A Writer and His Demons

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An Introduction

This blog, despite appearances, is about depression. For context, in my personal life, I have been struggling with this affliction for nearly a decade now. At many times, I have felt alone in this fight; felt as though I might be the only one who felt the way I did in spite of how ridiculous that might seem to those who have never experienced it. Or maybe it isn’t ridiculous. This is the problem inherent in mental illness. My view of nearly everything is distorted or coloured in some way that makes it difficult to discern the true from the false, the accurate from the warped.

It has affected nearly every level of my life, from personal hygiene to relationships with my closest friends and family. And I think this is why it is most important to me to write about it in some way, even semi-satirically. Hence, A Writer and His Demons.

The posts I’ll be writing will all be purely fictional in nature (as I hope one might understand, given that The Writer is talking to actual demons), but each post should contain some element of something that has happened in my life. That is, transformed from what has actually happened to what my perception has provided for me. I hope that through this unconventional analysis of depression, anxiety and life, that I might find something new and positive to take from each experience. That I might grow, change, and re-forge my mental illness into a semblance of health. That maybe others who read this might gain some of the same insight, that maybe others who are struggling as I am can learn or at least know about these experiences without experiencing the same dissonance and pain I have. Perhaps that others might find their way out of this hole faster than I will.

Perhaps that others won’t feel that they’re alone when they look around the world and all they can see is their demons.

The Pale Shade: Part II

The sickly sweet stench of sulfur permeated his nose, lingering for a time as an unwelcome guest until deciding to finally kick down the door and intrude upon his lungs. It was hot out here, so unbearably hot. And that damned specter just kept looming over his monitor, deleting all of his hard work.

“Metaphors, metaphors and similes everywhere! How will anyone understand this?” Came the predictable mocking croon through the window.

“Not everything must be written for everyone.” The writer said back, slamming the house’s wall with a fist. The solid building didn’t budge.

“And these personal thoughts of yours. Abysmal. So sour, so serious. No one will ever like someone as negative as you.”

“Because you’re a shining example of positivity, right?”

“Just think of this as my service to you. Real artists have to suffer for their art, don’t they?” The specter said, this time tapping on the window above the writer’s head. The writer stood and turned, coming face to face with the moon-glow visage on the other side.

“That’s what this is? You think I need to suffer more? I’m in hell. I’m not sure what more you could want me to go through.”

“Well clearly you haven’t been through enough, or you’d be famous already.” The specter said, smirking unkindly.

“Fame isn’t a measure of art. Not a useful one.”

“Of course not! I mean, it only shows what’s worth paying for. It only shows what’s popular. And who wants that, right?”

“There’s got to be more to it. I remember there being more…”

“There isn’t. I’m what you’ve got. I’m all the more you’re going to get. What, I’m not enough for you?” The shade cast the back of his hand to his forehead, leaning back dramatically.

“I’d rather you just let me get back to what I was doing. I was content with it before you showed up.” The writer said, pointing to the computer.

“Everyone’s a damn critic!” The shade cried, throwing his hands up, “You want me to leave you alone? Fine! We’ll see how much you get done without my help.” With that, he spun on his heel and stomped over to the lone couch in the room. When he plonked down upon the seat, it was to begin an exaggerated sulk.

“I can’t write anything if you don’t let me back in!” The writer called, banging on the window. It was too late though. The specter had already shut him out.

The Pale Shade: Part I

The writer had come a long way in the past few days. Though he’d remained somewhat hapless in his wanderings after the departure of the strange ringed being, he had found much more comfort in Gloonur’s presence after he’d stopped being such a downer. Of course, the damn elephant kept trying to revert back to his neon-pink nightmare-fuelled self, but for now the writer was able to keep the transformation at bay. He had to remind Gloonur constantly to try to look at things as they were, not as he thought they might be.

It had paid off, after a time. After a lovely tour of the nearest layers of hell to his residence he found it was time to return to his keyboard and start anew. What better way to jump-start one’s creativity than a saunter through the steaming saucepans of gluttony? A waltz through the whirling winds of lust? He felt stories overflowing and it was time to write them all!

Only, when he returned to his quaint shack on the rust-red slopes, someone else sat at his desk. A pale, bloated figure who had turned off all the lights, leaving only the pale eldritch glow of the mysteriously powered monitor. He knocked on the door, once, twice, three times, but the figure didn’t rise from his seat.

“Not home.” The pale shade called out. The writer shook his head, wondering who that trick might have actually worked on.

“I can see you right there.”

“Bugger off. I’m fixing this abysmal writing.”

“Don’t you dare touch that! I spent days and days of my life on that!” The writer bellowed, rushing to the window and banging on it with his fist. A move which only served to hurt his hand.

