Tag Archives: Depression

Tales of Despair: Your Words Are Heard

A slight change this week; I feel a need to acknowledge a few things, and a few people, and I wish, if possible, to give some hope, both to them and to myself.

Hello, all of you who have tagged a post with the word Depression. I’m glad to have met you.

I started my WordPress blog primarily as a literary endeavor, and when I realized I could browse posts by tag, I started out with stuff like Books, Writing and Fantasy. I’ve met some incredible people, and some incredible writers, and I couldn’t be happier for it. Many of them are listed in the links at the bottom of each of my pages.

A little while ago, however, I wrote a post that I considered tagging with the word Suicide (an incidental tag – it wasn’t my suicide). I was worried that WordPress might have some red flags up for that sort of thing, and so I refrained – but I was curious, and began searching for posts tagged Suicide and Depression. I was scared; this wasn’t a world I wanted to go back to. I continue to have mental health problems, but I can’t realistically call myself depressed, and I haven’t had a suicidal thought for almost five years.

What I discovered is a world of scarred, lonely and deeply traumatized people, each desperately clawing against their despair, unsure day by day if you will win the fight. You are not bad people; you are capable of kindness, generosity, compassion and selflessness – I have seen it through your tales. Many of you have admitted to some of your deepest faults; some of you have discovered the blessed anonymity of the internet and revealed things about yourselves you wouldn’t dare speak of to your closest friends. You have made me wish I had such a community of messed up minds at the lowest point of my own life, over ten years ago now.

I have found myself compelled to communicate with you, through far too many comments and replies, to the point that you probably feel like blocking me from your site, I’m sure. I am connected to you, and I would like you to know that you are connected to each other, whether you know it – whether you admit it – or not. I will never try to help you; I will (try to) never offer advice. At the deepest depths of black, when I could (quite literally) see nothing around me for the haze of darkness that clouded my vision, I swore that if I survived, and was ever in a position to talk to someone else about their own depression, I would not help them.

Some of you may understand this sentiment; help is not always what you need. Support may not be what you need. I remember; all I wanted was kinship. I was convinced, certain, that no one, ever, suffered as I suffered. No one was as depressed as me. I was proud of this fact; my cuts were deeper, my desire for death greater. I was the one that the teachers were scared of; I was the one that dropped out of school. I drew a bitter comfort from this – being depressed was the only thing I was better at than anyone else. I did not – ever – want to get better. I was offended by the very thought that there was a ‘better’ to get; this was me. To an extent, I still hold true to this; I am no longer depressed, but I am not better. I am still on medication, and my mental troubles have shifted to new, and more disturbing, patterns.

If you are seeking help; if you are seeking support, and therapy – I love you for this. If you are not – I love you no less. It is your choice. I have been touched, and disturbed, and horrified at the stories you have shared. I have no excuse for my depression; I had a happy childhood, was a good student, and loved life. When I was fifteen it all fell apart, and has never been put back together again. Some of you have suffered far, far worse – suicide, trauma, sexual abuse – and I would have you know you are stronger than you think, for you have made it this far. You have passed through terrors that would have left me screaming and insane. You are human, all of you, and you have survived. It’s what we’re best at.

Most of all, I want you to know that you have touched me, and reminded me of the desolation I used to call home. I cannot in faith wish you happiness, for you may not be seeking it. I would rather, if you would accept it, wish you balance, consolation and acceptance, both by yourselves and by others. I do not want any of you to die, though it is your choice, should you make that decision. I would have you know that I care for you, as a dispassionate, third party. I’m not going to intervene; I’m not going to interfere. I will continue to listen, though, for as long as you keep writing.

As a final word, something you will probably as one reject: you are all wonderful.

Thank you.

 

Satis

 

Alexandra (alexandra writes; aftermath)

bipolarmuse (bipolarmuse)

Carl (stillfugue)

lifeonaxis1 (Mood Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified)

Mandi (Mandi A. Stores)

Nell (letters to dom; pensées sans frontières)

SainT (Dead Negatives)

Sean (alltheavenueslookugly)

Stella (My Body the City: The Secret Life of a Manhattan Call Girl)

Thought of the Week: An Open Letter to Descartes

Dear Monsieur Descartes,

I wish to bring to your attention a matter of accountability regarding your well-known writings on philosophy and rationalism. It is my belief that you are responsible for a great deal of emotional distress and suffering, and I am seeking reparations for both myself and my fellow sufferers in the form of an acknowledgement of the negative influence of your treatises, and a public apology. For the moment I am willing to forego monetary compensation for the therapy and medication we have collectively paid for, as I am aware three-hundred and fifty years’ compound interest might be beyond your financial means.

