My New Dark Ambient Album Trying is Out Now

I've been struggling with my health, both mental and physical, for years. I decided to create a dark ambient album around this theme and I released it the other day under my Reality Scruncher music project. You can find Trying on Bandcamp and you can check it out by clicking on the embed below.

Dark Fiction: The Dust Mote Collector

By Casey Douglass

There was a man who came to the realisation that his time was worth less than anyone else’s. No matter what he tried to cultivate or create in his life, to give others, or to take pleasure in, the returns on his temporal investment were either zero or negative.

The society around him was full of overly simplistic platitudes that only served to wind up the springs of his dissatisfaction engine. Fluffy ideas, such as the one about how working hard pays off, or the one about how finding your passion leads to a worthy life. It was nothing less than motivational porn with no happy ending.

The man reasoned that, as his life and his time seemed to be worth so little, he might as well spend it doing the most meaningless activity that he could think of. One without hope or pressure, one that grabbed his attention, one that had no end point, something that he could do until the day that he died.

The man walked to his cutlery drawer, rummaged amongst the smallest spoons and lifted out the one that seemed to feel the most balanced as it straddled his palm. He moved to a room in which the afternoon sun shone brightly. His hand pulled the curtains almost closed with the quiet rattling of plastic runners. A two inch gap was left in the middle of the join, for the sunlight to breach the shadows of the room.

The man stood just to the side of the sun-beam, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the light conditions. A small darting movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention. He turned to look more closely but lost it. Another flitted by. He lost that one too. And so his life as a Dust Mote Collector began.

The early days were filled with him trying to track the motes. They acted like the tiny fish you might see on a wildlife documentary, shooting away as his small spoon approached them. The man got better though. He learned to move slowly, to hold his breath, to anticipate, and to stay perfectly still when it was needed.

The first mote that he collected glowed as it fell. Once it reached the shiny metal of the spoon, it appeared to vanish into thin air. The man knew that he’d caught it, even though the spoon felt no heavier. He caught the next one soon after. It danced and floated near him for some time before he successfully brought the spoon beneath it, giving it a secure, safe home.

As the weeks and months went on, the man sometimes found that he slipped into a pleasing reverie as he captured his targets. Sometimes the motes seemed like twinkling stars in the night sky, his hand becoming some kind of roaming black hole. At other times, he fancied he was some giant spiritual being, catching and ferrying the souls of the dead to the afterlife.

The spoon dazzled him when it caught the sunlight, his hand often trembled, and his body ached all over. His mind was largely free of thoughts, but the peace or tranquillity described as often coming with this state by spiritual or New Age literature, proved to be just more propaganda that didn’t apply to him. He wasn’t particularly surprised. Not thinking was reward enough.

He’s in his darkened room right now, standing in the shadows, his small spoon flashing in the light as he captures another intangible with its metal. His clothes rustle gently as he lifts the spoon closer to his eyes, searching for something in its shining bowl. Maybe one day, he’ll see it.

Book Review: Feeling Great

Review Written by Casey Douglass

I was first exposed to cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) when I was getting treatment for a horrific bout of OCD in my teens. During a recent period of depression, I heard about Dr David Burns’ original book: Feeling Good. It was old enough that I worried it might be quite dated, but I bought the workbook based upon it after seeing it recommended in some relatively recent Youtube videos. It was mostly the CBT I’d read and practised, but Dr Burns’ variety of CBT does have a few elements that seem to set it apart from the others. Feeling Great is Dr Burns’ newest book, an update to Feeling Good that injects all he has learned in the many years since his first book was released. I purchased it at release, and here are my thoughts about it.

Feeling Great doesn’t take long to get into the meat of what Dr Burns teaches. It boils down to three things that underpin cognitive therapy: 1. Your thoughts drive how you feel. 2. Your upsetting negative thoughts are nearly always distorted. 3. If you change the way you think, you change the way you feel. Dr Burns then provides his TEAM-CBT framework to help you achieve this change.

A key element in TEAM-CBT is the patient filling out a Daily Mood Journal. This is a form where they record certain details of their feelings and emotions, their thoughts about a particular event, how much they believe them, and a little later, this where they analyse the cognitive distortions present in each thought. Cognitive distortions are ways that we twist our thinking; they make our thoughts appear to be something they really aren't. An example is Magnification, where we blow up the importance or seriousness of something that really doesn’t warrant it. Another is All or Nothing thinking, such as “If I’m not a winner, I’m a loser!”. There is no room for grey areas with that kind of outlook. There are ten common cognitive distortions, and some thoughts may have traces of all of them!

I’ve come across the concept of cognitive distortions before, in countless CBT and OCD related books. I find it very helpful to think about these distortions, and the more of them that I find in a certain thought, the easier it is to feel more certain that it’s a twisted thought. One thing that I don’t remember encountering before though, is positive re-framing. A very important element of Dr Burns’ treatment method is that he asks the patient: “What does having this thought or feeling show that’s really awesome about you?” As an example, most people want to get rid of their anxiety. It feels awful. If you stop and think about it though, feeling anxious about something, maybe an upcoming exam, actually says something about you. For a start, it shows that you care about doing well. This anxiety may have motivated you in the past to achieve things, and it also shows that you have high standards. It’s strange, but sitting and finding the good qualities in something that feels wholly negative, you find yourself in the position of not wanting to get rid of the anxiety in total, but maybe just reducing it so that you don't miss out on the good stuff it provides. In one of Dr Burn’s podcasts, he says something along the lines of “The therapist actually ends up saying to the patient: “If you get all these good things from your anxiety, why would you want to give it up?”. Paradoxically, this seems to lower any resistance to change, and makes the methods Dr Burns teaches even more effective.

Dr Burns gives the reader 50 tools to help them crush their negative thoughts, some of which work better on thoughts with certain distortions than others. The charm of having so many techniques is that it doesn't take long to work your way through some likely ones until you find the one that seems to do the trick. What’s more, Dr Burns often mentions on his podcast something he calls “fractal psychotherapy”. He believes that dealing with one specific moment, and the thoughts related to it, helps us to deal with the repeating cognitive patterns and issues that underlie most of our problems. This often means that “putting the lie” to one negative thought on your Daily Mood Journal often means you can swiftly work your way down the others, once you’ve found that one of the methods begins to shift your thinking. I’ve experienced this myself on countless occasions. Sure, you get some thoughts that might need extra work or multiple sessions, but for the most part, when one domino falls, the others fall quite easily.

I already feel that this review is getting a little too long, so I will briefly touch on other topics Dr Burns writes about in Feeling Great. He describes the 5 Secrets of Effective Communication, and how they can help relationship issues. He spends one section of the book talking about the philosophical idea of the self, if we really have one and the role it plays in feeling worthy or unworthy. He describes relapse prevention techniques for when you trip and stumble, as will inevitably happen with life's ups and downs. Dr Burns often says that “We are entitled to an average of five happy days a week and two lousy days.” I quite like this as it flies against the usual bullshit often seen in the media, that if you aren't happy all of the time, there's something wrong with you. The book also ends with a chapter written by Dr Mark Noble, who looks at the neuroscience behind why TEAM-CBT seems to be so effective.

