’ of 2020, its also been extremely difficult for teachers. At the end of my days full of online Zoom lessons, I now come home to watch my recorded Zoom lectures for my five University classes, work on my online assignments and papers, and then go to bed. Six days a week, every week, for the past five and a half months. Its sad that I’ve needed to buy an extra power chord for my laptop, as my life now only runs when my computer is charged. It’s sad that I’ve asked three times to increase my depression and anxiety medication without my doctor giving it a second thought. It’s sad that the only social interaction I get with someone other than my parents are the delivery guys from Dominoes who visit our house once a week. The transition from in-person to online has not been one I’ve enjoyed. Being happy and jubilant for other people multiple hours a day has begun to leave me feeling empty and shriveled by the time I get to go home.

Although this year has been trying, we all have a decision to make at the end of the day; how are we going to react to the changes we cannot control? Are you going to allow this time to fill you with grief and use this pandemic as an excuse to let yourself go, gain weight, binge watch everything on Netflix, go broke, not check in with family and friends, and constantly dwell on the depressing shit that the news comes out with everyday. OR, are you going to use this time to reflect on the things you are grateful for, develop an appreciation for the things you still have like your health, maybe use this time to start your own business, take some online courses, grow your knowledge, develop your own at-home workout routine, learn a new skill, read all those books you’ve been buying, or check in on your family and friends through zoom. Just because there is a pandemic going on does not mean we forget our goals and morals.

If it weren’t for this year, I never would have learned how much I appreciate the company of others, or how rich in friendship I am, or even that I really hate being alone, and that my happiness is derived from spending time with the ones I love. I used to think I was an introvert, and at the beginning of this year, the introverts of the world were really thriving. But time will always show us what we truly value and what makes us genuinely happy, and I think this year has been the wakeup call we all needed. Its not like there is only one person experiencing the massive rollercoaster of 2020. We are all in this together, riding the loops, holding hands, screaming at the top of our lungs, laughing at the craziness, and holding on tight as we ride towards the end. 2020 is almost over, and although I didn’t accomplish the goals I had originally wanted to, here are the new goals I unknowingly achieved this year:

1. I learned to enjoy my own company
2. I learned who my real friends are
3. I learned and mastered how to make a tiramisu
4. I realized money does actually make me pretty damn happy, but nothing beats family
5. I learned there is always a bright side to every situation, we only need to choose to see it.

In May we discussed forgiveness. It wasn’t about forgiving other people, though others – everyone – was given as a point of reference. Our talk was about forgiving ourselves.

“Unprecedented times” has been the tagline for the year. As an artist this phrase was used time and again by those around me to excuse my lack of productivity. Originally, I had intended to make this a year for “finding myself”. I had just left a half-baked degree at my hometown university and was spending my days working part time and trying desperately to immerse myself in my art. For a bit of context, I’ve always been pretty hard on myself, coming from a family of over achievers, and for the greater part of my life my mental health has reflected that. I just can’t help it. While this trait has afforded me plenty of great opportunities in life it certainly makes enjoying them just as difficult. In terms of headspace, quarantine was no different. When the lockdown began here in Kamloops I was determined that my artistic side should be thriving. I was living alone and my work had put me on an indeterminate leave. Utter solitude followed. It was an entirely freeing and terrifying feeling that permeated my daily life at that point. I spent the first weeks of lockdown at my computer drawing nothing and everything. I played music constantly to fill the silence. I ordered in food whenever I remembered to be hungry. Occasionally my mother or my sister would call or text and I would clear my hoarse voice to sound energetic and optimistic. I’m making so much progress with drawing. Of course, I’m eating. Yes, I’ve been on a walk recently. And they would play along with only minute hesitation. It was entirely unhealthy.

Ridiculously, I couldn’t understand why I was starting to hate everything I drew. In retrospect it seems so obvious – why in the world did I think that sort of lifestyle could be productive? But of course, when you’re in it, it seems to make so much sense. I could commit all my time to my passion, what could be wrong with that? But 2020 vision doesn’t help much in retrospect.

In April I stopped drawing. For all my intents and optimism, I had bludgeoned my passion for art into something almost unrecognizable. I excused this sick feeling in my gut with the busyness that came from a newly re-established work schedule that now had me compensating for a lack of manpower. I was just tired. Exhausted. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to draw, I just didn’t have the energy to commit to it. I tunnel-visioned, explaining my condition away with the looming state of the world. No one around me would question it. We all felt it. Still feel it. Unprecedented times.

For so long I refused to look at the situation as it was. I had been so determined to hold myself to a standard of productivity when all I was achieving was burning myself out, and I just couldn’t let it go. I had been so restless to do well when there was nothing for me to do. I can look back on things and see some humour in my efforts, even if that’s a little absurd, but I know at least I’ve adjusted to things a little more. Progress, right?

