MattMVS7

Music is about experiencing emotion and expressing emotion. Therefore, this is the reason why being in full emotional health is so important to me. But since I have chronic depression which is something that takes away my emotions, I feel that since I have lost the very thing that is most important in music, I feel anger towards myself and that I should give up on my dream of being a composer. Without the ability to fully emotionally experience and express music, then I feel that my pursuit in being a composer and experiencing emotion from music is all dead and worthless.

This immense value I have towards being emotional in music is not only the reason why I wanted to become a composer, but unfortunately, it is also the reason why I am angry and consider giving up. Even though I could pursue my dream anyway and try my best to have the attitude of making the best of what emotion I have, the fact that I have lost some of my emotion due to chronic depression is too overwhelming despite any positive attitude I might try to have.

But there is one thing that I have always done that has never brought me any frustration or such anger towards myself which is playing videogames. When I play videogames, nothing matters (not even my emotional well-being). All that matters is just playing the game and I have no such value towards my emotional well-being like I do with my music which is something that only serves to bring me anger knowing that I'm chronically depressed.

So you might be thinking now that I should pursue my dream of becoming a composer just like how I play my videogames in the sense that my emotional well-being does not matter and all that matters is just composing the music. Unfortunately, this is not the case because the only reason I want to become a composer in the first place is my value towards emotion in music. In other words, I would have no interest in just simply composing music alone if it weren't for my value towards emotions.

I am struggling right now to decide if I want to go ahead and actually pursue my dream of becoming a composer or to just give up and play my videogames. It is hard because I am obviously a perfectionist when it comes to my emotional well-being in music and this is the attitude that is making me want to give up. Me being a perfectionist only focuses on what I don't got rather than what I have now (in this case, my emotional well-being). However, this attitude of mine is something I'm not even sure I can change completely which means that as long as I pursue my dream of being a composer, I will always have this feeling of frustration and anger towards myself that my emotional well-being is not in perfect shape. And I'm not even sure this is something even worth putting up with.

Therefore, do you think I should give up? Or is there some other type of attitude that you can recommend for me that will encourage me to pursue my dream of becoming a composer despite my chronic depression? If you are going to say something such as that I should channel my depression into making music, this is not who I am. I hate my depression and I want it to have nothing to do with my music (and that even goes for my feelings of frustration and anger).