our pain through others' eyes

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:33:26 GMT

I never thought I had depression, because I'd look at those depression surveys that would ask, 'Have you stopped enjoying things you used to enjoy?' And I never understood those because...I couldn't remember ever enjoying anything.

Unfortunately, this quote isn't exact, because I can't find it online. It came from a PBS special on depression.

wears so thin-the new amsterdams

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:14:59 GMT

White lines come anodyne
Like a calm summer sea
But all these creatures
they've been watching me
Midnight by candlelight
Just my heart in a spoon
All my insides howl at the moon
The music begins. Violins.
The sad state we're in wears so thin
Tattoo covers needle bruises
Like I won't ever know
Long sleeve shirt sleeves
like it's twenty below
Glass eyes don't recognize
Like you can't even see
You say these monsters
they've been watching me
There is no sin my skin
The madness within wears so thin
It's done me in

Amanda Palmer

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:20:57 GMT

Runs in the Family: My friend has problems with winter and autumn. They give him prescriptions, they shine bright lights on him. They say it's genetic, they say he can't help it, they say you can catch it, but sometimes you're born with it. My friend gets frights he gets shakes in the night and they say that there's no way that they could have caught it in time takes its toll on him. It is traditional. It is inherited. Predispositional. (All) day I've been wondering what is inside of me, who can I blame for it? I say it runs in the family. This family that carries me to such great lengths to open my legs up to anyone who'll have me. It runs in the family, I come by it honestly, do what you want 'cause who knows it might fill me up. me up me up me up me up me up me up me up fill me up me up me up me up me up me up me up me up. My friend's depressed, she's a wreck, she's a mess. They've done all sorts of tests and they guess it has something to do with her grandmother's grandfather's grandmother's civil war soldiers who probably infected her. My friend has validation in some allergies that she dates back to the 17th century. Somehow she manages in her misery. Strips in the city and shares all her best tricks with me well, I'm well well I mean I'm in hell well I still have my health at least that's what they tell me. If wellness is this what in hell's name is sickness? But business is business and business runs in the family. We tend to bruise easily. Mad in the blood. I'm telling you 'cause I just want you to know me, know me and my family. We're wonderful folks, but don't get too close to me 'cause you might knock me up. me up me up me up me up me up me up me up knock me up me up me up me up me up me up me up me up. Mary have mercy, now look what I've done, but don't blame me because I can't help where I come from. And running is something that we've always done well and mostly I can't even tell what I'm running from. Run from their pity, from responsibility. Run from the country and run from the city. (I) can run from the law, I can run from myself. I can run from my life, I can run into debt. I can run from it all, I can run til I'm gone. I can run for the office and run for the cause. I can run using every last ounce of energy. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot run from my family. They're hiding inside of me. Don't change my life. Help me if you might but just don't tell my family. They'd never forgive me. They'd say that I'm crazy. But they would say anything if it would shut me up, shut me up, shut me up, me up me up me up me up me up shut me up me up me up me up me up me up me up me up.

charles bukowski, my garden

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:46:28 GMT

in the sun and in the rain
and in the day and in the night

pain is a flower
pain is flowers

blooming all the time.

fAITH

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:52:26 GMT

Catch me if I fall
I'm losing hold
I can't just carry on this way
And every time
I turn away
I lose another blind game
The idea of perfection holds me

The Cure

Magic Mirror - Persephone

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:25:31 GMT

Her skin is wrinkled
Her glance is weak
She saw too much
She can't forget

Her music's gone
Her ears are deaf
She heard too much
She can't forget

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Show me the most pitiful person of them all
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Show me the most dreadful person of them all

Her thoughts are poisoned
Her mind insane
She gave too much
She can't forget

Her face a death mask
Her feelings numbed
She loved too much
She's dead inside

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Show me the most loathsome person of them all
Mirror, mirror on the wall

Still breathing
Her heart beats slowly
Only to remind her how she became this creature
No human being anymore

jacks mannequin, swim

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:41:38 GMT

i swim for brighter days, despite the absence of sun. choking on salt water, i'm not giving in. i swim.

