Writing about depression.
Jul. 1st, 2019 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkThere are a lot of romance stories in which magical cock fixes everything. (Or magical vagina, but I do tend to lean towards reading M/M content, so...)
I understand the impulse to make a Happily Ever After, but I really don't like it.
Some things in particular.
Having a lover, even a wonderful one who is perfectly suited for you and makes you feel like you're over the moon whenever you're together and can listen to your problems and always knows just the right thing to say and gives you the best sex that perfectly matches your needs... Even having a lover like that, is not a cure for depression.
It's just not.
I know this, because I've suffered from depression since 2005, and that's also the year when I got my collar and JJ and I made things official between us. (Took a few years to get around to the wedding, he wasn't super into weddings, and though I did want to be married, the actual to-do was a pain in the ass.) The description of the perfect lover up there is exactly how I feel about him.
But yeah. Still depressed.
It's why, when I write about depression, I try to write in the way that one can feel better in the moment, amazing and incredible even, and yet it still doesn't fix it permanently.
Just was re-reading All Creatures Great and Small (I read my own fics a lot) which is about Crowley turning into a cat because animal minds can't fret about existential quandries, and he has one that's bringing all his insecurities and bad feelings to the surface, and it's making him depressed. Aziraphale manages to make things much better for him, but the ending doesn't "fix" him, and I'm very pleased with how it came out, really.
Other people seem to be too. It's funny, because that has far fewer views than my other Good Omens fic (800 vs. 3400) and yet a *much* higher kudos to views ratio. More of the people who read it liked it. I suspect because it speaks to something a lot of people feel, to how inescapable depression is, and yet also to how warm and wonderful it is to have somebody who can support you through it.
I understand the impulse to make a Happily Ever After, but I really don't like it.
Some things in particular.
Having a lover, even a wonderful one who is perfectly suited for you and makes you feel like you're over the moon whenever you're together and can listen to your problems and always knows just the right thing to say and gives you the best sex that perfectly matches your needs... Even having a lover like that, is not a cure for depression.
It's just not.
I know this, because I've suffered from depression since 2005, and that's also the year when I got my collar and JJ and I made things official between us. (Took a few years to get around to the wedding, he wasn't super into weddings, and though I did want to be married, the actual to-do was a pain in the ass.) The description of the perfect lover up there is exactly how I feel about him.
But yeah. Still depressed.
It's why, when I write about depression, I try to write in the way that one can feel better in the moment, amazing and incredible even, and yet it still doesn't fix it permanently.
Just was re-reading All Creatures Great and Small (I read my own fics a lot) which is about Crowley turning into a cat because animal minds can't fret about existential quandries, and he has one that's bringing all his insecurities and bad feelings to the surface, and it's making him depressed. Aziraphale manages to make things much better for him, but the ending doesn't "fix" him, and I'm very pleased with how it came out, really.
Other people seem to be too. It's funny, because that has far fewer views than my other Good Omens fic (800 vs. 3400) and yet a *much* higher kudos to views ratio. More of the people who read it liked it. I suspect because it speaks to something a lot of people feel, to how inescapable depression is, and yet also to how warm and wonderful it is to have somebody who can support you through it.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-02 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-03 07:23 am (UTC)Depression is… very… aaaaaaaaaaaaa.
I pretty much agree about the depiction of depression in fiction being more permanently and easily curable than it is. It's a wonky trope. :-|
no subject
Date: 2019-07-04 03:07 am (UTC)