Silver linings and other myths
This is not my usual type of post. I've been working on this for a few days, but as much as I edit it, I can't get it perfect. For some reason, it just won't come out right. So this will stay like me; flawed, with lots of mistakes, but out there none the less.
If you are feeling happy today, but it is the fragile kind of happiness (otherwise known as fake...) than do not even go in.
Some people might feel offended. If so, let me know why, but do not expect an apology. I'm out of those.
I'm taking the plunge. So if you don't want to get splashed, step back from the water. It took me a while to get the courage to post this, but a certain somebody here at LJ was brave enough to let some of her personal story out. You know who you are. Thanks for giving me some of your strenght.
My new project is trying to explain what depression feels like. Now, I don’t mean the blues. Not the type of thing where you just feel a little off for no reason.
I’m talking the kind of depression where help is needed. Your future being a black hole. The kind the suck up galaxies. Knowing you should eat, but not being able to get to the kitchen to make dinner. Realizing that your cynical humor is negative, but not having anything else to keep you on your feet. Having your friends do the tough-love thing, wanting to plead with them to stay with you, while at the same time realizing that they just don’t know that your brain can work against you sometimes. Noticing that you can no longer pretend that you see the silver lining, because the sky is black and grey. There are no clouds to have any kind of lining. Being stuck in one place with no way to move even your little toe.
Stuck. Yeah, that comes close. But not stuck where you can use the other foot as leverage to dislodge yourself. Both feet stuck in whatever the smelly, crappy, nasty-ass gunk is on the floor. Smudge with bits floating around in it. One of the bits kinda looks like your expensive university education. The one you worked really hard for. That degree is now covered in something brown. The comforting thought that your body might look bad, but at least it works... That illusion is now floating upside down in gunk. And over there, there is a little shard of the incredibly strong almost biological desire that has been there since birthday number 16. The wish to have children. There are slimy things on that wish now and picking it up with your bare hands would mean risking contracting e-coli or something attractive like that.
And it is not that you are sinking further into it. The stuff is just being piled up a little higher each time you breath. The difference between you and other people is that they can run and duck when the sludge comes. They can climb into a tree, supported by their husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends or at least balanced chemical levels in their brain. You’re not that lucky. You have to stand there helplessly and hopelessly while the dirt, crap, shit of life gets piled up and piled up until both your feet and in fact your legs are invisible. And all you can do is watch the things you wished so deeply for and worked so hard for get covered in unnameable dark matter.
So. Depression is being stuck up lifes creek of shit without a peddle. Depression is watching your life sink to the bottom and having to figure things out by yourself. Depression is looking at other people on the quays and banks bombarding you with good intentions while they try to avoid their own pathways to hell. Depression is watching other people move away from you to stay on the sunny side of the street.
So do whatever you have to in order to stay alive. Eventually you will figure out what you need to do to stay near that very same street. You’re walking with your the dark side, the side other people fight to avoid at all cost. Fight those shitty chemicals with whatever you have. If that means that you don’t do what others want, then so be it. If that means your sense of humor is dark and left of center, hell, at least you still have a sense of humor.
The one mission is to make sure that your heart is still beating and is in as few pieces possible tomorrow.
If you are feeling happy today, but it is the fragile kind of happiness (otherwise known as fake...) than do not even go in.
Some people might feel offended. If so, let me know why, but do not expect an apology. I'm out of those.
I'm taking the plunge. So if you don't want to get splashed, step back from the water. It took me a while to get the courage to post this, but a certain somebody here at LJ was brave enough to let some of her personal story out. You know who you are. Thanks for giving me some of your strenght.
My new project is trying to explain what depression feels like. Now, I don’t mean the blues. Not the type of thing where you just feel a little off for no reason.
I’m talking the kind of depression where help is needed. Your future being a black hole. The kind the suck up galaxies. Knowing you should eat, but not being able to get to the kitchen to make dinner. Realizing that your cynical humor is negative, but not having anything else to keep you on your feet. Having your friends do the tough-love thing, wanting to plead with them to stay with you, while at the same time realizing that they just don’t know that your brain can work against you sometimes. Noticing that you can no longer pretend that you see the silver lining, because the sky is black and grey. There are no clouds to have any kind of lining. Being stuck in one place with no way to move even your little toe.
Stuck. Yeah, that comes close. But not stuck where you can use the other foot as leverage to dislodge yourself. Both feet stuck in whatever the smelly, crappy, nasty-ass gunk is on the floor. Smudge with bits floating around in it. One of the bits kinda looks like your expensive university education. The one you worked really hard for. That degree is now covered in something brown. The comforting thought that your body might look bad, but at least it works... That illusion is now floating upside down in gunk. And over there, there is a little shard of the incredibly strong almost biological desire that has been there since birthday number 16. The wish to have children. There are slimy things on that wish now and picking it up with your bare hands would mean risking contracting e-coli or something attractive like that.
And it is not that you are sinking further into it. The stuff is just being piled up a little higher each time you breath. The difference between you and other people is that they can run and duck when the sludge comes. They can climb into a tree, supported by their husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends or at least balanced chemical levels in their brain. You’re not that lucky. You have to stand there helplessly and hopelessly while the dirt, crap, shit of life gets piled up and piled up until both your feet and in fact your legs are invisible. And all you can do is watch the things you wished so deeply for and worked so hard for get covered in unnameable dark matter.
So. Depression is being stuck up lifes creek of shit without a peddle. Depression is watching your life sink to the bottom and having to figure things out by yourself. Depression is looking at other people on the quays and banks bombarding you with good intentions while they try to avoid their own pathways to hell. Depression is watching other people move away from you to stay on the sunny side of the street.
So do whatever you have to in order to stay alive. Eventually you will figure out what you need to do to stay near that very same street. You’re walking with your the dark side, the side other people fight to avoid at all cost. Fight those shitty chemicals with whatever you have. If that means that you don’t do what others want, then so be it. If that means your sense of humor is dark and left of center, hell, at least you still have a sense of humor.
The one mission is to make sure that your heart is still beating and is in as few pieces possible tomorrow.