-andrew mcmahon (jacks mannequin), swim

Yehuda Amichai

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:46:59 GMT

Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself
without anyone noticing. I’m like an ambulance
on two legs, hauling the patient
inside me to last Aid
with the wailing cry of a siren
and people think it’s ordinary speech.

— Yehuda Amichai

Matthew Good | 99% of Us is Failure

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:08:40 GMT

Blackbird come the break of day
You swallow the shit that people say
Walk outside look at the sky
Ask it to fall or tell you why

~ Matthew Good

I know that it's bad
That it's the kind that they can't operate on
And I know it's real slow, honey
Painful and real slow
Styrofoam coffee cups
And bagged drugs that never work enough
And I know its real slow, honey
Painful and real slow

When we were young
And hit like hammers
I'd write the nails in your hands
But when 99% of us is failure
There's no going back

And I know its real slow, honey
Painful and real slow

Blackbird come the break of dawn
The TV's on, I turn it off
Walk outside, get in the car
Stare at the wheel then fall apart

I get it all the time
Bright eyes to bat and hide behind
But I know they're just for show, honey
Painful and just for show
Black rooms to babysit
White halls to pace and wait for it
And I know it's too slow, honey
Painful and real slow

When we were young
And hit like hammers
I'd write the nails in your hands
When 99% of us is failure
There's no coming back

And I know its real slow, honey
Painful and real slow

Blackbird come the break of day
You swallow the shit that people say
Walk outside look at the sky
Ask it to fall or tell you why

in case you're not familiar with Matthew Good's semi-recent troubles with mental health, you can learn about it here. the album this song is from is called Hospital Music. according to the wikipedia page, this song isn't about mental health per se but it made me think otherwise upon listening to it.

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:59:55 GMT

emptiness has it's solace in that there's nothing left to take. - from ani difranco's 'bodily'

longfellow.

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:15:24 GMT

"If we were to examine the secret histories of our enemies, in each man's course we would find enough sorrow and heartache to disarm all hostilities."

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:56:04 GMT

in the deep dark hills of eastern kentucky
that's the place where i've traced my bloodline
and it's there i read on a hillside gravestone
'you'll never leave harlan alive'

where the sun comes up around ten in the morning
and the sun goes down around three in the day
and you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
and you spend your life just thinking of how to get away.

- from 'you'll never leave harlan alive' by patty loveless

i highly recommend this song, regardless of what genres of music you enjoy. it's a sad, mournful lament of the appalachian mountains.

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 03:22:59 GMT

I began to think that melancholy was a dialect that only some people knew—or could even hear—and in my conversations, I sought these people out.

– Virginia Heffernan, “A Delicious Placebo”

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:37:47 GMT

My wrist could be slashed,
I would feel nothing.

-Rosemary Daniell

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:41:28 GMT

i wish i could just make up my mind to tie this anchor tight, and tell the world good bye

-what a lullaby, what a way to die by right away, great captain!

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:11:09 GMT

i gargle mouthwash and stare at the vampire waiting at the door. i bleed it dry it bleeds me dry i bleed it dry.

-Kindora Lonst

Azure Ray - November

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:33:37 GMT

This has probably been posted already, but it should be re-posted anyway.
This is exactly how I feel, and I'm sure a lot of you feel this way too.

So I'm waiting for this test to end
So these lighter days can soon begin
I'll be alone but maybe more carefree
Like a kite that floats so effortlessly
I was afraid to be alone
But now I'm scared that's how Id like to be
All these faces none the same
How can there be so many personalities
So many lifeless empty hands
So many hearts in great demand
And now my sorrow seems so far away
Until I'm taken by these bolts of pain
But I turn them off and tuck them away
Until these rainy days that make them stay
And then I'll cry so hard to these sad songs
And the words still ring once here, now gone
And they echo through my head everyday
And I don't ever think they'll go away
Just like thinking of your childhood home
But we cant go back, we're on our own
But I'm about to give this one more shot
And find it in myself
I'll find it in myself
So we're speeding towards that time of year
To the day that marks that you're not here
And I think I'll want to be alone
So please understand if I don't answer the phone
I'll just sit and stare at my deep blue walls
Until I can see nothing at all
Only particles, some fast, some slow
All my eyes can see is all I know
But I'm about to give this one more shot
And find it in myself
I'll find it in myself

