I’ve had it with you.

I suppose the word “depression” is too vague for people to take it truly seriously. Not until you include specific terms such as OCD, alcoholism, anorexia or autism in the description do their judging eyes reveal a little smudge of sympathy. You want specifics? I’ll give you some specifics.

The inability to stay in a crowded classroom for longer than forty minutes, at which time you must exit to go to the bathroom, lock the door, turn off the light and slide down on the floor. Lie or sit with your head in your hands, eyes clamped shut, for seven to fifteen minutes. Just to get your head to shut up. (2007-08)

Going out on two hour walks each evening to escape the indoor tumult. Ramming your closed fist into metallic bus stop walls, just to break the thought pattern. (2008)

Using needles, instead of the classic razor blade or kitchen knife. To rip up the skin on the back of your hands. Wearing fingerless gloves for a month. Hurts for a couple of weeks, but doesn’t scar. (2006-07)

Taking the form of a living ashtray, because nothing can calm you down like a cigarette can. (2010-)

Shutting every inch of sadness in, because of your inability to cry in front of anyone.

Waking up early every morning in a cold sweat from a nightmare so horrible and so realistic, it takes a few minutes to determine if it actually happened. Another half hour to shake the horror. (2007-)

Neglecting lunch every day for nearly a year, forgetting what an appetite feels like. Dropping nearly ten pounds altogether. (2007-08)

Sitting in the shower for over an hour, because your legs refuse to carry you. (2007-)

 

Still think it’s something that could be solved with a little talking and positive thinking? If you do, fuck off and get educated.

Sincerely,

/GB

‘There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.’

It’s in your imperfections. In your scars, liver spots and zits, your pale skin, dirty hair and bushy eyebrows, crooked nose, skinny legs, cracked lips and stained teeth. Your inferiority complex, your inability to save money, complete lack of social tact, trust issues, nicotine fingers, promiscuity, recklessness, anger, despair and deep rooted passion. It’s in your flaws, cracks, scratches and bruises your real beauty resides.

Perfection and excellence are two mutually exclusive things. You could be perfect, but you’d be boring and uninteresting. Or you could be flawed, but excellent and fascinating. Yet, most people seem to be striving for the prior. Perfect partner, perfect house, and altogether the perfect, polished suburban life. But I don’t want polished. I want the people with scratches and cracks on their surfaces, holes in their hearts, missing pieces and magnificent, beautiful flaws.

I look at people. Wherever I go, I admire people. Their face, posture, body language. I get so bored looking at those bleached, powdered, lipglossed beings who spend an hour and a half trying to hide every flaw in their appearance.

But give me a woman on a train with ruffy hair and smudged eyeliner, holes in her jeans, a careless demeanor and pain in her eyes, and you’ve got me hooked. Or an elderly man with lines across his face, for every moment in his life he’s smiled or frowned. Give me heavy eyes, uncombed hair and dirty shoes. Nothing polished. Nothing powdered. Be a diamond in the rough. Genuine, original, unaltered. Beautiful. Proud.

Stop blabbering and learn to fucking like yourself.

“Why do we feel it’s necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?”

How badly I need for people to shut up every once in a while. Everything needs to be gossiped, debated and advertised these days. The politicians, the celebrities, the know-it-alls, the journalists and the television whores are all playing this world-wide game of who can blabber pointlessly for the longest amount of time before losing interest from the general public. I was about to ask why that is, but the answer came to me as quickly as it took to type it.

Silence and solitude is horrible for people who can’t stand their own company. People who can’t stand their own company constantly need approval and attention. So here’s some advice, if you’re one of them:

Sit quiet. Be alone. Learn to fucking like yourself. You don’t need to be perfect to be likeable. In fact, most imperfections usually just end up making you charming. However, the inability to shut up is not one of them. Learn to be alone, learn to enjoy a silence. Get it into your head that you don’t need anybody’s approval to be a remarkable person. I promise you that the ability to fully enjoy a day alone is something that will serve you for the rest of your life.

Sincerely,
A.

Scarcely readable rant

I am not dying. No one I love is dying or dead. I am not sick. I don’t have a broken heart. Yet days go by like cold, endless winters and all I want is to feel my hand burst punching a brick wall, and sleep. I am enclosed in invisible, impenetrable walls. To every person who’s fighting for their life, struggling through actual loss and horror, I feel like a traitor. Even worse, I sometimes wish something tragic would happen to me, so I’d be authorized to feel this horrible. And yes. I am fully aware of how sickening that is. You may think me a pitiful person whose only aim for this is to collect some sympathy, but I don’t want any. I only want this off my chest so I can sleep. If you’re wondering why so many world known authors or poets were depressed, I can tell you why: writing doesn’t make you depressed, depression makes you write. Or paint. Or play an instrument. Whatever creative distraction that gets you thinking of something else than your pitiable self.

Promise I’ll return next time with something more readable. Till then, goodnight.

Questions from an impious agnostic.

I get that people want to believe in a great creator of the world, as opposed to blind luck. As a person who’s adequately read-up on physics and chemistry, I get that the world is rather amazing in its structure. I also get that humans have a code of ethics that are to be followed, both to soothe our own conscience and to achieve social harmony.

However I do not understand why the “great creator” must be ruler of the Earth. I do not understand why this entity must be divine, human, or of male gender. I do not understand why “he” must have a purpose or even a conscience, and even less do I understand why “he” must be worshipped. I do not understand why “he” picks teams. I do not understand why I must ask forgiveness from an invisible, inaudible, non-tangible entity that has never once asked for my apology. I do not understand why this “he” would even demand I apologize for being flawed, if “he” is the one who has created me so.

I do not understand why kindness, generosity, humility, gratitude, appreciation, honesty and forgiveness are things that people consider exclusively Christian. I doubt that Jesus was the first to coin those terms. I doubt that the people before him were any less kind and forgiving than his subsequent followers. I for one, knew of and practiced all of these traits long before I even knew what “God” meant.

Finally. Even the most open-minded churches have told me that according to their belief system, only those who believe in Jesus will be welcomed by God. If the Christians are correct, are they trying to tell me that God can both be loving and at the same time gamble a person’s fate and salvation on whether or not he or she finds, opens and swallows the contents of a book?

Reasons for living: Part II.

… and this, my dear friends, is the most amazing live art performance I have seen yet. I am not exaggerating. I linked it on my Facebook a few weeks ago. This woman made something stir, jerk and twist in my chest. She also made something light up. Do watch it, if you have not yet seen it. Please. You will not regret it.

Reasons for living: Part I.

Stop right there. Stop surfing, stop blabbering, stop planning, stop worrying. Stop doing whatever it is you think you have to do, and be quiet. Now press play, and listen. Don’t debate, don’t converse, don’t pause to check your Facebook, just listen.