Tuesday, 22 October 2013

Ok here goes nothing.

"I have depression"

It's odd saying those words to people. I believe in transparency in all things and so I believe there is no harm in telling people, but there's no telling how they'll react. I don't like hiding things, I don't like lying, and I've hidden and lied for too long, to my friends, family and myself. I have depression. It's been the first true thing about me for a long time. If I was being truly transparent then I would follow that up with "I am also socially inept, constantly anxious, angry all the time, full of both hate and apathy for my fellow man, lonely, a self harmer and a suicidal thinker" All of these are also true, but they're a lot for people to take in. I'm scared of telling people about myself, because I'm worried I'll lose them, I'm terrified that my worst fears will come true, that I am hated and I really am alone in my condition, just me and the parasite.

I'm lonely, I truly am, I've watched my friends break away from me like pieces of rotting wood from a raft, until I'm perilously balanced on two old planks starring down into the deep abyss. I'm terrified of being alone and unfortunately I feel alone a lot of the time. I know people move on with their lives, that the friends you have at the start of this life will not be the ones you have at the end of it. But the fact that I can't handle that scares me, and I'm socially inept enough to not even know how to hang on to the few friends I do have. I look at peoples names on facebook chat and I'm terrified that if I start a conversation that they'll hate me for it, that I'm intruding on them, that I'm a part of their life that they'd rather forget. Of course if I don't interact with them, I'll lose them in the end. It's an awful catch 22 that my loneliness has created. "And of course, even if you could talk to them, you'd have nothing to say to them" Says the parasite.

There are too many aspects of my condition to go into detail here. I could tell you about my many breakdowns, so common I can track their progression to a tee, Sadness, anger, laughter. Or I could tell you about the days I spent at school, in some dark corner, alone, crying, some part of my masochistic heart hoping against hope, begging, pleading that someone would come and help me, no one ever came. I was so miserable at school one day a guy asked why I was so down, he told me to jump in front of a car and laughed, I didn't laugh, I just sat there and the parasite told me to do it. It's killing me, bit by bit; inch by inch it is stripping me of everything that I love; my self esteem. My love of learning. even my passion for craft is tarnished. I can no longer just sit and write stories as I once did. If I do have any creativity left, it is buried under tar and rubble.

The scary thing is this story isn't over yet, I wish it was, but I want it to have a happy ending and for that I must wait. I don't yet know whether I'll get my friends back, I don't know If I'll ever be passionate again, I don't know If I'll finish my education. As things stand now I'll likely stay in bed for the rest of my life, lonely, unhappy and unsatisfied.


I've tried to write this many times, either as a poem, a song, a story, but I can't wax lyrical about this, not yet, my mind is too full of tar to do that. SO this is just a condensed train of thought version. I'm scared to put it out into the world but I will do so, knowledge is power and nothing good ever came from ignorance. I'm frightened. I don't really want to go on. But the few times I can see the rain, it's beautiful. The few moments of happiness I've felt this past year shine all the brighter for the darkness that engulfs them. This has been the worst year of my life, but some of it has been kind of sort of a thing that slightly resembles fun. :)

(If this has seemed rambling and nonsensical, that's only because it is.)

Friday, 11 October 2013

A short thing on romance.

I love stories, this is no secret to anyone. I love stories and I'm in the middle of watching one unfold right now! It's called Attack on Titan, you've probably heard of it, if you haven't heard of it then it's pretty much about big naked people eating small clothed people and the various ramifications therein, it's all a lot of fun and a certain part of it got me thinking about romances in stories (no it's surprisingly not the part about big naked people). That part was the "Will they won't they" "romance" between the 2 main leads; Eren and Mikasa.

It highlights one of my main thoughts about Romances in stories which is that they should never be the focus of an entire story. In Attack on Titan (Or to give it it's pornographic title, Attack on Tit an' Bum) I have no idea whether Eren and Mikasa will end up together, none at all, either way would satisfy me. However watch a normal romance film and any outcome other than the couple getting together at the end is an anticlimax normally and even if they don't get together it's usually telegraphed early on. The Greeks worked this out back in BC for goodness sake, A character either is high status and ends up low status or is low status and ends up high status, every story is a variation or combination of these 2 paths so in a story with only one element, that being the romance, it becomes incredibly easy to predict the outcome.

I don't want to hate on romances (well, maybe a little) they work fine a lot of the time, my problem with them is that the beginning of a romance is not a story, it's an element of a story and Attack On Titan treats it as such, as a small part of a bigger tapestry and that's why it works in my eyes.

Friday, 5 July 2013

The Portrayal of a Woman


I have been taking a break from normal everyday life and this has allowed me to watch a ton of Anime and I want to talk to you about one Anime, specifically Black Lagoon. The Anime is about a small group of (Mediterranean?) Pirates in the modern day sailing the seas on the good ship "Black Lagoon" and taking jobs from various criminal outfits, these jobs inevitably lead the crew into danger which they then swiftly get out of by way of a lot of guns and explosives and innocent people dying in horrible ways and it's all very silly and done in good fun...

Except that isn't what it's about!

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

A reflection on Madoka Magica and the nature of Tragedy


I've been laying around feeling depressed lately, partially because this is my default state of being at the moment but also because I had finished the Anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica. If you have seen it then you may understand why. If you are not aware, then at it's most basic level, Madoka Magica is a prime example of a modern tragedy. When you first look at it you may not think so, but underneath the candy coloured coating lies one of the most explicitly disturbing stories I've ever been exposed to.