depression – John Sapiro

“Darkness”

January 8, 2023Posted in poetryTagged depression, inspiration, life, literature, music, perseverance, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, recovery, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Adam Winger via Unsplash

When hurrying home on a rainy night
And hearing tree-tops rubbed and tossed,
And seeing never a friendly star
And feeling your way when paths are crossed:
Stop fast and turn three times around
And try the logic of the lost.

Where is the heavenly light you dreamed?
Where is your hearth and glowing ash?
Where is your love by the mellow moon?
Here is not even a lightning-flash,
And in a place no worse than this
Lost men shall wail and teeth shall gnash.

Lightning is quick and perilous,
The dawn comes on too slow and pale,
Your love brings only a yellow lamp,
Yet of these lights one shall avail:
The dark shall break for one of these,
I’ve never known this thing to fail.

— John Crowe Ransom

Of longitudes

January 1, 2023Posted in poetryTagged bipolar disorder, depression, isolation, life, loneliness, mental illness, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by cottonbro studio via Pexels

To take a latitude
Sun, or stars, are fitliest viewed
At their brightest, but to conclude,
Of longitudes, what other way have we,
But to mark when, and where the dark eclipses be?

— John Donne, “A Valediction of the Book” (excerpt)

“the extent to which”

December 11, 2022Posted in poetryTagged creative writing, depression, life, lost, music, people, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts, time, writingLeave a comment

photograph by Gilles De Muynck via Unsplash

silhouette,
the extent to which
night has fallen
full moon
promises
follow on
I can’t forget
you

— J.S.

Black Sheets Of Rain

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

November 29, 2022Posted in poetryTagged depression, illness, inspiration, life, literature, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

— Robert Frost

Day by Day

“cry I can no more”

November 13, 2022Posted in poetryTagged depression, hope, inspiration, life, literature, love, music, people, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychologyLeave a comment

photograph by Ryan Byrne via Unsplash

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come…

— Gerard Manley Hopkins

“I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day”

September 17, 2022September 17, 2022Posted in poetryTagged anxiety, depression, GIF, insomnia, life, literature, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. video by Yaroslav Shuraev via Pexels

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!

— Gerard Manley Hopkins

“Again there has been a sad interval in our correspondence.”

April 8, 2022Posted in depressionTagged bipolar disorder, depression, depressive disorder, life, literature, melancholia, mental illness, music, people, photography, psychiatry, psychology, readingLeave a comment

photograph by Kajetan Sumila via Unsplash

Again there has been a sad interval in our correspondence. But do not blame me. I have had a pretty severe return this summer of that mel- ancholy or hypochondria, which is inherent in my constitution and from which I have suffered miserably in former years, though since my marriage I have been wonderfully free from it. Your languor and discontent are occasioned by a gentler species of the distemper. You have a slow fever, I a raging one. While gloomy and fretful, and grossly indolent, I was shocked with the recollection of my good spirits, gayety, and activity, as a man with a headache is shocked by bright sunbeams. – But I need not describe my feelings to you. – The strange thing was that I did not write to you, a few lines, merely as firing guns of distress. Nobody here but my wife and worthy Johnson had the least notion of my being at all uneasy; for I have been remarkably busy this summer. I wrote about threescore law-papers, and got £124 in fees during last sessions two months. The court rose yesterday; and this day the clouds began to recede from my mind; I cannot tell from what cause.

— Letter from James Boswell to his friend Temple

Hitch a Ride

“you awoke to find your black feathers rooted in the lake’s early freeze.”

March 26, 2022March 30, 2022Posted in poetryTagged depression, life, literature, memories, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychology, quotes, Thoughts3 Comments

photograph by jurien huggins via Unsplash

One white morning, you awoke to find
your black feathers rooted in the lake’s early freeze.
Your friends had fled…

— Margo Button, “With No Explanation” (excerpt)

“Figs from Thistles”

March 12, 2022Posted in poetryTagged bipolar disorder, depression, illness, life, literature, mania, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Sofia Alejandra via Pexels

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

Summer, Highland Falls (ShireiNUaCappella)

“tempest in my mind”

February 12, 2022March 31, 2022Posted in literatureTagged anxiety, depression, life, music, people, philosophy, photography, portrait, psychology, quotes, reading, rumination, Shakespeare, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by cottonbro via Pexels

O, that way madness lies.
Let me shun that;
No more of that.

