Beyond Depression Musings from 2016

-
Musing 1: We look like you and depression looks like me

The other day someone casually said something because they assumed they were in the presence of 'normal' people. It was not just what she said but the way she said it all judgemental like with a touch of disdain (Paraphrase)
'...now that there are plans to send people to Mars, you know who I think should go there first, all this depressed and suicidal people. They can just leave earth they don't want to be here anyway...' 
As she looked around for concurrence I asked her whether I should go to Mars I mean I've been depressed. At that moment her bubble burst and suddenly her 'normal' brain could not understand how and why someone like me could suffer depression. She then demanded an explanation on how depression feels like, I informed her that its not something you can explain it's something you have to experience to understand and told her that I pray she never gets the opportunity to understand. Almost immediately I felt it again that deep void....

So no you don't know me and no we are not friends we just work together, so ease off on voicing your radical segregation ideas. Clearly if it were up to you people like me would be in a mental asylum. 
                   
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~

I remember this once, it must have been the second time I was going through depression and by chance, coincidence or just sheer luck I pumped into one of my mentors. After a few drinks we got to talking and he said to me

'Everyone thinks being depressed and suicidal is cowardice, that people like you are afraid to live; what they don't realize is that the courageous thing for you to do was jump off a bridge. Am glad you don't have the courage to jump off that bridge, but all together you have the strength to walk away from that bridge every single time you come across it. For what is courage other than the strength to breakthrough the paralysis of fear and turn that fear around into an action that is not expected of you.'


                                                         Image result for ;

 Musing 2: Its not a mood it's here to stay
When you've been through so much, gone up against yourself, found light in dark places, good deeds amidst evil intent, hope in despair and joy in sorrow you might begin to believe you can beat the odds.  

But then the candle goes out, intent comes to fruition, despair overwhelms and the sinking feeling resurfaces. Then you realize that darkness is all encompassing and despair all consuming. 

Like a tidal wave the sinkhole below the surface is devoid of depth, time and space. It is the black hole deep within, a vacuum devoid of all else but a desire to devour. 

It is the inner reach of your own emptiness, the shallowness of your purpose. Your humdrum existence. Your anchor unchained, your self worth set adrift. 

The never ending temptation to string your own noose, cut the jugular, slit the wrist, jump off the edge, dive off the fall, swim in traffic, pull the trigger, bag your breath...

Its the darkness at the edge of your imagination
An emptiness beyond understanding
A parasitic self consuming ideology
A self detonation of an internal self loathing
A self imitating sense of despair
Self replicating desire to inflict pain
Its simply the self oppressive embrace of depression.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HEARTLESS

-
Image
Tuesday 12:30 am Sirens rang over the city as fire trucks and ambulances converged on an isolated house at the edge of Karura forest. The fire was spreading to the trees, threatening to torch Wangari Maathai’s legacy. Alone and seemingly paralyzed in the would be parking lot of the house stood an eight-year-old boy and right beneath his feet lay his four-year-old sister. He stared into the abyss as if waiting for something or someone to reach out, oblivious of the firefighters and the first responders who were by now trying to break into the blazing inferno. His sister grubs his leg as she comes to; he reaches down and lifts her up never once turning his gaze away from the spreading fire. ‘Are you ok, let me examine you’ One responder jolts him back to the madness going on around him. He looks straight into her eyes with an empty gaze that mirrors the sense of loss that he has just undergone. His clothes are burnt and shredded, some pieces adhesively glued to his skin, clear
Read more

60 seconds

-
Image
How long is 60 seconds?  The simple answer would be one minute. Philosophically speaking time is the experience of durations thus in reality 60 seconds can pass in the blink of an eye but at times it can feel like a lifetime.  I had always thought I would die a natural death; sleep never to wake up again. Old and grey surrounded by family. I never figured it would end like these two gunshots and a pool of blood. Her cries and tears, strangers trying to pull her away from my bleeding body. Her eyes and being willing me to live as they try to bring breathe to my lifeless body. To live 30 years and die in a minute from two bullets meant to scare, one from the law and the other from the wrong side of the law.  Am getting a head of myself, lets go back to the beginning: It was a normal day for the three of us we all did our morning routines, one innocent man, a bank robber and a cop. No stranger threesome has ever been concocted. 5:20  we all woke up and looked to the si
Read more

RIDDLE ME THIS

-
Image
How do you know you exist. Who are we? Are we alive or just alive transmission of societal affirmation? Have we become what is expected or are we who we want to be? If I was about to jump off a balcony who would be there to stop me? If I bought a gun who would I be after myself or the ghosts that haunt me? Is my life a drop in the ocean or is it the spring of life that feeds the rivers and lakes that rejuvenate the ocean? Am I a noise in the crowd or am I that unique beat that keeps the music going? Am I outstanding, standing, slanting, sliding, slipping, falling or fallen? Am I a visionary, successful, succeeding, progressing, regressing, regretting, failing or failure? Can you see it when you look at me? Will I see it when I look in the mirror? I know what I am but who am I? Riddle me that.
Read more