Depression as a Deficiency

Tags

black humour, Depression, inadequacy, pills

Ok La, time to earn all those follows….

So I’ve been avoiding blogging for a number of weeks because of all the dark, twisty things happening in my head (and by association my life) lest they leak out onto my writing and potentially terrify the unsuspecting masses (I use ‘masses’ with no small sense of irony here) reading my little posts. But then I thought, “Ah screw it. Who doesn’t enjoy a touch of the macabre pasted across a lightly shining computer screen?”.

If you answered, “Me!” to that (technically) rhetorical question there, then you might want to avert your baby blues (or browns) at this stage and turn your attention to more wholesome things, like big-busted Asian porn or something.

Today’s dark and twisty involves coming to terms with my own glaring deficiency. Everyone talks about depression the way they would talk about a nasty bug doing the rounds. “Did you hear? Sarah’s got depression!”. “Oh no, don’t tell me she’s got it too? Seems everyone’s coming down with it these days…”. At least, that’s the way it seems to me. I can’t walk five steps without bumping into some chronically depressed, anxiety-laden misfit (Oh wait, that’s just my reflection in the mirror). And that kind of prevalence definitely detracts from depression’s rep, you know. It’s suddenly not so serious, not so tragic, because everyone’s got it.

I’m here to spread the gospel and you know what, that’s utter BS.

But even more serious/tragic/pathetic is when you need to face up to your own chemical inadequacies and pop some pills just so that you can, you know, function. Suddenly life looms ahead of you like that endless stretch of hallway in a nightmare. You know the door’s there somewhere ahead of you but angels-be-damned if you can spot the bloody thing. And lining the walls of this hell-way are frames filled with faces showing every conceivable reaction on the spectrum: barely-concealed disdain, bitter contempt and, worst of all, heart-searing pity…

My therapist says I should look at this as if it were some other disease, like diabetes. No one blames the old guy for taking insulin shots, so why should I be blamed for taking pretty little pills to boost my seratonin and dopamine levels? Except no one gives Gramps that look. You know the one where they’re thinking to themselves, “Whiny brat, you’re just pretending because you’re too weak and spoilt to deal with the real world…” And if it so happens that most of the faces wearing that look happen to be mine, well…Freud would have a field-day.

And now, avid and enthralled reader (snort, cough, choke), feel free to return to your more fulfilling pasttime of whatever you were doing before this, with the resolute knowledge that you depart these words none the wiser nor in any way altered or enriched….or do you?

La Labouche signing off…

She kills with her fingertips

Tags

loneliness, people, solitude, surreal

“Who’s that?”

“Who’s who?”

“That girl over there. She’s sitting all by herself. She looks very lost. Maybe she needs help?”

“Oh, her. Listen here, boy, you don’t want nothing to do with her. You hear me?”

“What do you mean? She’s just a harmless girl. I’m going to go ask if she needs help.”

“Don’t! I mean it, boy! It’ll mean your life if you talk to that girl!”

“You can’t be serious…”

“Serious as cancer, kid.”

“But…but she’s just a girl. A lost-looking, lonely girl. How’s she going to kill me?”

“Not two months ago this kid came along, a newbie like yourself. Too smart for the likes of us, you see. I told him, same as I told you, to leave that girl alone. Well, Mr Know-it-all didn’t think much of my advice. Thought so little of it, in fact, that he went right on over to that girl and tried to talk to her. Didn’t get very far.”

“Why? What happened?”

“The same thing that happens every time, kid. She killed him. Killed him dead as dead can be.”

“But how? Quit talking in circles, old man, and get to the point! How does this harmless little girl kill a full-grown man? In broad daylight no less.”

“Alright, alright! I’ll tell you. No need to get all worked up… See, it starts out all innocent. Some guy will walk over to her, usually some Good Samaritan type like yourself, looking to see if she’s alright. He’ll say the usual line, “Sorry Ma’am, do you need some help?”. But before he gets more than two words out his mouth she’ll look up and he’ll be caught —“

“Caught? What do you mean ‘caught’?”