Feeling Great is a lovely update to Dr Burns’ earlier body of work. It puts all of the newer advice that he so often shares in his podcast, and the things he has learned over the years, into a handy reference book that is written with humour and plenty of examples of real people’s struggles. A few of the tables/charts didn’t display very well on the Kindle edition that I bought, but that’s such a common issue across countless Kindle books I own, I don’t really mind. Using Dr Burns’ techniques helped me to get out of a severe depression a few months before this book released, and while most of the stuff in Feeling Great was already known to me, by way of his Feeling Good Workbook and his podcast, I am still very pleased with having it expanded upon and freshened up in this new book.

Visit Dr Burns at his website for more information and to find your way to his podcast.

Book Title: FeelingGreat - The Revolutionary New Treatment for Depression and Anxiety

Book Author: Dr David Burns MD

Publisher: PESI Publishing & Media

Released: 15 Sept 2020

ISBN: 9781683732884

Current Price: £17.79 (hardcover) / £10.34 (Kindle) (As of Amazon UK on 1^st Oct 2020)

TECH NEWS: A.I Depression Detection Moves Forward

Photo used freely from the excellent Gratisography website

As anyone will know, we humans have pesky emotions, those things that add both flavour and heartache to life. We might not always be fully aware of what we are feeling though, and it is in this that artificial intelligence might soon come to our aid.

A professor and student at the University of Alberta's Computer Science Department, Eleni Stroulia and Mashrura Tasnim respectively, have recently released their findings with regards to A.I's depression detecting abilities, and the potential this might have for future applications.

They used data from previous research and, using various machine-learning algorithms, they developed a new way to detect depression in the timbre of a subject's voice. This method might lead to new ways in which our tech can monitor our well-being:

"A realistic scenario is to have people use an app that will collect voice samples as they speak naturally. The app, running on the user’s phone, will recognize and track indicators of mood, such as depression, over time. Much like you have a step counter on your phone, you could have a depression indicator based on your voice as you use the phone." - Eleni Stroulia

As someone who suffers with depression, this kind of news is quite exciting. I don't always catch myself slipping into a bigger 'dip' in mood, and sometimes the realisation only comes once I'm entrenched in cycles of downward thinking. If I had an app on my phone that could pop-up a notification and say "Hey, you are dipping a little!" I might have a chance to get ahead of things and do those self-care things that sometimes help take my thinking down a more cheerful path.

The more I think about it, the more I'm curious as to how A.I might perform in detecting other emotions in our voices. How cool would it be to have a friendly app saying "You're very lonely right now, don't let this affect your standards with your Tinder swipes!" I know that is only a few steps away from HAL and his "I'm afraid I can't do that" attitude, but hey, it's interesting to ponder.

Source: University of Alberta

Adventures in Case Time 2: Ticking Feels Good

In my latest vblog, I talk about the way a checklist can help with feelings of achievement, particularly when you're depressed and struggling with motivation. Adventures in Case Time 2: Ticking Feels Good:

Adventures in Case Time - Episode 1

I've created the first video in what could be a regular video blog thing. I learned a lot doing it, and had a bit of fun (as you`ll see), but I'm hoping my second video will be a bit more concise in what I want to say. I may even get to the mental health / health stuff at some point. If you watch it, thanks :)

Opus Magnum – Adventures in Alchemy, Bondage and Depression

Opus Magnum – Adventures in Alchemy, Bondage and Depression

By Casey Douglass

When I slip into depression, I find certain video games quite useful. Some provide the kind of gentle absorption that gives me a slight break from myself, others offer me the capacity to be aimless in a fun way for little while. Zachtronics’ alchemy puzzle game Opus Magnum falls into the first category, a game that I thought I might find frustrating, but that has actually become the “mind food” game that I nibble at every morning. This post will look at some of the ways that I feel Opus Magnum helps me with my mental state, so if you are looking for a review, you'll have to find one elsewhere I’m afraid.

Anyone familiar with Zachtronics’ games will know that some of them are incredibly difficult. Even the “easier” ones can become quite complicated before you know it. If that wasn’t enough, they usually include a community-based “How Well You Did” screen after each puzzle, showing how the efficiency or speed of your design compares with others who’ve completed the same puzzle. It’s quite likely, if there was one, that your solution would place you in the “Holy Shit! What did you do?” category. At least after your first attempt anyway.

This might all sound like a bit of a nightmare for someone in the throes of depression. Not only do you get the stress of trying to solve the puzzle, you most likely will also have some urges towards perfectionism, and the prospect of some competition from a faceless community that will only increase your feelings of inadequacy doesn’t sound like much fun does it!

Unless, that is, you approach things in a more measured way, a way that might also help your thinking with regards to non-digital pursuits in other areas of your life.

Just Solve The Blinkin’ Puzzle!

I said something like this to myself at one point, when I’d caught myself dilly dallying about where to put a few of the components in my latest alchemical machine. It does cut to the root of the thing though. At base, I needed to solve the puzzle. The “how” didn’t matter, the beauty of the device was immaterial, the efficiency... well, who cares if it takes ten times longer than the design of someone else? Opus Magnum doesn’t put restrictions on how many gizmos you use or how long the machine takes to perform its function, so your first attempt can be a massive, slow monstrosity, and still produce the outcome you need. Also, and this is quite important, you can’t refine a solution to a problem unless you have something to refine.

How many other things does this approach apply to? A good many. A prime example is a writer who doesn’t write that first draft because they want it to be perfect from the beginning. If you don’t give yourself permission to experiment and fail, you aren’t going to get very far, particularly with any work that involves creativity. It really is pointless to worry about refinements to something when the “thing” hasn’t even been created. It’s a little like worrying about your car’s first year service... before you’ve even decided which car to buy, let alone bought the thing.

Break It Down

Opus Magnum has the player creating various products by way of alchemical agents, such as the elements (air, water, etc.), salt and lead. By manipulating these with various arms, converters and bond-creators (Aha! This is the bondage I mentioned in the title, sorry if your naughty thoughts led you to expect something more... leathery!) and breakers, you need to get the correct layout and bonds into place before the output section will count it as being made. Some of the patterns are quite intricate, so looking carefully at what is required can often make things less daunting.

I found a good way to approach this was to first drag the mechanisms that I knew I would need into place. Need to create salt from an element? You need one of those converter pad things. Need to create bonds in a kind of “Y on it’s side” pattern? There’s a gizmo for that too. Just having the tools out in the work area helped me to drill down into what was required. Then I experimented.

I would often try to make a certain part of the design, and if things went wrong, I’d do what I could to get around them. That pivoting grabber can’t quite reach the thing I need it to after those other things are bonded... Hmm, I'll make it an extendable one, or I'll put it on a track that will allow it to move. I guess I created additional problems trying to solve the original one. I then solved those and eventually solved the larger design issue. After feeling pleased with myself for solving the thing, I then had these “self-created” problems in mind when it came to refining my design later.

This design needed a triple-twisted bond pattern on the orange elements. Yep, it was a pain in the backside.

