Ugh

Today, everything is a struggle.

Honestly

When I was young, my parents told me that honesty is always the best policy.

They were lying.

Donna Tartt – Depression (from The Goldfinch).

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to print extracts from books on here, but will obviously take it down should anyone notice/care.  I just read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and this little extract really struck a chord:

But depression wasn’t the word. This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at all humanity and human endeavour from the dawn of time.
The writhing loathsomeness of the biological order. Old age, sickness, death. No escape for anyone. Even the beautiful ones were like soft fruit about to spoil. And yet somehow people kept fucking and breeding and popping out new fodder for the grave, producing more and more new beings to suffer like this was some kind of redemptive, or good, or even somehow morally admirable thing: dragging more innocent creatures into the lose-lose game. Squirming babies and plodding, complacent, hormone-drugged moms. Oh, isn’t he cute? Awww. Kids shouting and skidding in the playground with no idea what future Hells, awaited them: boring jobs and ruinous mortgages and bad marriages and hair loss and hip replacements and lonely cups of coffee in an empty house and a colostomy bag at the hospital.
Most people seemed satisfied with the thin decorative glaze and the artful stage lighting that, sometimes, made the bedrock atrocity of the human predicament look somewhat more mysterious or less abhorrent.
People gambled and golfed and planted gardens and traded stocks and had sex and bought new cars and practiced yoga and worked and prayed and redecorated their homes and got worked up over the news and fussed over their children and gossiped about their neighbours and pored over restaurant reviews and founded charitable organizations and supported political candidates and attended the U.S. Open and dined and traveled and distracted themselves with all kinds of gadgets and devices, flooding themselves incessantly with information and texts and communication and entertainment from every direction to try to make themselves forget it: where we were, what we were.
But in a strong light there was no good spin you could put on it. It was rotten top to bottom. Putting your time in at the office; dutifully spawning your two point five; smiling politely at your retirement party; then chewing on your bedseet and choking on your canned peaches at the nursing home. It was better never to have been born – never to have wanted anything, never to have hoped for anything.

Great book too.

Ex

Extricate yourself from the one who drags you down

Push her hands away from you Swim and let her drown

Stay afloat (for a while) and let her drown

She is sinking, descending into the depths

Watch her face recede from you

Break away

Don’t let her eyes hold yours

Don’t let her hold you

Don’t let her drag you down

Save yourself

Grandmother

You feel yourself humoured, your “funny turns” tolerated.

You find yourself isolated, no one really listens.

You’re deafened.  And silenced by their deafness to you

The receptacle into which you poured your love, so much of your love is an empty vessel when you try to drink.

Nobody cares what you say or think.

No one knows or cares how it feels, not enough to help you, to hear you,

to love you enough.

No wonder you’re ready to die.

Like A Drug

I’ve been waiting for my life to start

Someone new like you to tear my cosy world apart

And after all this time I’ve spent waiting

I feel so scared to finally think it might be happening

*

Your love is like a drug to me

Flowing through my veins, in my blood stream, yeah

Your love is like a drug to me

Take away my pain, paint over the world with dreams

*

Tell me just what I’m supposed to do

I know I only feel okay when I am close to you

I’ve learned to love my vulnerability

The feeling’s so intense, can you sense my fragility?

*

Your love is like a drug to me

Flowing through my veins, in my blood stream, yeah

Your love is like a drug to me

Take away my pain, paint over the world with dreams

*

Is it best to be a pessimist

And keep your expectations low in case it all goes wrong?

Is an optimist a fantasist?

Will you tell me what the hell you think is going on?

*

To beat the odds and cheat the gods

Like Ulysses, can you believe?

Delirious, I must confess I can’t assess what I perceive cos…

*

Your love is like a drug to me

Flowing through my veins, in my blood stream, yeah

Your love is like a drug to me

Take away my pain, paint over the world with dreams

*

Oh yeah

Give me visions

Too scared

The moment I wake up, I’m sick with fear.  I can’t function in this world.  There is no place for me, no space, no use.

No one wants me.  Everyone tells me,

“Be someone else, not who you are.  You’re a brand, a commodity, an object in the market place.”