“I’ll tell you if you’ll stop interrupting my story!”

“Sorry…”

“As I was saying, he’ll be caught. Caught in her eyes.”

“Her eyes?”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it? You going deaf, boy?”

“But how’s that even possible? I mean, eyes?”

“ You ain’t never seen eyes like these before, kid, I can tell you that much. They’re something else. It’s like she’s got ice instead of eyes. Sharp, glittering ice that’s been split into tiny splinters that you can feel all the way to your bones. To your soul. And once she’s got those splinters in you, there ain’t no escape…”

“Escape from what?”

“Her fingers.”

“What’s wrong with her fingers?”

“That girl, that harmless little girl you wanted to talk to. She carries Death in her fingertips.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Once you’re caught in her eyes, she’ll get up real slow. And even more slow she’ll put those fingers on your skin, on your face. The moment she touches you, it feels like the ice from her eyes is pouring into your mouth and forcing its way down your throat. Down, down it goes till it’s got your heart in a death grip. And then it’s like…it’s like…”

“What? What happens then?”

“Well, it’s like you can hear your heart break. With one great snap the whole icy lump cracks and crumbles into nothing. Then your eyes film over like you’ve been dead for days. And you let out one last gasp, a puff of smoke in the air. Then you’re dead. Deader than dead. Just an icy corpse.”

“But…how? How does she do that?”

“No one really knows, kid. Some say she done something real awful and this is her punishment. Others say she got cursed by some evil demon and she can’t never get rid of it. Me, I got a theory of my own.”

“What’s your theory, then?”

“It’s her loneliness. Her loneliness kills the people around her.”

“Her loneliness? What makes you think that?”

“I been watching her for quite some time, boy. I’ve seen a few of her kills. At first I only saw the victims, the stubborn do-gooders that thought they would help out some helpless girl. But later on I started seeing her too. And do you know what I saw every single time that girl killed?”

“What?”

“Sadness. Heart-wrenching sadness all across her face like a neon sign. And tears streaming down her cheeks like little rivers. It hurts her just as much every time she kills, but for some reason she can’t stop. And I say that reason is loneliness.”

“Yeah, I see it now. She’s so desperately alone that she can’t help reaching out for human contact, even if it ends up killing the other person. That’s terrible… But doesn’t that little bit of contact take away some of her loneliness? Even just a little?”

“Nah, it just makes it worse. I seen that too. Every time after a kill, she looks colder, more icy. And her fingertips are so full of Death, it’s like you can see him dancing there. Waiting for the next victim.”

“Wow that’s — Wait, how do you know all of this? About her eyes and the ice?”

“’Cos I’m the only one that’s ever survived her.”

The Hulking Man

Tags

Depression, Metaphors, Regret

Whenever I give form to my depression, it is a man.

He is not a man with skin and hair and nails. Neither does he have eyes of any recognisable colour or lips of blushing red. No, he has none of those things. Instead, he has a body that glistens slick as an oil spill over every grotesque inch of his naked shape. His is a physique that makes a mockery of masculine appeal. What should act as a rival to David becomes hideous and terrifying, no more so than when this lean strength bunches together in the leaping bound that inevitably has him crouched on my body. Knees pressed to my chest, this sickly shining man digs his colossal weight into me till I struggle to breathe. His face, strong-jawed and sharply-angled, is always leering with malicious satisfaction, at once beautiful and hideous. He lowers his head until his straight, narrow nose is a mere quiver from mine, and until all I can see are his eyes that are not eyes. In them I see the show reel of my every harrowing pain play in a continuous loop. I am sliced anew by every cutting moment of rejection, betrayal and regret, made more potent for the repetition, and I am transfixed. I barely notice his burning hand at my throat and its slowly building pressure. Only when the looping reel blurs and my ears catch a terrified sobbing do I realise my situation. It is too late. I can do nothing but suffocate…deliberately…grotesquely…under the weight of this hulking man.

