A Tumblr Blog That Speaks To Me

Hope you enjoyed the previous post I did, I know that the post itself was late, and I apologize.

Today though, I'm going to post a link to a Tumblr page which has significant meaning. Pretty much everything this person posts, I have some sort of affinity with. So yeah. It's a short one because I've been/am away from my home and my internet currently.

The blog link is here:
http://pernicioustothemind.tumblr.com/

And the blog itself usually talks to me. I've saved more things from this blog than I actually care to say.

On-'holiday'-but-actually-working-hard
Samantha.

Posting Problem, Or Rather, Solution

I don't post all too often. I said every two days, it changed to every three, and now it's every five, if I'm lucky.
The reason is this:

This blog, was to get my feelings out. A sort of simple councilor if you will. And when I needed to speak, I spoke, telling my feelings to the world, and maybe helping somebody else understand what it's like. Or to speak out and make a connection with somebody, make them feel like they aren't the only one. If I did that, it was a bonus, but mainly this blog, when I started it, was for me.

But now, recently, I've felt like I haven't needed it. I haven't been down, or depressed. I haven't needed to express myself in any way. And so I haven't. It's as simple as that.

I'll need this blog again at some point, and that's why I keep going with it. That and I still feel down (in a more minor sense) and still feel the need to inform and make a connection and educate so I do. Or at least I try to.

So yeah, I'm not as down as I was, things are changing. It's a good thing. A very good thing. Means less posts, but that's not a bad thing. Not with the stresses of work and assignments as well, (which surprisingly have not been causing a down mood) ontop of posting.
I hope you are all doing well.

So-much-better-than-she's-been-in-a-long-time-human-beinf
Samantha

To This Day Project

Hi guys, long time.
I got sick. Sorry.

Anyway, this is slightly unrelated to the overall thing of depression and everything like that, but at the same time is related. And I'm waffling, I realise that now. Just bear with me.
Shane Koyzcan is a spoken word poet. Earlier this year he released a video titled 'To This Day'. It's a video about bullying. Many animators from around the world volunteered their time and skills to help create a video for this spoken word poem. They were given a 10 second clip of dialogue, the script and the context. They then animated their 10 seconds.
Well, you're probably wondering how this relates to my blog. Well, a while back, I was in a dark spell. I watched this video every single frigging day. Because I was bullied. I was bullied from the very first day I set foot in school to the very last day I left it. Primary school and the people in it hated me. And I found meaning in this video. It struck a chord with me. But at the same time, I hadn't been bullied for years, and I was down and I watched it because the messages in the video, particularly at the end, hold true no matter what situation you are in. The stigma around depression is really bad and can have the same effect as bullying. So here you go. An amazingly wonderful video, really powerful but amazing.

The bit that always gets me: "Someone said she looks like a wrong answer that someone tried to erase but couldn't quite get the job done. But what they don't understand is that she's raising two kids who definition of beauty begins with the word mum. Because they see her heart before they see her soul."

This is an alternate version, with an introduction of about 5 minutes, and it's live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa1iS1MqUy4

Less-sick-than-I-was
Samantha.

Kevin Breel: Confessions Of A Depressed Comic

Hey guys. The next few days are gonna be videos, and pictures. Because this is what I feel needs to be seen.

This guy is a comic, but suffered and still suffers from depression. He tells his story, and the he explains why depression is never talked about.
What he says, about the stigma of it? That's what I went through. That's why it took me so long to get help, after nearly 2 1/2 year, I got help because I broke to a point where I couldn't fix myself. I broke one afternoon, came home and felt broken. I felt like a mirror that's bee shattered inside a bag and all the pieces were just rattling around but weren't gonna fix themselves. They weren't going to be fixed.

So please watch. This is an amazing video that all people should watch and understand.

Thank you.

 

If the video for some reason isn't working, or you want to favourite it etc on YouTube, thern here's the link:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C3yqXeLJ0Kg#at=319

Dealing With A Friends Breakdown

I don't know how many times I will end up apologizing for late posts or anything like that. Because really, I don't know where the days went. I was trying to write posts, but at the same time, I've been trying to do a blog for an assessment as well as keep up with everything else and stress has been getting me down.

That and I have a close friend that had a nervous breakdown, in front of me, just a few days ago. I was expecting to have to deal with some more of the depressive stuff from him because I haven't had to for a while, (and a lot of the time, he doesn't survive more than a few weeks without something worrisome happening to him.) It sounds terrible but it's sorta true. I can almost look at a calendar and go, 'Nearly a month since the last time, better get ready.'
But I jest. It's better then actually having to face the facts of what he did. We have been having a phone conversation, I had had a bad day and ended the call. After which my phone was put on silent and I went to bed. I didn't hear him text me, he assumed that I was angry with him or he had hurt me and decided to hurt himself instead. I don't see where the logic goes in with that statement, but I suppose I never have had the inclination to hurt myself or cut myself in for reasons of letting out pain/causing oneself pain, so I never probably will get it.
But yeah, from his shoulder to his wrist and across his palm as well, which was intresting to try and deal with, alongside his sister.

So yeah, I've been dealing with that recently. Trying to compartmentalize my life so his depression/hurt and darkness don't affect me. As well as dealing with the fact that, (as I have to keep telling myself) him hurting himself was not my fault. I'll say it again for impact. It was not may fault. Because the way he said it when he told me and his sister, sounded awfully like he was trying to blame me for it. So yeah. Compartmentalizing so I can still stay the relatively good for a depressive side of myself that has been coming up lately.