“And it’s all garbage, really. I’m just going to do you a favour and put this in the recycle bin.”

The writer looked on in horror as the shade’s hand dragged the mouse around on the desk. He couldn’t actually see what the thing was doing, but watching the insistent clicking was more than enough to inspire sheer horror in him.

Thoughts On: Gloonur

This blog has had a much rockier start than I’d hoped for, but a much better outcome than I expected. First, I want to thank everyone who has been reading these posts. It’s been one of the most heartening experiences in recent memory to read all of your positive, thoughtful comments, and to hear about others who are struggling as I have. Second, the subject of today’s post and the reason for my many writing delays: Gloonur, the pink elephant.

Gloonur was inspired by something my excellent life coach showed me, something which has been following me all my life but that I never realized was a problem. My negative frame of mind. I didn’t stick to it exclusively, but you may have noticed that the writer and Gloonur’s dialogue in the past four posts was mostly framed this way. “Can’t write anything”, “Everything is flawed”, “You’ll never overcome those thoughts”.

I’ll try to put it the way that it was shown to me, though I don’t know if it will be as effective when it’s simply written out. He very simply asked me to not think about a pink elephant.

Don’t think about a pink elephant.

What’s the one image in your brain right now? If you’re anything like me, it’s a big ol’ pink elephant. That is what Gloonur represents, to me. The harder you try to avoid things, the more you strive not to focus on the negative, the more desperately you strain to bottle it all up and shelve it away – the more narrow your tunnel vision on the negative becomes. Of course, some problems truly are as urgent as giant pink arachnid elephants – but you have to be willing to face them to see if they really are as horrifying as you think, or if you’ve let your imagination best you.

Gloonur: Part IV

The writer meandered, wandered, and ambled his way toward the horizon. That is to say, in the desolate inferno he had found himself in, he had actually lost himself.

“You don’t know how to get back.” The damned and damnable elephant at his back commented. Gloonur had long ago stopped phrasing his interactions as questions.

“I didn’t want you to follow me out here.”

“So here I am.” The elephant said, and though the writer strained not to look, he could still feel the thing smirking at his back.

“Why won’t you go away?” The writer moaned, finally halting his tiresome journey. He didn’t want to be out here. He didn’t want to be stuck in the room either. And he didn’t want to feel this way anymore.

“God! What I wouldn’t give for you to shut up!” The writer screamed as he spun to face the demon.

“You called?” Came a voice from behind him, undoubtedly feminine but with an ethereal edge to the tone.

The writer, unable to focus on Gloonur in his surprise, whirled about once more to come face to face with…

“Gah! What the hell are you?” The writer said, eyes forced to remain open by the sight.

The being was composed of seven different sized rings, all nested within one another and rotating in different directions at different speeds. At its center was a ball of white flame, and eyes lined the outer edge of each wheel.

“Not god, not demon, not human. I am here to help you.”

“Help me with what, rolling with the punches?” The writer said sarcastically, having forgotten about Gloonur entirely for the moment.

“To guide you where you must go. It is part of the deal you made.” The being said.

“Deal? I don’t remember any deal.”

“You will, in time. For now, know that you will never be alone, not while I’m around. The elephant will move on, but first you have to let him. Take a good, long look at him.”

“I’ve been trying not to.”

The being formed a face in the flames and smiled.

“Yes, that’s the problem.”

So the writer did as she asked, and he turned one final time to stare down the pessimistic elephant.

The first thing he noticed was that it wasn’t half as big as he’d thought, and he realized that he’d only taken short glances at it, only looked at it from his peripherals. The eight eyes of his nightmares boiled down, becoming two regular eyes. And it wasn’t pink at all! He wasn’t sure how he’d made that last mistake, but sure enough Gloonur was just a regular old elephant. A curious sight in hell to be sure, but no longer a black hole of attention and dread.

The writer turned to thank the strange being made of rings, but was greeted only by empty hellscape before him.

Gloonur?: Part III

“You’ll never overcome those thoughts that way.” Spoke a voice from the shadows. Had there always been that much darkness in the corner of the room?

“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. I can try not to think about the thing and end up there anyway, or I can think about it. A fool’s choice is not a choice at all.”

“Yes, well you would know the fool’s choice intimately wouldn’t you?” The voice said, a sardonic laugh punctuating the end of its sentence.

“What demon are you then? Obviouso the Sarcastic?” The writer asked, tossing aside his keyboard in frustration.

“Why, just the same. Not that you would know if something was on the nose, even if it struck you between the eyes.”

“Big talk for someone lurking in the shadows.” The writer said, standing from his seat and crossing his arms. A miasma of rot had begun to permeate the air, only detectable now that he was standing.

“Who’s lurking? I might be hid in shadow, but I don’t need to escape as you seem to. Just where are you always running off to anyways?” The voice spoke, though against his words the figure leaned back, away from the writer.