Lost: One Mojo, Reward If Found

Reblogged from Pucker Up Buttercup:

I was sitting in a local coffee dispensary, writing the first draft of a blog post in my Moleskine notebook and enjoying a latte (full caffeine, whole milk, five packets of raw sugar ... I'm hardcore like that, it's just the way I roll). This particular establishment had once been known as a meeting place for lesbians; but over the years the herd has thinned and rather than a flock of femmes or a bevy of butches you're more likely to see a gaggle of high school girls being incredulous and astonished about…

Read more… 1,575 more words

I Hereby Dub Thee...

Reblogged from cappy writes:

I like names. They're really important pieces of people, if you think about it. They're with you for the rest of your life, and to me, a woman who will most likely relinquish her last name after marriage, that's pretty significant.

I'm named after my great-grandfather Charles Brown; he was a fruit farmer in Delaware and an all-around snazzy guy, from what I can gather.

Read more… 687 more words

Weekly Writing Challenge: 1,000 Words, Take Two

Tags

DPchallenge

The Lovers

 

 

August 1984, Montpellier

 

 

On the second floor of the Une Journee apartment building, in Room 46, Mignon the cat dozes softly where he is sprawled in a slanted stripe of afternoon sunlight filtering in from the living room window. His owner, Jean-Pierre Delacroix, sits huddled over a computer screen, cursing the glare of the intruding light. Across the way, four-year-old Colette Valentin turns from her ballet class to stare at the veined petals of the pink flowers in the window box. Her teacher, Madame Lacontesse, eyes the time with a longing sigh while her fingers itch for a cigarette. On the street below, Monsieur and Madame Racine share the same walk of the same route of the past fifty years, fingers tightly intertwined lest one of them should stumble. Set to interrupt their journey is Alain Courtois, the businessman who stands glued to the spot as he desperately tries to keep his cool while talking to the beautiful Antoinette Dubois. Huddled against the building stand a group of impatient tourists, waiting to climb onto the mirrored-surface tram that creaks when it’s boarded and clicks and bumps as it travels through the provincial town, but still hasn’t stopped a day since its inception in 1948.

 

And not too far away, yet also miles away, stand a young couple in love’s first embrace.

 

 

April 2013, Manhattan

 

 

“Do you remember the day we fell in love?” she whispers, her words made loud by the darkness.

 

A moment passes in which he considers feigning sleep but he quickly dismisses the thought. She knows he’s awake else she wouldn’t have spoken.

 

“Of course I do,” he sighs. “How could I forget?”

 

Another silent moment fills the air, the only sound their soft breathing and the idle movement of limbs under the duvet.

 

“Would you…” She hesitates, the barest hitch in her voice. She tries again. “Would you tell me about it? Please?”

 

At once he is angry and sad, uncomfortable and heartbroken. This is not a memory he would willingly visit. But, where normally he would decline her request, he finds that in the anonymous embrace of night there is a certain courage that brings him to open his mouth and start his story.

 

“It was August and we were in France. You’d just finished your thesis and were set to graduate that Fall, so we decided to treat ourselves to a tour of Europe. That year was unseasonably warm but we loved every moment of it, purely because we were together. I remember the day you got the call from your supervisor, saying you would be graduating cum laude. It was afternoon and the tall buildings around us had made an artificial twilight in the narrow street except for a sheet of golden sunlight halfway down the road. There were people all around us. An old couple were helping each other to climb the broad stairs of the walkway. A businessman stood talking to a young associate in rapid French, no doubt about matters of the utmost importance, even if only to them. A motley crowd of tourists were grouped around a gleaming silver tram, ready to board its creaking carriages and rattle away to more local tourist traps. And yet, we may as well have been anywhere, or nowhere, the moment that overjoyed smile came over your face and you lunged to hug me like you never have before. The sounds of the busy street filtered away till all I heard was your voice whispering over and over in my ear of how happy you were. Where before the street had been filled with the scent of flowers and food and people, suddenly I was aware only of your skin and your hair. I held you as tightly as you did me, and still I felt I would hold you tighter if it were only possible. And when finally we parted enough only to meet each other’s eyes, I knew suddenly that I had fallen in love with you. Somewhere I had left the known path of friendship and forged new avenues in love. And as I stood staring into your eyes, I knew that somehow you, too, had fallen in love with me. And I knew, at last, the truth of happiness.”