— King Lear

Can’t Get It out of My Head

“a different tone”

February 8, 2022March 31, 2022Posted in booksTagged books, depression, life, literature, mental illness, music, philosophy, photography, psychiatry, psychology, quotes, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Elia Pellegrini via Unsplash

It was not really alarming at first, since the change was subtle, but I did notice that my surroundings took on a different tone at certain times: the shadows of nightfall seemed more somber, my mornings were less buoyant, walks in the woods became less zestful, and there was a moment during my working hours in the late afternoon when a kind of panic and anxiety overtook me, just for a few minutes, accompanied by a visceral queasiness—such a seizure was at least slightly alarming, after all. As I set down these recollections, I realize that it should have been plain to me that I was already in the grip of the beginning of a mood disorder, but I was ignorant of such a condition at that time.

— William Styron, Darkness Visible

Slippin’ Into Darkness

“The Cloud Confines”

November 15, 2021Posted in poetryTagged depression, life, literature, music, people, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by cottonbro via Pexels

THE DAY is dark and the night
To him that would search their heart;
No lips of cloud that will part,
Nor morning song in the light:
Only, gazing alone,
To him wild shadows are shown,
Deep under deep unknown
And height above unknown height.
Still we say as we go,—
“Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day.”

— Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Part of the Plan

The Song of the Lark

November 9, 2021Posted in artTagged art, depression, inspiration, life, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Jules Adolphe Breton, “The Song of the Lark” (1884)

“…and I walked in and there’s a painting there and I don’t even know who painted it but I think it’s called “The Song of the Lark” and it’s a woman working in a field and there’s a sunrise behind her and I saw it that day and I just thought well look — there’s a girl who doesn’t have a whole lot of prospects but the sun’s coming up anyway and she’s got another chance at it. I, too, am a person and get another chance; everyday the sun comes up.”

— Bill Murray

“Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d’un monde?”

November 1, 2021November 4, 2021Posted in poetryTagged depression, despair, GIF, life, literature, movies, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, regrets, ThoughtsLeave a comment

My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west;
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

— Coleridge

Change Myself

The Honky Tonk Blues

September 26, 2021September 26, 2021Posted in booksTagged books, depression, life, literature, loneliness, love, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. photograph by Ron Lach via Pexels

Qui de nous n’a eu sa terre promise, son jour d’extase et sa fin en exil?

— Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid amarem amans amare.

September 22, 2021Posted in poetryTagged depression, life, literature, loss, lost love, mental illness, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. video by cottonbro via Pexels

Art and eloquence,
And all the shows o’ the world, are frail and vain
To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
It is a woe ‘too deep for tears’ when all
Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
The passionate tumult of a clinging hope,—
But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
Nature’s vast frame, the web of human things,
Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.

— Shelley

Operator (That’s Not The Way It Feels)

Hope

May 28, 2021Posted in booksTagged bipolar disorder, books, depression, inspiration, life, literature, mental illness, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Victorien Ameline via Unsplash

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.
And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.

— William Styron, Darkness Visible

Don’t Let Go The Coat

On a stormy sea of moving emotion

May 22, 2021Posted in literatureTagged depression, inspiration, life, literature, music, people, philosophy, photography, psychiatry, psychology, quotes, reading, Thoughts2 Comments

photograph by Warren Wong via Unsplash

Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. “We have lost the first of the ebb,” said the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

— Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“So foul a sky clears not without a storm.”

— Shakespeare, King John

Whosoever unceasingly strives upward … him can we save.

— Goethe

Carry On Wayward Son

Book 2, Chapter VII

May 4, 2021May 4, 2021Posted in booksTagged books, depression, life, literature, love, mental illness, music, photography, psychiatry, psychology, reading, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Fernando @cferdo via Unsplash

Nicole’s world had fallen to pieces, but it was only a flimsy and scarcely created world; beneath it her emotions and instincts fought on. Was it an hour ago she had waited by the entrance, wearing her hope like a corsage at her belt?

. . . Dress stay crisp for him, button stay put, bloom narcissus–air stay still and sweet.