I feel it won't stay long though. I have another drama assessment coming up, alongside the added pressures of a short mockumentary to plan, film, edit and produce before September. It sounds like a hell of a long time, but it isn't. I have at least a post a day for the next week and a half as another assessment on feminism and the portrayal of girls in video games/how the gaming industry is prejudice against females. Add to that all my other exams coming up, an internship I have at the local art gallery as a youth media intern and applications and CV's to write and fill in, my stress levels are going to go through the roof in the next 2 months.
At least I'll have something to write about. That sounds bad. It sounds like I want to go dark so I have something to write about. Which I don't. But I do at the same time. Dammit. Sounds terrible.

Oh, and come August 16th, I'll have a poem to publish, or not. It's called Hidden and I wrote it for the National Poetry Competition here in NZ, but can't publish it anywhere else until I know the results. So yeah.... And I might have to hide another one or two of my poem posts while I enter them in a different competition to have them published in a book of budding young Kiwi authors. Who knows, I may be in with a chance, everybody says my work is good so yeah. :)

Until next time, I hope it's more to schedule than this was.

Just-another-less-then-normal-human-being
Samantha.

An Apology

First off, I owe you an apology. And I suppose I owe myself one as well. Instead of keeping to my schedule and posting as is my duty to myself and you guys; I gave up and let myself down.

The reason being this:
The past 2 to 2 1/2 weeks have been really good for me. I mean really good. Instead of going down, instead of being below the normal persons average, I have been at that average, and have been feeling like I'm going up, and nothing was changing that. It was amazing.
But then something, I'm still by sure what yet, I suspect it had something to do with the upbeat but late night phone call a few nights ago, and I went numb.
You know how I've been saying that I've been feeling again? So to speak at least? Well, that's gone now. I went down, hard, and without me even noticing. I hit rock bottom and went numb. And have stayed there ever since. So my happiness ended with my being a downer now.

So I owe you an apology for not posting but under the circumstances, I believe that I did the right thing, taking a few days for myself. By hopefully it'll be back to normal soon.

You have anything you want to talk to me or ask me about? Do so below.

Now-numb-human-being
Samantha

Quick update

Just another day, just anther stressed out day. Too much coursework, too much real work, too much of everything and too little relaxation time. Ball tomorrow.
Dressing up and dancing like a rave, two things I thought would never go together, but apparently they do.
Too much assessment work to be getting on with, but for my ball the theme is 'Once Upon A Time' as in fairytales, not the show, as such.
Think greek goddess, only not white. Ringlets and material roses the same colour in my hair. I may share pictures. Maybe not.  :)

Anyway, I have much to do.

Busy-and-tired-human-being
Samantha

Introspective Quote

Dealing with this isn't too bad, really. It's just more of a constant walking on a treadmill to stay level sort of metaphor type thing. It's usually not too hard to appear normal, and normality is what we all strive for. Although there is a difference between appearing normal and being normal. We have to try.

There's only one quote today, but it's a quote where every single word seems to resonate with me. Deep within me. And that happens occasionally, where something doesn't just click with me and I feel like it understands me, but where I feel like it knows every single thing of what I am feeling or have felt, or ever will feel, and it's describing it back to me in glorious technicolor surround sound images. Anyway here it is. Another quote by Haruki Murakami. This authors writing seems to be something that I understand, and what seems to understand me in a way deeper than words on a page. It's strange, but works.

Haruki Murakami

All I ask is think about that one person who always seems shrouded in secrecy, help those whom you can, and be there for those who you care about, even if all they want to do is sit in the corner and not say a word. Companionship is often the best way to stop someone falling into darkness. Saying that, alone time is good too.

"When your friend is going through hell, sometimes the best thing to do is to take a seat and ride through it with them."

Deeply-introspective-human-being
Samantha

Breakdown

Before you say anything; I know it’s been a while. I know I’ve been slacking. However it is exam week and I think I am entitled to actually have some study time and then just plain forget and breakdown under stress.

Yeah that pretty much sums up what’s been going on right now. Exam week, barely any exams, a few assessments due in the next week and a half and still, it’s too much stress. Again, I’m surprised too. I was having fun, no stress, and then something, I still can’t figure out what, caused me to just lose it. In front of my partner. Great.

I suppose I should clarify something else. I don’t cry. I never cry. Especially not in front of people. The last time I really cried in front of somebody (excluding funerals) was in 2010. And it was shortly after that that my depression really started to kick in so….yeah. That tells you something about the way I deal with my depression and dark moods. I just turn off my emotions and go numb. Easier than dealing with it all. But last night I cried. Barely, but I cried, and we both knew I wanted to cry more, and whether I cried or not, it was out there, unspoken. I don’t cry in front of people. It’s a sign of weakness in my mind. But it also shows how broken I actually am. If I can keep my mask on and stay ‘happy’ I am alright.

Not a lot can be done to stop me feeling like that when I start, and what makes it even worse is I know my partner wants to protect me, and he would protect me from anything and everything. But how can you protect someone when the thing that is destroying them is themselves? How can you keep someone safe when the danger lies in their own head?

I don't want him to worry, but unfortunately, after last night, the likelihood of him not worrying is slim.

Feeling-more-worried-about-someone-who-isn't-me

Samantha.

What I Feel - Writing #3

I really wasn't in the mood to write today, so I grabbed a bit of writing out of my archives for you guys to read. Hope it isn't too badly written, it was written a while ago.
It's called 'What I Feel' but I suppose you got that already from the title of the post.
Enjoy....I guess.

What I Feel

I hide,
Behind a mask that rarely slips.
I hide,
Behind deceit and lies.