“I’m not running anywhere. And I don’t think I need to sit here and take this. I’m going for a walk.” The writer said, taking the time to grab himself a coat even in the balmy weather. Gloonur looked over the writer as though he’d gone mad, and maybe he had. This time of year, winds from the lower rings of hell cast a lovely one-hundred degrees Celsius breeze all over the local ring. According to Gloonur, the denizens had tried throwing a Christmas party once, to disastrous effect. Turns out, many of the lesser, more mindless demons had a thing for eating tinsel…and difficulties sorting it out afterward. The higher demons banned every season except summer immediately after. It was, after all, a bureaucracy. Why throw out the trash when you can throw out the kitchen and never worry about a full bag again?

But here he was, dressing himself for cold weather that would never come. Some lessons, once learned, haunt the student long after they’ve stopped being useful. He ignored the nagging feeling and strolled right past the elephant in the room.

A pale, bloated face – mostly obscured by a tattered black hood, leaned out of the darkness as one might emerge from a pool.

“Oh that’s rich. Spoken like a true coward, off to bolt from every conflict, no conviction behind it. A lovely Sunday stroll through Hell eh? I’d like to see you pathetically struggle to summon the courage for it.”

“I’d tell you to go to hell, but seeing as we’re already here, go find Satan and climb til you can’t see the lake of fire anymore.” The writer said, venom dripping from his words.

“You still haven’t figured it out? Where will you go? Off to visit? Ha! Fine words from a finely crafted empty vessel. Come grovel to me when you figure out how difficult it is out there, won’t you?” The pale-faced figure said, slinking back into the depths of the corner, until there were no more depths, only the boundless puddles of powerless thought.

Gloonur: Part II

“If you don’t do it now, you’ll never do it.” Gloonur crooned, forelimbs crossed underneath its arachnid-like head for support. On a normal elephant, it might have seemed endearing or innocent, but on the neon-pink monstrosity, it was just more nightmare fuel on the bonfire. It tilted it’s head, eight mismatched eyes focused unerringly on the writer.

“There’ll be plenty of time later.”

“Sure. Might as well avoid doing it anyway, nothing new under the sun and all that.”

“Doesn’t stop other people from writing.”

“But if you look at it, everything is flawed. Just have to look close enough.”

The writer stopped. He fell into the demon’s logic, deeper and deeper. His vision tunneled, until everything he could see was microscopic. Perfectly detailed, and every flaw in plain light.

Then he saw a new avenue, branching from the logic. Spiraling up and out of the microscope of imperfection.

“Everything is flawed. Including your logic.”

“I beg your pardon?” The demon said, recoiling into a standing position.

“Everything is flawed. Everything is wrong in some way or another. And nothing would feel right without the blurs at the edges.”

“So, you’re stuck thinking about what I say? I see your efforts to ignore me weren’t productive.” Gloonur said, grinning with shining teeth.

“So what if I can’t ignore you?”

“Well it’s just what I want. Just try not to think about me. You’ll just spiral into my trap every time.”

The writer was left dumbfounded. This time he didn’t have an answer.

Gloonur, The Optimistic: Part I

Splat. Splat. Splat. The words dripped onto the page slowly, delicately. Each one was a complete work on its own, chosen specifically to fit-

A leaden foot collided with his floor, sending a rumble through his body and cutting the flow of words. The writer paused. He didn’t want to acknowledge it.

The words resumed, slowly. As painful as the process of extracting them had been before, they were now liquid fire drawn inch by inch through his fingers. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of eight beady eyes…

No. No, he didn’t want to face this right now. He was writing. He wouldn’t look, and he wouldn’t stop.

“Can’t write anything, eh?” The eight-legged elephant demon said in the voice of rolling hills.

The writer looked at the page. Really looked at it this time. He’d been writing and re-writing the same sentence for hours.

“I didn’t want to write anything bad.”

“Looks like you just haven’t written anything at all.”

“No! I’m not talking to you! I’m just going to go relax with my coffee.” The writer said, standing fast enough to slide the decidedly non-rolling chair back a few feet. True to his word, he stormed off to a recliner in the corner with his mug of coffee and resumed his futile attempts to ignore Gloonur, who had introduced himself as “The Optimistic” on their first meeting.

“Come now, you know you can’t ignore me forever.”

The writer would ignore him forever. After all, apparently he did indeed have forever ahead of him.