“It will be nice to have fun again,” she fumbled on. For a moment she entertained a desperate idea of telling him how rich she was, what big houses she lived in, that really she was a valuable property–for a moment she made herself into her grandfather, Sid Warren, the horse-trader. But she survived the temptation to confuse all values and shut these matters into their Victorian side-chambers–even though there was no home left to her, save emptiness and pain.

“I have to go back to the clinic. It’s not raining now.”

Dick walked beside her, feeling her unhappiness, and wanting to drink the rain that touched her cheek.

“I have some new records,” she said. “I can hardly wait to play them. Do you know–“

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

Love Cries

Bipolar Depression II

September 3, 2020September 25, 2020Posted in poetryTagged bipolar depression, bipolar disorder, depression, digital art, life, literature, music, photography, photoshop, poems, poetryLeave a comment

cf. photograph by Gerd Altmann via Pixabay (edit)

This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end —
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release —
Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best —
God! but the interest!

— Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Debt

Lithium

The Darkling Thrush

August 13, 2020August 13, 2020Posted in poetryTagged depression, depressive disorder, despair, life, literature, music, photography, photos, poems, poetry, quotes, reading, Thoughts2 Comments

Photograph by Mateo Avila Chinchilla via Unsplash

So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

— Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush (excerpt)

Bad Reputation

A Late Walk

July 27, 2020September 26, 2020Posted in photographyTagged depression, life, literature, melancholy, memories, music, photography, photos, poems, poetry, relationships, sadness, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Rainy day, Paris, August, 1984

WHEN I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words.

A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.

— Robert Frost, “A Late Walk”

Another Park Another Sunday

coping: perspective

June 30, 2020June 30, 2020Posted in booksTagged anxiety, books, coping skills, depression, inspiration, James Joyce, life, literature, mental illness, philosophy, photography, psychiatry, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Photograph by Ioannis Ioannidis via Pixabay

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves…

— from Dubliners, James Joyce

Bipolar Depression

June 11, 2020Posted in poetryTagged bipolar disorder, collage, depression, digitalart, literature, mental illness, music, photocomposition, photoshop, poems, poetry, psychiatry, quotes, reading2 Comments

cf. Christina Rossetti, A Daughter of Eve (excerpt) and video by me

Fell On Black Days

Bipolar Disorder

June 7, 2020September 26, 2020Posted in poetryTagged bipolar disorder, depression, literature, mania, manic depression, mental illness, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychiatry, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Photograph by Nathan Dumlao via Unsplash

This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end —
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release —
Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best —
God! but the interest!

— Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Debt

The Real Me

Solitaire

May 22, 2020November 18, 2020Posted in poetryTagged depression, life, literature, loneliness, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, vintage, womanLeave a comment

W.E. Daugherty, “Solitary” (ca. 1904)

BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

— Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper

I’m thinking of you Mary Anne…

“He’s a very sweet guy…and he’s deeply unhappy.”

May 14, 2020September 28, 2020Posted in moviesTagged coping, couple, depression, depressive disorder, Dual Diagnosis, illness, mental illness, movies, music, psychiatry, psychology, relationships, supportLeave a comment

Le feu follet (1963)

Bluer Than Blue

Dépression à Tucson

May 9, 2020September 28, 2020Posted in poetryTagged depression, depressive disorder, illness, literature, melancholia, mental illness, music, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychologyLeave a comment

cf. National Geographic, 1953

A little less returned for him each spring.
Music began to fail him. Brahms, although
His dark familiar, often walked apart.

His spirit grew uncertain of delight,
Certain of its uncertainty, in which
That dark companion left him unconsoled

For a self returning mostly memory.
Only last year he said that the naked moon
Was not the moon he used to see, to feel

(In the pale coherences of moon and mood
When he was young), naked and alien,
More leanly shining from a lankier sky.

Its ruddy pallor had grown cadaverous.
He used his reason, exercised his will,
Turning in time to Brahms as alternate

In speech. He was that music and himself.
They were particles of order, a single majesty:
But he remembered the time when he stood alone.

He stood at last by God’s help and the police;
But he remembered the time when he stood alone.
He yielded himself to that single majesty;

But he remembered the time when he stood alone,
When to be and delight to be seemed to be one,
Before the colors deepened and grew small.