I escape,
Into a world where I am accepted.
I escape,
Into a place where I don't care.

I fade,
Into the crowds.
I fade,
Into the void that is my home.

I wake up,
And put on a false smile every morning.
I wake up,
And install a new personality before I walk out the door.

I feel,
Nothing anymore.
I feel,
Empty and broken inside.

I hurt,
Until I can't hurt anymore.
I hurt,
Until the hurt becomes too much.

I lie,
Until my life is in tatters.
I lie,
Until my life and everything in it shatters.

Then, and only then,
Do I die inside.

Just-another-bland-human-being
Samantha

Stress Factor

There is a wise man on the internet, who has the courage to be brutally honest about himself, and I respect him. Recently, he mentioned something about stress. And that struck a chord with me.

He said, in his very long vlog, "I enjoy stress, because when I'm stressed it's like the breaking point. The make or break of it all, and that pressure makes me get stuff done. When I'm stressed, I get stuff done. I even like exams, over not having exams because of the adrenaline rush you get from them, and I got withdrawals after exams were over. There's something about stress, when there's a problem to be solved and you're under a time limit, it causes stress; then you succeed and there's something satisfactory about it all, and it makes you feel good.
But I'm just starting to realise why stress may not be good for me."

He mentioned this and it made something aware in myself. Because, like him, I revel in stress. I love the pressure, and I put it on myself, because in the end, I get stuff done. But also like him, I am recently under a lot of stress, and I now realise why people say stress is bad for you.
Too much stress, puts you under too much pressure. I have practice exams next week, I have the most intense production I have ever done and it's going on right now, I have had 5 other courses on top of the drama one, and I have also had the added pressure off looking after myself during the winter months. All of which have failed miserably.
As I write this, I am stuck at home, in bed sick, away from my courses, not allowed to participate in extra drama stuff except for the production and no revision going on.

Stress is something I quite like. I like it so much that when I have almost too much of it, it's gotten to a point where I no longer recognise stress, but instead just file it under 'not important' and I consciously don't actually see that I have stress going on. My body does, and I get very oily skin and pimples etc, but apart from that I never know.
So yeah. Stress, a varying factor in my life that had recently become too much and probably not helping my depression or anything, because emotionally, as you know, I am pretty much beaten down on that front. I am also pretty much beaten down now on the stress front. Gimme a few days and I should be back to the not-so-bad-I-can-deal-now type of person, because the production (my MAJOR stressor for the past few months) will be over and done with. On that note, it doesn't help that I'm sick, and the lead. It's causing me to do really shitty vocal work, and that doesn't help anybody, least of all myself out. So yeah... added stress...YAY!! (Not).

I don't know. I think I'm just rambling, now. I'll probably visit this at a later date to a point.

Stressed-out-sick-and-vocally-impaired-human-being ( :D )
Samantha

Appropriate Quotes #2

Another day I'm not sure what to write. It's getting harder. It's not a bad thing.
So more quotes. I found a few more that are particularly good. Here they are.

Appropriate Quotes #2

Haruki Murakami

 

 

Veronica Roth

 

 

Libba Bray

 

 

Paul Monette

 

 

Stressed-and-sick-human-being

Samantha

Destruction Wrought By Feeling

I don't know what it is recently, whether it be my admitting I need help and seeing a councillor for the first time....ever, or just overdramatized and emotional TV programs and movies, or stress and pressure but every single little thing makes me cry, makes me want to break down into tears and forget the world. It threatens to destroy me. And I hate it. I never cry. I have a good cry about the world in general probably twice a year, but I am the most organised and together person I know.
I never cry, I never have overemotional moments and yet, because of something I don't yet understand, I feel emotional all the time.

I don't know what it is, whether it's the depression, or stress, or something else but I just want it to stop. This feels like it's against everything I've become. I've become an emotionless person, numb to the world. I have the odd flash of feeling, be it love, or sadness or sometimes even happiness and laughter. But for as long as I can remember in recent times, apart from sadness, loneliness and pain, I've felt nothing else.
And suddenly I feel everything. Everything I've tried so hard to put away, to stop myself from feeling because it's been easier for me to move on and forget. I have had to put away the girl who cares, who feels things and is happy, to be the girl who pretends to be happy, because I have to forget some things that happened in my past, and so this was the way I did it.

But due to that, due to something switching off inside of me, I lost everything I was, and became the girl who pretends to be happy, who amuses herself by working so hard and putting pressure on herself because she doesn't get things right. By becoming the perfectionist that barely ever laughs, I put away everything I wanted to forget. But whatever I switched off, got switched back on for some unknown reason.
Now I feel like my world is crumbling around me, and that I'm blind, lost in a sea of emotion that I haven't dealt with for over 2 years. I haven't dealt with serious emotion since July 2010, I switched off then. I've been numb for nearly 3 years.

Everything is not what I want it to be, I'm crying out for help but nobody seems to hear. I'm trapped inside myself, inside the well of emotions and I'm drowning inside myself. I can't make sense, and I feel like I know the reason I turned it off, I turned my feelings off because it was easier. I didn't want to have to deal with it anymore, I didn't want to have to deal with my life. I ran away. But I ran too far and came circling back. A Mobius strip of my own making. A life that I feel unsure about. I wish I could make it all go away, I wish I could just turn it off again, go back to being numb.
It's easier than having to deal with thoughts and feelings. They feel wrong after so long away (Ah the irony). I break down at least twice a week when I'm on my own and there is nothing I can do about it except wait until the tears stop falling and I am able to regain what little shreds I have left. I wish somebody could help me, I wish somebody could tell me what to do. I'm screaming, crying for help and yet not a sound passes my lips, because the mask, this disguise is still in place, and it won't come down. I can't make it come down anymore. I used to use it to help me, now it keeps me trapped where I can't be helped. No matter now loud I scream, not matter how much I drown, nobody will throw me a line to save me, because nobody can hear me in here..............................

