Did they diagnose me with depression? I couldn’t say – sometimes I feel I cannot physically say anything. The tongue sticks like an iron wedge, a colander for words and cuts at the end. As greasy and vicious as hairs. Felling meticulous, explanations superfluous. Much of the time I feel so incredibly limited, though from what i do not know – I can’t explain myself, I only have a fraction of the materials to make up a fraction of what I need. My intentions manifest to precipitate. Sometimes I feel angry, my throat spatters and spills red in its wordless imagery. But still not what I wanted to say. Yet I feel I am lucky. Is it lucky to be come to terms with mental illness?
I couldn’t say – I am a particle, cast as a die in the process. I may land blank, may be an anomaly. Sometimes I think that everything is so incredibly pointless, plashing within this fabricated existence – yet the pointed illogicality in allowing the thumbs of the wind to pass the tablet over eye sockets. Set lips over teeth. A pile of cold flesh. I have wanted to die, and part tries, screaming and curling within itself – within the wider, smaller, endless concept of the mind. Sometimes it terrifies me to know that no-one else will ever know mine, this is myself, subjective tracked, aligned – only with the watercolour concept of a dilute future and a departure through a series of names and a date. Perhaps on a tombstone. But there are concepts in life – children, eyes, touch, flowers. Sometimes I could coagulate, set to time for hours – except they would not be hours, they would be nothing – but pressing down, almost constant, the definition of something. My fear perhaps, in that everything holds some momentary assigned meaning – but I will not be part of it. I miss the moment. Sometimes totally unconnected.
Some people may call it living with depression. The diverged clot of expressions, the fear of numbers – the aversion – crisp, clean and wordless – the want, in a way, to not be defined. To be beyond human, beyond purpose. But would that be death. Sometimes – so ashamed of myself, yet manifests in different ways, cannot tell or determine whether it will remerge hot into joy or coagulate to rage. The tags – ‘crazed’ ‘insane’ – just assemblies of black print, the human product, hot as a fox pelt. I could say I have tried to help myself. But I have done comparatively nothing. Sometimes I wonder whether it is myself the ill mind talking. Can it be both? There is some kind of conflict, as one part is saying – but it doesn’t say – seeps to generate, and clash, replay.
Reside within the term of ‘lucky’. I could say. Some brilliant people have held me and helped me, sometimes I feel my life, existence resides – in their own experiences – terrified by this human entity which resides tapping and reading and writing and learning. Compulsions compressed into words and subsequent pages – I wrote so my life fits. I write because it is insufficient. I have been encouraged, the concept of myself has been encouraged, however – to write. To not be ashamed, to see the emptiness of which I reel in life to experience – fission with joy. The want for control; often incredibly raw – it is lines of separate, disparate , cold wet muscle. But to help myself I want to help – adult or children, you appear to be another existence, another consciousness. Sometimes I feel so wordlessly alone, distant, the person I love separates and sheds a pelt to dust. My hand crosses the crust of my visions. Sometimes feel ashamed, yes, if you could put a word in it.
Sometimes so complex to come to terms. But I want to help. I feel, that there is perhaps no distinct definition – the support is needed, the mind is rich, and wild, and ambiguous. I have had people who tell me I can do it – much of the time I still search, hungered for that definition. But to anyone who has been affected by this, judged that their mind does not comply with comparative norms, feels the pain of expressionless of being alone – you are not. We all are, but can be closer in concept. I feel words, even if not all-expanded, have allowed me to express just a portion. And I hope that by illustrating through the words of my experiences, it may allow for others to consider themselves and potentially allow for the help they think they need, not only from others, but within the self.
Depression apparently affects 1 in 5 people, but I will not count myself in the figure. Numbers are limiting. But the mind is endlessness I feel, that being in own opinion of mind, and an endlessness that can only be semi-portrayed through a fraction. But you are not alone, and not alone in the remembrance that there is always the potential for portrayal of the part of the self - even if categorically true, false, removed, unheard of. It could be still there.
I would be grateful for any contributions, your own writing, stories, readings – personal or metaphorical – and to explore the potential illustration of any part of the mind (such a wide term) and the ambiguity of what will be removed.
I want to remove oppression, alienation, stigma. I suppose they could just be seen as concepts in the wider media. We are all human. But what is the mind? That, my mind could feel, is open to discussion, any rush of the self.
Is the mind beyond identification? I am not assigning a definitive name.