— Wallace Stevens, “Anglais Mort à Florence”

Born yesterday

I thought once how Theocritus had sung

April 30, 2020May 1, 2020Posted in poetryTagged depression, literature, melancholia, mental illness, music, nostalgia, photography, photos, photoshop, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychologyLeave a comment

Polaroid by Andrei Tarkovsky

I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wish’d-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw in gradual vision through my tears
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years—
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was ‘ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,
‘Guess now who holds thee?’— ‘Death,’ I said. But there
The silver answer rang— ‘Not Death, but Love.’

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese: i

The Power of Love

Perseverance

March 30, 2020September 28, 2020Posted in poetryTagged coping, depression, determination, illness, inspiration, life, literature, music, perseverance, photography, poems, poetry, psychologyLeave a comment

Photograph by Les Anderson via Unsplash

Perseverance

When all the world is looming dark
And things seem not so clear,
When shadows seem to hover ’round
Lord, may I persevere.
When it seems everything’s been tried
And there’s no way to go,
Just let me keep remembering
Sometimes the journey’s slow.
I may just need to stop and rest
Along the path I trod,
A time to try to understand
And have my talk with God.
As I gain new strength to carry on
Without a doubt or fear,
Somehow I know things will be right,
And so, I persevere.

— Anne Stortz

Roll On Down The Highway

RESILIENCE ISN’T ALL by Richard E. Kravitz, MD

March 29, 2020March 29, 2020Posted in poetryTagged coping, depression, doctors, illness, inspiration, literature, medicine, mental illness, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychology, supportLeave a comment

That man who sits in front of you

March 13, 2020September 28, 2020Posted in poetryTagged depression, jealousy, life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, sad, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Harry E. Goodwin, “The Barker” (ca. 1935)

He seems very similar to the gods
That man who sits in front of you
And listens to you speaking
And smiles softly;
And suddenly my heart throbs.
When I glance at you,
I can no longer speak…

— Sappho, Fragment 31 (Tr. Labate)

Sideshow

depression mantra

February 27, 2020February 27, 2020Posted in digital artTagged bipolar disorder, collage, depression, depressive disorder, determination, digital art, inspiration, life, perseverance, philosophy, photography, psychiatry, psychology, speechesLeave a comment

cf. edited collage featuring photograph by Sasha Freemind (man at window) via Unsplash

never give in, never give in, never, never, never…

— Winston Churchill, October 29, 1941, Harrow School

Photo Mood Diary: Thursday, February 20, 2020

February 20, 2020February 20, 2020Posted in photographyTagged depressed, depression, depressive disorder, fatigue, lack of energy, lethargy, monochrome, photography, photos, psychiatry, psychology, somnolence, tired, vintage2 Comments

J.M. Bridges, “Left Ashore” (ca. 1935)

holding on

February 16, 2020September 28, 2020Posted in digital artTagged anxiety, art, bipolar disorder, collage, depression, digital art, illness, life, mental illness, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychiatryLeave a comment

cf. photograph by Myriams-Fotos via Pixabay and video by MixailMixail via Pixabay (edited collage)

ASHES denote that fire was;
Respect the grayest pile
For the departed creature’s sake
That hovered there awhile.

Fire exists the first in light,
And then consolidates,—
Only the chemist can disclose
Into what carbonates.

— Emily Dickinson

Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV 1001: I. Adagio

sequelae

February 3, 2020February 3, 2020Posted in poetryTagged bipolar disorder, depression, facebook, life, literature, loneliness, medicine, music, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychology, relationships, social mediaLeave a comment

photograph by mikegi via Pixabay (detail)

One white morning, you awoke to find
your black feathers rooted in the lake’s early freeze.
Your friends had fled…

— Margo Button, “With No Explanation”

Wouldn’t It Be Good – Nik Kershaw

for all dishevelled wandering stars

January 30, 2020September 28, 2020Posted in poetryTagged anxiety, collage, depression, digital art, GIF, inspiration, literature, philosophy, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts1 Comment

cf. photograph by Alex Iby via Unsplash and

error46146, Subway Timelapse Experiment – YouTube (edited collage)

And brood on hopes and fear no more…

— W. B. Yeats, Who goes with Fergus?

