Confessions of a Depressed Creative

Can I just say that 2024 has been hard? I know a lot of people would agree. It just hasn’t been the year for some, including me. I have found joy and happiness too but the grief, sickness, surgery, and sadness hang over almost constaintly. It’s hard to get up sometimes, hard to remember how to have fun. I think it makes it extra difficult for people like us; the ones whose jobs depend on their creativity. I was talking to my therapist about it and she said what I couldn’t. I began with “it just seems so stupid; I can’t sit around and make a ‘what flavor Dole Whip are you’ quiz when…when”, I trailed off. “Who cares what flavor Dole Whip you are when my aunt’s dead”, she supplied for me. “Yep” is all I could say.

How do you put yourself in a mindset to create these amazing trips for other families when you feel like nothing will ever be fun again? Logically, I know happiness will come back, I’ll feel creative again. But the waiting for the clouds to part feels unending at times. Then the clouds do part, even maybe for just a few minutes, and you feel clarity and motivation again. When the darkness returns it feels like being trapped on a viscious cycle. It’s sad, but also discouraging when it’s your job to present this glorious, dream like experience to your audience. Finding the energy is impossible and you start to believe the joy and happiness you have experienced on trips before doesn’t even exist. 

If you have ever felt this way, take a breathe bestie, you aren’t alone. I know it feels isolating, and if you’re anything like me you have probably felt disappointment in yourself. Being a Travel Agent can feel very lonely in and of itself. Then you layer on mental health struggles and its a whole other beast. 

Here’s what I’m going to do: 

1. Confide in my TA besties (and my family, of course), they know the pain of the TA world and they care for me. Plus, you never know what they are dealing with themselves. They probably have days just like you. 
2. Take care of myself. Drink water, eat food even if it’s just a snack.
3. Go outside, feel the sun on my face, and pet the pups.
4. Try and pre-make some content when I feel like it. That way, when I cannot muster a creative bone in my body I have something I can mindlessly post. Having something to post will take away some of that feeling of shame. 

If you have ever felt like me, please know you’re not alone. And don’t worry, our happy place is still there. It is real, even when you have convinced yourself it doesn’t. I say none of this for pity, I actually hate talking about it because I would rather have people believe I was this bright ray of sunshine in crazy outfits all the time. But, speaking truth and letting people know they aren’t alone in this crazy, often unfair, world is more important than my pride. 

I hope you feel happiness today, I really do.