This post mentions mental health topics that may be sensitive to certain readers. Though it has been a while, this is part of my Depression Diaries series. There is no longer a tab for it on my blog, but you may read the other entries by clicking on the link above or the category at the bottom of this post on my site.
If you scroll down on my page to the first posts in 2020, I shared what I learned after 4 years of keeping a journal. I have always kept notebooks and diaries. I remember being little and taking them on car rides and pretending to map out our route onto the pages and spilling random secrets and complaints about school. Starting around age 10, I wrote in a little journal more regularly. It was right around the time that my dad started dating my step-mom and it is funny to read from a child’s perspective going on outings with my dad’s “friend”.
During the height of middle school, I was writing pages every day. Journaling was something I looked forward to every day, and kids would always ask to see what was in my journal. It was almost a junk journal. I would keep random bits of brochures, candy wrappers, receipts, notes passed to me, wristbands, and more. I never minded if people read my journal, I even kept a “signatures” page at the back.
My journal was there for me during the harder parts of being a teenager. It helped me vent about family conflicts, be excited about things that were “embarrassing”, process grief of losing family members and pets, and express my creativity with drawings and collages.
Present day, I will pick up a journal, start to write, and feel unable to continue. I cherish my filled books, but I can’t bring myself to log any more thoughts.
After I wrote that blog post during the uncertainty of Covid-19, I started to get bored of writing in my journal. Every day, stuck in the house, the news was deplorable, and that was all there was to write about. It became a cycle, and I stopped writing.
I fell into a deep depression during my second and third year at college. I had been on three or four rounds of new medications and nothing was helping. Every time I went to see the counselor on campus, I was given something new to ingest without being given any mental tools. Through that time, I started to journal again. Nothing seemed real, it was like I was a video game character being controlled by someone I couldn’t see, and no actions meant anything.
Sitting down to write would produce emotions I couldn’t handle, it always made things worse for me. Even if I had a good day, I’d write about what happened, then slowly write about how I didn’t deserve it, what I should have done, how I’m messing up everything without being able to stop it, and question why I felt so horrible when nothing was actually wrong in my life. The guilt of existing being in ink on a page made me want to set the journal on fire.
I do not re-read my entries from that time.
Journaling aids in processing things in your life, but I didn’t need to process what I spent all day ruminating about. Making it more “real” made it so much worse. The journal became physical proof of my failure.
Instead of writing my life, I became reckless. I spent money I didn’t have, I hung out with people I shouldn’t have, and I was partying regularly. I barely knew anyone, but I was never afraid. If anyone asked if I wanted to go anywhere I always said “yes”. I was doing the bare minimum of being alive while throwing myself into situations that I thought would make me feel real. At one point I lived off of potatoes, plain spaghetti, cans of chili, tons of energy drinks, and recreational drugs.
It is crazy to think that once I started to pull back on the leashes of the life that was running away from me, I started blogging again. It was then that I published the first Depression Diaries post and tried desperately to be “me” again, whoever that was.
I would try to journal again, purely for memories and not to put myself down, and I was successful for the few entries that I did write. It just never felt the same, nor was it fulfilling.
Today, I have fond childhood memories associated with keeping a diary or a journal, but I also haven’t been able to write in one for about two years. I think by writing this post, I officially retire from ever trying again. Of course, there are notebooks for different things, but I will never write about my daily life in a bound notebook.
My blog is my journal. Yes, it is public, but I think that aspect is really beneficial for me. Blogging helps me keep a positive attitude and step outside of my own head and surround myself with people who provide different perspectives and life experiences. Even though my love of blogging in part has to do with my struggles with mental health, I don’t talk about it much anymore. I want to be a positive and optimistic presence here, but it is important for me to also share where I have been and the things that I have gone through with mental health. It is a lot, more than I will ever be able to share here.
Many believe that people don’t change. There’s a lot about a person that I agree will never change, but experiences change a person. The core may stay the same, but the reactions are totally different based on what a person has gone through.
I never thought I wouldn’t love writing by hand anymore. That is a silly, small thing to have changed about a person, but it was such an important part of my life that to me, it feels like a change in myself. I am happy that I won’t be able to share the extent of my mental health struggles in the past, that barrier doesn’t exist for me in my journal. I need that boundary of self preservation. I am self aware enough to resist being fully self aware, ignorance is bliss. I will get there when I am ready to.
What is something you used to love, but will never be able to do again?
I’m glad that you have grown and feel better too today, Katelyn. 🙏🏻 After the divorces, I feel as though the relationship part of my life is gone…
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I definitely feel as if I have grown since then, thank you. Everyone likes to say “What if” but sometimes it just feels better to “throw in the towel” on some things so that we don’t put ourselves in hard situations again. Hugs!
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Thanks Katelyn!
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Something that you loved and may never need to do again. Thanks for sharing this.
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Thank you, for reading!
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Thanks for sharing!
