Self Employment or Self Harm?

My decision to stop hustling, and the effect on my mental health.

Very old photo from my days of cabinetmaking in Montreal. Even then I made rings. Photo by Robert Glenn.

I closed the door behind me and didn’t look back, walked the dimly lit hallway without taking a moment to reflect, and climbed the narrow stairwell. My hip strained as I awkwardly hoisted my loaded bike over each step. Turning the corner, I narrowly avoided knocking over a tacky fake plant, as I had done a dozen or so times prior, and made my way towards daylight. My eyes never strayed from the light, ignoring the graffitied walls and stained carpets as I made my ascent. Finally in the parking lot, I fastened my helmet and donned my gloves without feeling the slightest trace of emotion. Geared up, I rode off from my once and former jewellery studio at Vancouver’s City Centre Artists Lodge for the last time.

True to their name, my mood stabilizers worked as advertised, keeping me level during a month of planning, packing, and moving. Dispassionately sorting through my fixtures, tools, and supplies, I sold off what I could, kept what was sensible, and gave away the rest. Chemically subdued by my new meds, I ignored the sunk cost fallacy of my many years as a maker, the worry that I’d never again find satisfying work or a creative outlet, and the loss of the seemingly limitless flexibility that came with self employment. Delusions, all of them. Though I felt numb throughout it, closing down my studio was not without its challenges and stresses. My immune system couldn’t quite keep up with said stresses, and I finished the final days of packing and moving while strong antibiotics took their toll on my body. Still, it all got done, and by the end if I felt anything, it was relief.

After twenty-some years of self-employment, fifteen of which focused on craft, I was burnt out, broken, and broke a few times along the way. Some years were great, others, while not devoid of good, were certainly not good. It would be easy to lay blame for the leaner years on any number of factors: The pandemic, Etsy’s mockery of all things hand made, or artists’ increasing reliance on likes and follows over ample time for unbridled creativity. Though if I’m being honest, earning a living through a once hobby stopped being fun long before any external factor made it unsustainable. After spending too much time commodifying my creativity I was too tired to keep turning a hobby into a hustle, and too disillusioned with the hustle’s ever increasing digital demands.

Once celebrated, the world is finally waking up to the fact that “hustle culture” takes a toll on physical and mental health (and is generally awful.) I certainly didn’t understand the toll my own work took on my health until I stopped. With the unrelenting stress of running a business gone, I felt relieved of a great burden, but also hopelessly lost. No longer spending my waking hours searching for the next sale, polishing my website, posting on socials and invariably getting sucked into scrolling, crunching ceaseless numbers, or even the odd bit of actually making something, I was bored. I found myself with a seemingly endless supply of free time and no automatic ways to fill it. Isolated in my rented room, my mind searched frantically for the next hit of the same dopamine a new order, email, or social media notification would once release. None came, and I turned instead to rumination, convincing myself I was a failure for calling it quits on my one-time passion. My days devolved, my mood spiralled. I like to think of this as my entrepreneurial detox.

With time the symptoms passed, and a phone call with a dear friend helped change my perspective on failure. I have, after all, spent decades avoiding a real job while managing to stave off bankruptcy, travel extensively, and generally live a life of untethered adventure. Thank you, friend, I appreciate you. Eventually I learned to let go, let my online store and domain renewals lapse, let my socials go dormant, and as a result felt less drawn to my devices and more inclined to go outside. With fewer notifications incoming my brain eventually learned to seek stimulation elsewhere, and my cravings to do things like check my email or socials subsided. With my resources less taxed and my brain no longer searching for the next “hustle fix,” I could once again devote time to exercise, cooking, volunteering, riding my bike, reading, seeing friends, all those little things people call “leisure activities” that are in fact an integral part to making life feel worthwhile. How easy it is to forget what’s worthwhile when you’re caught in the endless grind that is self employment.

Two months after shuttering my studio I feel better than I have in recent memory, yet this feeling is not without trepidation. As even this Substack will attest, this isn’t the first time I’ve felt good only to subsequently find myself in another spiral/depressive episode. Furthermore I don’t know if the boost in mood can be attributed to my current meds, my relief from the hustle of self employment, or another phase of bipolar hypomania. I suspect it may be a combination of the three. Regardless, finally able to take some time for some much needed recovery and self reflection I plan to do exactly that. What’s next will reveal itself in due time I’m sure. This has been a brief account of one of my many Adventures in Antidepressants. If you’re enjoying these stories and would like to read more, please share this or any other post, like and comment to help game the algorithm, and please subscribe (it’s free unless you feel like kicking a few bucks my way.) Every interaction makes me feel seen, validated, and encouraged, and hopefully helps break the stigma surrounding mental illness. Thank you for all your support and encouragement so far.