Being able to methodically work through something, solving the little hiccups that emerge along the way, is something that seems quite alien when your brain is in depressed mode. Some things in non-gaming life have no solution, others might, but they might require things that you just don’t have, can’t do, or have any hope of achieving. Being able to experience a tiny version of the satisfaction that problem solving can bring feels nice. It might be a bit of a tease with regards to “Why can’t I solve all of my problems in this way?” sentiments, but I'll take it for now.

My brain is tired, my thoughts are self-critical, and I feel a bit muddled about what I wanted to say with this post and how long it’s taking me to say it. I’m going to go away and rest/reflect for awhile. I'll come back to this another day.

Small Bites

It does no good to smash your brain against a problem for too long without a break. I’ve been dipping into Opus Magnum for maybe 20 mins at a time, often just once a day. It’s enough time to progress a design and feel nearer to the solution. Even if all I manage to achieve in one session is another couple of atoms bonded to a design in the correct place, it’s enough to keep my mind interested and to generate a small feeling of competence. Competence is something that I don’t often feel, so again, a “lite” version of the feeling to show that I still have brain circuits that can bring the feeling about, is very welcome.

I recently reviewed abook about Kaizen, a system that utilises the doing of tiny actions to get big results. The “only adding one extra atom” to my alchemical machine goal allowed me to take the pressure off myself and, over the days that followed, would eventually see the design complete. The comparison with writing is again, easy to make. People suffering with writer’s block are often told to just write a little, maybe one sentence per day. They are free to write more, but they are also free to go and do something else after that one sentence has been written. Over time, even if only one sentence is completed each day, eventually they will have written a short story or article, or given even more time, a book. As someone who easily suffers from overwhelm, I like this approach very much indeed. The notion of behavioural activation is at play here, that doing the thing might not initially be fun, but finding satisfaction from doing it, over time, helps you to feel like doing it a bit more, and maybe even finding some mastery in the thing that you are doing.

One of the machines I created. It's not that efficient but it gets the job done.

Lead into Gold

I guess that’s what I like about Opus Magnum. The thought processes that I have to go through to overcome the puzzles are ones in which I can see the parallels with other areas of life. When you are feeling depressed, fatigued and ready to give up on life, even the smallest things seem impossible. The manner of breaking things down into even smaller steps, and taking little bits of action on these, is probably one of the most useful ways to edge yourself towards things that you value. Having the freedom to do this is what Opus Magnum grants the player, and is one of the reasons that I’ve seen it described as being one of the most accessible Zachtronics titles. If there was a strict “Achieve this in ten cycles” style failure state, I think I might have bounced off Opus Magnum after an hour or two. As it stands, I keep going back to it to get a small taste of those mental states that seem so scarce in my non-gaming life. Maybe one day I'll feel satisfaction over something more than solving a puzzle in a game. Until then, I’ve got elements to bond.

Post Script: I originally thought that this piece would be finished and up on my site before now, but my mood and health imploded again. The irony of a piece about depression being held up by depression isn’t lost on me. Maybe I should write something about sex or wealth, so that said article could be held up by something more pleasurable. The whole time I was tinkering with this post, my mind has been yelling at me as to “What’s the point?” and “It’s not worth it!” Even today, the day I’ve published it, I admit that I still feel that way. I decided to post it, and I did, so that is what I am getting from this, the knowledge that I followed through with it and got it posted up. I guess that’s a win but it doesn’t feel like anything right now, which is a numbness that is one of my closest companions most of the time. Anyway, thanks for reading, and if you've found any particular games good for mood, please let me know below in the comments or find me on social media :).

Book Review – Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions

Book Review – Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions

Review by Casey Douglass

Money muddies many things. When you have desperate people with health issues, it’s amazing how many people will crawl out of the woodwork with expensive “solutions”. The subject of depression is a tough one, and one that our Big Pharma fuelled society continues to grapple with. Johann Hari’s Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions takes a fascinating look at why things might be this way, and how we are missing the mark when it comes to helping people to recover.

Blurb: What really causes depression and anxiety – and how can we really solve them? Award-winning journalist Johann Hari suffered from depression since he was a child and started taking anti-depressants when he was a teenager. He was told that his problems were caused by a chemical imbalance in his brain. As an adult, trained in the social sciences, he began to investigate whether this was true – and he learned that almost everything we have been told about depression and anxiety is wrong.

Early in the book, Johann hits on something that I came to realise myself during my own battles with depression. Anti-depressants don’t seem to work if other factors in your life don’t change. I tried three or four anti-depressants during college and my early years of chronic illness, and they all failed to do their job. Johann looks at the evidence as to the effects of anti-depressants, along with the old “there’s a chemical imbalance in your brain” spiel, and comes away feeling wary, having been a “true-believer” before hand. If nothing else, the way that the big pharmaceutical companies seem to be allowed to cherry pick which studies they publish is a true scandal, and something I’ve seen come up in other books and articles over the years. In many ways, the side-effects are more real than the benefits, except for a seemingly small number of people.

Johann goes on to look at the Nine Causes of Depression and Anxiety. These include how a lack of meaningful work can bring people down, how our disconnection from the natural world is problematic, and how people lacking a hopeful or secure future will likely find themselves in the trenches of depression. The latter part of the book moves on to ways to reconnect with life, by way of working with other people, finding meaningful work and values to live by, and generally overcoming an “addiction to the self” by way of finding sympathetic joy. (If you have tried loving kindness meditation, you’ll chime with this last one).

Something that I really appreciated in Johann’s book is the way that he visited various people and places to delve more into what was going on. I sometimes find this kind of thing tedious, but Johann did it in a way that beautifully illustrated the topic at hand. The one that stands out the most is his visit to a housing project in Berlin. A disabled woman posted a note in her window that told the world she was being evicted due to lack of money to pay the rent, and that she was going to kill herself. She didn’t want help, only that the reason behind her death be known. She lived in a fractured neighbourhood, one in which people kept to themselves and which had a bad reputation. Her window note became the catalyst for people to begin to talk to each other and ultimately, to challenge the ridiculous renting rules and regulations, and far more besides.

While little I read about depression in Lost Connections was totally new to me, there was plenty of information and background stuff to keep me hooked. It was a pleasure to read someone presenting their own struggle with “how to get better” and the various phases they went through with their relationship to anti-depressants, the self-doubt and grasping of the story they had been telling themselves up to that point. If only one message gets out of this book, I hope it is the one that not only medication should be viewed as an anti-depressant, and until we view this subject with a broader vision, we will continue to chase our tails, and continue to mindlessly fill the coffers of the drug companies.

Book Title: Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions

Author: Johann Hari

Publisher: Bloomsbury

ISBN: 9781408878682

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Dark Fiction - Prick Version 2.0

Prick Version 2.0

Written by Casey Douglass

(Bad language / adult content below)

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Not bad thanks.’

‘Okay, how are you really feeling? You’re grinning like a Cheshire cat!’

‘They’ve pumped me full of happy pills or something Rod! It’s amazing!’

‘Thought so. Shit!’

‘Don’t be a hater Roddy boy!’

‘I’m not being a hater Phil, it’s just that I need you to be more with it if this is going to happen.’

‘Oooh the packing case over there... is that your new toy?’

‘It is.’

‘And I’m the lucky guinea pig?’