Something I used to love, but probably will never be able to do again… the first thing that comes to mind is dancing. When swing dancing was a big fad in the late 90s, I at first thought all my friends were crazy, but I tried it and had fun (see DLTDGB #182 https://dontletthedaysgoby.home.blog/2024/06/30/june-27-28-1998-scott-and-amelias-wedding-and-trying-something-i-thought-id-never-do-182/). I quit when my schedule got busy, and got back into it the following year, but quit because people there had gotten really unfriendly and cliquish, and I didn’t know anyone else who still went, so it wasn’t fun getting rejected all night (see DLTDGB #232 – in fact, I used the same reader engagement question in that episode that you did for your post today https://dontletthedaysgoby.home.blog/2026/09/06/september-5-1999-a-pleasant-sunday-afternoon-and-a-less-pleasant-sunday-night-232/). (DLTDGB #184, 197, and 226 also center around dancing, although 197 was very much embellished beyond anything that actually happened in my past, more so than usual. Something like that had just happened recently in the present when I wrote that, and it seemed like it would work well to adapt for DLTDGB.)
I got back into swing dancing in 2007, had a similar experience with all my friends who got me into it abandoning it a few months later, but I kept going because this time around the people were friendly, and I started making new friends through dancing. They got me into blues fusion dancing a few years later, and I was a regular at both dancing places up until the mid-2010s. At that time, I scaled back my involvement (but still went occasionally) because I was just busy and overwhelmed, but also the same thing as before, the crowd wasn’t really friendly anymore. Let’s be honest, I love music, but I’m not a natural-born dancer. I got into dancing as a way to socialize, and by the time I quit, people there weren’t so much there to socialize as they were to dance, and dance well, and then never talk to you again. A meme was going around in the blues fusion circles saying somethin about how it’s such a beautiful thing to meet someone, connect and communicate with your bodies, and then never see each other again, all in a four-minute song. To me, that’s not beautiful, that’s sad. I’ve had enough people leave my life before I had a chance to really connect with them. Also, I tend to be pretty traditional and conservative in a lot of things, and most people I was meeting who were really into dancing were into some very nontraditional lifestyles and beliefs that made me a little uncomfortable, and a lot of them were (and are) frequently sharing posts hostile to people with my values. And, finally, as I have gotten older, my feet get sore a lot more than they used to, and in the last year or so my knees have started to get sore more often.
However… nowadays, karaoke is the way I interact and socialize with music. One of the bars where I’m a regular for karaoke has live music on a different night, usually country cover bands. One guy who is in two of the bands that play there regularly is married to one of my friends from my swing dancing days, one of the best dancers I’ve ever known. The first time I saw her there when her husband’s band was playing, we were catching up, and she said it made her sad that I didn’t dance anymore. Then she said if I can swing dance, I can do two-step, just do the same steps while moving in a circle. She remains to this day the only person I’ve ever danced with at that particular bar (multiple times).
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I have never heard of blues fusion dancing! After watching a few videos on it, I can see how it can be sad that some of the dance scenes were so cold. The dance style is very intimate, it would feel more awkward to just walk away wordlessly than to become friends.
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That’s what people around here are like, though… many of them don’t seem to want to meet people.
That reminds me, I did mention that I scaled back my involvement for a while, but I still went occasionally after that. The real reason I actually quit was that the last time I went dancing, blues fusion at my usual place in September 2019, I was at the time newly in a relationship, I was her first significant other after divorcing a cheater, she was still learning to trust me, and I figured she wouldn’t be the type to want me dancing with other girls, especially in that intimate of a style, so I stopped out of respect for her. The increasing foot problems and unfriendliness were more like the reasons I never went back as opposed to the reasons I quit in the first place. I did kind of go back once, in March 2022 (she and I were no longer together). The guy who ran the blues fusion place, who was also a semi-regular at swing dancing, was dying of brain cancer, and his friends organized two last dance parties at his house so we could all see him for presumably the last time. It was sad, he wasn’t very coherent, but I’m glad I went because his group was a big part of my life for about a decade. He passed in May (I think?) of that year. He was older than me, but not by that much… 😦
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As a writer we go through stages. I have many notebooks, papers, etc…filled with stories and thoughts. Then I stopped. Why? Other things of interest or things in our lives take over. Our imagination and creativity lives on Katelyn, but it becomes expressed in otherwise over time.
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It reminds me of famous creatives who are known for their dark nature or being consumed by sadness. That’s how I feel when I write about negative emotions, it will take over my entire life! I’m not sure what other avenues it is being expressed in at the moment, maybe my dreams?
Thank you for reading and sharing, it makes me wonder what medium I will channel my emotions into next.
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You already are with postcards, writing snail mail letters, you do scrapbook stuff, etc….I used to illustrate pencil and ink and water color paint too. Among other things like miniature gaming. Gardening, etc..
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I wish the best for you, Katelyn ❤️ of course I can’t experience exactly what you went through, but sometimes we have to let go of something in order to be in peace. loved the post:))
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Thank you so much!
