After each set-back, I ask myself, “what’s the point?”

Because deep down I know people don’t understand what it’s like to struggle with mental health, based on a mood disorder. I’m sure most everyone struggles with mental health from time to time, yet, they champion past the bad feelings.

It’s not that easy for me. However, I don’t think people “get” that. I don’t think people can empathize for something they don’t understand. “Well, Philip, I just don’t get your behavior”.

Never have I woken and thought, “today, I’m going to choose to be mentally ill”. Not once do I consciously choose to say fucked up shit. It’s like this disease, you see, where sometimes, it’s uncontrollable.

That doesn’t excuse the behavior. People have limits, as to how much they’re willing to accept from someone else. I continue to learn that the hard way. If I could put an end to the disease, I would’ve done so long ago.

I feel useless, meaningless, without skin in the game. That I’ll never be in the game. That all my writing may amount to jack shit.

Maybe it means jack shit to most everyone out in the world, at this time in life, but it still somehow matters to me.

All I can do is keep going forward, again and again. I’m going to have more setbacks, those will sadly never go away. But I can try to lessen them, try to slow the momentum of the anger down before I rage with words. If I can channel the anger into something else, even going to meditate, that’s a win for me.

I’m not giving up. I will keep trying to find a solution, a means to overcome my negative moods when I feel them within my being. I believe, I have faith, that one day it will happen. Then, I’ll never look back. I’ll only look forward. Forward motion is the goal.

I don’t know if I’ll write fiction today. I’m tired of being me. I need to read a book. Maybe watch something on the television, although I’ve been hesitant to watch much more than music videos as of late. I feel as a writer of books, I should focus the most on reading books. If I were a screenwriter, I’d watch more shows and movies, but I’m not looking to be a screenwriter, for the time being.

Besides, I’m in the group of folks who think the book is always better.

Have a good day. I’m going to relax. I might feel super lonely and write another post, or write fiction. I believe it is my solitude that drives me to write. Strange how that works, for me at least.

Philip Webb