‘You are, if you want to be.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘You don’t?’

‘I thought you said you couldn’t get it to work safely with rats? If it made poor old Roland’s brain leak out of his ears, why will it work for me?’

‘We’ve improved it since then, the guys and girls at the lab are a talented bunch. I’ll admit it still wouldn’t be allowed to be used anywhere though, for many years, if ever.’

‘Maybe you had it set to liquidise rather than blend last time. Sounds just groovy.’

‘Think it over properly, you know what I said it can do.’

‘Rewrite my mental firmware with something a bit less... depressed?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What if it goes wrong?’

‘Then you’ll probably be a vegetable. This is why I need you to be more with it Phil, you need to understand what you are saying yes to. You’re my friend and if this goes wrong, the only way I`ll be able to live with myself is to know that you really wanted me to do it. Otherwise, I just can’t. And here you are doped up on goofballs or whatever the doctors have got you on!’

‘Hey, I know what’s what thanks.’

‘You know why you are here, what happened?’

‘Indeed I do. I got into difficulty while out for a swim.’

‘Christ. Most people don’t swim at night, in the river, with bricks in their coat pockets. Stop giggling for fuck sake!’

‘Maybe I’ve founded a new Olympic sport!’

‘This is the third time. I don’t want you to keep trying to do this, which is why I’m risking my job just to see if I can help you. We seem to have tried everything else and you are still hell bent on ending yourself. You’re worrying about being a vegetable or whatever else might go wrong... if you walk out of here in a few days and try to top yourself again, you’ll have lost far more than your mind!’

‘Even if your gadget works, what will you try to switch around?’

‘I’ll try doing one small change, just to see how we get on.’

‘And that change?’

‘I was thinking about... you know how you said a few weeks ago, about how you don’t seem to enjoy anything any more?’

‘Yep!’

‘Please stop grinning like that, you don’t win a prize for remembering!’

‘Sorry, go on...’

‘Well I’m going to try to make you enjoy the fact that you don’t enjoy things, just in the short term.’

‘Hmmm. Not very enticing is it.’

‘Might be life saving though. Who knows. I’m out on a limb here, this is no man’s land.’

‘It makes me think about something I read on the Internet awhile ago.’

‘Stop right there.’

‘Someone, for a joke, said, imagine if your sexual fetish, the thing that turned you on the most, was the sight of your own flaccid penis. You’d never be happy! You’d start to get turned on, then would lose interest! It’s like a pervy Zen koan. What’s the sound of one hand fap-’

‘It’s not really like that!’

‘Ping!’

‘I understand your point but it’s not. If it works we’ll fine-tune it anyway, if it doesn’t, well, we’ll both be in the shit.’

‘Will I lose consciousness?’

‘Maybe for a few minutes.’

‘You won’t, you know... interfere with me while I’m out will you?’

‘If I wanted to see a middle-aged man’s penis I’d pay closer attention to my own the next time I go to the gents!’

‘Pity you don’t do that anyway, the mess you leave around my toilet when you miss is just criminal!’

‘Fucking wake up Phil! This needs to happen now if it’s going to. One chance, what’s it to be? I’m here to help you, I care about you, but even allowing for the drugs you’re on, you are pissing me the fuck off!’

‘Do it.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Positive?’

‘Yes.’

‘What day is it?’

‘Wednesday.’

‘What year?’

‘2017.’

‘Which political party is in power?’

‘That bunch of useless wankers.’

‘That could apply at any time but I’ll take it. Seems like you know what’s what... Let’s get started then.’

‘I do hope it works, and I do appreciate what you’re doing, the risks you’re taking.’

‘I know you do Phil, there’s no need to say it.’

‘There’s one thing I do want to say though, before you crack open that case and put that gizmo on my head.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The doctor will be doing her rounds soon. If she walks in while you’re doing it and I’m out, she’s allowed to interfere with me, okay? She’s a lovely lady. Irish I think.’

‘Duly noted. You’re such a prick.’

‘That’s Prick Version 2.0 to you!’

‘God help me.’

THE END

Thanks for reading. I really wanted to write a dialogue only piece of fiction as apparently, I have a knack for writing interesting dialogue, according to a handful of comments at least. I've been in a darker mood than usual so it felt good to channel something into this piece. It was also quite nice to have a bit of a swear fest. 

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Game Review - Indygo

Depression is a fucker. No two ways about it. Indygo is a new PC game that takes the topic on in a visually striking and interesting way. You can read my full review on Geek Syndicate at this link.

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One Tiny Action

One Tiny Action

Written by Casey Douglass

Yesterday was fairly decent. Well, the couple of rest-punctuated hours in the morning in which I finished a review and wrote another post for my blog. I won’t talk about the rest of the day as it went downhill from there in a whirl of overeating, despondency and sleep. As far as sleep, I slept like a bag of shit last night (do bags of shit sleep?). I feel like I’m pushing through thick water today, barely breathing, barely awake.

Then silly me, what did I do? I browsed Freelancer.com (a place where employers list jobs for freelancers) and saw job after job after job that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Actually, I would now I think about it, I hold grudges effortlessly. Once you rule-out the jobs that pay a dizzying few dollars for an hour’s work, the people advertising themselves rather than being an employer, and all the bollocky naughty jobs like being paid to write positive reviews (something I strongly feel should be punishable in a horrible way), there often isn’t a great deal left. A wave of tiredness crept up on me and I found myself looking for ways that I could find my own clients and pitch to them directly, avoiding sites like Freelancer altogether. If I found someone I wanted to pitch to. And decided on how I would put myself across. And if I finally come up with a tagline for my website that really tells what I do. And if I sort out my portfolio page to show only the pieces of work that I decide, rather than be exhaustive like it is now.

After all of that, I found a few suggestions for Facebook groups for writers. Many of them seemed self serving to the creator, “Join the group, buy my course” kind of thing, but one of the ones that wasn’t in that vein seemed promising. I clicked Join Group. That was my tiny action for the day. I won’t mention the group as it did kind of look only marginally better than the others, but if it turns out to be good, I’m always happy to spread the love by bigging up things I find useful. I’ve got to wait to be approved though, so time will tell. In a groggy haze I floated back to my bed and listened to what I’ve termed my “depression album”.

Bring Me The Horizon’s That’s The Spirit seems to be the one album (that isn’t dark ambient) that really hooks into my feelings of suffocation and worthlessness. They aren’t a metal band that I thought I would like but via Throne, I gradually grew into the other tracks too. I read awhile ago about how the lead singer Oli Sykes struggled with depression, so maybe that helped form some kind of connection too. So many of the tracks echo what I feel, I just get drawn to it (in a nice way) when I get low. I’ve linked Avalanche below, the lyrics “It's like an avalanche/ I feel myself go under/ 'Cause the weight of it's like hands around my neck/ I never stood a chance/ My heart is frozen over/ And I feel like I am treading on thin ice” really hit me in the feels.

That’s the thing with any kind of illness, sometimes the smallest of actions are the only thing you feel capable of doing. I know that after my music therapy I then went on to write this post, which is certainly a bigger thing than the tiny action that started this sequence of events, but at least it proves there can be wiggle room when everything seems stacked against you. 