It was in May that we talked about forgiveness. My mother was finished playing along with my feigned optimism and insisted I talk to a professional. So I talked. I talked about nothing and everything, about what my life had been and what it wasn’t. I talked about loving art and hating it. On a bright, warm day in May we talked about unprecedented times and forgiving ourselves. Initially I had recoiled at the idea. I didn’t want an excuse for the way I was. But she returned to me with a question: If my best friend or my younger sibling or a coworker or a stranger even confided in me tomorrow that they just couldn’t enjoy things like they used to, that they were struggling to get things done, that the pandemic had gotten to them in way that affected them profoundly, would I blame them? Would I question their character, think of them as weak willed? I told her of course not, how could I, with the state the world was in. She smiled at me and told me I wasn’t to blame, I wasn’t weak willed, that she could never think as such when the world was in the state it was. She asked me if I was willing to forgive myself for doubting my own character. I was taken aback – it felt like such an obvious reversal – and suddenly things felt a little easier to grasp. She instructed me to rest and try again. Before, what had felt like giving up, now looked to tired eyes like starting new. I told her that I could do that. I would.

And I did. Unprecedented times – a phrase I had so despised now gave me a way to reassure my best friend, my younger sibling, a coworker. It’s been hard for everyone, in different, varying ways, but we share in the novelty of it. Changing, adapting, grieving, or celebrating, the ways in which we do so have transformed with us. My art and I healed together, over time. I don’t approach it like how I used to – I don’t force it, I let it come and go with freedom. Over time it comes more easily, pulled into reality more readily. Times are still hard, still unprecedented, but a sense of ease and forgiveness has permeated my life since. I’m still hard on myself, of course, I want to do well. I know this about myself and yet, with everything that has happened this year, I also know that I am never alone in it. If this sentiment can offer some ease on a particularly hard day than that is plenty to hope for.

Back in March when all of this craziness broke out in Kelowna, my parents were in Cuba. Yeah, you read that correctly. It was my mom’s spring break since she is a teacher back in my home town of Trail, BC. My dad had taken time off work to go, and my aunt and uncle were joining them. Christmas of 2019 before this all started my sister, parents, and myself had all gone to Cuba over the holidays and loved it so much that my parents wanted to go back without us for some adult time. I remember the night I drove from my apartment in Kelowna down to the Best Western to meet them as they had just arrived in Kelowna late that night for their flight early the next morning. Things hadn’t broken out just yet, but I had been to the nail salon earlier that week and it was only still in China. I watched the TV screens in there while getting my nails done and remember saying to my nail tech something along the lines of “Wow, that’s crazy,” like I never imagined it would make its way to Canada in the time that it did, or frankly ever. Anyways, as I was visiting my parents, my mother had made the comment “Could you imagine if we had to quarantine or something in Cuba? I mean it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.” The four adults and me chuckled at her comment and not a thought of this actually happening really crossed my mind. After a few hours and a dinner out I headed back to my apartment, wished my parents a safe flight and a lovely trip. To my knowledge, this was going to be the best trip ever for them, being the first time my parents have gone on a tropical trip without me and my sister. No one thought it would make its way around the world in the short amount of time that it did. Little did I know, all hell would break loose as soon as they arrived in Cuba.

A few days after, my sister called me sick. When my sister gets sick it’s not just a small deal. In previous years she has had mono, pneumonia, strep, you name it, and never usually complains either. When she first had mono my family and I were on vacation and we all thought she just had a cold, and so did the nurses there. When we arrived home, the nurses told her she had mono and walking pneumonia. My mother felt terrible for not knowing or feeling as much sympathy as she probably should have that trip for my sister. She did every activity we had planned for that trip and rarely complained about feeling unwell.

When my sister had called me telling me she was sick while my parents were off in Cuba, I coincidentally was getting my nails done again. I picked up the phone thinking it would be a normal phone call only to hear her gasping for air and balling her eyes out. She was really sick, and had gone to the doctor earlier that day to see if she had strep, mono, or possibly Covid, which hadn’t even reached Kelowna yet, but it was getting close. The doctor had said, “We can’t test you for Covid because we don’t have the supplies to do so yet.” My sister replied with “Well you don’t think it’s Covid, do you?” And of course, the doctor replied with “It could be.” As any nineteen year old or human in this first state of panic about Covid, with her sister in Kelowna, parents in Cuba, and stuck at home alone she blew into full panic mode. While she was telling me this on the phone I told her there’s no way she has Covid only to get the most panicked, disgusted looks from everyone in the nail salon. After me and my roommate were finished with our nails, I called my sister back in the car and told her I would come home to take care of her, but I was also finishing up school for the semester, and so was she. She convinced me to stay in Kelowna, but that day was hell.

