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AUTHORS: Are you depressed loners?

I'm not depressed, but fit the loner bill. I go out one night a week to play darts and even there half the time I drift off into a corner and drink by myself.

This isn't the first article I've read touting that writers-as well as artists and other creative types-are solitary individuals who tend to "wallow" inside their own heads and thoughts.

Can't say I disagree. I think we create our own realities and prefer them to real life.
 
lovecraft68 said:
I'm not depressed, but fit the loner bill. I go out one night a week to play darts and even there half the time I drift off into a corner and drink by myself.

This isn't the first article I've read touting that writers-as well as artists and other creative types-are solitary individuals who tend to "wallow" inside their own heads and thoughts.

Can't say I disagree. I think we create our own realities and prefer them to real life.
Click to expand...

Writers do wallow, but so what!

Generally speaking, 99% of the world is banal and inane and boring.
 
To write, one has to be alone. Writing is a solitary pursuit.
Ask any writer; they will say this.
So why 'label' them as depressed loners?
 
MichaelinChina said:
To write, one has to be alone. Writing is a solitary pursuit.
Ask any writer; they will say this.
So why 'label' them as depressed loners?
Click to expand...

Because other people have to label everyone somehow and usually in a negative sense to feel better about themselves.

For example let's say you're the type who needs to be around people all the time, hanging with friends, going out, the type that always has to have company. So you look at a solitary individual and because you don't understand how they could be happy, you have to brand them that way.

Almost anything people say about others can generally be pointed back at their own issues.
 
lovecraft68 said:
Because other people have to label everyone somehow and usually in a negative sense to feel better about themselves.

For example let's say you're the type who needs to be around people all the time, hanging with friends, going out, the type that always has to have company. So you look at a solitary individual and because you don't understand how they could be happy, you have to brand them that way.

Almost anything people say about others can generally be pointed back at their own issues.
Click to expand...

yes, a nice continuation of my piece.;)

sounds like the OP is trawling (trolling).
 
I write to help with the depression, but lonely? Nope I just listen to all the voices and talk to myself for company.:D

no seriously.:eek:

MST
 
I am an introvert and at peace with it. Perhaps someday I'll even consider myself a writer...
 
lovecraft68 said:
Because other people have to label everyone somehow and usually in a negative sense to feel better about themselves.

For example let's say you're the type who needs to be around people all the time, hanging with friends, going out, the type that always has to have company. So you look at a solitary individual and because you don't understand how they could be happy, you have to brand them that way.

Almost anything people say about others can generally be pointed back at their own issues.
Click to expand...

Only if its not true.

Over decades I interviewed 1000s of people, so my screen for damaged souls is finer than how most people grade pathology. I wanna see some blood and bones, first. Yet I know a few who treat pistols and grenades as normal.
 
Here is my two pennieth. If you can call me a writer. The bit that fits best is the can't stop thinking. It happens wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, my mind just wanders off often on an extension of what I or someone else has said.

Don't mind being alone but prefer having other people around. That said, I don't necessarily want to interact with them, just have them around.

Am I depressed? Sometimes, I used to think I wrote my best stuff when I was depressed but I've had to revise that.

Am I nutz or crazy? Quite probably, I keep convincing myself that people want to read my stuff so I suppose I am crazy.
 
I'm not. With a husband and two kids, I barely have time to write. The alone time is hard to come by.
 
Nope.

I am never alone. Everywhere I go there are all these people dancing in visions in my head whether I want them there or not.

Nor am I usually depressed unless something bad happens to one of those characters in one of those visions.

Am I crazy? Depends on who you ask. To me, the people who sit around and stress about what flesh and blood people that they have no control over think and do are the ones who are nuts.

Of course, you all knew that already since you're just characters playing roles in my head although we act like you aren't to keep the little fellows carrying butterfly nets and jackets with oversized arms at bay. :devil:
 
Better than any psychiatric session, group therapy, or drug, writing is my therapy for the sexual and emotional abuse that I suffered from ages 5 to 13 at the hands of 7 abusive men.

Depressed? Who isn't? Loner? A writer can't write unless he or she is alone with his or her thoughts. My creative writing professor, the late, great, Dr. Robert Parker, (no relation) of Spencer for Hire fame with the late Robert Urich and Blue Bloods with Tom Selleck was a miserable bastard.