 

The night seems even darker, and quiter still, when at last he finishes speaking. His fleeting courage is gone and instead he feels only the emptiness of his recollection. Beside him, she moves to wipe at tears she could not keep from falling. He leaves his tears to trail down his cheeks, unnoticed and irrelevant.

 

“We were so young back then,” she whispers once more. “The world was brighter, more beautiful.”

 

“Yes, it was,” he replies, more tired than he has felt in years. “But no more. Never again.”

 

He turns his back to her and, thankfully, she leaves him to sleep’s sweet escape.

 

Committing words to digital page.

Tags

Blogging, literature, writing

As an aspiring writer who has finally scraped together the courage to create a blog, I am faced with a serious case of cold feet. Suddenly I am in a position (by choice, I might add, but that rarely counts for anything when complaining) where I now need to put my mouth where my blog is. By necessity, I must now presume to be worthy of attention and interest. I tell you what, it’s a daunting prospect for someone who’s only ever gotten so far as to keep an all-too-average diary. But I’ve made my bed and I guess it’s time to lie in it. Not before I expound on all these feelings of inadequacy, though. ‘Cos it’s my blog and I’ll write what I want to…

So this is my great internal struggle in a nutshell: how do I so arrogantly presume that what I have to say (or write, in this case) is of any value or importance whatsoever? Were we to psychoanalyze the shit out of this question, we would no doubt reach the conclusion that this particular dilemma is deeply rooted in my own feelings of inadequacy and constant fear of failure and rejection. But, since this is in fact a blog and not my weekly session with my mini-Indian therapist, we will instead try to look for a more meaningful and widely-applicable alternative.

Consider, if you will, the following possibility: in this world of over-blogging and social networking excess, it is perhaps not too outlandish to hesitate to contribute yet more drivel to this opinionated morass. As has been widely remarked by all and sundry, we live in a world of over-exposure where every minute detail of our lives suddenly acquires considerable importance (or so it seems). We must constantly emote, express, expound… preferably with a photographic accompaniment, ever too artistically improved through amateur filters. It is, undoubtedly, the norm for every wannabe artistic anything to document their meagre contributions to this thing called life. (Watch out, La, your cynicism is showing…). Ok, true. But this situation merits some cynicism. Our writing has, much like our lifestyles, become a matter of quantity over quality. We have allowed our instant-gratification needs to infiltrate even our arts, these works that especially require time and caring attention.

And yet, as you’ve no doubt noticed, I am not immune to this slow degradation of the written art, since here I sit, contributing my opinionated drivel to this overflowing morass. I guess I’m just another product of my generation like Twitter, Facebook and apathy.

So with no small sense of irony, I hereby upload these words committed to digital page with a vague attitude of “Ah well, fuck it.”. May you get a particular kick out of my special brand of hypocrisy, like only blogging can provide.

La Labouche, signing off…

A new beginning

This is it, kids. The moment none of you have been waiting for. After years of threatening to do this (mainly myself…in my head), I have finally started that ever-elusive blog so that I may finally fulfill my English teacher’s parting wish that I ‘always keep writing’. Well here I am, Miss K, keeping writing.

I don’t promise much, dear anonymous Internet dwellers. Merely life as I see it. If it’s any consolation then I promise I find that point of view particularly interesting. Whether you will, well… I guess you’ll just have to find out.

Here’s to my first post!

La Labouche, signing off…