Sometimes This Blog is Too Depressing and Personal Even for Me!
When I decided to call the website that would become my life Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place the name was at once ironic and deeply sincere. It was both hopeful and sarcastic.
Six years on Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place remains my Happy Place. It’s my cozy little artisanal shop of letters and ideas in the icy dystopia that is the world wide web.
Working on Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place makes me happy. The books that have come out of this website make me happy. Seeing the same wonderful readers and patrons engage with my ideas in a thoughtful, intelligent, funny and very human way each day in the comments makes me happy.
Having something that no one can take away from me or fire me from makes me happy.
Yet for the past few months, I have used Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place to broadcast my all-consuming despair to the world. Heck, for the past six years I have used Nathan Rabin’s a a place to broadcast my all-consuming despair to the world.
This blog has always been personal. That’s the essence of blogs. I think I’ve taken to the medium because it is inherently personal and intimate, an informal chat with the universe and your readers rather than something more ambitious or formal.
The old cliche is that blogs finally provide narcissists of the world with an opportunity to tell the world what they had for lunch but it’s really useful for telling the world that you’re too goddamned depressed to eat lunch because the universe seems unfathomably cruel.
Sometimes I’ll write something for The Big Whoop that will be too personal and too depressing even for me. I’ll finish an article and think to myself, “Do I really want to put this energy out into the world? Do I really want people to think about me this way, to see me in this light?”
The uptight, repressed Midwesterner will put in a strong, silent vote for deleting the blog post or softening it so that it’s less bleak and apocalyptic but he’s almost invariably overruled by the part of me that feels a little awkward and self-conscious about being so brutally honest about my struggles involving money and mental health but also feels that it’s important to be honest.
The Big Whoop is nothing if not honest. If anything it might be a little too honest. It is written with unwise candor for a few very good reasons.
I write regularly about the worst of my battle with Depression and Anxiety because I want people to think that it’s okay to talk about things that are painful and hard and no goddamn fun at all. I have spent my career trying to contribute to the destigmatization of mental illness.
I want people to see themselves in my struggles, to know that they’re not alone and that while it might seem like everybody else has their shit together and that you’re unique in feeling lost and confused and overwhelmed the reality is that NO ONE has their shit together and everyone feels lost and confused and overwhelmed. They just don’t show it. They’re sneaky bastards that way.
I also write about my bleakest depressions and my darkest days because it’s cathartic. I make sense of the world by writing about it. When I am tapping away happily at my laptop I feel optimistic and in control, if only because I have complete control over what I’m writing about and even when it’s a modest blog post like this I’m excited to share it with the world and see what you think.
That said, sometimes I’ll write a post so personal and so despairing that I can’t bear to read the comments. I guess I have to draw a line somewhere in the name of self-protection, and that is the line I have chosen.
I’m also a little worried that this being the internet, I will get the inevitable “Why don’t you stop whining and get a job? You’re a father for Chrissakes” responses. Thankfully, this is one of the nicest places on the internet so comments of that kind have been few and far between and commenters have been characteristically understanding and empathetic in defending me. Also, I am actively trying to procure employment and make more money.
Another reason that I write about my struggles is because sometimes people feel compassion for me and take concrete action to make my life better, if only by a little bit.
I’m pleased to report that my monthly Patreon haul and number of Substack subscribers have increased substantially since I’ve been blogging regularly about the particularly brutal depression I’ve been in over the past few months. I’m making real progress and that is tremendously encouraging.
They have not increased enough to make the site sustainable, but it has been nice and validating and a wonderful, much needed reminder that people do care about me and my family and that while the world of pop culture media can feel very lonely I am not, in fact, alone.
I have y’all. And you listen to me even when I’m so sad and hopeless that it can seem overwhelming. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. It’s legitimately life-affirming and for that I thank you from the bottom of my bleeding heart.
Check out The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop and get a free, signed "Weird Al” Yankovic-themed coloring book for free! Just 18.75, shipping and taxes included! Or, for just 25 dollars, you can get a hardcover “Joy of Positivity 2: The New Batch” edition signed (by Felipe and myself) and numbered (to 50) copy with a hand-written recommendation from me within its pages. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind collectible!
I’ve also written multiple versions of my many books about “Weird Al” Yankovic that you can buy here: https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Or you can buy The Joy of Trash from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Trash-Nathan-Definitive-Everything/dp/B09NR9NTB4/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= but why would you want to do that?
Check out my new Substack at https://nathanrabin.substack.com/
And we would love it if you would pledge to the site’s Patreon as well. https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace