I must apologize for my absence on here. It’s been a month since my last Thought of the Week, and the truth is I haven’t been having a lot of thoughts lately. My depression is continuing to worsen, despite the fact that I’ve returned to my medications. I haven’t even opened Scrivener in the past month, much less written anything for The Redemption of Erâth. I haven’t even thought about it.

It’s even gotten to the point where my day job is being affected. I don’t think anyone at work will have noticed, but I can barely make it through a day there, now. I wrote last month about how my work is often a last bastion of positivity for me, but these days even that is faltering. I find myself wanting to escape to my car and fall asleep, or just turn my back on the people I’m interacting with and walk away.

Writing this post … is the most I can manage.

So what have I been doing? A lot of sleeping, first and foremost. I crawl into bed every chance I get, a place I can doze off and escape from the numbness of reality. I eat, too; I’m sure I’ve gained twenty pounds in the past month or two. When I have the tiniest bit of motivation, I play old video games and drink tea. I can’t even bring myself to read. I watch Family Guy reruns to try and get myself to laugh, but I’ve seen them all and it become mindless.

Sometimes something new can rouse me, so I bought the latest Nightwish album, Endless Forms Most Beautiful. It’s really rather excellent, a symphonic metal concept album about evolution, narrated in parts by Richard Dawkins. I might write it up when I get a chance. But it hasn’t lifted my depression. Instead, it will probably become forever associated with this dark period of my life, like so many other albums before it.

My psychiatrist says it could take up to a month for me to start feeling the effects of my medication again, after being off it for even so short a period as a week. I will admit that I haven’t had any ‘freak-out’ sessions since I went back on the meds, although the depression is still deep. Perhaps in a few more weeks I’ll find the courage to start writing again. I feel guilty for abandoning Ancients and Death for so long, and for leaving Exile alone in mid-edit hell. I’d still like to see Exile published this summer, although time is starting to run out for preparations. I’m starting to think I should just scan it through one more time and publish through CreateSpace—just get the damn thing out there.

We’ll have to see. For now, writing this post has taken all day and is the most I can manage. Again, I apologize.

I will try harder.