Future Career Prospects Worry

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Rehearsals are getting the better of me. This is being written far too late to be comfortable and expect that the coherency of this post may be highly debatable. And it'll be short.

A thing that I personally have been struggling with recently is my future. Picturing where I want to be in 5 or 10 years.  A high school drama teacher or a school councillor are the two that spring to mind with the degree that's in motion.

But to be either, especially the second one, you need to be relatively easygoing, with your head screwed on right, and quite level headed. And that worries me. With no actual progress in my own councilling in regards my depression (dysthymia) I'm starting to wonder whether I've made the right career choice. To support students in particular, you need to be grounded and present. Instead I am often hiding, pretending. How can I support students in their own life and work, tell them how to deal with their problems, if I can't even do that myself. It's a problem that I worry about a little, and hope I'm not be only one hoping that their depression will not cause them to have to limit where they go in life. And knowing that people out there do do that, just makes it worse.

Questioning-her-future-prospects
Samantha

Can You Remember? - Writing #2

Three days not two. I'm slacking, I know.
Actually, no I'm not. I am two weeks away from probably the biggest production I have ever done, in a shitty blue room, shoestring budget and cheesecloth costumes, and I've never felt so tired. After two days hard-core practicing, I'm shattered, physically and mentally. So I'll give you writing I've done a while ago, during a dark spell, rather than a really badly put together post. Have a look at this, tell me what you think?
Quotes next post I suspect, and then I should be okay for a few days. Over the next two weeks, the posts won't be fantastic, ground breaking posts like I usually do, they'll be makeshift a little bit. Sorry, but it's the stress.


Can You Remember?


Darkness...

Closing in...
Feelings getting worse...
Remembering what was done...
Losing my sense of control...

Can you remember how you hurt me?
Broke my heart?
Shattered into thousands of pieces,
All of which were daggers of your lying words,
Piercing into me, bleeding me out?
I saw the blood from my heart,
Bleeding on the ballroom floor,
A spectacle just to watch as I died.

Can you remember how you hurt me?
Took my happiness?
Lost my mind to you,
Never flet so betrayed in my life,
To watch you kill the man I love.
Took my life in your hands,
And squeezed the breath out of it,
Choked what remained of me.
 
Can you remember how you hurt me?
Killed my soul?
Loss and heartbreak override,
Sanity is questionable,
Depression took over.
I watched you are you ripped what little I had,
Made me hate what I loved,
Threw me into the blackness.

Can you remember the live in which you made me love?
Made me hate?
Made the anger overflow and bleed out all the pain between you and me?
Those lives were the times you went and destroyed me.

Physically-and-emotionally-drained-and-exhausted-human-being

Samantha.

A Clarification - Depression VS Dysthymia

On a forum I go on recently this was posted by a good sir.

"There have been a few people who have been told that are not depressed because they don't show signs of Major Depressive Disorder. However this is not the only form of depression there is an entire spectrum ranging from Psychotic Depression to Psychotic Mania. These are, to my understanding, the extreme ends of the spectrum and are often readily apparent and diagnosable. There are however spectrum disorders much closer to what is called "stable" and among these is Dysthymia. And what I have observed is that lots of people have posted describing symptoms of Dysthymia and asking if they are depressed only to be told that they are fine, as anyone with depression can speak to be told you are fine when you aren't is an awful feeling and it is my hope that this post can help address some of those issues.

"Dysthymia is what was formerly called depressive personality and is a chronic disorder that persists for multiple years it is characterized by the following symptoms "low energy and drive, low self-esteem, and a low capacity for pleasure in everyday life. Mild degrees of dysthymia may result in people withdrawing from stress and avoiding opportunities for failure. In more severe cases of dysthymia, people may even withdraw from daily activities and isolate from society. They will usually find little pleasure in usual activities and pastimes."

"Because Dysthymia manifests itself as a long term permanently lower state, and typically lacks major depressive episodes it can go untreated and undiagnosed for years. Dysthymia can often seem like it is nothing at all since it can seem like everyone has the some problem of apathy and general malaise. For myself the Dysthymia was so long term and prevalent that I truly thought that that was how everybody felt, and I didn't realize that other people weren't always fighting to be positive.
If someone reads this and thinks they may have Dysthymia I urge them to contact a psychiatrist and just talk to them, they are trained to help you and they won't judge you. Proper treatment can make all the difference in the world."

I was told by my councillor recently I suffered from Dysthymia and I suppose it fits me better than depression does. However it all comes under the umbrella heading of Depression and if you turn around to someone and say, "Hey, I suffer from Dysthymia." You'll probably just get a 'WTF?' look in return. Whereas if you say "Hey, I suffer from depression." People will understand you better. So from here on I will post under the heading of depression but just know that it's just Dysthymia I suffer from. Very similar, but quite different. But people who suffer across the spectrum can all use the same solutions and relate to each other, just a different depths.

Relieved-she-found-words-to-clear-it-up
Samantha.

A Recent Problem

I am so swamped with everything I am under recently, that's why this post is a bit late. But it's long. And I apologise for that, I got into the telling of this story, needed to put it somewhere. That place was here.