I don’t want to be.  I want to be me.  Well, I don’t… I hate myself.  I hate my situation, I hate my life, my failure, my 24/7 pain.

But I want to be allowed to be me, not forced to contort and distort myself into something someone can find a use for, a servant, a tool, something to be used to make someone else more money.

We used not to be brands.  We used to be human beings.

I want to kill myself, but I’m too scared.  How pathetic is that?

Panic Attack

Here inside, where nobody can see

Fears you hide, well they’re coming to get you

Look around, but there’s no one to help

All on your own oh, oh

*

Oh, oh

*

Feeling scared, so go out into town

With your friends, but they don’t really get you

How can they, when you don’t tell the truth?

Lie through your teeth oh, oh

*

Oh, oh

*

Come back home and collapse on your bed

Decide to hide, ’til your friends all forget you

Stay inside, just go out of your head

Slipping away, oh oh

*

Oh, oh

Nitrogen

I thought that you should know

It’s time for me to go

And you should know that I’ll be long gone by the time you read this

I’m checking out of town

I know I’ve let you down

And I should tell you I’m so sorry, I know you don’t need this

I’ve been here for so long

I’ve seen it all go wrong

Forgive my gutlessness but I don’t want to stick around

Things haven’t worked out here

I need to disapear

And if I stay I’ll only bring you down

*

Tonight’s the night

You know I’ve seen the light

It’s alright

Don’t try, no need to work out why

Goodbye

Don’t cry

Be happy in your life

Tonight’s the night

You know I’ve seen the light

^

It’s hard to take the strain

This city leaves me drained

You know I tried so hard but I can’t seem to make it pay here

I know it’s hard for you

I know it hurts you too,

But I feel so lost and I just can’t seem to find my way here

When I’m gone you’ll be free

Won’t waste your energy

You’d never say this, but you know you’re better off without me

Can’t  bear for you to see

What has become of me

I’ll take the easy way out there’s no doubt

^

Tonight’s the night

You know I’ve seen the light

It’s alright

Don’t try, no need to work out why

Goodbye

Don’t cry

Be happy in your life

Tonight’s the night

You know I’ve seen the light

*

You might be sad a while

But one day you will smile

And you’ll be happy, cos you know I found a better place

And when you think of me

You’ll know I had to be

Away from all of these things I can’t face

*

Tonight’s the night

You know I’ve seen the light

It’s alright

Don’t try, no need to work out why

Goodbye

Don’t cry

Be happy in your life

Tonight’s the night

You know I’ve seen the light

*

You know I’ve seen it now

You know I’ve seen the light

Light…

Crazy

I must be crazy, I must be crazy

I must be crazy, yeah

Crazy, crazy ah

Crazy, crazy ah ah

*

I don’t like society

And I know you don’t like me

I don’t fit into your scheme

Life is a sad, mad, bad dream

*

I’ve been going up the wall

You’re not helping me at all

You just tell me that I must be crazy

You can’t understand the way

I can lie in bed all day

You just tell me that I must be crazy

I must be crazy, I must be crazy

I must be crazy, yeah

Crazy, crazy ah

Crazy, crazy ah ah

*

I don’t trust my therapist

She’s an over-optimist

I see clearly, what is wrong

You don’t know what’s going on

*

I’ve been going up the wall

You’re not helping me at all

You just tell me that I must be crazy

You can’t understand the way

I can lie in bed all day

You just tell me that I must be crazy

I must be crazy, I must be crazy

I must be crazy, yeah

Crazy, crazy ah

Crazy, crazy ah ah

*

I’m crazy, I’m crazy

So crazy

I’m crazy, I’m crazy

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Yeah, yeah, yeah

*

I’ve been going up the wall

You’re not helping me at all

You just tell me that I must be crazy

You can’t understand the way

I can lie in bed all day

You just tell me that I must be crazy

Shut the curtain, close my eyes

I know you don’t sympathize

Criticize me but your words are empty

You’re so hollow, you’re a shell

You can go and burn in hell

With the devil now, cos you don’t tempt me

I must be crazy, I must be crazy

I must be crazy, yeah

Crazy, crazy ah

Crazy, crazy ah ah