Substack, Provoker and Friend
Don't Worry, I'm Still Sad!
I started Speaking for Myself due to a debilitating depression that lasted longer than past depressive episodes. 2025 hit hard, and I’ve been trying to get my footing ever since January.
April hit hardest. I wanted to engage with the world but remained in bed. My phone became handy. But mentally incapable, I couldn’t engage in any meaningful way. Just a doom scroll kind of way.
Instagram was political upset mixed in with friends I lost touch with years ago, living their best life without me.
Medium was almost as bad. Except it gave me a complex that I wasn’t writing enough or creating anything worth seeing. I felt invisible.
I had one friend on Medium. I miss him but he was too elusive. After I took a plane to Chicago to find him avoidant, I suspected a catfish was at play.
Hence I arrived on Substack. Producing complicated experiences.
Substack, a Foe
When first signing in, Substack was the same write-to-earn hustle seen on medium. It tries to figure out who you are as a user, while encouraging you to present your best self. This sell-yourself attitude did not pair well with my past experience living in the Bay Area or current depression.
Substack is engineered by the winners of the tech world. Those who have connections to work in SF/Silicon Valley. While for the rest of us pay rising rents.
Their can-do tone may reflect how to succeed in their tech bubble. Believe in yourself and all the pieces will fall into place.
This works for those in the tower of Meta, Salesforce Substack etc. But for the rest of us, who had to leave our home because we couldn’t afford to live in the Bay Area anymore…it’s just deflating. I spot this “sell yourself” mindset as their emperors clothes.
In her book Carless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams describes the tight circle in Meta. Most employees come from Harvard, are friends with Sheryl or Mark. That Wynn-Williams spent a year pitching herself to get the job she had was common. Consistent in her pursuit it was amazing she was hired.
Employees of these companies - I will make the assumption engineers of Substack are included in this bunch - overlook some very lucky facts. If they didn’t go a particular school and hang out with a set of particular people, they wouldn’t hold the jobs they have.
They too would reside in a place like Rio Vista trying to figure out their life outside the shiny tech world.
This sell-yourself mindset doesn’t benefit the majority. It depressed me. And it depressed me to see other writers fall for it.
It Isn’t Easy
There are many can-do writers making it look so easy to earn and be seen online. But I suspect they are also on the “in” crowd. Writers picked by the Substack gods. Or perhaps they know someone. Deemed as sellable these writers are featured in the algorithm of my beginner’s feed, earning 2k likes. Parody post along the lines of “I can’t believe it, my Substack in two months really took off,” may seem familiar. Concluding with how blessed they feel, “I had five subscribers now I have a million!”
I’m not suggesting these writers aren’t worthy of support, but that they may have been picked and promoted to sell Substack. The loop writing about writing about writing…this is where it happens, the beginners Substack feed. Curated by those selling Substack.
This deepened my depression.
Truth is, writing isn’t easy or fulfilling. It isn’t easily packaged and sold. Ask a traditional publisher.
A lot of writers are depressed alcoholics isolated at their desk. Yet it’s all rainsbows for those who got 12k likes on their Substack note.
Meanwhile, in April, my novel was complete but wtf do I do with a complete manuscript that doesn’t mirror the painful experience of job hunting in SF 2010. Query letters are similar to cover letters and Subsatck starts to feel like LinkedIn where everyone is consulting and doing so much more than I.
And I just can’t fight not belonging anymore.
My mental health got dire. And the writers on Substack were all sunshine.
Still in bed, my thinking was no one reads me anyway. After my ego took a beating from Medium, I decided to just say what I want.
Pointing out that writing is not another entrepreneurial opportunity for the tech industry to cash out on I posted
“There is a whiskey called Writers Tears and everyone on Substack pretends everything is fine. “
It got me some likes. It didn’t go viral, but I found some cool people who could relate. The algorithm was finally understanding me.
Substack, a Friend
Offline I was getting better, stronger, more social. I left my bed and, even when it was really hard, I volunteered and attended writers workshops.
On Substack I found some voices who cheered me on. Small but meaningful engagement that meant so much.
Including
This support gave space to reflect. I asked and wrote on what this low point would teach me if my recovery should stagnate.
I discovered
and and a bonus mom .I got back to my novel and yes…sigh tried again. I’ve even started to write new stories that honestly haven’t gone anywhere. But still, it’s production. (Sorry tech guys, my drafts are not consumer friendly or we’d both be a little richer).
🤖 Fitter. Happier. More Productive 🤖
If I actually met a Substack engineer - most likely this would not happen, our worlds are too divided - I would thank them for the friends I met here.