I am not kidding when I say as soon as my parents got to Cuba was when everything broke loose. After texting my mom back and forth telling her how the news was going nuts with outbreaks first in Canada, then Vancouver, and then closer and closer to Kelowna. Me and my roommate saw pictures on every social media platform of toilet paper supplies being completely gone and then we really started to panic. We headed to Superstore prepared to buy many perishables in preparation to basically not leave the house. I sent my mother photos of the isles we encountered with no soup, toilet paper, or any sort of canned items left for us.

Photos by Chanel Orr

This was scary for me, and I soon became worried about my little sister back in Trail. I thought if there’s nothing left in Kelowna, what will a small town like Trail be like? My roommate and myself ended up grabbing packaged soups, something I would never have normally grabbed and whatever else we could get our hands on. This was so crazy to me and living alone I didn’t have any idea how to handle this.

Later that day my mother had called me from Cuba freaking out. She was afraid they actually would have to quarantine in Cuba, and the thought of airlines shutting down and not being able to get back home worried her even more. This is the day I truly started to panic. I sat in my apartment with my roommate, the only person keeping me sane at this point as we spent our days watching the numbers go up on the television and texting every person we knew to see how they were handling this insanity.

My parents ended up making it home from Cuba a week later in a panic. I did not see them after they arrived back in Kelowna as they headed straight home to quarantine for two weeks as they were told. I facetimed them every day which I never usually do. We were all going crazy, and I felt like I really wanted my parents to be around at this point.

A few weeks went by of keeping our bubbles small, doing grocery shops as little as possible, and picking up new hobbies to keep us entertained besides school work. I think the only good thing about April was that I did significantly better in school once it was transferred online because no one knew how to restructure their classes so many of my finals were open book. Me and my roommate tie-dyed many articles of clothing for fun, and made this new whipped coffee recipe almost every day. I have to say it was delicious, and about the only thing I looked forward to every morning during the insanity.

Photo by Chanel Orr

Now it is November 2020, almost December, we have been online since the beginning of the semester and let me just say, Covid sucks. I remember thinking when this all happened it would be a month, maybe two of this virus and now it has been several. I feel as though my mental health has been a rollercoaster this year, adjusting to school being online, being stuck in my apartment, and wanting so badly to get myself in shape at the gym but also worrying there could be an outbreak there. I feel like my mind is constantly saying “Screw Covid, I’m sick of it” because I miss my friends, social life, being active and more, and on the other hand I am frankly just scared of it. I get worried many times when I am out in public and get scared that a mask is the only thing that can protect me from the virus currently. I also feel like I am constantly judged in our world right now. You are judged if you do or don’t believe masks help, and you are judged if you are for or against getting the Covid vaccine that is supposed to be arriving soon. It is complete madness. This year has made many people adjust their lives. This virus, school being online, feeling very alone at times and much more has turned my life upside down. I have learned to adjust to these changes as we all have had to do. I can’t help but wonder what our world will look like in a few years from now. Some of the things Covid has taught me have made me think, why haven’t I thought to wash my hands after that before? For example, after pumping my gas. This is a big one, and actually something I will forever do from now on being that it is pretty gross. I’d probably pick up a sandwich and lick my fingers without even thinking before this pandemic. Long story short, we are going to get through this together. My advice to all my fellow peers reading this is to make time for yourself. Write in a personal journal daily to organize your thoughts, do some self care, eat some good food, maybe learn some new recipes, and most importantly do what makes you happy right now. For me, this is decorating early for Christmas as of November 10th because why not make the best holiday last  a little longer in this crazy year? I think we all deserve it.

 

 

“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse

 

I’ve often heard it said that creativity can have a positive impact on your mental health, but what about the other way around?

 

Having depression and social anxiety, I dove into research for this blog post and was surprised by the results. I should preface this by saying, it was just a quick google search to see what kind of results it would bring back. 90% of the results it did return talked about how creativity helps relieve anxiety and depression, and how to tap into your creativity to improve your mental health and wellbeing. But I was hard-pressed to find an article that addressed the issue of what to do when your creativity drops because of your mental health.

 

The more I thought about it the more I couldn’t understand why it was being addressed one way, but not the other. It was my husband who pointed out what I had failed to see. “Wouldn’t you just take care of your mental health first? Shouldn’t that lead into the other?” *Insert facepalm here* Seriously!? That should have been the obvious solution. The logical one. But my brain couldn’t get there on its own. Usually, I would berate myself and just completely break myself down for not realizing that there was an obvious answer to that question, but in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been learning to go easy on myself. Neither of us is having an easy time right now with the way the world is.