Feelin’ Stronger Every Day

A poor torn heart, a tattered heart

June 23, 2019September 28, 2020Posted in poetryTagged depression, life, literature, mental illness, photography, photos, poems, poetryLeave a comment

W. T. Starr, “The Idler” (ca. 1916)

A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,
That sat it down to rest,
Nor noticed that the ebbing day
Flowed silver to the west,
Nor noticed night did soft descend
Nor constellation burn,
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown…

— Emily Dickinson

3:00 p.m.

June 7, 2019June 7, 2019Posted in booksTagged books, depression, life, literature, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

cf. photograph by photosforyou via Pixabay

This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy: hate this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed.

— Joyce, Ulysses

a portrait of the artist as a young man

May 21, 2019September 29, 2020Posted in booksTagged art, collage, depression, digital art, fiction, identity, literature, memories, music, photography, photoshop, psychology, youthLeave a comment

cf. photograph by guvo59 via Pixabay (edit) and video by McZerrill via Pixabay (edited collage)

The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a wide hat.

—There’s a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.

—Who is that?

—Your son and heir.

—Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.

The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus fell back, saying:

—Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates!

—No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone…

Joyce, Ulysses

Way To Blue

that incurable depression of spirits

November 28, 2018September 30, 2020Posted in digital artTagged anxiety, art, books, collage, depression, illness, literature, music, photography, photoshop, poets, psychiatry, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. John C. Higgins, “Man in Bottle” (detail) (ca. 1888) and
video by Vimeo-Free-Videos via Pixabay (edited collage)

Every man must take the measure of his own strength. I may, I do, regret my want of fortitude; but so it is, that incurable depression of Spirits, Brooding, Indolence, Despondence, thence Pains and nightly Horrors…

— Letter from Coleridge to Daniel Stuart quoted in Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections

Black Sheets Of Rain

broken

September 10, 2018October 1, 2020Posted in booksTagged books, coping skills, depression, identity, illness, life, literature, music, perseverance, photography, psychology1 Comment

William James Mullins, “Children Fishing” (ca. 1900)

“…I worry about so many things, and everything is so hard for me. For instance, I cut my finger or hurt myself some way — and it’s a wound that heals for other people in a week, but it takes four weeks with me. It just won’t heal, it gets infected, gets really ghastly, and gives me all kinds of trouble. The other day Herr Brecht told me that my teeth look horrible, that they’re all deteriorating and wearing down, not to mention the ones he’s already pulled. That’s how things stand now. And what will I bite with when I’m thirty, or forty? I’ve lost all hope.”

“Come on,” Kai said and picked up the pace of their stroll. “And now tell me a little about your piano playing…are you going to play the piano this afternoon?”

Hanno was silent for a moment. A bleak, confused, feverish look came to his eyes. “Yes, I’ll probably improvise a while,” he said…

— Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks

This is the Hour of Lead –

August 24, 2018August 24, 2018Posted in poetryTagged depression, digital art, insomnia, life, literature, music, photoshop, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychology1 Comment

cf. magazine advertisement

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow…

— Emily Dickinson, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” (excerpt)

Wouldn’t It Be Good – Nik Kershaw (acoustic)

CHAPTER I: Down The Rabbit Hole

July 30, 2018October 4, 2020Posted in booksTagged books, confusion, depression, doctors, life, literature, medicine, music, photography, photoshop, psychiatry, psychology, therapy1 Comment

cf. photograph by Nik Shuliahin via Unsplash (edit)

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! “I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be getting somewhere near the center of the earth…”

— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

I Don’t Understand

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me

July 22, 2018July 22, 2018Posted in booksTagged books, caesura, college, depression, illness, life, literature, melancholia, mental illness, psychiatry, psychology, sad, writingLeave a comment

cf. video by SlowMoJoe via Pixabay

The “morbid melancholy,” which was lurking in his constitution, and to which we may ascribe those particularities, and that aversion to regular life, which, at a very early period, marked his character, gathered such strength in his twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence. He told Mr. Paradise that he was sometimes so languid and inefficient, that he could not distinguish the hour upon the town-clock.

