Scott McCall, the Mikaelson

Dear Reader Update & Chapter 53

12 August 2021 UTC

Pre letter: I suggest that you listen to 'Yola - Hold On' while reading this special letter.

(Just because I stopped making music doesn't mean I stopped listening to it, although I did for some time. I've had 'Yola - Hold On' on my playlist for a few weeks now, and it's only now that I understand and relate to it. Don't worry, you'll understand soon.)

Dear Reader
There are 52 weeks in a year and 'Scott McCall, the Mikaelson' has 52 chapters uploaded so far.

It has been my pleasure to deliver these chapters but like each year rejuvenates every 52 weeks, I need to rejuvenate as well.

I was diagnosed with depression in 2016 and responded poorly by being in denial and not doing what I was supposed to do to manage my depression.

I didn't follow up on the diagnosis. I ignored it and made a song about it, questioning why I would have depression when all I thought about was music.

Music helped me stay in denial until I lost my passion for it, although it was my greatest desire to pursue a career in the music industry since primary school.

If someone told me that I would be studying Studio Engineering in 2019 with free and full access to everything a music maker needs, including recording and mastering studios, and yet feel unenthused and detached from the experience, I wouldn't have believed it.

But that's what happened, and now I don't know my purpose in life.

At first, I read for inspiration for songwriting and creativity. Books became my muses.

But as time went on, I lost focus on music and started to enjoy reading just for the sake of reading and getting lost in the stories.

I stopped watching motion pictures and lost myself in books, sleeping as little as I could while using my waking hours to read.

Some days I didn't sleep at all, too lost in stories and one day, after two years of obsessive reading, I found myself with more than 400 books.

And I had read all of them, including 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series (all five books, and probably in record time) and still had more books waiting for me (sad truth, I don't remember even a quarter of a quarter of those books).

But as time went on, I lost interest in professionally written books and found my way to fan fiction and lost myself in it.

I'm not sure how I came across fan fiction websites and stories, but I enjoyed the world of fan fiction, reading story after story with no end in sight.

Until I exhausted my favorite fandom/character's fan fiction stories and could not find any more interesting ones.

It was horrible. The sudden stop in momentum. It was horrible.

More than horrible because it gave me what felt like too much time (although it wasn't that long, less than a week, maybe less than five days) to finally acknowledge my depression.

But by the time I finally acknowledged my depression, it was no longer just depression. I had anxiety as well. Social anxiety.

I should have realized it when the thought of going to town and driving lessons terrified me.

But I didn't because I ignored my depression diagnosis in 2016 and the medication I was prescribed.

I know now that although I was diagnosed in 2016, following years of migraines, I probably had depression before then.

Who am I kidding, I know for a fact I was already experiencing depression (and anxiety on some level and rare panic attacks) before 2016, going back to 2009.