 

Last week, when Dr. Bonnie Henry adjusted the rules again with an expected end date of Dec 7^th, I was at the Staples Studio with a friend and completely broke down. The week before, my mental health had taken a nose dive and I had just barely crawled myself up again, and now with the added restrictions, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to survive the rest of the year. For the purpose of this blog and to put it into context, I’ve struggled with self-harm in the past from the time I was 12 until my early 20s. I was afraid that if, or when, my mental health took another dive during those two weeks, would I be able to resist going back to old ways of coping?

 

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.” – Brene Brown.

 

My mom and husband used to ask me why I would put so much ink on my skin. I’ll tell you what I told them. My tattoos serve two purposes. One, to cover up my scars, and two, I get tattoos so that I won’t self-harm. I know this blog might be a bit too vulnerable for some to read, but it’s taken me a long time to be able to talk about my struggles with mental health. And I believe that if we aren’t willing to talk about it then we’re not really moving towards stopping the stigma around it. We can keep educating people about the statistics and ask them to be understanding, but if we’re not willing to be at least a little vulnerable then can there really be change?

 

“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” – Glenn Close

 

After calling up my tattoo artist and making an appointment for December, I realized that in the last ten years I’ve learned other ways of dealing with my depression and anxiety. What I needed to do was go easy on myself. If the only thing I did that day was get out of bed, then that was okay. I also had to take time for myself each day and put myself first. That was a hard one because I’m such a people pleaser. I have this fear that if I say no to someone, they will hate me. Even at the risk of my mental health and wellbeing, I’ll put everything aside to help them.

 

Self-care is much more important now than it’s ever been. The things we were used to doing for self-care have been drastically reduced or canceled (traveling, getting our hair and nails done, visiting friends and family, attending a fitness class, having an in-person session with our counselor, etc.) and it’s affecting us drastically. We were made for community not isolation from each other. So, I came up with a list of all the things I’ve been doing for self-care over the last several months. I thought I would share five of the things that have helped me. You’ve probably already heard some of these before, and if not then I hope you find a couple that will help you.

 

1. Take a Social Media break

I know for a lot of people this will be the hardest thing to do because we already feel so isolated from each other, but it’s important to give yourself that break. Since March all of my social media accounts have been flooded with COVID-19 related articles, memes, and the ever-changing rules, as well as people arguing with each other, and just general hate towards each other. Add the past US Election on top of it and it was a lot. It was overwhelming. Especially because I tend to take on other people’s emotions (yay for being an empath).

 

2. Have a bath

Take 10 minutes and lock yourself away in your bathroom. Add a bubble bar from Lush or some essential oils, and a glass of wine (or your favourite non-alcoholic drink), and take the time to relax and clear your mind. Even taking just a few minutes a day to spend with yourself will make the world of a difference. I’ll even bring my kindle in the bath with me. Which brings me to my next point.

 

3. Read a book (not a textbook!)

I find reading very relaxing. It’s also one of the many ways I find can refuel my creativity with new story ideas or even just help clear my head after a busy day. Getting lost in a fictional world for however long can is great for relieving any anxiety one might be feeling about the day or an upcoming event. The one positive thing that’s come out of COVID for me is I was able to put a sizeable dent in my to be read pile. I’ve also added a lot to it because of other’s recommendations whether from friends, family, or BookTok.

 

4. Get more sleep

My trainer keeps trying to hammer this into me and I think it’s finally beginning to stick. Working graveyard shifts, my sleep was, and sometimes still is, all over the place. It was never something that was a priority for me because I always had something that needed to get done. I’ve noticed that whenever I deprive myself of sleep, my anxiety and depression get worse. According to the CDC, we should be getting between 7-9 hours of sleep a night. Lately, I’ve been making more of an effort to not look at my phone or be on my computer for at least 20-30 minutes before I want to go to bed and I’m finding that on those nights, I get better-quality sleep.

 

5. Go for a walk / Get fresh air

When I find my creativity waning or even just non-existent, taking a walk to get fresh air is a huge help! Sometimes that spark of creativity can be found in nature or just walking around your neighbourhood. Try going downtown, sitting on a bench, and people watch for a bit.

I would love to hear some of the things you’ve been doing to help get you through this year 🙂

(This is a nostalgic piece about what I miss most.)

