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Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

5 years ago974 words

We've started on the path towards promoting and then releasing Sindrel Song! However, completely unsurprisingly, the various mental issues I have are getting in the way.

I'm getting help from regular commenter JohannasGarden with the PR stuff that I'm absolutely not cut out for. She's going to be contacting people she's already familiar with and interacting with them, and we've already worked on a press release together which she sent out yesterday. I've no idea what'll happen beyond this point - maybe nobody will bite the bait, maybe several people will and word of it will spread, maybe a few people will play it but won't like it - but at least it's definite progress towards releasing this thing.

I wrote in the last post that I intended to do some research about how to release and promote indie games... but I've not done anything more since writing that, due to the darkness in my head.

There's this overwhelming feeling of guilt, this highly negative self-image, which makes me feel that I don't 'deserve' anything good to come of this. That what I 'deserve' is to suffer, and what I should do is just retreat away from the world, never interact with anyone again, kill myself to spare the world of my awfulness.

So the thought of going out there and promoting my game in a positive way is very much at odds with that! The best outcome - many people playing it and, more importantly, actually liking it - is something that internal darkness tells me I don't deserve and should avoid.

Plus there's the overwhelming exhaustion, likely a result of a combination of depression, my poor life situation and habits in general, and the literal brain cancer that I have (I was told radiotherapy would cause fatigue in the long term).

So for the last couple of days, I've spent most of my time too exhausted to do anything, while my mind swarms with negative memories and thoughts about myself (framed as 'how other people would/must think of me'), and pessimistic thoughts about the future. Wondering when - not if - it'll get too much and I'll 'have to' kill myself. That's a thought I have many times a day.

Even if I were to get therapy, or take medication, those won't change the circumstances that bring about these thoughts and feelings, of which there are many.

I suppose all I can do is try to push on, to go against what the inner demons are saying, even if it feels like pretending. One of the biggest sources of this negativity is the belief that I've not done anything profitably productive with my life. I know I made those MARDEK games, but that was forever ago, and they didn't earn money. My twenties were wasted. I don't have a house, a partner, a meaningful career. I have essentially no income. If I were to actually earn enough money from my creative work just to pay the most basic of bills, that'd be one huge circumstantial source of darkness lit up.

Dark days like this come often, but I'm not like this all the time. I just have to remind myself of that. I usually write about it when it's at its worst because that's when venting is most helpful, but since I don't exactly talk about it when I'm not feeling so bad, it probably makes it seems like there's nothing but this in my experience. I've actually been fairly productive with this new project recently, and of course I managed to make Sindrel Song at all despite having an objectively terrible life in many regards and a mind that was in many ways against me. Those are definite steps I'm taking towards improvement, it's just naive to think that moving towards a better place would prevent any negative thoughts from coming up at all.

I don't want to pretend that things like this aren't a part of my experience of life, because they very much are. I'm trying to channel them into creative work though; loads of artists draw on suffering to inspire them. I just hope other people can get something out of what I produce.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to actually do now. I do want to promote the game myself, but I feel like I should wait until after it's released so then I can link people directly to a playable version. My plan is to have a small release on Kartridge first, then to listen to feedback (if any) and make any improvements or bug fixes if necessary. I'll be surprised if I sell 100 copies in the first week. Then I'll see about having what I'd hope might be a bigger release on Steam, though that might be a few weeks off. I'll be learning from the whole process and should have a better idea of what to do with future games; it's the uncertainty and unfamiliarity of it all, the transition from years as a recluse to being back in the public eye even to a small degree, that's rousing these demons.

I know this is nothing new to the regular readers, and it might seem inappropriate to post if there'll be new eyes on this blog soon, but I do find it helps a lot just to accept that these repetitive, negative thoughts are here, to talk about them even if I'm repeating myself every time, rather than faking a smile and pretending everything's okay, then feeling even worse because I feel like a fraud.

I want to focus on this new project just because it's easier to do creative stuff than anything promotional, but I also feel like I should seek out places I might be able to mention the game, like indie games forums, etc... I'll see what I can do.