I do theatre as a subject and about a month ago we started on an assessment standard which involved putting on a full scale production. This really excited me, and production was that of The Trojan Women also performed under the name The Women Of Troy.
The characters really excited me, and the fact that it was mainly a woman cast was even better.
Now I'm pretty easy when it comes to characters. I don't really care often. I'll have my favourites, sure, but wherever the director sees me best is where I will often go, no questions asked. My favourite character was the Mad Prophetess Princess, Cassandra, but the director instead cast me as the lead, Hecuba, Queen of Troy.

Everybody was congratulating me and everything and saying how lucky I was to have the part. But inside, I felt the stress and pressure. Lead role, particularly lead female in a mostly female play is a huge responsibility.
We are now two weeks away from opening night. I am just as freaked as I was then. The amount of stress on me is doubling. The amount of lines I have had to learn and have perfected by this coming Thurs is really stressing me out. I have an entire A4 page of monologue to still learn and perfect by Thursday, as well as all the blocking, choreography and musical humming to learn for the background. All my cues are up in the air and I am really stressing. And this was after confiding in the director and telling her my problems. After telling her I was stressing over the number of lines. After the lines being cut down immensely to start with. I still have the most in the entire play.

On top of all that stress, the first rehearsals of the production, and even now, I am being told to do better, that what I'm doing in the production, how I am saying things isn't connected enough and I can do better and I should do better and if I don't do better my grade will suffer and I may fail. Okay, so she didn't say I may fail, but that's how my brain has interpreted it after all this stress, as well as all other assessments and course work I am currently doing and things that are due.

Another stresser of the play is the actual emotions and themes of the play.
The Trojan Women is a play about the women of Troy, the day after Troy fell. Everybody knows the story of the Trojan horse and Helen of Troy right? How Helen ran away from her husband to be with a Trojan prince and the war that followed was supposedly all caused by the gods. How the Greek sent 10,000 men in a 1000 ships and laid siege to the city of Troy with 3000 people, at the max population time for 10 years. And how they finally won the war through clever trickery and took Helen home from where she had been held prisoner for all those years?
Well, that's the glamorised version. The real version is told in the play. How Helen chose to stay in Troy after the Trojan prince she married was killed. How much suffering was caused for her, the most beautiful woman in the world. How many men were sent to their deaths for her, and how much was put on the line for one man's pride.
 "It is the day after the falling of Troy. The sun is rising on the burnt ruins of the city as Hecuba, Queen of Troy and other women must rise from their hiding places and hear of their fate. Their fates are already sealed by the Grecian generals who are drawing lots as to whom they will get and take home. Every woman, every child still living will be chosen and separated from their friends, their family, and wrenched from their homeland to serve the men that killed their people.
Hecuba has watched as her city has fallen. As her people were slaughtered. She watched as her husband, and sons, were butchered in front of her. She watches as her priestess daughter is taken by the Grecian King to be a concubine. She watches as her people are allotted to the men that killed their families. She hears the cries of her women, pleading for help, but she can do nothing. She watches as her 5 year old grandson is ripped from his mothers arm and flung from the topmost towers to destroy the royal male bloodline of Troy, lest he seek revenge. She watches as the woman responsible plays her seductress act, and tries to le and bullshit her way out of her own death. She argues against Helen's story, tries to reveal her as a fraud, to turn her husband against her, to get her killed as price for the live of so many Trojan's slaughtered. She watches as Helen gets off scot free. She watches are his body is returned and she must bury him to let him seek peace in the afterlife. She watches as they set fire to the ruins of her city. And she walks the path to her slavery and the rest of her life."

As you can tell it's really heavy stuff. I have to feel all of this. I have to empathise with the characters, use my own emotional memory to affect me when playing this character. Don't get me wrong, I can dredge up the emotions needed, and play them very well if I can say so myself. The only thing I can't do is put them back in the safe of memories I keep locked away very easily. So I bring myself down to play this part very well, and then when the class is over, I'm supposed to not feel those things and focus on something else. And with my depression, it's damn near impossible. So I am stuck with this darkness and pain and sadness, all at once, and can't put them away. The only thing I can do is slip deeper. And when I'm having a good day, a pretty normal day, it doesn't last long. I'm forced by my course to slip into depression. My director knows I feel this way, but there's nothing she can do. It's all supposed to be acting. Acting means I fake it, but I can't for this play. I'm doing more acting in my everyday life acting normal than I am faking the emotions of the play.

When society and your coursework, when the thing leading you to your future is making you slip into depression in the name of 'good, realistic acting' what can you do to save yourself. What can you do to make yourself feel better, to put away those emotions? I am seriously searching for the answer, as I know that it will just get worse the closer the show dates are.

A-little-bit-ranty-but-necessary-and-a-little-apologetic-at-best
Samantha

Creative Darkness?

Last post I touched on, (very briefly) the fact that when I am down, I am more creative. In many cases, of unique and amazing talent (not saying I have any of that, I'm just talking about others) the creators of amazing pieces were depressed. Many famous people in the past, artists, writers and even some musicians are depressed. One particular person that springs into my head is Edgar Allen Poe. He wrote some really dark stuff, and yes he wasn't happiest person all the time.

When I am down, depressed, in my 'dark' place, I am more creative. I'm not sure why this is, I have one main theory though.
When I am down, I am not hiding. I am not behind a mask, I am not trying to control my emotions by not slipping down into the darkness. I am not trying to hide from anything. When I am that dark that I have a muse, I don't feel pain or anything.
Now the really weird thing about this theory is it goes against my one about the layers of the darkness.