COVID has hit differently for us all. We all filled our voids with the promiscuity of learning new skills, creating that masterpiece that we just never got around to doing, finally beating the saved file of Mario Sunshine from your GameCube that hasn’t seen the sun since 2002. Others took this time to start companies, become Tik tok famous, or boycott Ellen DeGeneres. I, however, took a basic approach to kick off my self-isolation by attempting to learn the piano. That lasted a good two weeks resulting in a sink of $90 I’ll never get back. My progress was quite minimal. I learnt the beginner’s version of ‘Ode to Joy’ and thought that was good enough. When all my extra activities failed, my lockdown activated a binge. My partner and I have slowly been making our way through our film watch lists. Her, being an animator and me, being a theatre/film snob found it the perfect opportunity to enjoy some quality time together while enjoying one of our favourite dates: movie watching! Before the first lockdown, our ideal date would’ve been cozying up at the cinema watching the latest releases while shoveling the delicacy of movie theatre popcorn in our mouths. I admit I started drooling thinking of the velvet butter sailing through the sea of popped kernels.

 

2x Adult Tickets to ________

1x Medium Popcorn

2x Extra Butter Layered (Of course!)

1x Medium Root beer (for me)

1x Medium Blue Raspberry Slush (for my beautiful date)

 

In Grade 11, my best friend and I had a chemistry project. Now, the interpretations of it were open to our imagination as long as we discussed the chemistry behind it. So naturally, I persuaded her to make our project around the VFX and makeup used in film. There I learned the best tidbit: in the 1946 classic Christmas-drama, It’s a Wonderful Life starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, due to them filming during periods outside of winter they used fake snow. This was a ground-breaking discovery for VFX, they invented their own type of artificial snow. You’d naturally think, “okay, whatever.” But, in scenes where they had a shortage, they turned to corn-flakes. Yes, the cereal. It was a legitimate production job for someone on set to paint these corn-flakes white. And it wasn’t just this movie, many before it used the exact same technique. You may ask, “Kayla, why are you telling us this?” and that is a valid question- there’s a point, I promise! Flash forward to about a month later, I’m sitting across from a beautiful girl at a run-down Chinese buffet in Vernon, BC. This girl just happens to be my future partner and this just so happens to be our second date. We’re getting to know one another, as you do in the early stages. We get our Hogwarts houses out of the way and continue our conversation into discussing movies. I cockily drop the fact of the century and proudly state the only fact that I had bothered to have any research supporting. And let me tell you, I don’t hold back. I go into insane detail about the movie and its use of cornflakes and artificial snow. I like to attribute this as the selling point that really took our relationship off the ground. Maybe school wasn’t so useless after all?

To give further context, from my childhood, one of the fondest memories I have is going to the movies. I loved nothing more than the intense rush of the latest action film that I would then immediately re-enact with my toys the second we got home. My favourite part, however, was during the drive home. Here we’d discuss and analyze the film. This helped me fall more in love with movies. My parent’s worked a lot so, going to the cinema was one of the few things I could really enjoy with them. It became our thing. We soon began to extend that into holidays. “Oh, it’s Christmas? Let’s head on over to the movies!”, “New Year’s Day? I wonder what’s playing?”, “Why don’t we spend your birthday at the drive-in this year?”.

In Vernon, we, have a Towne Theatre (separate from the Cineplex). Where every year come Oscar’s season they’d play all the nominated films. This has always been one of the few things I look forward to every year. It becomes a game. Can you watch them all before showtime? Can you guess who’ll win Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Director, and so on? Similar to our holiday theatre trips, this became a tradition that I hold dearly.

As you can probably tell, movies have always been a big part of my life. They led me to my partner, they helped me bond with my family. I’ve made friend’s easily over movie talk. As a young girl, I dreamed of the chance to see myself on screen. That people would spend money for 1-2 hours of their time experiencing a story from my perspective. But the flame that sparks that desire seems to be slowly diminishing as time progresses. I miss seeing movies. I miss the excitement it brought to my life. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to save money by not repeatedly going out. But a part of my life feels empty. Similar to most, my mental health worsened as the lockdown progressed. One of the few joy bringers has been watching movies with the person I love most.

Going back to our binge, we watched a lot of movies. I would now like to share my take away from them. But, in the interest of time, I’ll only point out a few worth-mentioning titles. These movies have been viewed on multiple streaming services. Ranging from Prime to Netflix, to Disney+.

So, without further ado, I present:

 

Kayla’s Quarantine Binge!

Funny Girl (1968) – Uncomfortably good for how much I do not want to be like Rachel Berry.

Kramer vs Kramer (1979) – Goddess, Meryl Streep killing the divorce drama scene! I’ve made it a personal mission to watch the entirety of her filmography. Currently, I’m sitting pretty at 11% through.

The Goonies (1985) – Can you do the Truffle Shuffle?

Back to the Future (1985) – Pretty weirded out by Marty getting hit on by his mom.

Dirty Dancing (1987) – Let It be known, tackling the final lift is not as easy as it seems.

Heathers (1988) – I was to play Heather Duke in the UBCO’s musical MIS/FITS. I watched this under the pretense of character study but ended up falling in love with the film in its entirety.

