on the topic of depression

Then there is this: in some way, the quiet terror of severe depression never entirely passes once you’ve experienced it. It hovers behind the scenes, placated temporarily by medication and renewed energy, waiting to slither back in, unnoticed by others. It sits in the space behind your eyes, making its presence felt even in those moments when other, lighter matters are at the forefront of your mind. It tugs at you, keeping you from ever being fully at ease. Worst of all, it honours no season and respects no calendar; it arrives precisely when it feels like it.

Daphne Merkin on her forty year battle with depression | Life and style | The Observer

record for posterity

a compliment means so much more when it comes from someone i believe is good.
all he said was,

i like her determination. good.

no hyperbole, no gushing, no agenda.


it becomes a mantra to pull out on grey days, and huddle over like a warm flame. it burns resolve into my body so that the centre of gravity finally rocks back and my chin lifts again.

even when shit hits the often-splattered fan; when i don't know how i'm going to pull it off; when i feel more twelve than twenty-one... well.

someone with a thoroughbred heart believes i'm a decent kid.
he thinks i can see things through to the end.

and so i have to. and somehow, i just can.

you're just another story i can't tell anymore.

i keep flirting with the idea of burning out again, tossing back the hours like they don't count up to 24 every time. and i don't want to write sense sometimes.

there must be more. if i drop too many bad habits, i become a clean void. but you and me both know that lasts as long as a man's morning shave. the attention span of a post-it in the breeze, me, and some times the cold heart the size of one, too.

but seriously folks, i'm hovering in the decide.