— Boswell’s Life of Johnson

Tender is the night… but here there is no light

June 8, 2018October 4, 2020Posted in booksTagged books, depression, life, literature, mental illness, music, philosophy, photography, psychiatry, psychology, quotesLeave a comment

photograph by Forrest Cavale via Unsplash (edit)

Dick tried to rest — the struggle would come presently at home and he might have to sit a long time, restating the universe for her… But the brilliance, the versatility of madness is akin to the resourcefulness of water seeping through, over and around a dike. It requires the united front of many people to work against it… In a tired way, he planned that they would again resume the régime relaxed a year before…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

“Compassion” – Todd Rundgren

This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.

April 19, 2018October 4, 2020Posted in literatureTagged books, depression, Hamlet, life, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychiatry, psychology, quotes, Shakespeare, T.S. EliotLeave a comment

photograph by StockSnap via Pixabay

My tables—meet it is I set it down…

—Hamlet

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

—T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

“Black Sheets Of Rain” – Bob Mould

Having it Out with Melancholy

December 30, 2017January 18, 2018Posted in poetryTagged 3D, depression, doctors, literature, medication, medicine, music, poems, poetry, psychiatry, scienceLeave a comment

LITHIUM CARBONATE | Li2CO3 – PubChem

2. BOTTLES

Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.
The coated ones smell sweet or have
no smell; the powdery ones smell
like the chemistry lab at school
that made me hold my breath.

—Jane Kenyon, “Having it Out with Melancholy” (excerpt)

“You may contribute a verse…”

August 8, 2017January 16, 2018Posted in musicTagged art, collage, depression, holding on, hope, inspiration, life, literature, music, perseverance, photography, poems, poetryLeave a comment

H. C. Benedict, “Original And Unique The P. and H. Process Of Negative Development” (1939)

The question, O me! so sad, recurring — What good amid these,
O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here — that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

I’m thinking of you Mary Anne…

Young man, there’s no need to feel down. (MAOI)

July 15, 2017July 18, 2017Posted in musicTagged antidepressants, depression, depressive disorder, doctors, medication, medicine, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, parody, psychiatry, satire, videoLeave a comment

NEI Psychopharm – “MAOI” – YouTube

The Metamorphosis

July 13, 2017January 16, 2018Posted in booksTagged alarm clock, anxiety, depression, fiction, Franz Kafka, identity, literature, magazine ads, music, perception, photography, psychology, quotes, readingLeave a comment

New York Magazine, 1977

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect…

—Kafka, The Metamorphosis

“Doctor Gordon doesn’t think you’ve improved at all…”

March 18, 2017March 18, 2017Posted in booksTagged depression, doctors, ECT, endure, literature, medicine, mental illness, music, photos, psychiatry, quotes, reading, suffering, waiting roomLeave a comment

D Coetzee, “Neurology waiting room…” (2008)

I watched my mother grow smaller and smaller until she disappeared into the door of Doctor Gordon’s office building. Then I watched her grow larger and larger as she came back to the car.
“Well?” I could tell she had been crying.
My mother didn’t look at me. She started the car.
Then she said, as we glided under the cool, deep-sea shade of the elms, “Doctor Gordon doesn’t think you’ve improved at all. He thinks you should have some shock treatments at his private hospital in Walton.”
I felt a sharp stab of curiosity, as if I had just read a terrible newspaper headline about somebody else.
“Does he mean live there?”
“No,” my mother said, and her chin quivered.
I thought she must be lying.
“You tell me the truth,” I said, “or I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Don’t I always tell you the truth?” my mother said, and burst into tears.

—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus
You got to help me make a stand
You just got to see me through another day
My body’s aching
And my time is at hand
And I won’t make it any other way…

Fire And Rain by James Taylor

“A man so afflicted, Sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.”

February 7, 2017January 15, 2018Posted in booksTagged anxiety, art, biography, coping skills, depression, insomnia, inspiration, life, literature, mental illness, music, night, quotesLeave a comment

Talking of constitutional melancholy, he observed, “A man so afflicted, Sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.” BOSWELL: “May not he think them down, Sir?” JOHNSON: “No, Sir. To attempt to THINK THEM DOWN is madness. He should have a lamp constantly burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if wakefully disturbed, take a book, and read, and compose himself to rest…”

—Boswell’s Life Of Johnson

James McNeill Whistler, Reading in Bed (The Slipper) (1858)

“The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next”

January 23, 2017January 15, 2018Posted in inspirationTagged anxiety, coping, depression, endurance, inspiration, inspirational, life, music, perseverance, photos, quotations, quotes, womanLeave a comment

cf. Cincinnati Magazine, 1985

The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next.

