Why I Write About My Mental Illness

And why I need your help to continue doing so.

Writing from my super hot hostel. Can you believe I only have one tab open?? (That’s a lie, they’re hiding in another window.)

These posts are hard to write. Never knowing exactly how to start, I often reserve the first paragraph for the most shocking, unexpected, or outright ridiculous part of the story. Once I’ve grabbed your attention and suckered you in, I’ll proceed to spill my guts and tell you things I’ve hid for years, or am only starting to process myself. Things I don’t spend much time saying out loud. Things that make the room go awkwardly quiet mighty quick. There’s a certain amount of catharsis that comes with each post, there’s also a certain amount of fear; fear that I’m revealing too much about my mental illness, fear that what I share will make it to an unintended audience (my mother, for instance), fear that what I write is just not that interesting.

These posts are also very time consuming, and are often written over a span of weeks, months, sometimes years. I liken it to Lego. I record every worthwhile thought whenever possible, no matter where I find myself, on any device within reach. Parts of this post, for example, were written while riding the Tube in London, while sitting on a bench outside of Montreal’s Mont-Royal métro station, while lying in bed in Vancouver, and at roughly 40,000 feet in the air on a commercial flight within Europe. (Addendum: I’m hitting publish while in Eastern Europe.) These thoughts become my Lego blocks, and are assembled and disassembled in an endless effort to extract and edit until something coherent and cohesive comes together.

I write this way, in part, by necessity; easily distracted at any given moment, I find my best ideas come in fits and spurts, and flow more naturally when I let my ADHD brain do its thing. For example there was an hour-long break in between this sentence and the preceding one because I got distracted by an open tab on my browser (how starlings see other starlings - check it out, it’s super cool). I mostly write this way, though, because like everyone else I spend entirely too much of my life working to make money and sustain my existence. Working full time (or more than full time as self-employed folks with second jobs often do) drastically limits and fragments my opportunities to write and keep the train of thought on the proverbial tracks. The end result is hours, usually days worth of reading, writing, rereading, rewriting, refining, and ruminating over each sentence until I’m somewhat satisfied with the finished product.

With these posts I try to walk the line between telling an entertaining story and getting the message across that this is normal, and everyone is affected by mental illness to one extent or another. Sharing my own struggles helps me process them, and I’ve used writing in this manner for decades, though not always publicly. As I continue to write, this Substack becomes a gauge for my mental health, a peek into my headspace at any given moment in time when I have the courage and energy to hit publish. Hopefully, this publication also serves as a resource, a way to understand the workings of a mind living with chronic mental illness, in whatever capacity that can help the reader. Lately, though, it’s started to feel different.

Substack, for starters, has grown significantly in the year and a half since I joined. Bigger voices with bigger audiences have joined the platform en masse, and with the growth has come a noticeable shift from the written word to multimedia content, as well as a Twitter-like Notes feature I’ll admit I don’t fully understand. With each communication from Substack itself, writers are increasingly encouraged (subtly warned) to create more content and more diverse content; podcasts, videos, Notes, and so forth. I don’t say this to criticize, merely to state fact.

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Years ago I watched something tragic happen on Medium, another platform I used for a time. Medium’s shift wasn’t towards multimedia but rather towards trending topics. As a result, attention-grabbing articles with short shelf lives were often promoted (and significantly monetized) while more obscure topics, regardless of the articles’ quality, were lost in the crowd. Hell, for a time, Medium was flooded with articles about how to make money on Medium, and many “writing gurus'' built their following, and their finances, on the backs of other writers. It’s true what they say: The people who make money during a gold rush are the ones selling the shovels. I must shamefully admit I joined the gold rush myself, molding my own articles in a desperate attempt to make my writing more financially sustainable. It felt like writing clickbait (which I also did, professionally, for longer than I’d care to remember.) I eventually left the platform and removed any content I had posted, laboriously crafted writings I had become ashamed of.

Bottom line; I don’t want my writing to be just another hustle. As previously explored, hustling is bad for my health. That said, I want the countless hours I spend on these posts to at least bring some financial remuneration, enough so that I can justify writing more. There is so much more to write. There are so many more topics to explore, so much more stigma to break through. There are so many more ridiculous travel misadventures to share (after all, I spent years literally running away from my depression.) But it takes too much time, time I’m stuck devoting to soulless capitalism like the rest of the working class.

I’m not delusional, there’s no money in writing. I was fortunate enough to hang out with a number of award-winning writers recently, all of whom work regular jobs to make ends meet, much like I’ve always done. The few writers who do earn a living from their craft often do so thanks to endless self-promotion and an extensive social media presence, the very thought of which makes me sick to my stomach (or maybe that’s the soggy wrap I just ate at the airport?) Based on the feedback I’ve received thus far, sharing my stories, my experience with mental illness, has helped others better understand and process these difficult topics. Or at the very least I’ve entertained a few of you with stories of my questionable life choices. Now that I’m on extended vacation after an all but total breakdown, I’m noticing how much more time I can devote to writing, how easily the words flow, and how many people reach out to tell me they’re enjoying it. (Please keep telling me, it’s very good for my ego.)

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I’m left to wonder: How can I monetize my writing for the sake of being able to write more? I always feel super awkward when it comes to friends and money, (and know this; if you’re regularly reading my writing with sincere interest, we are friends and allies.) This publication is free to subscribe to, and I’d like to always keep it that way, but perhaps it’s time to follow Substack’s not so subtle cues and find a way to expand my offerings. And so I ask you, the person reading this right now, what do you want from this publication? For those with the means, what can I provide that would be worth the financial support that would allow me to make more? Would audio versions of my posts for paid subscribers make sense? I’m open to ideas. For those without the means, or the desire, I’ll continue to ask for your support in the form of likes and shares so I can expand my audience, and hopefully reach more people who can benefit or at least be entertained by my experiences. After all, while I write for me, I hit publish for you.

In the meantime stay tuned for more of my many Adventures in Antidepressants, and perhaps a lengthy sidebar on why you should never visit Bucharest. As usual, thank you, each and every one of you, for all your support and encouragement thus far.