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When you Feel Weak but it Turns Out You're Strong

When you Feel Weak but it Turns Out You're Strong

Written by Casey Douglass

The following post won’t teach you how to throat sing in easy listicle fashion (I hate listicles). Nor will it be some tasty piece of fiction with monsters and gore and an ending that stays with you for the rest of the day. All this post will do is tell you more about me, and only you can decide if that tickles your curiosity or not. The reason behind it is that I’ve been absolutely slaughtering myself about where I am in my life, and in a rare moment of what seems to be good sense, I’ve remembered the value in looking back at things and rooting out the positives besides the negatives. This post is what came of that moment of clarity. I decided to post it too, as any thing I tend to do like this just gets thrown to the wayside once I’ve finished, and promptly forgotten. Posting it might help it stick. Who knows.

When I was at Junior school, I felt held back a little. I was the kid who actually asked for homework when we still weren't at the stage of our education that warranted it. I was the only child who turned up at science or computer club. I was a geek, and that’s fine by me. I wanted to get on in life and I enjoyed learning. I even had a couple of girlfriends during my time in Junior school (not at the same time, I was and always will be a gentleman in that regard), but for a geeky fella back then, I did alright.

I was around ten or eleven years old when my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder emerged, derailing the person I was and sending me into a hell that seems to forever be snapping at my heels. OCD is an anxiety disorder in which the sufferer becomes obsessed with some urge or fear, e.g. a fear of germs is one common example, and feels the compulsion to do something to alleviate that anxiety, e.g. washing their hands. The insidious thing is that by giving in, the OCD wants more from you next time. Washing your hands once, to keep with our example, won’t cut it the next time the fear arises, so you might do it twice. This is the birth of an obsessive compulsive loop, and they can form around all kinds of things, issues and fears.

I wasn’t diagnosed with OCD until I was sixteen, so five or six years of mental anguish was my companion as I worked my way through high-school and my GCSEs. Schoolwork was one of the easier things for me, even with this other distraction taking up lots of my time. I was in the top set for most subjects, a position that gave the opportunity for my Maths set to take our GCSE a year early. This I did and got an A. I also collected a host of A stars and As in the rest of my GCSEs, with a few exceptions, but I was broadly happy. When I hit college for my Maths, Physics and Computing A-levels, I felt like I’d hit a brick wall.

I was receiving treatment for my OCD at this time, was on anti-depressants, and was also seeing the college counsellor too. I was body building at the gym with enjoyable 2.5 hour fully body workouts twice a week, and mountain biking about 20 miles each weekend too. Everything came to a head, and the strain of my anxiety and a couple of other factors ended up with me attempting to kill myself. It was after this that I realised that I didn’t want to go to university, not instantly anyway. My grades wouldn’t have got me there anyway, so I thought about having a gap year, maybe going to Australia for 6 months, that kind of thing.

When I left college, I went through the usual run of shitty jobs people go through. It was during the second one of these that I fell ill with glandular fever, and was fired not long after, because I was still on a trial period. It was absolute bullshit and it made me regret struggling to work with a double chest infection only about three weeks previous to that. Bastards. Anyway, I seemed to slowly get over the glandular fever, but then went down hill again and haven’t picked up again since. That was almost two decades ago, and it led to my diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (also called M.E at times).

CFS is horrendous. I thought OCD was hard, but the exhaustion I feel every moment of the day is something I’ve never really gotten used to. Also, the stuff about “exercise being helpful” when it comes to anxiety became a cruel joke for someone who struggled with just getting up the stairs. As I write this now, my hands are shaking, my head hurts and my eyes are heavy and gritty. I’ve already rested once before starting this article, and will have to rest frequently all day, just to stop myself sliding down into flu-like symptoms that take even longer to diminish. As you might imagine, this makes living what people might deem a “normal” life next to impossible. It is also where a lot of my self-directed animosity strikes home.

When I’d been unwell for about six months, I decided to do a correspondence course in fitness instructing, even though going to the gym or any kind of exercise was out of the question. My thinking was that I could do the theory stuff and then get the other half of the certificate, the physical exams etc., once I was better. The course was something that, pre-illness, would have taken me a year I’d estimate. The biology it contained was GCSE level material at best, the exercises and movements stuff I already knew pretty well. Due to the fatigue, it took me the whole three years allowed to complete the course, which was a sign of how my illness was affecting me. I got my diploma but never did do the other part sadly. Incidentally, I’ve casually taken the odd I.Q test since being ill (by casual I mean I was half watching TV) and tended to score around 120, so I don’t think my mental capacity has slid too much, which is something.

After this, I began to get into photography, thinking that I could maybe make some kind of living snapping interesting pics. I learned html and built my own website to display my work, studied the art of photography as best I could, and generally tried to get myself into a position where I felt I could start earning money. It didn’t happen, largely due to how limited I was in getting out and about. Anything close enough to me to snap, I’d already done multiple times. That dream died a death basically, although it’s something I still dabble with for fun.

It was after this that I came to revisit my love of writing. Writing is something that I’ve always enjoyed, and often pestered my teachers to ask “When can we write a story again!” I did an introduction course with the Open University and managed to pass that. I then decided to go for a full diploma in literature and creative writing. This I did over the next two years. I created this website and began getting my writing out there in an unpaid capacity, mainly by way of fiction contests and by writing posts for geeky websites like Geek Syndicate and Generic Movie Blog. I built a portfolio and hoped for the day when I might feel ready to try my hand at being a self-employed freelance writer.

From the diagnosis of my CFS, until a few years ago when I came off it and went self-employed as a writer, I was on ill health benefit. I just want to say that it truly is the system of incompetence and backstabbing that various news stories over the years have painted it as. I did a lot of the things that the benefits system wanted well before they became compulsory, like seeing a disability adviser etc. etc. Let’s just say that they couldn't help and agreed that I was doing all I could. This however meant nothing when your next medical came around and you had to appeal the decision to stop your benefit. I HATED being on benefit. I REALLY hated it. When I did leave the system to pursue my writing, it was after a failed benefit review. I lodged my objections and tore apart the bollocks they had come up with line by line, but it changed nothing. I used the push to make the jump into writing and trying to earn, and almost had a breakdown in the process. I’d rather die than go back on benefit again, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that sentiment. I’m sure the government won’t mind that one bit though, one less person to support.

My CFS and OCD went into overdrive with the stress of trying to find my way with freelancing. An example of this is that I used to enjoy burning candles or jossticks in my bedroom. I always did it safely, but became preoccupied with the threat of sparks or leaving things burning by mistake. Before I went for a week long break at the coast a few months later, I spent two hours checking around my bedroom for any sign of sparks, smoke or fire, even though I knew it was my OCD. Under my bed, around the table, under my chair, in my friggin’ cupboards, even in some of my DVD cases, checking that the discs weren’t warm. My heart was hammering the whole time and I was drenched in sweat when I’d finished. You’d be amazed at what your mind might take for a spark if your body is already sensitized with anxiety: sunlight reflecting off things, the flash of my mobile LED when a text came, etc. If it happens at the edge of your vision, whether you react or not, it still gives you an anxiety spike. This was the worst period I’d suffered with my OCD since before my diagnosis, and no-one knew. I told no-one how bad things got. This was mainly due to already having had treatments, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), for OCD and knowing that nothing new could be said or done to help me. I did it all myself and pulled myself out of the mire once again. My life is full of episodes like this, although not often so severe.