Hairspray (1988) – Not the musical, but nevertheless a worthwhile watch.

Back to the Future Part II (1989) – What kind of name is Biff?

Silence of the Lambs (1991) – I can never look at Anthony Hopkins the same.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – I honestly thought more people would’ve been shanked.

Hercules (1997) – The Muses were the best part, hands down!

Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) – Disco Beyoncé. Need I say any more?

Saving Face (2004) – The early 2000’s lesbian romcom that we always knew we needed, but never knew where to find until now.

Kronk’s New Groove (2005) – Picture this: you’ve rented a suite at the romantic Sparkling Hills Resort to celebrate your 3-year anniversary. You suddenly become too bloated and slowly slip into food-coma after eating so much room service. You switch on the TV and are greeted to none other than Kronk. Obviously, you place your dreamy plans on hold and keep watching!

Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) – I wonder when Helena Bonham Carter got typed-casted as our beloved grimy matted-haired woman? Am I right, or am I right?

Twilight Saga (2008- 2012) – She finally did it folks, my girlfriend trapped me into a one-night binge of these films.

Fast Five (2011) – Was anyone else as impressed as I was during the robbery of the safe? Realistically, physics would’ve not been on their side. Also, can we just appreciate Gal Gadot?!

The Handmaiden (2016) – Absolutely stunning.

First they killed my father (2017) – In 2018 I travelled to Cambodia, it just made sense that I sit down and watch this.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018) – This has become a comfort movie for me. Everything is so on point. I’m currently reading the trilogy that this was based off- I highly recommend the books!

Midsommar (2019) – The boyfriend is like Christopher Robin inside of Winnie the Pooh.

Book Smart (2019) – A fun coming of age movie.

Parasite (2019) – I’ve seen this movie twice and every time it gets better and better!

Where’d you go Bernadette (2019) – Cate Blanchett accompanied by penguins. That’s all a woman really needs.

The Lighthouse (2019) –  I honestly have no idea what to write about this film and that’s one of the great beauties of it.

Queen and Slim (2019) – Soundtrack slaps.

Hamilton (2020) – Like most musical theatre nerds, I became far too invested in this musical. I’m not even ashamed to admit this was my sole reasoning (besides baby Yoda) for subscribing to Disney+.

Over the Moon (2020) – Did y’all know Ken Jeong could sing? Phillipa Soo, *Chef’s kiss*!

Candance Against the Universe (2020) – Come on, I HAD to put this movie on this list.

Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics (2020) – Archived footage of Carrie Fisher speaking on her past trips… Sign me up!

Since Covid-19 started the main issue I found myself struggling with on a daily basis was the idea of keeping motivated during a time where my motivation was nonexistent. At the beginning of lock-down, the world around me felt dull. Days mixed with others days creating one big clusterfuck of a year, making it hard to even distinguish one month from another. For all I knew summer had never happened, and it had just been a continuous cycle of the winter season from February until now. I was indoors wondering what the hell to do with my time. The future was so unclear and it was hard to even think of the years before the pandemic. All these goals and plans I had thought of before the new year all began to fade away as soon as 2020 began, before they could even be explored.

Things I took for granted are now so apparent. It’s odd to watch videos from the past years and see groups of people together at concerts or award shows. I definitely miss the small things, like walking around our Okanagan campus with my friends, heading to Tim Horton’s before our classes started, and chatting about our upcoming assignments or our recent horrendous customers we had encountered at work. Life changed so rapidly it was almost hard to keep up, as one day I was with my best friend planning a trip to Las Vegas for my 21^st birthday, and the next thing I knew everything was locked down and she had to rush back home to Australia before all airports closed.

It’s hard to do anything productive or fun these days without feeling like everything is pointless, but after months of staring at my ceiling wondering where my future was headed, I slowly began to get restless and looked for an escape of reality.

Painting

If I was a person who did drugs, I’d be super high all day every day, but I’m not, so I turned to other things like art to keep me company.

I sucked at art in high school, I’m not particularly good at drawing and I feel like I can never get any proper proportions right when drawing people. I had ideas in my mind of what I’d want the piece to look like but could never replicate that same exact image onto paper, thus discouraging me from even trying to create any form of art. Though after watching many YouTube videos on people doing painting at home, and now being a grown adult stuck indoors for days on end, I decided to give it a try again.

Painting to me feels more forgiving than drawing, and if I don’t like something I can either wash it away with water or paint over it. Though it is time consuming and you need to wait between each layer for the piece to dry, it gives me something to look forward to throughout the day.

 

My paintings are definitely mediocre at best, but I do enjoy making them and am happy to display them in my room. It helps me express myself and I like creating abstract pieces as well as pieces inspired by other artists. I never knew that I’d be able to find my own style when it came to painting, but it developed pretty soon after I started. It will be interesting to track my progress and see how much my art style changes as time changes too.

