anna akana – Vraxx — The Long Road

Depression – Musings on Role Models, Tinfoil Knights and Fallen Paladins

Been away from the blogsphere for a while, mostly trying to focus on myself and trying to improve my life situation. Of course I’ve still tried to keep up where I can on other depression blogs and news (ugh) where able. One item that I happened to come across hit a bit close to home.

Anna Akana was one of the first YouTubers I watched as I was beginning to wrap my head around depression. Her posts were approachable, tinged with humor and felt like they came from a good place. I had heard similar language from my ex-wife during our vows and I guess the depressed side of me really started to ruminate about the whole thing. I’ve never liked the idea of men today having to live up to a white knight image. I’m flawed in many ways, as anyone is as trying to compare myself to that sort of ideal feels futile and self defeating. While at the time it was a sweet gesture for my then fiance to think of me as a knight, in retrospect I now began wondering if I was in fact just a tinfoil knight. This train of thought got me thinking about role models and how over time I simply stopped believing in them. It isn’t that I don’t think there’s good people out there, but I realize short of some miracle of omniscience, you can never truly know everything about someone. Everything we do is based on perception. Having said that though there’s still people I enjoy hearing good news about.

Case in point, Keanu Reeves.

As someone with an interest in competitive shooting, I was honestly floored to see how much Keanu dedicated himself to the role of John Wick with his martial arts training and what I can only imagines were weeks if not months of intense training with Taran Butler (https://tarantacticalinnovations.com/) I had always read small news bits here and there about some of the tragic history he himself has seen. In comparison I always felt like my challenges were a bit mundane. Through all of it though I saw someone who was a rarity in Hollywood. A person who seemed very much to be grounded and humble and a good person on and off camera. While I have joked on social media that John Wick is my spirit guide, the reality is Keanu himself serves as the better reminder that you can overcome darkness without losing yourself to it.

Role models are a tricky thing. Especially with the way we glorify celebrity. I’d like to think that I take from certain people the best lessons I can. Be it a YouTuber and advocate like Anna Akana, a humble and dedicated action star like Keanu or even just the random people I see committing acts of kindness on the street. I don’t think I’d ever consider myself a role model. That kinda pressure isn’t for me, but perhaps in some small way I’ve at least been a reminder to someone out there that even amid depression and adversity you can try to keep moving forward. So maybe I’m not a knight, tinfoil or otherwise. Maybe in some ways I’m just a fallen paladin. The thing about falling down though? You can get back up and keep moving forward.

Getting Past your Past (Ex’s, Social Media)

Anna Akana was one of the first YouTubers that I actually began following when I first had my depression diagnosis. She was very frank and honest about her difference experiences and her advice, almost always punctuated with humor was easy for me to access.

It sounds so easy to simply say “Don’t think about your ex” but in a world of social media that’s actually harder than it is. Anna’s advice is on point here but I thought I’d expand upon it. During the start of my divorce there were certainly those feelings that I wanted to know what was going on as my ex and I were preparing to end our marriage. I realized that just having my social media profile meant having connections to her, the guy she was seeing and our old circle of friends. I had to make the blunt choice to simply get rid of all my social media and change how I used any form of it. Gone were my FB, my Google+ accounts, Twitter and the like. Eventually I found myself with just two main types of social media accounts, a Reddit to read up about subjects I still had an interest in, and Instagram. Unlike my FB days though my IG was private and mostly used to track news, products or things relating to my growing interest in target shooting.

Over time though I realized that creating a more isolated social media presence had also helped me to make the break from my ex-wife. I wasn’t tempted to login to social media and see what was going on. Her life was hers and mine was mine. Rebuilding could go on for both of us and neither of us had any reason to know what was going on in the other’s life. These days while I sometimes miss being ‘in the know’ with some of my friends (hrm maybe friends is a stretch) I find that it’s forced me to do one of the things I hate. I have to actual be social and engage in conversation. It seems silly to think of that as something novel but the reality is I don’t passively observe in people’s lives these days. I have to go out of my way to see how they are. In some cases it’s helpful, there’s a subset of my old circles that genuinely do enjoy telling me about the goings on of their lives. Then again I suspect for some people it’s frustrating that I’m not “aware of what’s going on in XYZ’s life”.

Getting over an ex, be it boyfriend/girlfriend or worse, an ex-spouse takes time. You can go about it in any number of ways but knowing how to avoid the social media trap and letting them have their life is a big first step. If you’re having a hard time with it, considering deactivating your accounts for a short time or learning to filter content to avoid triggering painful memories. You can get through it, it won’t be fun, but it can be made easier.

Self Care — No One Size Fits All

One of the most difficult things to deal with surrounding depression and anxiety is a sense of self care. For me my process began with trying to improve my diet, my personal grooming and finding activities that I could focus on without doing things like foraging while I did so.

YouTuber Anna Akana posted a recent vlog focused on her own self-care approach and made some very good points.

Self-care means different things to everyone. For some people it’s confronting fears head on, for others it’s finding alternative ways to cope or fortify yourself mental health-wise. One of her points that struck a chord with me in particular was knowing when to pass on a social outing. I’m generally not a social butterfly so some of the typical ‘hanging out’ options that most folks think nothing of don’t appeal to me. That’s not to say that I don’t interact with friends and socialize, it’s just usually a more specific ‘thing’ that we’re going out to do. Meals, movies etc with a focus is usually how I engage with friends. For people struggling with anxiety however the act of going out in a crowd and with friends can sometimes be more stress inducing than relaxing. I think on some levels it’s hard to describe to friends that smaller-interaction is easier.

Good habits however should never be excluded from self care. Exercise, diet, hygiene should always be a component of your regimen. It won’t always be easy to identify what should or shouldn’t be in your self-care plan but make that effort, try things. Take the time to see what works for you, what you can sink your teeth in that has positive benefits and work on it.