In the time I’ve been self-employed as a freelance writer, I’ve never made a profit. I’m lucky enough to live with my parents who are very understanding and don’t pressure me to pay my way. I still find that I beat myself up about my lack of progress though. Well, not a total lack of progress. In the intervening couple of years, I’ve been published in more places, I’ve made some money, even if it’s just enough to cover my bank fees, and I have pushed myself to expand my comfort zone, appearing on podcasts, using social media when all I want to do is crawl into a hole and be quiet, and generally trying to move forwards.

I have limited time each day in which I can work, due to symptom management and other considerations, yet I still graft and do work that either doesn't pay at all, or pays so little that it may as well not pay. This adds a kind of hopeless stress to the things I do, but it is what it is at the moment. I feel trapped in a lot of ways, and the only way I feel things could possibly move on is if I can start to earn a little more and be more self-sufficient. Again, more self-imposed stress. I beat myself up about not pitching more ideas to more potential clients, for not reading the stack of Writing Magazines I have yet to touch because of some kind of block, and myriad other things. I know this kind of self-talk isn’t helpful, but it’s so overwhelming when deep in depression, that when I struggle to brush my teeth some mornings, anything else just doesn't seem worth doing, including living. But I go on.

In the time I’ve been ill, I’ve read countless self-help/mental health/psychology/philosophy/ spirituality books, from CBT to ACT, from mindfulness to the Satanic Bible, from Osho to Alan Watts, from Shamanism to The Sedona Method. I’ve worked to get a handle on the things that I can, and to be accepting of the things that I can’t change. I’ve improved my skills in a number of areas and even when I feel dead inside, I can still find the drive to help other people if I can, even if I don’t feel like it. This all counts for something.

This is the crux of what this long post has been about, trying to show myself that I’m not the weak coward that I always paint myself as when I fall into the spiral of hopelessness that I sometimes do. I’m never good at complimenting myself or bigging myself up, but at the very least, by reading back what I’ve just written, I can see that these words don’t depict someone who isn’t trying to do what he can with what he’s got. I think one of my biggest fears is failing at something that I then look back on and wish I’d tried harder, which is a way of thinking I could find myself in about anything really.

I don’t mind failure, I do mind if I feel I could have done more to give myself a better chance at things. To some degree, this post has helped me see that that feeling of wishing I did more, if it does happen that writing isn’t a thing I can do to sustain myself, might not feel so bad, knowing that I have tried, and that’s pretty much enough.

If you are struggling with anything like the issues I've mentioned, you have my complete sympathy, and I hope you will seek help if you haven't so far, either by seeing your Doctor or talking to people like the Samaritans. It might help. It's worth a try. If you'd like to chat with me about anything I've written too, you can find me on social media or use the contact me page by clicking below. If you want to throw money at me to write something, please feel free to do the same. Thanks for reading.

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Dark Fiction - High Stakes

High Stakes

Written By Casey Douglass

Morris felt his boot slip on the dull red of the metal beam. His hand shot out to grip the upright; his eyes took in the drop.

‘Fuck me!’

‘What’s up?’ Cliff yelled from a few beams over.

‘Me, thankfully! I almost did a twenty story dive!’

Cliff looked across and saw Morris holding onto the upright for grim life. ‘Nah, you’re all strapped up into your safety harness, you’re buckled up tighter than a gimp at a bondage party!’

Morris tugged at the chords that fastened to his harness. ‘Shit, I know, I know. It’s just not natural, being so high. I forget myself.’

‘I think it’s lunchtime!’ Cliff yelled.

‘Yeah!’ Morris looked across and grinned. ‘Low blood sugar, that’s what does it!’

The two men navigated and negotiated their way to the largest beam and, with moans and sighs, lowered themselves to sit next to each other. Their packs hung nearby. Each rummaged for their lunchbox and drinks. Morris had barely unwrapped his sandwich when his radio squawked.

Oi, you two clowns sitting up there eating your elevenses, health and safety will have my arse if I let you do that!

Morris winked at Cliff. ‘I’ve got this.’ Into the radio he said ‘Don’t worry, I’m reliably informed that we are safe, what with these safety lines and everything. We can’t fall off.’

Okay, let me put this another way. You won’t fall but you might lose your sandwiches.

Morris looked at his Wensleydale and carrot chutney sandwich, the one he had specially bought from M&S earlier that morning, his favourite. He spoke into the radio. ‘Gotcha’. He turned to Cliff. ‘Lets scoot back a bit eh?’

The period where food has been eaten but lunch is still fifteen minutes from being over stretched out over the rooftops, much like the two men. Cliff was leaning against an upright reading his paper while Morris watched the midday sun chase the shadows through the ironwork.

‘How would you do it if you wanted to end it all?’ Cliff said, the words pushing through the latest failings of Arsenal on the back page of his paper.

‘That’s a bit heavy isn’t it?’ Morris replied, his eyebrows shifted in a stray sunbeam.

Cliff lowered his paper. ‘ I was just curious, seeing as you had your near miss awhile ago.’

‘Oh piss off!’

Cliff chuckled and then fell silent. ‘Seriously though, how would you do it? I’d put some music on, make a nice chilled out atmosphere and take an overdose of something.’

Morris gazed over the rooftops, not really sure if he wanted to be having this conversation. ‘Erm, I don’t know, maybe throw myself in front of a train?’

Cliff lowered his paper. ‘I hope not. I know people who aren’t in their right mind with depression aren’t really thinking that straight, but I’d hope I’d have the restraint to not ruin other people’s lives by having to suffer seeing me go splat on the train they’re driving!’

‘You’ll be dead though so who gives a shit?’

Cliff slowly folded his paper. ‘I know that, it just doesn’t seem fair to me.’

Morris went on. ‘I mean, if you lived alone and no-one would even know you’d died, why wouldn’t you want someone to know by doing it in public?’

Cliff sighed. ‘I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one then. I take your point. I guess it’s just something I couldn’t do. That and being scared of the pain too. I’d just want to go to sleep and not wake up again.’

Morris looked at Cliff. ‘You don’t look your usual self. I told you to buy the sport; get some spice in your life!’ he chortled.

‘Now there’s a stereotype, a builder reading the sport. If I wanted tits I’d buy a porn mag.’

‘Bet it would cheer you up?’

‘No, I don’t think it would.’

‘Why not?’

‘Showing someone page after page of unattainable women when the history of his love life is one long period of being single and unwanted doesn’t really help the mood.’

‘You’re strange today Cliff.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No, don’t be sorry, happens to us all.’

‘What?’

‘Getting down in the dumps.’

‘Have you ever tried to kill yourself?’

Morris blew air through his pursed lips in a silent whistle. ‘No, can’t say I have mate.’

‘I did, when I was younger.’

‘Did it work?’

Cliff gave a snorted laugh. ‘Good one.’

‘I was due,’ he smiled back.

