Depression sucks! Please respond!

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I have been feeling a little depressed lately. I had recently gone to Arts Walk in my area and I am still pissed about it. I have been looking forward to it for YEARS and it was a complete disaster. In the building I was at to show off my art work there were two artists there. One in the front and one in the back. I was in the back. It figures. Nothing goes right in my life. Tens of thousands of people went to this thing as it is one of the biggest events during the year in my area. There were a few hundred that went into the building that I was at. Literally 90% looked at the other artist and totally blew me off like a jerk. They hated me. They were in on the plot to make me depressed and CONFIRMS that everything is meant to go horribly wrong for me. What are those people? Blind and dumb? Or just a jerk that should burn in Hell for deliberately ignoring me. I am hopeless that nothing will EVER go good for me. There was this beautiful gallery that wants my art at least that is what they said at Arts Walk and he said he will call us when he needs my art work but still no call. My hopes went up like Google stock but its back down. In other news, some of my symptoms are returning because I had to go off a pill that was causing too many side effects. One of those side effects includes a tumor on my pituitary gland! Luckily it is non cancerous. If it was, I would be dead by this time. It also caused my prolactin levels to be 4-5 times the normal amount. My biggest fear right now is that I am afraid that my dad will retire before my business does anything. He makes good money now and if he retires, where is the money going to come from? He MIGHT get $1,000 a month and that is about minimum wage or below. That is down from $100,000 a year! I will NOT be poor! We are not rich but if you see my house, you would think otherwise. It is a huge house. If he retires, we will move into a dump in a dangerous area because that is all we would be able to afford. The ONLY thing that will stop this horrible thing from happening is if my business takes off but I have had this business for about 10 years and it has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! There is no hope for me. More stuff continues. My brother will move out this year and he is ahead of me in every way. He is going to a University and he is studying game programming which they make big bucks. I am talking about over $100,000 within 5 years. He will probably get a job at Microsoft and their benefits are amazing! I am worthless and hopeless because I am just a unemployed idiot that will never do anything in life. I have everything stacked against me. 90% of autistic schizophrenics don't have a job or are homeless. Yep, you read that right. I have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, actually schizoaffective disorder. The thing is, I don't agree with that diagnosis at all because I don't hear voices. At least audible ones. I am also worried about my parent's health. My dad might need surgery on his shoulder. He works. He is missing so much work now because of doctor appointments and I'm scared that he will lose his job. Then to make things worse, my mom has a bad back and that might have to be operated on. Last time she had surgery she nearly died. I'm also scared that I will need brain surgery on my tumor. Then oh yeah, its that time of year again! Birthdays bring bad luck. It doesn't matter whose birthday it is, whether it is my own, my dads, or whoever, it doesn't matter. My symptoms seem to flare up around that time and it doesn't matter what is going on around that time. Last time was my birthday which was on February 19th. It was so bad that I had to go to the hospital. I was suicidal. I hated the stay there. The doctors were jerks and hated me. I hate them for lying to my face. I asked him, "do you think I am faking my illness?" he said NO. Then I got the report from the hospital and it basically accused me of getting the symptoms off the internet and the Internet CAUSED my schizophrenia, autism, anxiety, and depression. Let me prove a point here. I need to shoot that jerk down. I had these things BEFORE I started reading about them. When I was 13 my symptoms were 100 worse than they are now. It was horrible back then and at least back then the doctors believed me. Right now I am getting thought insertion from the government and aliens and it is annoying. I have the thoughts that say, "i'm going to kill you soon!" or "the invasion will come!" Really scary things like that. Then I have been spacing out and sometimes going catatonic in the middle of nowhere and sometimes "losing" my ability to speak properly. Total gibberish would come out of my mouth or sometimes I get really disorganized. That just happens occasionally. So, what do I do now?

Hi Firebird,

Sorry to hear that you're down again.

While art is an exciting career (well, it sounds more exciting that the computer stuff I do), it's never ever been something that sells well.

If art was a big money-maker then WWII probably wouldn't have happpened etc... (Adolf probably would have stayed in painting).

The best you can do is market yourself - which when you have something like Aspergers or other social issues, is almost impossible.

Do you have any art online? Have you approached places like Hallmark? I was thinking that if you got a few pieces to be reasonably recognisable then selling others would probably (maybe) become easier.

