The Great Depression

Warning: The following post deals with depression, trauma, and attempted suicide.

I’ve wanted to write this for a while, I just wasn’t sure where to even start.

I’ve struggled with depression for many years now. I’m taking medication for it, and I can handle it on most days. Explaining it to someone can be very difficult. It’s not one feeling that can be easily encapsulated. It changes from day to day and week to week. No matter how good you may feel, there will a day, every once in a while, where you just don’t want to engage with anyone, or just stay in bed. For over a year, I’ve felt that way more and more. I’ve tried so damn hard to shake it off and push it away, but it just hasn’t happened yet. Things that came so easily to me before, seem tremendous and insurmountable most of the time. I can feel myself pulling away from friends, and I hate it. Responding to messages, emails, and calls are very much a part of my job, and it’s something that is increasing in difficulty day by day now.

It’s not because I don’t want to. I love my friends. I love talking to listeners of our show. We just attended Dragoncon and Portcon this year, and I genuinely had the best time at both events. I’ve always been a bit of an introvert, so performing in front of hundreds of people has always been a muscle I had to gradually flex. The stuff people don’t see are the hang outs with friends at restaurants or in the hotel rooms. The times where you aren’t “on”. This year was the first time i felt like was performing a little, even when I wasn’t on stage. I knew that , later on, I would regret not forcing myself to join in on events because I was bummed. I was more effort than I would have wanted it to be, but I did have a fantastic time.

We moved to Hancock, NY in the last week of July 2022. It was one of the biggest decisions of our lives, and we got it wrong. It was the wrong call on every level.

At the time, we were scared and simply didn’t know what the right call was. We talked about it non-stop and went over our options. Covid had hit us hard and we were on the back foot, as most people were and are. Our rent was going to be increasing by hundreds of dollars. The money we made each month was decreasing by hundreds as well. The eventual reasoning was that is was cheaper to live on the east coast and it was closer to Bri and El’s family members. So, we packed everything we could into the largest truck we could afford at the time. All told, we could carry about 70% of our things. Furniture, books, tech, and a lot more got left behind. We ruined our credit and went into debt to do it, planning to rebuild on the other side.

I hated leaving California. I hated moving back to a place that I tried so hard to get away from in the first place. I hated feeling like a failure. Someone who couldn’t hack it, and now needed to retreat in order to fight another day. It’s a feeling I haven’t been able to shake yet. Everyone suffers setbacks, but with this move, it felt like a total restart. Rebuilding our credit, rebuilding our home, rebuilding our business. Just….everything. We had made big changes to the show earlier in the year, and it went pretty poorly to say the least.

Before I continue, I know people have it harder than us. I’ll never stop feeling lucky to have the job I have and to be able to do what I do. That being said, it is work. A whole hell of a lot of work. It takes lots of little things to build something up. Years of storytelling, con visits, listener outreach, and so much more. It only takes one or two big mistakes to bring it all down. I felt like we nearly did that in 2022. It was just a major shakeup that added to the stress of our overall situation. We were all a bit more snippy and on edge. We argued about things that didn’t matter simply because the pressure just never let up. We were all sad about leaving our home, and to make matters worse, things were no cheaper here on the east coast when all was said and done.

So, we tried to adjust and pivot. We started making furniture, and thought maybe that could supplement income. We started learning a whole new craft and felt pretty good about where we were. We sold our first table and sent it off to Texas after 8 weeks of cutting, sanding, and staining. When all was said and done, the table cost the customer about $2,500, and we walked away with about $383 in profit. Not amazing, but we we wanted to make sure the best material was used and shipping was taken care of. We hired a freight company to drive the table there. I was mangled when it arrived. Totally destroyed. After trying to solve the problem with a refund from the freight company, they simply refused and Etsy reversed all charges. If you’re paying attention, that cool $383 in profit just turned into $2,117 in debt overnight. It shut out Etsy store down, and we were worse off then when we started.

I’ll be honest, that nearly broke us. When I was in my early 20’s, I was sleeping on park benches or living in my car. I lived in an 84 Pontiac Thunderbird for 6 months before finding a halfway house to live in for almost a year. I was working at a supermarket every day. I had a really bad night where I couldn’t get out of my own head. It was terrible thought after terrible thought. I had no one in my life at the time that I considered a friend. Family was out of the question. It all felt hopeless, and like things were never going to get better. With my last bit of cash, I went to a local Walgreens and bought a bottle of sleeping pills. I took as many as I could and hoped that would just end things. An hour later, I felt violently ill and exhausted. I must of spent half the night throwing up in a Walmart parking lot. At the end of the night, I was alive and felt like I couldn’t even kill myself properly.

Do you remember the moment in 2014 where the Kickstarter kit its goal? The one where I start crying? I was thinking of that moment in the parking lot. I was simply amazed that things could turn around so drastically. I had close friends, a connection with people from all over the world, and a new home in a place I couldn’t wait to restart in. Cut to 2022, and I felt like part of me was stating over. The show wasn’t where it once was, we were in debt, and I was now back in the same area of the country that I started in. Everyone suffers from setbacks like these, but it just felt like a ton all at once.

At this part in my little blog post, I’d like to apologize for being a huge bummer. I needed to get all of this out so that I can make peace with it. Sometimes, we need to take a good long look at where we are and how we got there. With all of that being said, things will get better. I’m still in such a better place than that parking lot version of Jason. I love my friends, I have a wonderful wife, and me and Bri have been working together for a decade now. We’re gonna me it. We’re gonna be ok eventually. Are bills hard to pay right now? Sure. Are we still under pressure? Absolutely. But nothing is “over”. The story keeps going and we continue to pivot. We’re working on a new channel that might take off, we’re adding to the patreon, and we’re working extra shifts were we can find them.

I firmly believe that there is always something to fight for. No matter where you are in your life, there’s always something. I’ve been at the end of my rope and thought I’d never recover. I’ve known people going through terrible divorces, job lose, losing a home, and so much more. Just because someone has it worse, doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to feel depressed or sad. But it isn’t the end. Things will get better and they’ll get worse. It’s peaks and valleys. Try to step back for a minute and take stock of what you do have in your life to be thankful for. I know it may sound corny, but that perspective can honestly save your life, and help you to remember that nothing is forever. We’ve built a community that can reach out to one another when they feel this way. You can’t put a price on something like that, and I never take it for granted.

I’m happy with the stories we’re telling on the show. I’m happy that people continue to tell us that we’ve helped them through rough times. I’m happy that there are so many people in my life that I cherish.

I’m happy that I’m alive to write this today.