It took a lot of support in the real world to pull through. Self will and love from my family. But going through the cogs of Substack did find me some pretty cool creatives who even stand up for one another. Unlike other platforms which are a swill of yelling and nonsense, Substack is a nice break from internet chaos. And that’s special.
But Don’t Worry, there are Lots of Reasons to Be Sad
There is a reason why people “never read the news.” But still, we have to read the news because it’s our responsibility to do so. Unfortunately this information is delivered through 24 hour news cycles, heightened to produce anxiety, forcing our attention until we can no longer mentally or physically engage with it.
So my Summer 2025 motto became: live like it’s not the end of everything.
Maybe it is, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s a transition to something else entirely. Still, I created a bucket list of items I want my kids to experience before we say goodbye to whatever this is turning away from.
I take my kids back home, we do terrible tourist things like Pier 39 and too much ice cream at Ghirardelli Square. We get too many quarters for Musée Machnique.
“Yes!” I argued, with my husband, “we need at least $20 of quarters.”
“That’s 80 quarters,” The Man argued. But I was right. We had zero quarters when we left an hour later.
I know my city, I know my home better than the stupid Waymo cars roaming everywhere. I am going to enjoy and share it with my kids.
I don’t let the billboards with insider tech jokes annoy me (RIP, Coca-Cola sign). I point out the rainbow dedicated to Robin Williams on the Marin Tunnel.
I didn’t sigh that I could never buy a house in San Francisco (well, maybe a little). Driving away after another day of playing in Helen Diller Playground, the kids exhausted, sleeping in the backseat, post sugar high from Bi-rite ice cream, I felt okay.
I’m stronger…I’m happy? Somehow I’ve found my place in this post dot com dystopia. I have a big cheap house two hours away. While the rich and landlords continue to destroy my home.
Trash, unhoused people, everyone else twenty something, those privileged enough with connections to live and pay for 4k plus rent.
The fact a free box of clothes (I LOVED digging through free boxes in SF) only contained size five and I noticed all the women in SF looked size five - didn’t bother me. SF is a playground for the rich. But you know, I really don’t care.
I don’t feel sad or loss. I feel okay. The things that mattered to me feel different. I still care in some way, but I know cities change and the rich will move on. Like they did the Gold Rush.
In the meantime we locals know how to get bonfire pit on Ocean Beach while the size five young-ins patiently wait for their turn. We assure those youths waiting, one of of our small kids will break down and we’ll have to pack suddenly.
We offer to share the fire, like we used to with strangers in the 2000’s, but they wait. Their world is protected and connected. They don’t want to mingle with the losers of the tech boom with burdens of parenting. And that’s fine.
The boom always moves on. Like the “second Gold Rush” WW2’s industry in the Kaiser yards. White people moved out. Hippies moved in and fixed up Victorians the Gilded Age abandoned decades before. Only to be taken over by the landlords positioning for the developing tech boom in the 80’s.
Maybe this tech crowd will take a private space rockets to colonize a hipster Bohemia with cheap rents on Mars. And SF, Oakland can sprout up again, like the weeds sprouting up all over its streets. It’s a matter of time. I kid about Mars of course.
But point is, I’m here alive and living my best life.
You know what else is cyclical? My depression. And if you’re subscribed because you can relate, thank you. But don’t worry, even though summer is in full swing, I’m still sad because that’s normal.
Sadness is part of life. It’s a small current flowing within us. And when it swells again I hope to have insight benefiting my readers.
In the meantime, enjoy what’s left of summer.
Dana Blythe is a writer currently living in the Delta. She grew up in the suburbs of the East Bay using city buses and skateboards for transport. Paired with weekend escapes to SF with her family she fell in love SF and Saint Francis room service. With drivers’ permit and a friend who happened to be 18, she learned to drive exploring SF, terrifying everyone when navigating the 580, bridge and hilly streets.
2007 She attended UC Berkeley, studied film at a now closed, but memorable, trade school. 2010-12 was the brief window of time she could barley afford to finally(!) live in the Upper Height until exiled to baby prison in a small West County factory town not many, including locals, heard of. Bonus points if you can name this town.
Dana writes fiction about romantic triads, and articles on film. Member of the Page Street Writers and QSAC, she is seeking representation.
Thank you for naming what so many of us feel but rarely say: that writing isn’t always healing, fun, or easy. And that sometimes the pressure to be seen makes it even harder. Keep writing, even when it’s messy. It’s worth it.
I loved reading this friend. Open and vulnerable and you made me feel hopeful. Thank you for including me. I am always here for you ❤️ also that creepy guy deserved at LEAST 5 quarters and my son and I drove through that tunnel on a road trip a couple years ago. 🌈