black_dog Ouroboros someone once called it. Someone else once reminded me it's a "disease". I don't think depression is the right word for it either, not for me. It is a cloud that is always above me, a heavy dark cloud- sometimes it moves away and I can see the sky just fine, but with the suggestion of the cloud in the distance. It's always there. Wednesdays are the worst, for some reason. I don't have any history with Wednesdays, nothing tragic happened. It's simply the day when it's harder to move and I plot out how I will give away my furniture and sell my clothes and put everything in order so that when I rent a car and drive off and they find my body after a couple days, it'll be easier to clean out my life from this house. This ongoing battle within myself: live or die. It's always there. There are so many reasons to live, so many. And so many reasons to leave this body as soon as possible. I believe I would be punished for doing it- set back a couple of rungs on the karma ladder. My family would suffer, my friends. I don't like the idea of people then viewing my whole life as something tragic, or being seen as sick. My pride is one thing that keeps me alive- I don't want to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me as fucked up. But I wonder. Maybe I'm not meant to be here for long. And I don't know how long I can be here. The very life I'm living is killing me. Being in this city is killing me. The pace I must keep up is terrible. What is happening to the world and what will keep happening is killing me. I know it's only going to get worse. And yet I don't have the discipline to get off and withdraw from the world and meditate and practice every day. I don't have it in me- I'm too much of this world. Too many bad values and habits. I am not pure and can never be pure. I don't have anything major to offer to the world. Except being me and doing my thing and doing the best I can. There's no resolution to this that I can see. I am open to changing, open to being changed. I don't like walking around with the black cloud of doom over me, spouting the benefits of suicide. I want to be filled with the light of life that I have felt and know is there. I don't want to give up too soon. 110413 ... birdmad sometimes that fight is what makes going on worth it. i know it's weird and sick to say, but some nights when i've been at my lowest, it was that warm, glowing ember of spite that kept me afloat...that ongoing desire of not giving anyone -real or perceived- the satisfaction of seeing you break or crumble I still sometimes sink into those low places, and it does take a lot of effort to pull up and out, but the lyric that has always run through my mind when i look at whatever people and whatever aspect of the world in general is pissing me off and weighing me down is the tail end of the old NIN track "Ruiner" which finishes with Reznor essentially chanting: "You didn't hurt me, nothing can hurt me you didn't hurt me, nothing can stop me now" (I'm not going to be as presumptuous as to assume that what i'm saying might be useful or applicable to you, my experience and outlook can be a frame of reference, but i'd never try to impose it as a_design_for_living...because i've always been annoyed by the sort that assume that what works for them will or should necessarily work for someone else... but i hope it helps, i've always been a fan of your words around this little blue world) 110415 ... daxle Have you heard of Stephen Levine's "Year to Live" practice? 110417 ... h|s|g year_to_live 110418 ... Ouroboros birdmad-- yeah- it's helpful- danke. daxle- yup- have the book here, cool that you mention it, began reading it in october and forgot about it- i'll dig it up again. in the mean time, i'm meditating and taking inventory of 'what is.' going into therapy with a somatic psychologist any day now. taking care of myself, and making sure I see a friendly face every day. 110418 ... ever dumbening: ceo winetrickery.com even if that smiling face feels equally shitty. 110418 ... unhinged . winter seems neverending around here this year. it is sleeting out. i can hear the half formed ice pellets, hitting the windows, skylight. the cold makes my arm hurt so bad i can't sleep, am constantly nauseous. i am lonely. severely lonely. but i decided it was better to be lonely than tolerate any more of his shit. while my head thinks it was a very good decision, my heart is still reeling from it. i have so much pain in my life i feel like it is a hand holding me just below the water. 110419 ... Ouroboros back when i wrote this it was a black cloud hovering- now it's in me, in my bones and my blood. i am the storm. the blackness is my heart pumping. muscles twitching. appetite for anything. words of poison, thoughts of poison, being is poisoning. this state is awful, tension with no release. good thing i start my 'helping profession' in two weeks- it's a paradox of the largest order- how can i possibly do this work? 110826 ... Ouroboros listening to running_up_that_hill on repeat seems to be helping. 110826 ... unhinged maybe helping others will help you help yourself? i had doubts about becoming a violin teacher. i thought i wasn't good enough at the violin. i was afraid to be a mentor to kids cause i thought I was too fucked up; turns out teaching made me better at the violin and my students were vastly important at helping me see the good in life 110827 what's it to you? who go blather from