Introduction to Diary of a Downer

      Mental illness: the bracket title for many various afflictions and illnesses of the mind, each one so diversified and uniquely tailored to the individual sufferer and their backstory, that it's comparable to a personalised book and its blurb.

      While sufferers are grouped into sub-categories of mental illness, no person has had the exact same experiences as another before their diagnosis. I believe, that because of this, our ability to help ourselves is greater than any other: nobody knows you better than you, right? Belief in oneself and one's convictions is greater than belief in others- or so we'd like to think.

      Unfortunately, while we know this is the case, it's incredibly hard to see how you can help yourself when you feel so... well, helpless. It's difficult to imagine pulling yourself from the doom and gloom of life when there seems to be no ladder out of the ditch into which you've fallen. You're expired. You're almost constantly sore on a world that seems to be beating you down and doing you no favours- or does it? Are we just so downtrodden and soulfully dilapidated, that even when we're given chances, we fail to see them as such, leaving us to continue on our skulk through life as we bear our creeping, weighty shadows- melancholia personified in torture-inducing hypotheticals, uncomfortable reflections, and horror-filled fantasies. No doubt these are thoughts that have crossed your mind. In fact, I imagine everybody goes through moments of dark thought, but when that darkness doesn't shift; when no excitement grips you, no more passions enthral you, no final goals move you, no more- just, no more. The words that you tell yourself daily in lieu of "let's do this". Rather than making positive movements, you're in a battle to halt negative behaviours, seemingly unaware that one cannot happen without the other so you say, "no more" to your hindrances while doing no more to move on. You stagnate, and the longer you do so, the more sour you turn and more oblivious you become (or undeservedly you feel) to all the opportunities that present themselves.

      This blog is my attempt to help myself in hopes of helping others, too. I've always found my drive to help others is greater than my drive to help myself, so shifting my motive is, in part, selfish. I suppose you can call this project something of a "selflessly selfish" movement (or would it be "selfishly selfless"...? Hm. Anyway, you get my meaning). I hope to assist in ridding the world of a stigma that is unreasonable and unnecessary, because in a world of increasing mental bruises, broken emotions and fractured thoughts, people need to know that it's okay to be dealing with these illnesses and it's okay to talk. Not talking merely adds to the problem.

My name is Lance, and this is my introduction to Diary of a Downer.