For quite a few years, depression hid inside me as an artist. I could feel things at a very intense level and that emotion went from me to the page very easily. I lived my own pain on the page, other people's pain flowed through me.

Sure I might have to lock myself in a room for three days after a breakthrough writing session, but it was a small price to pay for excellence. A very small price.

Then came the weeks on end of little to no activity, hating myself, hating everything. Those were the times I couldn't be alone because I would experiment in physical pain to take away the hurt.

Enter medication. Ah, generic prozac, how you took the highs and lows away. I felt nothing with you and it was perfect. I was awash in grey and loved every minute of it. No pain, no crying. Nothing. Complete nothing.

But the drawback of medication was that where once I had to write as fast as I could to keep up with the emotion was now replaced by inneptitude at my craft. Now there was no hurt to draw from, no emotional scab to pick at.

Enter effexor. And I was able to experience happiness for what seemed like the first time. How amazing it was to laugh, and to suddenly realize it had been years since I truly laughed with no desperation.

Still no ability to write like I could. I just can't seem to get in touch with that part of me that stained a page with raw emotion. I miss it. I really do. But I don't miss it enough to go back. And every now and again when I'm able to sit down and put pen to paper and everything starts to flow a little to easy, that is when I am most afraid. That is when I'm afraid my Hyde won't hide any longer.

And so I pose as this incomplete half-self of what I had been, more than happy to be inept. More than happy to just be. And more than happy to be here – alive.