Allow to explain. I in no way wish to dismiss your excellent contributions to the fields of philosophy and mathematics. Your system of plotting equations on a graph, though it troubled me greatly in high school, has undoubtedly revolutionized geometry and mathematics as we know it today. Equally, I appreciate the effort you displayed in separating man from god, and your debate on free will is second to none.

However, in your pursuit of truth and certainty, you devised a particular phrase that, despite its simplicity, has had quite a devastating impact on the sanity of myself and many others. I speak, naturally, of this simple sentence:

I think, therefore I am.

You see, whether you intended it or not, this has led to the rise of the philosophy of existentialism, and the potential denial of the reality of anything that is not directly tied to the self. If my existence is proven by my ability to think about it, what of the existence of everything and everyone around me? According to you, their existence is also proven by my ability to think about them; however, the necessary implication of this is that anything I think of is therefore also real.

This leads to what I consider to be the existential dilemma: if an object’s reality is determined solely by the fact that I am thinking of it, how can I then be certain of the reality of anything at all? There is a modern legend that describes this quandary very succinctly. A popular story in our times describes a world in which humans are plugged into machines from birth. These machines provide all the sensory input necessary, directly to the brain, to convince a person (in this case a very wooden Keanu Reeves) that they are, in fact, experiencing reality.

The essence of the problem you have created for us is that we cannot be certain of the existence of anything other than ourselves – by which I mean the collection of our thoughts and minds. According to your philosophy, I cannot even be certain of my flesh and blood, or even if I am actually writing this letter or just imagining the whole thing.

You have failed to follow through with your philosophy, and for this I hold you accountable. In questioning the nature of existence itself, you have failed to provide us with an answer to that question, and show absolute proof that everyone else does, in fact, exist. I hope you understand that such matters are generally beyond the reasoning of most folk (including myself), and so I bow to your superior intellect in providing for us the answer to the dilemma you have left us with for so long.

In conclusion, I request that you submit an acknowledgement of your failure to provide a suitable answer to this problem, and an apology for the loss of sanity you have caused me and many others (if they exist). I have spent a large amount of time and money (if money is real) on therapy and medication (I’m not sure my therapist was real), directly as a result of my inability to resolve your issues. If I do not receive a response from you within fourteen days, I will be forced to seek legal representation (lawyers most certainly exist) and pursue damages as compensation.

I will await your reply (if you exist), and hope we can arrive at a mutual understanding.

Most sincerely,

Satis (if I exist)

Tales of Despair: Perversity

The grunts of his sister and her clients ring loud through the thin partition. Emile hates her as he hates all women; women have only ever spurned him.

Later, her lover beats him, and then invites him to eat with them. Irma will not stop him, though she tends to her brother when he is gone.

Bebert does not like him, and is satisfied when Emile squirms. In the end he will stab Emile in front of his sister. Again, she will not stop him.

Emile will buy a gun, and will desire Bebert’s death; it isn’t his that comes.

Such are just some of the scenes that bring to life Francis Carco‘s (1886-1958) frankly stomach-churning painting of 1920s Parisian slums, Perversity (French: Perversité). The story is bleak and desperate, centered around three loathsome characters and filled with little hope. Emile is a clerk, unable to function without the reassurance of strict routine. Irma is a prostitute, working from her bedroom in the tiny, two-room apartment she shares with her brother. Bebert is the bully of the tale, lording ownership over Irma and taking great delight in the torment and abuse of Emile.

What is particularly unsettling about Perversity is Carco’s unflinching dedication to the deeply disturbing faults he has built into his characters, and he allows them no redemption. Emile and Irma are pushed to edge of human decency, and repeatedly make decisions that seem against the very grain of morality, yet each time we are left with the knowing that there was, of course, no other way it could have been. One of the most discomfiting scenes occurs half-way through the story, when Bebert walks in to find Emile and Irma talking together. As Emile shrinks away from him, his sister points out that he is afraid of Bebert. Rather than allowing his characters to escape  with a mere argument, Carco builds a tension so great that it is only finally released when Bebert brings out a pocket knife and stabs Emile repeatedly, smiling all the while and insisting that such ‘pricks’ don’t hurt at all, and he shouldn’t act as such a baby. When he is finally finished and allows Irma to bathe him in salt, she comes to him and tells him that Emile is bleeding profusely. His callous response is that such a thing is “quite natural, I assure you. It’s rather the contrary that would astonish me.”

I have read no other book that so encapsulates the despair and hurt of inescapable depression, and forces it on the reader without sympathy. This is a terribly uncomfortable read, and I found myself unable to continue at certain points, often for weeks at a time. Ultimately, it was a rewarding experience, for it is a tale that draws you in and does not let go. The uniqueness of this story is that it is not tension, fear or suspense that hooks its teeth into you, but rather the grim, hopeless lives of these three people who have no reason to live, yet push on regardless in spite of the filth and the pain.

Perversity is available in print and for Kindle on Amazon. Read it at your peril.