Containing nearly every term one afflicted with depression will likely encounter and be required to become familiar with — The conversation on depression has increased and expanded over the past decades. And with that upsurge, we’ve witnessed new concepts and terminologies. I feel it’s important to be aware of them and to be able to differentiate among them. …

I sometimes do that on other platforms as well, but today we’re focusing solely on Medium — When I joined Medium over a year ago I published every alternate day, obsessed over my stats, checked my earnings every day. And I always replied instantly. But as time passed the novelty wore off. Medium became more of a chore than an escape. …

Managing expectations from an often-misunderstood form of publishing — I was never supposed to become a writer. Nobody in my family was one. But ever since I read my first Enid Blyton novel at four I felt an ineffable pull toward the life of the author. Over the next decade I sought and attempted mastery over the English language…

Who breaks the critical ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ rule and yet produces unputdownable writing — Having been on this planet twenty-three years, my memory isn’t what it once was. Try as I might I can’t recall whether my first adult novel was Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol or Frederick Forsyth’s The Odessa File. Whichever it was, I became a fan of Forsyth when I was…

Because the opposite of depression is not bliss — Although I was formally diagnosed in 2013, I’d been depressed for years prior. Apparently, my mother was once asked in school why I always looked sad and forlorn. She had no answer; neither of us did. It wasn’t until I turned fourteen that we got an explanation: clinical depression. The…

And my literary introduction to Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy — Of all the books I’ve read perhaps four have been nonfiction. I prefer to consume stories via novels, but information via documentaries. There have been exceptions; Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl was particularly life-altering. Not even exaggerating. …

Surprising research indicates yes, but there’s a catch — I spend around thirty minutes every day promising myself to begin exercising. On the thirty-first minute I realize I never will and with a resigned sigh accept my fate as an out-of-shape writer. It’s not laziness — not only laziness — but a lack of consistency. …

How the worst experience of my life became the catalyst for self-improvement — The worst years of my life were 2018 and 2019. In the former my depression worsened to the point I attempted suicide and in the latter, I came close to a repeat. 2013 to 2017 were difficult too but from 2020 I embarked on a path toward recovery that’s seen…

Trauma and abuse aren’t always behind feeling like a failure — I’ve spent the majority of my life thinking I’m a failure. A small part of me still does, even as I write this article. Clinical depression has an established correlation with low self-esteem; I’ve been clinically depressed for eight years. …