Mind's Going Already

Alright, it seems odd doing so considering there have been much more important people who have passed, but for some reason the fact that Robin Williams committed suicide this week really struck a cord with me. So, in honor of a great man, I wish to post this picture that has been floating around Facebook:

I am sorry that I do not know of any numbers outside of the United States,
but please PLEASE look for help if you or someone you know needs it.

I understand that if you are suffering from Depression that you must feel so terribly alone. Please know you are not. I am sure that there are people in your life who wish to help you, but most probably just don't know how, or they don't have the resources to. You may feel that no one loves or cares for you. Please know that this is also not true. I may not even know you, but know that I care and have concerns for you. I want you to feel and get better.

If a stranger can feel that passion for you, I'm sure you can find others. So please, PLEASE, I am begging you to look and reach out for help if you need it. You don't need to suffer alone. It may take a while to find the right grip out of the crushing darkness, but it can be found. Please, do not give up. Go to as many people as you can/need to. Call the above lifeline.

It is a tragedy when the only relief people can find is to end their lives. So even if you do not have Depression, or know someone who does, please help those strangers who do have it. Spread the word of where they can find help so the information can make its way to the people who need it. Advocate for companies, governments, and society as a whole to treat mental health as seriously as physical health. Plead for research to continue to find a way to treat and cure these painful struggles people have to deal with every day.

My father died of cancer, and so I am grateful for all the research and media attention cancer has received, but we need to think of those with mental health issues as well: Depression, Anxiety, ADHD, Bi-Polar, OCD, Schizophrenia, the list goes on. Most people have to fight against these illnesses a lot longer than those with physical health issues. Most people also have to do so while struggling silently and unknown to the world around them.

Help these people find solace. Help these people find peace. Help these people find hope. Help these people find cures or alternate ways to use their different mind to live a full life.

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Alright. I'm climbing off my soapbox now.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming...

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Geez, I'm such fail as a thirty-year-old.

I didn't even notice that I missed last week's update. Then this one ended up being super late too!

Life has still been crazy since the big 3-0, so I guess I really need to figure out this whole "time management" thing before I become a parent. Otherwise there'd be no hope for me or my writing!

Although, even if I did have time the past few weeks, I don't know if it would help. I've been so fried lately that I'm struggling at doing anything that requires major brain power; or even the little bit of brain power required to remember what day of the week it is.

Normally I would unwind during work breaks by writing SOMETHING, but lately I've just been staring at the large computer monitor the managers use for teleconferences. It has a news ticker and clock that I watch. I would then normally decompress at home by either writing some more, posting on X-Future, playing video games, or playing puzzle games like Sudoku. Not since leaving my twenties.

I can't even play my beloved Legend of Zelda half the time now, unless what I'm doing is VERY straight forward. Any "puzzles" I have to figure out in A Link Between Worlds is usually met with me messing around for about five minutes before giving up and looking for our official game guide.

The computer games I now play are mindless ones where I literally just click to do things. Heck, one of the games I play is called a ZRPG: Zero Role Play Game. I just sit back and read the exploits of my character doing things without me. For those curious, I'm "Almighty Lazy" on Godville:

Friend me. ^_^

I have found little to no passion/drive/mental capacity to write ANYTHING since my birthday. Super sad really, considering that I joined both the "On Track" course and the Summer Writing Challenge that Ali Luke set up. Haven't touched either.

I think - outside the "I'm burned out" bit - a large reason is that a lot of my writing motivation comes from the X-Future boards, and those have been halted for MONTHS now. Hubby just did another time skip to try to jumpstart role playing again, but he also just killed off two more characters - and sent a third "back home" - because no one has been on to play them since about April. Worst part about all of that - aside from the increasingly shrinking "cast" of characters - is that I personally thought at least one of those characters had a lot of story potential. Heck, I could think of a nice little character-growth/teen drama subplot arch for all three characters. I guess that just means I have yet ANOTHER thing to sort of reboot in the X-Future webcomic redux.

Man, that's something else I haven't been thinking about for a while. I should get back to the webcomic world building. Maybe it will respark my zest for writing. I'm just stuck on another roadblock of how to recreate the X-Men's "Danger Room". It's a training room that uses both physical and holographic elements to create realistic scenarios for the mutants at the Xavier mansion. I have a nice example in my chapter about Chayse trying to combat the Danger Room: "Rescues and Robots."

There is an earlier chapter - "Capture the Flag" - that also includes the Danger Room. At least three more events - one of them a main catalyst event - also take place within the Danger Room. It is just as crucial as the school itself. My thing is - just like the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters - how do I have the DR without it being blatantly obvious that was the source concept?

WHY DO I GET STUCK SO EASILY!?

It's so upsetting too because the beginning of the year held such promise. I was updating my blog regularly, I had at least two collab stories I would race home to work on, I was world building like a mad woman, and the forum had some momentum behind it.

Then everything sort of just died on me.

I need to find an internal way of getting that passion back. To not need outside sources to drive me to write.

This is actually one of the reasons why the board is so dead right now. While I've been pretty much ONLY been thinking about the boards and the characters that reside there, Phfylburt has all but forgotten it. He mastered the art of not needing an outside source to spark his writing; at least, as far as I could tell. He's in a really good writing groove apparently, and has been focusing on his original works.

I say good for him.

But bad for me. Now it seems it's just Hubby and me on X-Future...

So here's hoping we get a revival on the board with this time skip, or that I can finally find that internal spark. In the meantime, maybe I'll actually work on what I signed up to do for that Writers’ Huddle writing challenge: Work on my next X-Future chapter.