Dear Trout: Depression as saboteur, and advice for indies

It’s time for Dear Trout, a magical time when you can ask a real, living human disaster to give you advice, and that human disaster tries to answer in a way that won’t ruin your life if you act on that advice.

I’m not actually expecting an answer, just throwing this out in the universe like a message in a bottle. And maybe it’s easier to phrase this as if I were talking to a person who ‘gets’ mental illness and self-sabotage.

(Uh, rereading this – if you do read this please don’t take offense at the self-sabotage thing. I don’t mean it as a judgement or anything. I think you’re fantastic. I meant, you write like someone who gets having to work against our own brain)

My partner is wonderful, and I think I want a divorce. I have ADHD, diagnosed, but unmedicated because it’s not an option where I live and moving is hard. I managed to have a successful career… But sometimes it feels like just existing in the vicinity of another human is too hard.

Items don’t stay where I left them because there are two of us in the same space. I can’t not have snacks at home (best way for me to not overeat) because he’s allowed to want snacks sometimes. We have horribly mismatched sex drives (in that I have none, she packed her suitcases one day years ago and went AWOL and I don’t think she’s ever coming back). Partner is super understanding about this and never pressured, but just the fact that I know he’s there and hoping for this state of affairs to change is like sandpaper on my nerves.

He gave up his job to follow me halfway across the world, and he picks up a lot of the slack at home. He puts more trust in me than I have ever put or will ever put in another human.

I love this man to bits, but I don’t know if I can still be with him. I’m exhausted, every day, all the time. It would be easier to live alone, I think. But I can’t tell if this is just the chronic depression talking.

Do I want to walk away?

No offense taken at the self-sabotage thing. It’s a little late for me to start denying that now.

I could answer this in one sentence: It’s the chronic depression talking. But I’m not gonna leave it there because that would be unhelpful.

I’m gonna focus on the two complaints you made in the beginning, about snacks and not being able to find stuff. These are annoying, but not insurmountable. If he wants snacks and your issue is your access to them, why not ask him to keep the snacks in a locked cupboard or drawer and not give you the combination or key? And not being able to find things because people pick them up and walk away with them? If it’s an important object, the two of you could make a weird little game of it. If you use, for example, a pair of scissors (I picked this because it’s the thing that always goes missing in my house), take picture of where you put it when you were finished using it. You can both do this. “Where are the scissors?” “The last time I saw them, I left them here,” and show each other the picture. You’ll either find it in that place, or one of you will see the picture and go, “Waaaait, I did pick it up from there and use it…my bad,” because it looks familiar. Like attracts like, so the probability that your spouse isn’t also laboring under some kind of spectrum or spectrum-adjacent disorder is narrow. You might both be picking up and wandering around with stuff and mutually frustrating each other.

Moving on to the sex thing, because it’s the biggest tell that your depression is driving this and not reason. You say he’s very understanding and never pressures you, but just you knowing that he’s there, hoping for things to change irritates you. If he’s not pressuring you, but you still feel that pressure? That’s internal. You’re feeling disappointed with yourself and projecting your disappointment onto him. Because you feel this way about yourself, obviously he feels the same, right? Unless he’s told you explicitly, “I’m waiting for this to resolve itself and I’m very impatient about it,” or is asking often, “Is your sex drive better? Is your sex drive better? Can we have sex now?” these are internal thoughts and feelings you’re creating for him.

That’s your depression.

You’re “exhausted, every day, all the time,” and think it would be easier to live alone, but he does a lot to contribute to the household. Will your exhaustion decrease if you, with unmedicated ADHD, suddenly bear the responsibility of the entire household, from chores to finances? I’m sure that your depression thinks so. Because it plans to make you avoid all those tasks, anyway, and then get even more depressed than you were in the first place.

I would never say that someone should stay with another person just because that person contributes a lot to managing the household. Anybody with a credit card can buy a dishwasher, you know? But there isn’t really anything in your question that reads like it isn’t being written by your chronic depression. If I had just read, “I love my husband but I feel like we’ve grown apart over the years and our visions for the future don’t align,” my answer would be a lot different. What I read, though, was a person saying how much they love their partner, the stuff their partner does for them (aside from a couple minor clashes about how the house should function), and describing a major symptom of the mental illness they have: the desire to isolate, even from the people who are closest to them.

If there’s other stuff going on that you didn’t include because you were thinking out loud in text and didn’t expect to see the question answered, obviously, that might change my answer. And some people are happier just being alone. But based on what I read, from one mental health struggler to another, it seems like your depression has you in a bad place. For what it’s worth, I’m sending you all those healing vibes people post about on Facebook when they want to be helpful but don’t know how to help from afar. It sucks to have to constantly second guess our own brains and reach out for reality checks and wonder if our thoughts are our own of the product of some dipshit mental illness we never asked to have. So, please don’t interpret all of this as me saying, “You’re wrong for wanting to leave your marriage.” What I’m saying is, “Your depression is bullying you. Please don’t make any major decisions without considering whether or not you feel the same way now as you’ve felt in the past before depression has sabotaged you.”

I wish you luck with whatever road you go down.

What three pieces of advice would you give to someone planning to self-publish their work?

My first piece of advice: never read your reviews. Unless someone sends you a link to their five star review gushing about how much they loved your book, do not read your reviews.

Second piece of advice: don’t self-publish as a back-door way of getting into traditional publishing. The odds of sales being so phenomenal that agents and publishers come scrambling for you books is exceptionally low. Even should you get picked up that way, publishers will not give you leeway to have a even a minor sales dip on your second book with them. You will have to be viral, every single time, with less room for forgiveness and future planning that traditionally acquired authors are given (which isn’t a lot, anyway).

Third piece of advice: If you see someone social media say, “Authors, stop doing this thing in your book,” or “Authors, we’re getting tired of this incredibly specific thing,” ignore it. Write what you want to write. What’s the point of self-publishing if we’re writing for other people and not ourselves? Plus, you’ll never please everyone, and those “PSA FOR AUTHORS:” posts often contradict each other. Your audience is out there. If BookLoverBrenda85 doesn’t want another book with a heroine who sword fights, and your heroine sword fights, then you’re not her audience. But someone out there is.

That’s what I’ve got for the week. Need advice from someone who barely has their own shit together? Ask your questions here.