He'd rather write than be with people. He'd rather write than teach. He'd rather write than interact with his wife. I fear that I'm the same way. A curse and a blessing rolled into one bittersweet caveat of life, sometimes sadly and other times happily, I'd rather write than to do anything. I'm not breathing if I'm not writing.
 
Generally (and clinically) yes. Clinically I have major depressive disorder (full disclosure: with some psychotic features), but I'm properly medicated against the worst of it, and most of the time the meds work. Am I crazy? Sometimes. It depends when you ask me.

But even when I'm well, I value my solitude very much and need to be left alone every day otherwise I get agitated. Too much stimulation inside and outside my head. It's just like "Waaaaaah! Neurons firing! Pew pew! Pew pew!" It also doesn't help that I have ADD (without the H) and anxiety on top of it.

Brooding and subject to rumination? Yes. Moody? Yes. If you don't leave me alone all day, I get bitchy. (I work with a histrionic attention whore so you can imagine how that works out for me.)

It is Sisyphusian "Trying to balance vice . . . . mental illness, and a disregard for the real world in favor of fictitious ones," but to quote Camus from his essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus": "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Here's a link to that essay, it's not very long: http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm
 
I played Marilyn on the old Munsters tv show. My home was about as psychotic as one can be. So I was depressed and paranoid most of the time, until family members had the decency to kill themselves off. But while it lasted, and regardless of how appropriate I was, word always leaked out about the parents and siblings. When friends came over they and the parents talked about murder. DONT YOU GO TO SCHOOL RUNNING YOUR MOUTH! YUH HEAR! I had a pistol pressed against my head when I guessed they had burned a home to the ground for the insurance money.

It was a wild ride.

Now I'm never depressed.
 
Many of my stories are dredging up something from the past that was enjoyable and isn't around anymore. I guess there is some depression in that. But not much. Current life is good too--just in a different way. And, yes, I do all of my writing alone. Couldn't even do any in a coffee shop. Too distracting.
 
Finally, I have an excuse for being me: (quote from the linked article)

Writers can be rather awful people, and their blend of depression, isolation, and desire to control not only their own characters but the “characters” of their real lives has been a relationship-killer for centuries.
Click to expand...

As for depression, I've found that being creatively busy keeps it at bay. The one thing I can not do is "hang out" - unless it's with other creative people and we're discussing our creative endeavors. Normal people drive me up the wall. It's as if "normal" is an absence of color, while my world is filled with colors and sounds and smells - and boobs. We can't forget the boobs. :D
 
I'm not, at least not outwardly. I'm faulty well-liked, popular even, perhaps. Writing is all about words; words are the main ingredient in getting people to like you, want you, what have you. To me, writers seem natural social. What is writing and reading if not the desire to interact with the world, and be interacted with in turn?

I can be a bit neurotic and reclusively, at least inwardly, however. If I had to define myself, I'd say I am an introvert starring in a play about a gregarious man with excellent social skills.
 
The point at which I started to experience depression was the point at which I stopped writing much, precisely because writing didn't seem worth the effort due to the depression. I know half a dozen people with depression who have never written a story in their lives, and probably not painted a picture or anything either.

I can't imagine wanting to stop thinking though, even temporarily. I don't think it's my thoughts that make me depressed; they're the most interesting part of my day. What is depressing is the truth of what this world and the people in it are like. I don't have a particular compulsion to control my characters or people in my life either. As an introvert, I actually prefer to spend a minimal amount of time dealing with other (real) people, and wanting to ignore someone is the opposite of wanting to control them.
 
Nope, nineteen years with the same amazing woman have kept me happy. So, strictly speaking, I'm neither depressed nor a loner. But we're no big social animals. Our circle of friends is small enough to easily fit in a Mini.

But the perfect writing mood, especially for my cyberpunk stuff, rrquires dark, rainy nights and equally dark music.
 
I am not described as either. Then again, calling myself a writer is a bit of a stretch too. I am a sexually frustrated woman with a computer. ( I actually sound kind of depressed and lonely. Wow, who knew? Maybe I am a writer.)
 
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