Today’s thought process came from yet another hospital, stay this time serious enough for a seven day hospital stay and I am currently in a rehab center. As you can see, I try to continue to write; my body may not want me to function, but the mind says otherwise. I do know at eighty many body parts may discontinue operating and being in need of overhauling!
I would like to discuss depression and how it has affected me throughout the years. I was diagnosed with depression in the late nineties. Yet, I am certain that I have suffered with the condition all of my life. My mother would have called it a genetic weakness. In looking back I see that my entire family had to be totally “dysfunctional”. My father was a depressed quiet loner, my mother and my sister were manic-depressive in every part of their lives; myself, a mixture of both.
I have come to understand that any type of depression can keep you from enjoying life. I sometimes see myself as an atypical depressive; I can let some light in, appetite up and down, sleeping too much or too little. My body feels heavy most of the time and I feel rejected. You may feel that life is not worth living. I am told that it can start in the early teenage years, mine begin I believe around age seven or eight. I fit in most of the criteria, traumatic childhood, environmental stressors, relatives with a history of depression, death.
Then, several years ago I began to study the effect of depression on writers, writing for many years I understood that the creative process and depression many times went hand- in-hand, even those who write but never get published, those that write for themselves. Writing is a solitary quest. Many of us place ourselves in isolation, stay confined indoors robbing ourselves of natural light. Writing is an emotional roller coaster, rejection from editors, publishers and even peers. Many depend on the approval of others.
All of my writing is based on thoughts of my experiences in my lifetime, some dark and filled with heartache and pain. Flying with Broken Wings…was written in the throes of depression after the death of my daughter. Writing can be painful and yes, most of us are lone wolves.
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©2019.elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
The Last Chapter 
I am glad to see you, and think of you as brave for sharing your story with us, you never know who you may help with it
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Good for you for continuing to write. You still have much to say.
Writing is a “solitary quest.”
But community is out there when we seek it.
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