Depression




An excellent article that had me nodding in agreement most of the way through.
A lot of my friends and family will not understand but a few will.

I have pulled out some parts of the article but read it through. If you don't get it... then YAY! You are probably less of a fucked up person than I am.
Solider on my fellow dark colleagues.
I am here for you if you need me. JUst email or message 24 hrs 7days. MY door is open.

If you prefer a more anonymous person to chat too please please please call Lifeline (IN Australia I have no affiliation) or google the people in your area.

Suicide Prevention in the USA
Samaritans in UK (I just googled them.  - Both the USA site and the UK site I have no affiliation)

"You ever have that funny friend, the class-clown type, who one day just stopped being funny around you? Did it make you think they were depressed? Because it's far more likely that, in reality, that was the first time they were comfortable enough around you to drop the act.

The ones who kill themselves, well, they're funny right up to the end."

"comedy, of any sort, is usually a byproduct of a tumor that grows on the human soul. If you know a really funny person who isn't tortured and broken inside, I'd say A) they've just successfully hidden it from you, B) their fucked-uppedness is buried so deep down that even they're in denial about it, or C) they're just some kind of a mystical creature I can't begin to understand"

"1. At an early age, you start hating yourself. Often it's because you were abused, or just grew up in a broken home, or were rejected socially, or maybe you were just weird or fat or ... whatever."

"2. At some point, usually at a very young age, you did something that got a laugh from the room. You made a joke or fell down or farted, and you realized for the first time that you could get a positive reaction that way. Not genuine love or affection, mind you, just a reaction -- one that is a step up from hatred and a thousand steps up from invisibility. One you could control."

"3. You soon learned that being funny builds a perfect, impenetrable wall around you -- a buffer that keeps anyone from getting too close and realizing how much you suck. The more you hate yourself, the stronger you need to make the barrier and the further you have to push people away"

"4. In your formative years, you wind up creating a second, false you -- a clown that can go out and represent you, outside the barrier.
{snip} You do it because if people hate the clown, who cares? That's not the real you. So you're protected.
But the side effect is that if people love the clown ... well, you know the truth. You know how different it'd be if they met the real you."


"But there's more. The jokes that keep the crowd happy -- and keep the people around you at bay -- come from inside you, and are dug painfully out of your own guts. You expose and examine your own insecurities, flaws, fears -- all of that stuff makes the best fuel. So, Robin Williams joked about addiction -- you know, the same addiction that pretty much killed him. Chris Farley's whole act was based on how fat he was -- the thing that had tortured and humiliated him since childhood. So think of my clown analogy above, only imagine the clown feeds on your blood."




Its terribly sad that we have lost a gifted actor but at least his death and those of the many others who also felt the need to end their darkness with suicide have prompted many others to talk about depression and suicide. I have not been suicidal for many many years but I remember the thoughts and feelings that made me consider it as an option. If you wish to know, I will talk privately to you. )

Its not a matter of cheering up.. looking at the bright side or hardening up. If we could.. we would.
I was lucky 10 years ago that I didn't act on the very strong impulse but it did take me 38 years to seek help.

I am serious.
If you need help, I can and will be here to listen. I do not judge but I am a fellow sufferer and I will answer the call. On the flip side, if you stop hearing from me... come and reach out.


I may need you.


xoxo

Comments

  1. Your photo is Main Street is amazing, love those trees! x

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  2. Hugs. I've long played the clown and still do a lot in some social situations, but it's nice to be able to drop the act with my real friends. x x

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  3. Agreed. It's a relief and they love you no matter what.
    You know Leah? When I started getting help.. I took the step of dropping my funny Yvonne at work. Ppl did ask if I was ok.. But they have gotten used to it and some have now asked Me to join them for drinks. The real me as as likable as my public mask. Who knew?
    It's a step for me.

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  4. Thank you Melanie. I do love trees on a hot day, they glow in infrared images .

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  5. On occasion I have thought about when I had depression.. and it reminded me of a poem I read by Charles . C. Finn. It put tears in my eye, because it said everything I felt..

    Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

    Don't be fooled by me.
    Don't be fooled by the face I wear
    For I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
    Masks that I'm afraid to take off
    And none of them is me.

    Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
    but don't be fooled,
    for God's sake don't be fooled.
    I give you the impression that I'm secure,
    that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
    within as well as without,
    that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
    that the water's calm and I'm in command
    and that I need no one,
    but don't believe me.

    My surface may be smooth but
    my surface is my mask,
    ever-varying and ever-concealing.
    Beneath lies no complacence.
    Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
    But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
    I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
    That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
    a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
    to help me pretend,
    to shield me from the glance that knows.

    But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
    my only hope, and I know it.
    That is, if it is followed by acceptance,
    If it is followed by love.
    It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself
    from my own self-built prison walls
    from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect.
    It's the only thing that will assure me
    of what I can't assure myself,
    that I'm really worth something.
    But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to. I'm afraid to.

    I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
    that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
    I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
    and that you will see this and reject me.

    So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
    With a façade of assurance without
    And a trembling child within.
    So begins the glittering but empty parade of Masks,
    And my life becomes a front.
    I tell you everything that's really nothing,
    and nothing of what's everything,
    of what's crying within me.
    So when I'm going through my routine
    do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
    Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
    what I'd like to be able to say,
    what for survival I need to say,
    but what I can't say.

    I don't like hiding.
    I don't like playing superficial phony games.
    I want to stop playing them.
    I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
    but you've got to help me.
    You've got to hold out your hand
    even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
    Only you can wipe away from my eyes
    the blank stare of the breathing dead.
    Only you can call me into aliveness.
    Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
    each time you try to understand because you really care,
    my heart begins to grow wings --
    very small wings,
    but wings!

    With your power to touch me into feeling
    you can breathe life into me.
    I want you to know that.
    I want you to know how important you are to me,
    how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator --
    of the person that is me
    if you choose to.
    You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
    you alone can remove my mask,
    you alone can release me from the shadow-world of panic,
    from my lonely prison,
    if you choose to.
    Please choose to.

    Do not pass me by.
    It will not be easy for you.
    A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
    The nearer you approach me
    the blinder I may strike back.
    It's irrational, but despite what the books may say about man
    often I am irrational.
    I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
    But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
    and in this lies my hope.
    Please try to beat down those walls
    with firm hands but with gentle hands
    for a child is very sensitive.

    Who am I, you may wonder?
    I am someone you know very well.
    For I am every man you meet
    and I am every woman you meet.

    By Charles C. Finn

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  6. That needs it's own post. Thanks Paul!

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