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This feels like we’re talking about boundaries with ourselves. It’s akin to finding out you’re allergic to your favorite food lol. Your question brought several things to mind for me and I remain grateful for the lessons along the way.
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Realizing the boundaries that we need in ourselves can be both rewarding and hard lol
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“I am self aware enough to resist being fully self aware, ignorance is bliss. I will get there when I am ready to.”
Whether one is ignorant or not is largely a willful choice. It has little to do with getting ready for it.
And ignorance is hardly ever bliss because…
“Ignorance is the root cause of all Evil. Since only Knowledge eradicates ignorance, it is our duty and moral obligation to educate ourselves, as well as the masses around us.” — Anonymous
Ignorance of lies and deceptions (=most mainstream news and establishment decrees) is bliss because exposing yourself to that is self-propagandization.
Ignorance of truths is not, or only temporarily or rarely, bliss because it is ultimately self-defeating …. https://johnmichaeldemarco.com/15-reasons-why-ignorance-is-not-bliss
“Ignorance is not protection from consequences. When you know better, you do better—but when you do not know, the consequences still arrive, often compounded. Proactivity matters. Asking questions matters. Research matters. Every choice we make carries outcomes, and those outcomes do not pause simply because we failed to understand them.” — https://archive.is/PLqhb
The FALSE mantra of “ignorance is bliss”, promoted in the latter sense, is a product of a fake sick culture that has indoctrinated its “dumbed down” (therefore TRULY ignorant, therefore easy to control) people with many such manipulative slogans. Eg…
““We’re all in this together” is a tribal maxim. Even there, it’s a con, because the tribal leaders use it to enforce loyalty and submission. … The unity of compliance.” — Jon Rappoport, Investigative Journalist
You can find the proof that ignorance is hardly ever bliss (and if so only superficial temporary fake bliss), and how you get to buy into this lie (and other self-defeating lies), in the article “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room –The Holocaustal Covid-19 Coronavirus Madness: A Sociological Perspective & Historical Assessment Of The Covid “Phenomenon”” … https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
“If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t there more happy people?” — John Mitchinson
“If we have learned anything in the past six years, it is that vaccinologists, doctors, and the government in general do not have good intentions and never did. The clear intention of everyone concerned was and is to make as much dirty money as possible, letting any amount of collateral damage slide, including a genocide and mass poisoning [with Covid-19 jabs]. The fact [is] that Big Pharma just murdered millions of people, with the full support of government, media, and “science”. With Covid, everyone is part of the fraud, many of them paid off, so no one has any reason to expose it, and big reasons to bury it. Don’t believe anything these people tell you, ABOUT ANYTHING. It isn’t time for a civil war against your neighbors, it is time for a revolution against these hoaxers and thieves.” — Miles Mathis, American author, in 2025
Speaking of ignorance is evil, how can the masses get out of this whole mess (and create justice, freedom and peace for all)? First, EVERYONE needs to learn, and teach others, what TRUE morality is —99% of people don’t know what it is because (1) it’s NOT taught in the official indoctrination system, better know as the “education system,” and (2) it’s NOT the same as religious morality: https://odysee.com/@woeih:e/Mark-Passio-Government-Is-Slavery:a & https://odysee.com/@woeih:e/Mark-Passio-Interviewed-By-Shaun-Atwood-2026-06-18:6
Because if you don’t know what TRUE morality is you will not stop doing, unwittingly or wittingly, evil things…
“The solution is NOT to create something new (eg, new systems of organization, new technologies, etc). The solution is to STOP being complicit with evil. To STOP doing things that are not moral for a reward. To STOP being complicit with anything the control system tells us we must do.” — Mark Passio, Spiritual Teacher, in 2023
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Thank you so much for your well thought-out message! Unfortunately, I do know that there is no being “ready” for the truths of life.
All of your quotations deal with worldly ignorance within news and politics, however my main point had nothing to do with the news. I briefly mentioned that I was caught up in the latest Covid-19 news on a daily basis, which led to a decrease in wanting to write in my personal journal. I do not believe that I was ignorant during any part of that time, and I am sorry if my writing gave off that impression!
Many of us are ignorant to ourselves, why else would “self help”, therapy, and mental health increasingly popular topics in social media? Feel free to provide sources that cover individuation topics, as discovering my sense of self is the main subject of this post, not fighting the system with “true morality” lol
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I think blogging is a great form of journaling! I’ve tried at times to keep a journal…usually I can be pretty consistent at writing down a few sentences about the things I did that day, but I’m not so great at writing lengthy passages involving feelings and experiences. Currently I’m struggling with writing fiction…I’ve loved writing in the past and so much of my identity is tied to writing fiction, but I don’t feel that I’ve been successful at writing fiction within the past 2-3 years. I hope I can regain that.
Thank you for being brave enough to share part of your mental health journey.
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Thank you for sharing your experience! I also go through phases in writing, and it can feel horrible when I just don’t find enjoyment in something that I used to love, or feel as if I am not good at it anymore. I believe that you will find your groove again!
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