Cliff looked across the city, the gleaming glass of the skyscraper opposite dazzling him as the sun shifted position.

Morris studied Cliff’s face. ‘You get like that often?’

‘Fairly often.’

Morris nodded. ‘My aunt used to as well, can’t remember what mum used to call her episodes, something like “Aunt Jane is in her sad place” or something. I was only about eight.’

‘What happened to your aunt?’

‘She’s okay, still kicking around somewhere. Last I heard she moved to Spain for the climate.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘Yeah.’

Cliff looked down at his fingernails, running his thumb over the smooth nail of his other hand. ‘If I get through the day and get to bed without praying I won’t wake up in the morning, that’s a good day.’

‘It’s that bad?’

‘Sometimes.’

Morris nodded and looked down at his own hands. ‘I don’t know what to say that might help mate.’

‘It’s okay. I don’t expect you to be able to help. Just felt like sharing for some reason.’

Morris nodded again. ‘I’d miss you.’

Cliff looked at Morris and nodded. ‘Thanks, that means a lot.’

Okay gentlemen enjoying your high tea at noon. It’s past noon now, back to work in a minute or I’m docking you both an hour!

They both stood, Morris slapping Cliff on the shoulder. ‘Something else to ponder mate, we build fucking skyscrapers! Fuck-ing skyscrapers! That’s pretty cool don’t ya think?’

‘It certainly is.’

‘Woooooooooo!’ shouted Morris, pumping his arms. ‘Wooooooooooooooooo!’

Cliff chuckled and yanked on Morris’ safety line. Morris yelped and clasped the upright, his knuckles turning white.

‘I just saved you.’

Morris looked confused. ‘I wasn’t going to fall.’

‘No, but you were starting to look like a right arse.’

Morris sniggered. ‘What would the right arse be for you then? Do you like junk in the trunk or the more athletic derrière?’

Cliff smiled.

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The Problem of Adding Value When Depressed

The Problem of Adding Value When Depressed

A lot is said about the importance of adding value to others’ lives, particularly with regards to connecting with people, positive mental health, and also increasing some virtual numbers such as website hits or social media followers. Adding value when depressed often seems as likely as going into a burger joint and trying to buy a car.

I’ll freely admit that when I see an article about the importance of adding value in my news feed, the shutters of gloom slam shut in my mind. A familiar thought then starts pacing the mental corridors: I don’t even add value to my own life, how the fuck am I going to add it to others?

Blinkers Attached

I’m an ill, depressed guy struggling to make money and to carve out any sense of being a part of the world, tying myself in knots trying to give myself some worth somehow.

If I see another ill, depressed guy struggling in the same way, thoughts along the lines of them not having any worth wouldn’t even cross my mind. The same applies to anyone else I see, they don’t need to prove their worth to justify being alive, being here is worth enough.

Sure, if someone pisses me off or commits some atrocity, I might revise that sentiment at the time, but on the whole, barring these special cases, people don’t have to do anything special to get the proverbial thumbs up from me.

Being here is worth enough. I know this intellectually, but the saying that goes along the lines of “the journey from the head to the heart is a long one” couldn’t be more right.

It’s not even a case of falling into the trap of comparing myself with others, I’m more than capable of kicking myself even when in a social vacuum.

The Stick That Smashed The Carrot

I think a largish part of the problem is that sometimes being so harsh on myself has produced the desired result.

As an example, I have continuous issues with my weight, as being active is complicated by my health problems. Nothing seems to help me lose more weight than turning any kind of diet that I might be on, into some kind of self punishment for being the way I am.

Every hunger pang takes on the guise of a pain well earned, every impulse to eat denied becomes a mental slap on the hand that feeds. It’s all a bit masochistic in a way. The weight comes off, the result is achieved. The pattern is set for other areas of my life.

I know that attaining goals in this way is harmful. I know that it flicks a switch in my mind that is hard to turn back off again, leaving me more emotionally numb to the positives in life. It also makes me more susceptible to the upsetting emotions that seem to be permanent residents in my body.

The Carrot That Went To Sea

Depression is truly mind numbing: it cripples my creativity and sends my motivation to the moon.

It’s often hard to see any kind of future for myself that would be worth living. I do have some very low aspirations for what would constitute a reasonable future, but rather than being helpful in their mediocrity, they seem to make being thwarted even harder to deal with.

I know there are various ways to reframe how you view your life, learning to be more flexible in your thinking and showing yourself self-compassion along the way. I really, really get it.

In practice, I can do it a small proportion of the time, so I know it can be done. I also realise I’m making more progress than I’m aware of at least half of the time.

I need to keep coming back to the same theme though, over and over until it does reach my heart:

"I am enough as I am, whatever else happens in my life, either through my actions or outside of my control. I am enough."

Maybe one day I will feel it on more than on an intellectual level. Maybe I will be able to see the ways that I can and do add value to the lives of the people around me, the small acts of kindness that I do carry out, and the ways that I do actually help other people. Maybe on the following day, I will be able to see the ways that I am actually kind to myself too.

Until that time, I will try to anchor myself to the idea of being enough, and hope that it holds firm in the choppy mental seas that surround me. I might even see a mermaid too, you never know. I could ask her if she wanted to join me and rest awhile, all of that swimming must be very tiring after all. Ooh I was just kind to a self-made mental construct. It’s starting already.

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Dark Prose - Rotting Canopy

Rotting Canopy

By Casey Douglass

Every time I dream, I see a lone tree ahead of me. It stands on a small hill, mist caressing its spindly branches. As I walk nearer, the scale changes. What once seemed a normal tree now towers into the sky, the proverbial tree of worlds linking the realms of heaven and earth. It is usually at this point that the low sun begins to rise, straining against the horizon, its golden rays weak and tentative, but illuminating none the less. Light and shadow sway and morph, wooden fingers conducting a celestial orchestra, filling time until the bodies appear. They hang from vine nooses, their faces purple, their bodies distended. They are all me.

I reach the base of the massive trunk and begin my climb. The bark flakes and falls away as my fingers and toes struggle in the grooves. The whole thing quivers and groans, the corpses set swaying in macabre anticipation. Climbing is like going forward, along my own personal timeline. The dead meat near the bottom used to be my young selves, basically anything that had enough form to be lassoed with a final bow-tie. Yes, that means teeny tiny little mes, ill-formed little mes and even strange lumps of something that would eventually become me. It used to shock me, but now I just climb.

I climb through my childhood, my scraped knees, long summers and optimism merging with my teenage years of mental ill health, good grades and breakdown. I climb through the years of quiet hope and yet more illness, aspirations turning to the things that I believed could sustain my soul and hopefully, me financially, those periods in which I studied and prepared for being well again, a time when I might put my skills to use. Times which didn’t really come.

It is at this point that my head breaks through the rotting canopy of used-to-mes and reaches the part of the tree that is barren. A force compels me to look along one crooked branch to the side, seeing an empty noose dangling from the very tip. Another one almost complete. I gaze up the tree and wonder if it’s height hints at my longevity. The spindly branches fork high enough that they are lost in the luminous mist. I edge along to the empty slot, the bodies below reflecting all manner of things: when I shaved my head a week ago, the cut on my right hand, the deeper blackness that settled beneath my eyes yesterday.