You see I told you that when I go through the sadness, then the pain and then the deepest darkness, I feel empty, and numb. No emotions. But it appears that if I go into it with a strong enough emotion to start with, if I can hang on to the pain as I pass through it, or the sadness or anger that sent me there in the first place, I can usually get my muse working enough to write something.
However there is a major side effect of this. I'm usually down or angry or hurting to go there in the first place, so my writing isn't happy happy. It's rarely ever happy happy. Mostly it's death, insanity, pain, loss, heartbreak, suicide, all that jazz. My drawings are similar, although often both forms of my expression tend to be a little more abstract.

And finally, the really bad see-saw effect is this:
I have no muse when I am happy. I cannot write a love poem, or a story about a girl who got her dreams in the end because I never have a muse for those emotions. The girl would end up dead after cutting her own wrists in the snow, and the love poem would turn out to be heartbreak and loss. So I tend to walk a balancing act between being as normal as I can be, and being creative. To be creative I have to force myself downwards, into a downwards spiral that turns into a fall to the deepest depths of my despair. I'm honestly not kidding. The darker I am, the worse off my mind is, the better I am at being creative. So this leads to the chicken-egg moment of "Am I depressed because that makes me creative? Or am I creative because I am depressed?" I tend to think of it as a little of both.
I walk a balancing act between darkness and light, creative and bland works.

And don't you just love when you have to destroy yourself to create?

Suddenly-not-as-good-as-she-was
Samantha.

To Darkness - Writing #1

Recently I wasn't in a good place, after talking to a friend funnily enough. But enough of that. My muse returned to me, as it often does. I am more creative when I am depressed and down than normal, but this causes my writings and drawings to be somewhat darker than I'd like. But I get quite descriptive. I'll go into that another day. What I wanted to show you guys today was a short story/descriptive piece I wrote. I'd like feedback on it, because I am thinking of entering it in a local competition. Just let me know.

Not-so-average-human-being
Samantha.

To Darkness

 

In an empty room, in a dark old house, there’s a light. One light, illuminating the corner of the room. One girl sits in the corner; up against the walls with their wallpaper fading and peeling; on the floor with the creaky floorboards. Above her head sits a shelf, adorned with children’s toys. Remnants of another life the girl used to live. A picture on the wall opposite wall, of an older lady, long since dead.

The girl on the floor doesn’t move. She hadn’t moved for a long time now. Dressed in her white jumper, navy skirt and stockings, she looks like she’s just come from school. Her arms are wrapped tightly around herself, her legs up and her head down, blond hair obscuring her face.

No sound comes from the corner and silence reigns, but a single tear slips from a bright blue eye, down an exposed white-pale cheek. That single tear betraying the fact that the girl is alive, and does feel; Betraying the fact that she is frozen in terror, paralysed by a fear that haunts her, invades her mind and changes her. It’s called the darkness, the void, and slowly it kills you.

The light in the room seems to dim as a tendril of darkness starts reaching out towards her. Slithering across the floor and crawling up the wall it comes, leading other darkness tendrils to move. Something moves in the darkness and scampers out the door with a hiss as the murmuring begins.

The murmuring continues, quiet but menacing, but the girl doesn’t move or make a sound. The tendrils creep closer and the closer they get, the darker they become, the more solid they appear, forming into monsters. Monsters to create nightmares.

Slowly the girl raises her head in trepidation, half suspecting, half hoping that she’s been lying to herself, but the look of terror on her face says otherwise.

 

All at once the tendrils pounce, all so quickly and a piercing scream erupts from the girl’s throat, as she tried to fight the tendrils away to no avail. They wrap themselves around her wrists and ankles, keeping her still. They wrap themselves over her mouth, keeping her silent. Slowly tendrils inch their way across her body, over her eyes, around and in her ears, and down her throat; but their touch is gentle, like a lover seeing their partner after a long separation. The girl tried to fight, but gets nowhere as the tendrils around her neck start to strangle her. Slowly she is smother by darkness as even her own sight goes black.

 

In an empty room, in a dark house, the light has gone. In the room remains a girl, lying on the floor, motionless. She has blond hair, turning black and the remains of a torn white jumper, no longer white but turning black. The girl doesn’t move or make a sound. A strangled breath comes from the girl’s throat and her eyes flicker open, to reveal the inky blackness of death.

Mine And My Friends Depression

Dealing with depression is one thing, but also dealing with friends who have depression at the same time can really be harmful.
As I think I've said earlier I have a friend who also suffers from depression. This is both a good and bad thing. The good thing about it is when one of us is slipping down, or needs cheering up, the other one will know pretty much what to say to try and help them, and that can be helpful.

But the flipside of that is that if one of us is down, and the other is happy, that can lead to detrimental effects on either person. If the happy person is staying happy, it can make the down person feel even worse for not being happy as if the happy friend is telling the down friend that "I'm happy and I have depression, why can't you be?"
Or maybe that's just me.
It means the person who is down can stop fighting, and get dragged down deeper.
Also if the difference is moods is that great it can also bring the happy person down. I find that when I'm down, I listen to down music. And it makes me feel not as bad. But if I do that and my friend is happy, it brings them down because they are listening to the same bad music, especially if we are hanging out together. It can cause one of us to be dragged down to the place that they've fought their way out of.

My version of depression seems to be a perpetual low mood, whereas my friend has the huge moodswings. So that often means that I'm doing alright for a normal day, and he goes down. This ends up dragging me down furter than I would normally like to go. And then he rebounds back a little up to where I was, leaving my stuck in the place I fought so hard to get out of.

