Itās been too long...
Hello, sweet Tumblr, long time, no see!
Please forgive my four and a half month absence; I have been experiencing real life drama worthy of Tales from the Special Branch itself, including an extended ridiculously stupid work brouhaha that has been an enormous headache, as well as dealing with some health things: the cancer recurrence watch is still on a wait-and-see, we-donāt-know-wtf-is-going-on, it-could-be-bad-or-it-could-be-nothing-who-the-fuck-knows protocol, but, due to extreme stress over that and work, this spring Iāve also had the worst Ehlers-Danlos flare that Iāve had in years, which has caused a rather difficult amount of sometimes excruciating chronic pain on a near-daily basis for months so far. Fuck my stupid achy bendy dislocating joints. :| Anyway, long story short, despite some good aspects, overall itās been a rough few months for both Noe and myself, and I went from not having time to write to not having the emotional space to write when my schedule eased up.Ā
Honestly, it took me months to also realize that the exhaustion and lack of interest I had in anything that wasnāt work or playing Bubble Witch 3 on my phone was not a normal life response but rather the depression that runs in my family raising its head again. Fun times! It always surprises me how insidiously depression creeps up, and how hard it can be for me to recognize it when it does. Iāve lived with depression so often through my life that my baseline feels pretty high and a lot of times if Iām not weepingly sad, I donāt always understand what my brain chemistry is doing right away. This was one of those times when I thought I was coping until I wasnāt. Looking back, I can see how and why my depression hit me, but in the middle of it all, I just thought I was so damn tired from too much work and being in pain. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No.
Trust me when I say that if you need medication to deal with depression and anxiety, please talk to your doctor about what might work for you. I finally scraped together the gumption to ask, and it is amazing what a difference meds can make. For the first time in months, I feel maybe not great but okay, which is all right for now, I think. Iām starting to write again, and Noe and I have been rereading Special Branch and smoothing out the upcoming plot. So you should be seeing a chapter of Set Me Free in the next week, week and a half, if all goes well. (My wife has been an incredible support in encouraging me in how to begin to pull some of the SMF threads together whenever Iāve been overwhelmed with the practical process of writing because my brain is still a little wobbly. She is a gem among women, let me tell you.)
Finally, thank you so much to those of you whoāve left me messages recently, asking how Iāve been doing. Please know how much I appreciate your concern. I never intended to worry anyone; unfortunately that sometimes is an unexpected side effect of depression. :( My mental and physical health may not be back to 100%, but depression-wise Iām better than I have been recently, and even if my body is still hurting and I donāt really know whatās happening with my health, Iām finally wanting to write, and hey, all in all, thatās pretty okay, yeah?
So tl;dr, yes, Iām still writing, if slowly, and those of you still following Tales from the Special Branch should all keep an eye out for a new SMF chapter very soon!