Last Week’s Thoughts: Churg’x

First, let me say that the next part in the writer’s story will be coming soon. Second, I would like to try out this kind of post for the first while, to try and dissect what I mean when I write the posts about the demons. I feel this will be helpful for two reasons: to get myself better in touch with my own mental health, and to help other people understand the nonsense that dribbles out from my brain when I write these posts. Without further ado:

This week’s focus was, of course, on launching the blog, but Churg’x was the real star of the show. The title of the first post featuring that demon is no accident: Churg’x is “The Familiar”, a demon which to me represents my distorted view of what is familiar to me. That includes family, friends, places that bring comfort, anything that is usual and ‘safe.’ He represents the various ways in which my family have striven to help me out of this depression, for good or bad. My family is one which is never short on sage life advice – crafted and honed through years of experience, trial and error – that I am generally all too eager to put in one ear and out the other. It’s not that it’s bad advice, or that it couldn’t possibly help me. Quite the opposite, I try to carry many of their bits of wisdom in my head as often as possible, having found the truth in them after years of my own trial and error. And I think that leads to the most key lessons I believe Churg’x offers.

Yes, people who do not suffer from depression (and even some who do!) can misunderstand how best to help someone who is suffering. The thing that I had to realize was that every saying, every bit of wisdom, every minor admonishment, all had their source in the same place – and that was love. Sometimes the only way for us to get people to realize how to help us is to first figure out how we can help ourselves. Because only then can we communicate it to them, and build new roads instead of deepening the ruts we’ve found ourselves in. Similarly, those who are familiar to the depressed have to realize something that I personally have observed (and handily demonstrated) many times. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Even on the verge of dehydration. Human brains are stubborn and resistant to outside change. It’s usually only once we’ve stumbled headlong into painful realization that we find the tools to change our course for the better. In this way, I think the best way anyone can try to help is to encourage two-way communication, and offer to listen while reserving judgment until the end.

Churg’x: Part III

The page languished, having remained untouched for uncounted minutes. The writer, however, anguished no more over the page’s distress. It could remain blank for now, and that was fine.

“You know, I never realized there were quite that many layers to hell. Used to be, people thought it was nine. Kind of like the planets.” The writer said, leaning back with a mug of coffee. The steam curled from the brim into the crisp air, surprisingly cold considering the demon lounging opposite.

“Well, technically…”

“No, don’t go there. Just don’t.”

“Yeah, so while I would compare your situation to, say, Ebenezer Scrooge’s, but you’ll be seeing a lot more than three of us.” Churg’x burbled, sticking a tentacle which he had earlier referred to as a drinking appendage into his own mug. Super-glued to the side table beside the thing, based on prior experiences.

“Am I supposed to learn something from all of you? I’ll be damned.”

“Kind of the point.” Churg’x said, suggesting a wink with it’s face-shape.

“Now that you’ve taken all this time to listen to me, you’re just going to leave? I mean, I’m kind of growing fond of you. And your advice is making a lot more sense now that you’ve explained where I am.”

“What can I say, it’s a hell of an exper-“

“Nope, no, stop. What did I say about the hell jokes?” The writer said, leaning forward a bit faster than intended and spilling coffee on the floor. He intended to fret over the mess, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Churg’x sighed, with a good deal of melodrama and tentacle-waggling in the process.

“After six-hundred-and-sixty-six of them, they’re not funny anymore. Although, speaking of unfunny things…”

That was when the eight-eyed, eight-legged neon pink elephant strolled through his wall.

Churg’x: Part II

The writer ground to a halt, like rusted gears turning against one another. The page before him had sat blank and unfulfilled for so long now that he wasn’t sure if there were ever a combination of words which could fit in the space.

“It really doesn’t seem like you’re trying harder.” The horrifying tentacled blob said, an errant appendage reaching out to touch the writer on the shoulder as though for comfort.

“It doesn’t work like that.” The writer said, “I’ve been trying for ages now. My brain just doesn’t work like that.”

“Have you tried turning it on and off again?” Churg’x offered cheerfully, as though it were the most helpful advice in the world.

“Yeah, humans can’t really do that.”

“There’s got to be a switch here somewhere.” Churg’x muttered, satisfied that his plan was the best one they had.

“Why are you here? Why are you so intent on…fixing me?” The writer asked, grappling with hesitation as he strained to articulate what it was this thing was trying to do.

“I’m here for you, buddy! Your own personal muse as it were.”

“Well you aren’t very amusing.”

“Keep up with wit like that, and you’ll be a great stand-up comedian!” Churg’x said, throwing up some tentacles in celebration. When the writer’s stone-faced stare was his only response, the demonic thing managed to look crestfallen.

“If you’re not just a figment of my imagination, and you really are here to help…well, you could start by listening a bit more.”

“How can I listen if you won’t talk to me?” The demon said, crossing two tentacles in indignation.

The writer seemed taken aback at that. He fell silent once more, his eyes turned to the blank page. He couldn’t look at Churg’x, and it wasn’t because of his abysmal appearance.