So both a good and bad thing. This is jut me and my friends, I find that dealing with depression is a really difficult thing sometimes. Overall though it has it's good points but I know that overall, it's bad, and ends up dragging people down in the long run. But sometimes being dragged down in the long run doesn't matter if A) you have those little moments of happiness and B) if you have somebody who feels as bad, as down and as dark as you do that will go through it with you. Sometimes it doesn't matter how bad it feels in the long run. Sometimes you only think of now.

Average-but-not-normal-human-being
Samantha.

Duty/Routine Motivations

A duty is really the only things that keeps me going in the dark times. That and routine, but they tend to blur a bit.
If I feel I have a duty to someone, it acts as a sort of motivation. If I have told somebody that I will do something for them, but have no motivation due to my being in a dark place, the sense of duty will kick in and give me the motivation to do that thing for the person, but no more.

Routine works sort of like that. I feel that I have to get up, have my breakfast and then leave the house at 8.13 or thereabouts. I feel like I have to get through the day, answering peoples questions and generally doing what I have to do work wise, until I can come home. Most of the routine is done on autopilot, especially when I'm down. It's the mask metaphor again. I get this routine done by the masked me, while inside I'm not paying any attention or doing anything to help.

A sense of duty is hard to break. I know somebody who has tried and failed to try and break his sense of duty, just as an experiment and he failed. I haven't been able to do it. A sense of duty is a little bit due to the way you were brought up, but another part deep rooted in us from society and evolution.
I'll bet the scientists never thought that would happen? (A joke? An attempted joke? Stop Sam. You can't joke. :D )

Duty is the one thing that keeps me going when I have no motivation left. It is my duty to do these things, for people and for myself because if I don't, somebody may suspect something is wrong, or because I've promised to do this. It enables me to do things when in actual point of fact, I don't want to do anything. In saying that, it is sometimes hard to classify something as 'duty' when it's mainly for myself, or the other person says "It's unimportant, no rush." I tend to lose my motivation and have to fight for it a little.
Routine is part of that, it's part of my duty to myself to do these things, to let myself be viewed as 'normal' so I do them. It's also part of the disguise. Part of the mask, the end up trapping me inside sometimes.

If I knew somebody was reading this blog, it would become my duty to post here everyday, or every two days. It's my duty to myself, but if somebody else reads this, I'd like to know. :)

Mostly-functional-human-being
Samantha.

Appropriate Quotes #1

There are times when I cannot describe depression, mine in particular, with words of my own. There's a page that I visit often called A Sea Of Quotes and the person who runs it posts quotes or snippets out of books or poems that people submit and that are favourite finds.

Often I save this with the appropriate author as the name and often the ones I save are the ones that I find describe me best. I want to share some of those as today I can't put enough words together to make something meaningful. This is todays emotion filled post.

      Joseph Gordon Levitt

____________________________________________________________

Katie McGarry

 

____________________________________________________________

 

Kay Redfield Jamison

 

____________________________________________________________

Unknown

 

 

Another-unmotivated-human-being

Samantha.



Motivation; Of Lack Thereof

A lack of posts for the past few days can be explained. A) it was my birthday, and B) I wasn't motivated to do anything other than mope.

One thing I've found with depression is that when dealing with it, you tend to have depressive spells. Rather obvious so far right? Well....in my case, and in a few cases I know, when these depressive spells occur, I also end up with a large lack of motivation. This motivation is rather because I am in a mood that is 'downer' and lifeless. Feeling numb means feeling not sad and not hurt, it also means not feeling happy. It also means not feeling excited about something. It means a lack of motivation.

This lack of motivation comes from the fact that well, you don't want to do anything. Depression is not so much the hurt and pain, or the sadness or numbness. It's not happiness and being excited about things. It's more often than not, a lack of these things. You lack motivation, you lack the will to get up and do something, say something, socialise.

Motivation is what drives us in our lives, it's what causes up to actually do things. Eating is driven by motivation; a motivation to eat which is driven by hunger, or emotional distress in many cases. So a lack of motivation, leads to a pretty dull, stale life.
A lack of motivation can cause problems in even the simplest of lives. The will to do something is strong in our lives; the will to get out of bed in the morning, to run for the bus or train, to hang out with friends or even to get changed out of our pyjamas. There is an alternate form of this, which is a sense of duty, or rather, doing something or somebody else. Often routine comes into that too, but that's an alternate part of this conversation.

So depression causes a lack of everything, in particular motivation to do things. To fight your way out of depression requires that aforementioned motivation, which often you are lacking. The only way to fight your way out is to find something that works, that gives you a want to do something, to give you motivation. Like if you want to get fit and make it your duty to go to the gym to get fit, you will have to fulfil your promise to yourself to achieve your goal and it will give you the motivation to do this action. It snowballs from there. So small goals, leading to long term goals. Something to improve your life, or change it in good ways. A small goal, weekly perhaps. That leads into a bigger change or goal. If you want it badly enough, it will give you the motivation you require, to get up in the morning, and do something for YOURSELF, because often that is the hardest part. The doing something for yourself.

That's what this is for me. My goal is to be able to express myself better and to fight my way out of my depression, even for good times. This is what my blog does for me. My motivation is to write a blog post at least one every 2 days, that's what I have to do to succeed on this blog. And I have to enjoy it, or get something from it, and I do.

Average-for-myself-(which is to say below average for normal people)-existing-human-being

Samantha.

Depression Gravity Metaphor

Depression for me, was described best by a youtuber of the likes I've never seen before. He doesn't promote himself, or his channel, and you find him through his tweets and starring in the company videos he helps create, and his name is Wot Fanar.