The other thing that seems to sell art is gimmicky, ie: Painting with your foot (or if in Australia, and if male... oh well, you know the rest). Don't try cutting ears off though - although it's proven to work in the past, I don't know for sure if it would happen again. You could say, "I'm schizophrenic, or aspergers - so look for hidden meanings in my work" - even if there aren't any.

Ok.. I know this probably isn't helping much but I hope you feel a little cheered up. (and not worse)

I couldn't read your post as it's not in paragraphs and the words all blurr together.

But, what I can say is that I know how bad depression sucks. Life is hard at times, sometimes more than you'd like it to be. I guess all I can suggest is to try and relax, think positive and if needed, talk to someone you trust or a professional.

I hope that you feel better soon.

I hope the docs get on the ball and find a new med that helps out SOON. With the brain calmed down a bit you can explore your options better. Kudos to you for having the guts to do what you're doing. Keep swingin'.

when i'm depressed, seriously in the slump, i just let it flow,
before, i used to drink just to suppress but it doesn't do anything
to make it better.
i don't know what works

I hope things improve with you soon!

one of the side effects of antipsychotics is depression and emotional numbness. maybe you could get your doc to adjust the dose.

are you sure you have schizoaffective? their is a lot of overlapp between the symptoms of autism and the schizo disorders.

you should try an alternative route. Try finding a naturopath homeopath or traditional chinese medical practisioner. The results they get are far above biomedical treatments. i sorry to hear your having such a rough time.

I'm getting even more depressed now. Not better at all. I hate this time of year as I explained people's birthdays brings BAD LUCK!! ! I am not suicidal though so I don't have to go to the hospital. Here's proof that nothing will EVER go good for me. My psychiatrist says there is NO money in art and there is no hope for me to do well in art. Then there is ONE place and only one place that sells some of my items. I thought at first that is great! Someone is interested in my stuff, there might be a chance after all. So, we decided to go into the place to see how my stuff is selling and to show them bookmarks with my images on it. Did they sell one lousy thing? The answer is NO! My stuff SUCKS like hell and there ain't no potential. No hope for me. Tons of hope for my great and powerful brother. Everything will go smoothly for him and rough for me. I am deliberately put on this planet by God to suffer. Oh by the way, they didn't care for the bookmarks because they know my stuff sucks and will NEVER sell. No money for me. There are two good things coming up though that I am excited about. One is Wyland the world's greatest artist is coming to my area and I plan to give him a print of one of my designs and the other thing is a cruise to Alaska. The cruise is next month! But that will probably be the last vacation EVER. We will never do another vacation unless grandpa sends us money again. That is the ONLY reason why we are going on this cruise, since everything is so crappy, he sent us money so we could do something. If he didn't offer it, we would be too poor to go on a vacation. That is how crappy stock is right now. All I see is darkness ahead of me with no light. The future is bright for my brother, and total darkness for me. It always has been and always will be.

I'm sorry to hear things are not improving with you!

Best wishes in the near future, and good luck!

Sweetie, come on. How your brother does (or how he APPEARS to do) is not your concern and shouldn't influence you negatively. Why make this about him...Anyway, unfortunately no one knows that the future will surely be bright. What is up can unfortunately come down tomorrow, as many unfortunate things can happen. The happiest person today may not be happy tomorrow due to things out of his/her control. So don't think in these terms. Pray that nothing bad happens to anyone and live your own life.

Let me give you an example..an aquaintance of mine had an excellent job, bragging about it, how good it was etc..very nice house, many nice things. Well this friend has been fired from the job recently! Because the company wanted to hire someone less expensive. So now this acquaintance is looking for a job and is fearful that he won't be able to make the house payments It literally changed in a matter of weeks. So really we shouldn't envy anyone, we don't know when WE will be in the position to lend them a hand.

Hang in there. Look at the current economic conditions...consumer spending is going down and people are less inclined to spend on beautiful things such as art, unfortunately. No matter how good. Even the very rich are facing economic problems that force them to restrict the spending. But when it turns around again, there will be plenty more interested in visiting galleries and actually buying art. Also, as others mentioned as you know it too, it's a very delicate thing, selling art. It's a hard thing for anyone. Don't be discouraged, if this is your passion keep pressing and trying. It took some of the best painters many, many years to be acknowledged (I was reading about some French painters a while back).

Take care honey!

I think Northern_light_girl makes a good point here.