—Mignon McLaughlin

“A strange and horrible darkness fell upon me.”

December 30, 2016January 15, 2018Posted in DepressionTagged art, autobiography, books, depression, fine art, life, literature, mental illness, music, quotes, readingLeave a comment

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (called il Grechetto), Melancholia (ca. 1640)

“While I traversed the apartment in the most horrible dismay of soul, expecting every moment that the earth would open and swallow me up, my conscience scaring me…and the city of refuge out of reach and out of sight, a strange and horrible darkness fell upon me. If it were possible that a heavy blow could light upon the brain without touching the skull, such was the sensation I felt. I clapped my hand to my forehead, and cried aloud through the pain it gave me. At every stroke my thoughts and expressions became more wild and indistinct…These thoughts kept undisturbed possession of my mind all the way through my illness, without interruption or abatement.”

—William Cowper, “Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Esq.” (1835)

“Then if he thrive and I be cast away, the worst was this,—my love was my decay.”

August 26, 2016August 26, 2016Posted in poetryTagged art, books, depression, fine art, life, literature, lost love, music, poem, poems, quotes, relationships, Shakespeare, SonnetLeave a comment

cf. Everett Shinn, All Night Cafe (ca. 1900)

O, how I faint when I of you do write
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!
But since your worth—wide as the ocean is,—
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wrack’d, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride:
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this,—my love was my decay.

—Sonnet LXXX

“We grow accustomed to the dark when light is put away”

December 17, 2015November 26, 2017Posted in poetryTagged depression, life, literature, music, photography, photos, poems, poetry, quotes, vintageLeave a comment

Marjory Collins, Bowery hotel about midnight (1942)

We grow accustomed to the Dark —
When Light is put away —
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye —

A Moment — We uncertain step
For newness of the night —
Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —
And meet the Road — erect–

And so of larger — Darkness —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead —
But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight —
And Life steps almost straight.

–Emily Dickinson

In the darkest place
I know that is where you’ll find me
Even though you didn’t have to remind me
I shut out the lights
Your eyes adjust
They’ll never be the same…

Bartleby, the Scrivener

November 12, 2015November 25, 2017Posted in booksTagged art, books, depression, digital art, life, literature, loneliness, music, photography, psychiatry, psychology, quotes, short story, vintageLeave a comment

cf. Frances Benjamin Johnston, Post Office Dept. – Dead Letter Office (edited)

Yet, thought I, it is evident enough that Bartleby has been making his home here, keeping bachelor’s hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me, What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty is great; but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall-street is deserted as Petra; and every night of every day it is an emptiness. This building too, which of week-days hums with industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous —a sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!…

Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!

—Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener

“…kept with him a sense as of snow falling about him, a secret screen of new snow between himself and the world.”

—Conrad Aiken, Silent Snow, Secret Snow

“The weather of depression is unmodulated…”

October 29, 2015November 25, 2017Posted in photographyTagged art, books, depression, digital art, literature, photography, photos, quotesLeave a comment

cf. Alfred Stieglitz, Reflections, night, New York (ca. 1897)

The night was blustery and raw, with a chill wet wind blowing down the avenues, and when Rose and I met Franchise and her son and a friend at La Lorraine, a glittering brasserie not far from L’Etoile, rain was descending from the heavens in torrents. Someone in the group, sensing my state of mind, apologized for the evil night, but I recall thinking that even if this were one of those warmly scented and passionate evenings for which Paris is celebrated I would respond like the zombie I had become. The weather of depression is unmodulated, its light a brownout.

—William Styron, Darkness Visible

On Margate Sands (Fell On Black Days)

March 23, 2015November 17, 2017Posted in animationTagged animated, art, confusion, depression, digital art, Fell on Black Days, music, photography, poems, poetry, Soundgarden, T. S. ELIOT, The Waste Land, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Alain and Lydia (“Le Feu Follet”)

December 3, 2014December 6, 2017Posted in moviesTagged depression, foreign films, le feu follet, leaving, long distance relationships, louis malle, love, relationships, saying goodbye, the fire within, videoLeave a comment

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