He said in one of his videos (aptly named 'Depression For Me') that depression seemed to be like gravity. People from it often get pulled down. He said that normal people that aren't suffering depression seem to float in a normal, mid level happiness type of position. They move about, up and down depending on their mood, but can stay hovering at that level.
People with depression however, are the ones influences by gravity. They have their ups, and can defy the depression ('gravity') for a while, eventually it will bring them back down, and quite suddenly they'll end up on the ground.

Depression is different for all people, but for me, it is like that in spirit. Often I have moments where I am happy, but overall I sit at a reasonable below average sort of mood. I have my rare moments of happiness, but overall I sit at that below average mood. However, I liken depression more to a slippery slope, of gravel or sand, or maybe even a quarry, depending on how you look at it.
You have the normal people, who float, and me, who stands on the surface of the earth, at the edge of the hole or crater. As depression lures me in, I start to slide. I slide slowly down into the dark hole, unaware of anything else. I have three stages in my darkness, three levels to it. The first is sadness, and loneliness. I feel awfully sad and sometimes lonely, but I am still mainly functioning at that level.
The second is pain. Pain of memories past, things that have happened. I bet myself up about the past a lot. One of my favourite lines out of a poem I wrote was this:
"I don't cut, I don't harm myself,
But I look at my arms and see a mass of scars."
This refers to the fact that I purposely bring up memories to hurt myself. But that is a post for another day. There's too much to that particular point. Often this pain layer tends to be the thickest. To stop myself by putting on my mask, to try and claw my way out of the depression at this point hurts too much. It ends up with me sitting in the pain level for a while and then slowly inching my way out of it. Often if I get to that stage, I give up and slip into the third layer.
The third layer is the darkest of my layers. But it's also the most comfortable. It's where I feel like I belong, warm and safe. It's numbness. It's the void. I slip through the sadness and the pain, and slip through into nothingness. I feel no hurt, no pain, nothing of the sort. I only feel numb. And after the pain and hurt, numb is preferable. Numb is preferable to the emotions of the world.

And so I find myself in the void, the darkness, the numbness, more often than I think is good for me. I can't say I don't like it, because it's comfortable, but I find that when I'm there, it saps my energy, my will to do something. It takes away my motivation. I also have dark thoughts and sometimes the pain does still seep through, and sometimes the life above still comes through. But mainly when I'm in the darkness, I'm running on autopilot.

Average-mood-for-a-depressive
Samantha.

Poem - Noise

This fits in with yesterday's ending about feeling trapped in the mask. It's a poem called Noise. I'm not sure who the copyright belongs to, I can't even find it on Google. If you know of the poem, or even know the author, please let me know. :)

I'll end this post with a poem that I found a while ago, before my depression actually, that fits almost exactly what I feel when I feel trapped.
 
Noise
I must keep talking, keep moving,
Keep buzzing.
If I stop I'll hear the silence.
I hate silence.
Nothing to distract me,
From the fact that I am,
Alone in here.
Trapped in a mask I can't take off.
Aching. Churning. Sad.
So turn up the noise.....
 
But sometimes the noise isn't loud enough,
And I feel lonely in a crowd,
An island and I can't swim.
Friends hear the words I say,
But they can't hear what my heart,
Is saying.
A nightmare
Where I want to run or scream but can't.
How did I end up me?

About-the-same-as-yesterday-feeling-slightly-bad-human-being

Samantha

A Mask

Okay. So today's job as to sort out the layout of the blog.
Which I've done. The quote and image at the bottom of the homepage pretty much sum up everything about this blog in two small portions.

This blog is more about me. I've got trouble expressing myself. Serious trouble. I live behind a façade like a mask. The mask that makes people not see me.
This mask is something I put on when I'm out in public. I suppose I'd better explain, that my other major fault.

I suffer from depression. I have done so for about 3 years, and have suffered in silence. I have only recently been opening up to my friends and partner, so I've been hiding for a while. I grew used to putting on his happy, 'I'm fine' exterior to get through my days at school and work without somebody turning around to me and saying "You look down. What's wrong?" Because when I first started having depression, I refused to admit it, even to myself. I just told myself I was having a bad day. But the bad day turned into a bad week. And the bad week turned into a bad month.
Before I knew it, 4 months had passed, and I was forced to accept that it wasn't just a mood which was going to pass.

Shortly after I admitted it to myself, I started to grow aware of myself putting on this façade, this mask of happiness. I will admit. It was good for me. If I was slipping down into what I like to call the darkness, otherwise known as the dark mood swings of depression, this mask would stop me. I would go out and have to put on this mask and it would level me off at whatever level I was at until I was alone again. And....as I had to wear this mask for at least 9 hours each day for various 'public' things, I wasn't too badly off.

This mask is slowly not helping. I've grown so used to putting it on, so used to wearing it, that I, myself in my own head am starting to use it as a disguise, and continue to slip into the darkness beneath my mask. Now that doesn't help. Recently, only if I am actively using the mask as camouflage and interacting with people, does it work. And I'm doing that less, because my depression has been getting worse. Ergo, the need to get my feelings out and be able to express myself, so to this blog.

The really sad part about this mask, apart from the fact that it's slowly not working, is the fact that I've gown used to it, and can use it too well. It now, rather than helps me, hides me. When I most need people to turn around to me and say "What's wrong? Don't lie to me and tell me truth." This mask of mine is the strongest. Nobody can see through it, not even my partner of 2 1/2 years. I can't deal anymore with the fact that I feel alone in my own head.

Below-average-hurting-human-being

Samantha.