I hope you as a reader are also inspired to start something you’ve been really wanting to try this quarantine, whether it is painting, sewing or learning an instrument! I encourage you to set some time away to do something new, something that makes you feel accomplished and genuinely happy!

Music

With the creations of art and a desperate need for inspiration came discoveries of new music genres. I began listening to hour long lo-fi playlists on YouTube as they helped calm my mind while simultaneously creating an atmosphere that helped my creative juices flow. Usually these videos contain different compilations of lo-fi music, which are mixed with chillwave and hypnagogic pop music. Depending on my mood I usually switch between mostly two kinds of aesthetic lo-fi styles.

The first style is a more soft and dreamier aesthetic melody, which reminds me of a stary night sky, where you the listener are bundled in a blanket drinking a hot cup of lemon tea and pondering about life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qku9aoUlTXA

 

Cotton Candy Bunnies

My eyes twinkle at dawn,

The pounding in my skull ceases.

Soil itself lays in a flower bed beyond,

 

As thoughts fall to puzzle pieces,

The clouds that reflect animals in a pond.

A starlight beams footprint increases,

 

Ideas dribble down till all facet water is gone,

Oozing from my mind like a glue adhesive.

The citron taste begins to tickle my bitter mouth,

And the traffic comes to a halt.

 

The other style is more instrumental and jazz-like, with beats that give me café vibes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbuZfY2S2UQ

Its almost nostalgic to me in a way, and reminds me of the time when I went to South Korea with my cousin for a month-long vacation before the world was shutdown. We went to a popular coffeehouse chain called “A Twosome Place”, just because the name had seemed rather funny to us at the time, and we sat in that dimly lit cafe eating cheesecake and drinking overpriced lattes. We laughing about everything and nothing, and at the time the thought of a pandemic plaguing the world seemed like an unlikely event. Now I miss her more than anything, but am patiently looking forward to those days when I can see her again, once the pandemic comes to an end.

Video Games

Video games are a hobby which I had before, but the hours I spent playing them definitely increased quickly once the pandemic started. More particularly, I became addicted to a now very popular game called Animal Crossing New Horizons. This game, which is played on the Nintendo switch, seemed to consume the gaming community right away, and was one of Nintendo’s top selling games in March, right when lock-down started. I have currently logged in more than 600 hours in the game which is about 25 days of straight game-play. I’m not proud of my obsession, but at the same time I am not not proud either.

Basically, here is a short summary of the game for those who don’t know what Animal Crossing is. You create a character and inhabit an island with a bunch of animals on it. The island follows whichever time zone you are in, so when its 1pm in the afternoon in real life, it is 1pm in the game too. These animals can become your friends if you talk to them daily, and they will give you gifts or items to craft. You can also decorate and transformer your island into whatever you’d like as well as collect fossils and paintings, and catch seasonal fish and bugs. You can also visit your friend’s islands and send them menacing letters in the mail, which is pretty hilarious! The game play itself is very wholesome, and as someone who has played the earlier versions of the game when it came out on the Nintendo GameCube in the year 2000, the whole series is very nostalgic to me and brings back warm and fuzzy feelings.

The images above show pictures of my island, Mochi! In 2020 I would count creating an island a form of artistic expression now as every tiny detail is planned out and every island is unique to their players aesthetics! When you start the game all that you are surrounded by are trees, rocks and a whole lot of land. This game gave me a platform to be creative in, and was a nice escape from the reality of what was going on in the real world. It will continue to be my beckon of light in stressful times.

Keeping My Head High

People around me continue to loose their jobs and businesses all across the country are being shut down. People are protesting, screaming at others for wearing a mask, calling them ‘sheep’ for following government mandated rules. Others fear for their lives as they live with compromised immune systems, praying for people to listen and put others before themselves. People are calling everything ‘fake’ or a ‘hox’, and pointing fingers at anyone who disagrees with them.

Its exhausting and tiring keeping up with all the bad news, not to mention stressful and not good for anyone’s mental health. The world honestly feels like its been flipped upside-down and as the year comes to a close, all we can really hope for is a vaccine for Covid-19 in the new year.

To make sure things get resolved quickly, please just follow the rules of our government and be kind to yourself and others, especially essential service workers who are constantly being heckled by others for just doing their jobs. Take up some old or new hobbies, discover some rad music and know that nothing is ever permanent. Motivation is hard to find at a time like this, but taking things one step at a time is the key. I wish you all a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.

Sitting down to write out this blog post turned out to be more difficult than I thought it would be at the beginning of the semester. I never used to have trouble sitting down for an hour or so and putting words on a page, especially when it could be about anything I wanted. When it comes to words, I’ve always felt like I’m an unending well, they come forth without too much effort and I mold them into the shape I need them to take for whatever project I’m currently working on.