To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 13:43:10 GMT

"But the father of eight children has no choice." Muttering half aloud, so he broke off, turned, sighed, raised his eyes, sought the figure of his wife reading stories to his little boy, filled his pipe. He turned from the sight of human ignorance and human fate and the sea eating the ground we stand on, which, had he been able to contemplate it fixedly might have led to something; and found consolation in trifles so slight compared with the august theme just now before him that he was disposed to slur that comfort over, to deprecate it, as if to be caught happy in a world of misery was for an honest man the most despicable of crimes. It was true; he was for the most part happy; he had his wife; he had his children; he had promised in six weeks’ time to talk "some nonsense" to the young men of Cardiff about Locke, Hume, Berkeley, and the causes of the French Revolution. But this and his pleasure in it, his glory in the phrases he made, in the ardour of youth, in his wife’s beauty, in the tributes that reached him from Swansea, Cardiff, Exeter, Southampton, Kidderminster, Oxford, Cambridge—all had to be deprecated and concealed under the phrase "talking nonsense," because, in effect, he had not done the thing he might have done. It was a disguise; it was the refuge of a man afraid to own his own feelings, who could not say, This is what I like—this is what I am; and rather pitiable and distasteful to William Bankes and Lily Briscoe, who wondered why such concealments should be necessary; why he needed always praise; why so brave a man in thought should be so timid in life; how strangely he was venerable and laughable at one and the same time."

from 'The Hollow Men' by TS Eliot:

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:50:06 GMT

"The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men."

the hollow men    

 I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

      II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

      III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

      IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

      V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Sunflower

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 22:18:03 GMT

Low: Sunflower
When they found your body
Giant X's on your eyes
With your half of the ransom
You bought some sweet, sweet, sweet
Sweet sunflowers
And gave them to the night
Underneath the star of David
A hundred years behind behind my eyes
And with my half of the ransom
I bought some sweet, sweet, sweet
Sweet sunflowers
And gave them to the night.

The Envy Corps - Rooftop

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:43:52 GMT

When I see your picture, my heart forms a fissure
I guess that I get this way
I need a rooftop I can look from or jump off
I guess that I get this way

What's the problem, dear? Are you feeling unloved?
That's what I was most afraid of

I need a fresh arm I can slice up or cut off
I guess that I get this way
When my skies are crooked my scars turn blue
I guess that I get this way

Elizabeth Kubler Ross

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:17:15 GMT

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

~ Elizabeth Kubler Ross

lately i've been trying to focus on what i can get out of my depression, how it can fuel me in becoming who i'd like to be. anyway, i found this quote comforting and thought you might too. ♥

an old favorite.

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:32:48 GMT

"I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin." -- Aldus Huxley.

this one has probably been posted before, but lately I've found it quite meaningful, so I thought I'd share it nonetheless.

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:11:56 GMT

“Madness is, as you know, like gravity—all it takes is a little push.”
-- The Joker, The Dark Knight

Sally Brampton, Shoot the Damn Dog

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:06:49 GMT

(found through mutedheartbeats)

"Severe depression, put simply, is and overwhelming and unmanageable onslaught of every normal, human fear and difficult emotion. It is a loss of and lack of perspective and proportion.
It is like living through a waking nightmare. What we most want is somebody to take our hand, to try to connect us back to the world."

"A child whose deeper feelings are constantly minimised, challenged or simplly ignored, ends up believing, I have no right to be the way that I am. I reject myself.
Depression, some thinkers believe, is a rejection of the self."

both by Sally Brampton, from Shoot the Damn Dog