I ease myself down, hanging from the branch with my fingertips in a manoeuvre that I could only sustain for mere moments in the other reality. I loop the noose over my head, as I have done thousands of times before. The sun reaches ever higher. As I let myself drop and feel the constriction strangling my throat, my eyes gazing out further, away into the great plain around me. The last thing I spy are the skeletal shapes of more trees, each like mine, puncturing the mist with their heavy burdens.

I wake up to find a new day has broken, memories of the tree already diluting in that special way that dreams have. It will be there again tonight, waiting for me to start its next branch. I’ve tried to fight it, to accept it, to alter it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to break the pattern. Until, I guess, the morning when I just won’t wake up.

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Trucking Along With Depression: Why I Find American Truck Simulator to be a Valuable Tool

Trucking Along With Depression: Why I Find American Truck Simulator to be a Valuable Tool

Written by Casey Douglass

The concept of space is an important one. Whether physical or mental, without space around the things that we perceive, think or feel, we lose sight of the complete picture. The glass that is always proverbially half-full or half-empty is actually always full; the air sitting in the water-free part is often overlooked. When someone is feeling depressed or struggling with their mental health, a feeling of space or distance can sometimes be helpful, as being too close to something is also not a great way to see the big picture. What has all of this got to do with playing American Truck Simulator? I’ll try to explain.

SCS Software’s American Truck Simulator is a game that puts the player behind the wheel of a truck, gives them a slice of America to travel through, and a list of possible jobs to take on. I know next to nothing about trucks, American or otherwise, and I have no desire to become a truck driver. I don’t even particularly like to travel, except in the realms of my imagination, or the occasional trip to the shops (Not sure if I’ve ever been to any imaginary shops). So why in the world do I find myself regularly driving a big rig in a game that, on the surface, I probably shouldn’t enjoy. The simple answer is space. The more complex answer is space, the correct mixture of tension and relaxation, and the minutiae of driving.

Expanded horizons.

Let’s start with space. Whether moving around in the real world, or some digital representation of it, the feeling of leaving home and going out into areas that you don’t control is a different mental experience to staying inside, surrounded by your own belongings. When we leave our homely surroundings, our thoughts will, to some degree, focus on where we are and what we are doing. I say to some degree because if you have a mental illness, a good proportion of your thoughts will still quite likely be ensnared in your awareness of self, or any of those worries and fears that seem to follow you around wherever you might go. American Truck Simulator gives a fairly good impression of what it’s like when moving from one place to another, seeing a new town or city loom on the horizon as the old one fades in the rear-view mirror. This helps me feel a sense of space.

Driving into the Sun.

Another way that the game serves up a dose of space is in its day and night cycle. Anyone that has spent too much time grappling with their own inner-states usually tends to lose the awareness that thoughts, moods and feelings come and go quite naturally, given enough space and time. Anger at the knock of the postman waking you up soon diminishes when he puts that parcel you’ve been waiting for in your hands. When you are trapped in your more upsetting moods and feelings, it’s easy to lose this sense of things ebbing and flowing (Practising mindfulness is very useful here, and is also quite useful in general). As far as ATS, driving along with the setting sun in your mirror, the sky ahead darkening and the cars driving past you lighting their way with headlights... it just gives a feeling of moving on, of things progressing. There is also something quite lovely about driving through the night and witnessing the sun begin to rise, the golden hues of everything giving eyes that are used to darkness and headlights something to feast on again. I personally find this invaluable when I’m at my lowest, and ATS serves up this feeling with a dependable regularity. 

Traffic and red lights at twilight.

The next aspect that I want to talk about is the mixture of tension and relaxation. This concept seems integral to so much in life, whether it’s the contraction and relaxation of your heart beating comfortably in your chest, or your concentration being held firmly by a task for a duration of time before you let go and relax with a coffee-break. This seems to be the pattern for a well-balanced life well lived. Once again, if you suffer with anxiety, depression, or are undergoing a particularly trying time, your period of tension might stretch on and on, your body and mind hardening around the issues that brought it on, eventually leaving you unable to unwind or relax to any great degree. American Truck Simulator, by way of approximating the act of driving, provides a framework in which you can start to feel this tension/relaxation process, even if it’s only in the context of a game. Once felt in this more minor way, it sometimes leads to the loosening of other emotional or mental sticking points, as if the mind just needed a way to remember what letting go feels like. As an example, driving your truck through the desert on long, lonely roads is fine... for awhile. Just as you start to feel a little bored with it, you will likely come to a large city, somewhere where you need to be more “on your game”. The comfortably sparse roads are soon replaced with busy junctions, more road users and traffic lights. There will be many periods where you will be held up by red lights, queues and slow speed limits. Ah Las Vegas, what a pain in the arse you can be, with your many lanes and streets with traffic light after traffic light. Just as you begin to feel a bit annoyed, you are away, free, out in the wider countryside again, and can let go a little bit more. This is how the game provides tension and relaxation, and it is pretty low level, which is about right if you aren’t feeling your best. Other games provide tension and relaxation too of course, but trying to evade the Xenomorph in Alien: Isolation provides a far higher level of tension than accidentally bumping a pavement in ATS.

Rainy Vegas.

Finally, we get to the minutiae of driving, which also straddles the tension and relaxation section above. In American Truck Simulator, you have the rules of the U.S roads to follow, along with other actions that make driving... well, driving. In the course of your travels, you must obey speed-limits, indicate when changing lanes, use your headlights at night (and reduce high beams when other traffic approaches), and other things like turning your wipers on when it starts to rain. You also have the technicalities of managing your rest periods, fuel levels and how you can squeeze a long trailer around certain intersections without clipping anyone. To some people, this might sound like a pain, but to someone looking for gentle diversion, I find that there is just enough going on to keep my mind focussed on what I’m doing in the game, rather than having too much free time to ruminate or reflect too much on how I’m feeling. A counter to this, for me at least, is Candy Crush Saga. I’ve recently taken up playing it again on Facebook and it’s fine, as far as games like that go, but even though it’s puzzle based, I find myself with plenty of time to ruminate and feel like crap as I force the sweets to mate with each other and disappear in puffs of colour. No doubt it’s a very personal and subjective thing when it comes to how an individual game affects someone, but as far as keeping me gently attentive, ATS wins again. 

A nice drive by the beach.

We’ve reached the end of my little ramble around the topic of why I think American Truck Simulator is my perfect depression game. You don’t need to be depressed to play it of course, but in the context of how I’ve been feeling lately, I just wanted to think about and share why it seems quite useful for me. I don’t mean to present it as a cure or treatment, but as one enjoyable tool that fills a gap for me when other games seem overwhelming, or my energy levels are low. A twenty minute digital delivery job that takes in some simulated scenery and maybe gives some experience of the day-night cycle is a pleasing buffer between what ails me and the stresses of the things I am trying to do in other areas of my life. If you like the sound of American Truck Simulator, be sure to check it out here. It’s only £14.99 too, so it shouldn’t break the bank.

If you are suffering with any form of mental illness and have yet to seek help, please do, there are plenty of places out there that can and will help, from doctors to other organisations. 

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