Words don’t feel that way anymore.

Between March and now, things have changed so much. The state of the world has affected a lot of things, from the way we tackle classes this year to the way we have to live our normal, day-to-day lives. One thing I didn’t expect it to have an affect on was my creativity.

Writing stories has always been my reprieve from the things that cause stress in my life. Something about sitting down to create a whole new world and losing myself in that world and the characters within it is magical. I’ve felt that way about words since I was little. Words are magical. And being someone who can sit down and manipulate them is its own form of magic. Wielding that magic was stress relief. It was happiness.

I’ve always been a homebody. I’m usually perfectly happy to stay home all day. I find endless entertainment in books and movies and television and video games. But I never realized how much the routine of being forced out of the house affected me. Having to leave to go to work or class every day, having to leave to see friends if I wanted social interaction. Those things have all drastically changed this year. And with those drastic changes, I’m learning a lot about my creative well. In particular, I’m learning that it’s not endless, but that it can definitely be refilled.

Having activities that brought me joy outside of writing was more important than I ever realized. Those things made writing special and also brought me inspiration. I often find inspiration through the media that I consume in my own time, but by talking those ideas out with friends or having more time outside the home to take my mind off my creative projects made my time with those creative projects more valuable.

Having all the time in the world to work on creative projects doesn’t necessarily make the time spent on those projects valuable for the person. At least, that’s what I’ve found for myself. I want to write, but the drive isn’t there. The well of ideas feels like it has run dry. Even though I’ve had ideas for projects, none of them seem like they are the right thing to be working on. I’m not passionate about any of them.

Usually, this time of year is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, which basically means that for the month of November a bunch of writers join a massive online community and try to write a fifty thousand word manuscript in thirty days. I have taken part every single year since 2013, to varying degrees of success. I’ve written through some of my best ideas this way, albeit horribly. Editing is always mandatory after a month of NaNo. But as November was approaching this year, something didn’t feel right about it. It wasn’t school and the work involved, I’ve been in school for most of the NaNo’s that I’ve taken part in. I know that I can balance the two workloads if I try hard enough. But this year, I looked at November and the excitement that I usually feel to work on a new project just wasn’t there. I had an idea for a new manuscript, I worked on outlining it and getting it ready, but the same magic that I usually feel just wasn’t there.

The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe taking part would have been the right idea. Part of what makes NaNo so magical is the community of writers that come together and encourage each other to work on their projects and reach the daily word count goal. What I’ve been missing so much in a world with a global pandemic is the people. I didn’t think I would as an introvert, but time with the people you’re close with is so important. The community aspect of NaNo is one of the best parts of it in general, and in a world where being social is difficult, I think taking part in a global event would have scratched that itch, at least a little bit.

But it’s hard to commit to that kind of event when your passion for the activity seems to be waning.  And it’s hard to tell if the lack of passion is natural or if its just because of the way that the world is right now.

So I guess the question becomes what do I need to do to reignite that passion and find the magic in words again? Or, is that what I want? Passions wax and wane like phases of the moon, that’s always been true. Writing has just always been a constant, which is why I think this is just a phase I need to get through. So, assuming that’s the case, what do I need to do?

I think the thing that everyone needs to acknowledge this year, whether you identify yourself as a creative person or not, is that we need to be kind to ourselves. We need to take breaks, we need to accept that this pandemic has had an impact on our mental health and our productivity. And for those of us to do identify as creative people, we need to know that it’s okay to not be creative for a while. It’s okay for us to take breaks from our creative endeavors, just as much as it’s okay for anyone else to take a break from their modes of productivity. We need to be kind to ourselves.

I say this to try and remind myself of the truth of that statement. My creative well is empty. I need to give it time to refill. Allowing myself to take a break isn’t a bad thing. The well will refill, ideas and passion will come back. Letting myself consume media without trying to find inspiration for new ideas will refill the well. Taking time with friends, once its allowed again, will refill the well. Not forcing myself to be creative right now will refill the well.

2020 is the year of letting the well refill and being kind to ourselves and, hopefully, to each other. It’s the year of letting your passions wane and understanding that, given time, they will return. I know that posts that say essentially exactly this have been circulating on Facebook for months, but sometimes a random post that isn’t directed to anyone in particular isn’t enough. Sometimes it takes someone looking you in the eye and telling you something you’ve already heard over and over again or seen over and over again for it to actually sink in. So, if you read this, and you are someone who is generally speaking a creative person and you, like me, feel as if your creative well has run dry, this post is for you. This is me looking you in the eyes and telling you that your well isn’t dry, it just needs time to refill. Be kind to yourself.