shame is for other people

“

Depression is hard to understand, because it is not a consistent state. Depression is rather like a virus, but like a virus, it has its manageable days and its acute, life-threatening flare-ups. You can be in a depression and still laugh at a friend’s joke or have a good night at dinner or manage low-level functioning. You grocery shop and stop to pet a puppy on the corner, talk to friends in a café, maybe write something you don’t hate. When this happens, you might examine your day for clues like reading tea leaves in a cup: Was it the egg for breakfast that made the difference? The three-mile run? You think, well, maybe this thing has moved on now. And you make no sudden moves for fear of attracting its abusive attention again.

But other times…

Other times, it’s as if a hole is opening inside you, wider and wider, pressing against your lungs, pushing your internal organs into unnatural places, and you cannot draw a true breath. You are breaking inside, slowly, and everything that keeps you tethered to your life, all of your normal responses, is being sucked through the hole like an airlock emptying into space. These are the times Holly Golightly called the Mean Reds.

I call it White Knuckling it.

”
-

Miles and Miles of No Man’s Land, Libba Bray (via babybirched)

"But the stigma of depression is that it comes with the sense that you shouldn’t have it to begin with. That it is self-indulgence or emotional incompetence rather than actual illness."

(via labioratory)

via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/146OMjN

“Professionalism is a funny term, because it masquerades as neutral despite being loaded with immense oppression. As a concept, professionalism is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, imperialist and so much more — and yet people act like professionalism is non-political. Bosses across the country constantly tell their employees to ‘act professionally’ without a second thought. Wear a garment that represents your non-Western culture to work? Your boss may tell you it’s unprofessional. Wear your hair in braids or dreadlocks instead of straightened? That’s probably unprofessional too. Wear shoes that are slightly scuffed because you can’t yet afford new ones? People may not think you’re being professional either.”
- Why I’m Genderqueer, Professional and Unafraid, by Jacob Tobia (via wertheyouth)
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/11irx4S

“I wouldn’t necessarily mind people not knowing I’m gay, but I don’t like being thought of as straight — in the same way that I don’t mind people not knowing I’m a writer, but it would be awkward if they assumed I was an extreme skateboarder, because that’s so far removed from the reality of my life. But there is no blank slate where orientation is concerned; we are straight until proven otherwise. And if you’ve never seen how dramatically a conversation can be derailed by a casual admission of homosexuality, let me tell you, it gets awkward.”
- My Life as an Invisible Queer - Cosmopolitan (via feministlibrarian)
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1sAhNsI

“That’s Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they’re the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?”
- Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1s2VnBw

““Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destiny of others. You must either learn to carry the universe or by crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.” - Andrew Boyd”
- (via confetticoloredstars)
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1B0V6oX

“Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.”
- Terry Pratchett, Mort
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1jJttv8

“All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!”
- Terry Pratchett (The Wee Free Men)
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1lLJEHp

“She laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart.”
- Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid   (via buffysummrs)
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/V5kbPa

““Lack of motivation” is a generally misunderstood symptom of depression. It does not mean that I sit around thinking, “Oh, I’m so depressed; why bother to do shit I don’t want to do anyway.” It means not that I lack discipline, but that there is a mental disconnect between my conscious mind, which says I want or need to do X, and the part of my brain which actually initiates activity. It prevents me from doing things I would very much like to do, as well as things I need to do, rather than indicating simply a lack of interest in doing things which are not immediately rewarding.
If you want or need to go somewhere, whether somewhere you’re eagerly looking forward to going, or somewhere routine, or to the dentist for a root canal which you may be much averse to but have nevertheless decided will leave you better off in the long run, and you get in your car, turn the key in the ignition repeatedly, yet the engine sputters but does not engage, this is not an indication that you don’t really want to go anywhere. It’s an indication that something is wrong with the equipment you need to transport you there.
I am fully capable of sitting for hours, thinking periodically, “I need to pee,” then, “I really need to pee,” and eventually, “Damn, I need to pee,” before being able to jump start the part of my brain which engages with the task of getting up and walking the ten feet to the bathroom, and initiates the movement which allows me to do that.
The more complex the task, the harder it can be, because a more complex sequence of actions must be, in some sense, imagined and targeted before the actions necessary to bring them about can be initiated. Most people are unaware that this process even takes place, because in a healthy brain, it occurs swiftly and automatically. In my brain, it does not.”
- Maud, There’s Good News and Bad News.  (via creatingaquietmind, kiriamaya) (via sehnsuchttraum) (via ltleflrt) (via trilliath) (via hatteress) (via fictionalistic)
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1mbGbRa

“

To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured. You’re like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a “woman doctor” or they will say they went to see “the doctor.” People will tell you they have a “gay colleague” or they’ll tell you about a colleague. A white person will be happy to tell you about a “Black friend,” but when that same person simply mentions a “friend,” everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn’t have the word “woman” or “gay” or “minority” in its title is a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses “literature,” “history” or “political science.”

This invisibility is political.

”
-

Michael S. Kimmel, in the introduction to the book, “Privilege: A Reader” (via thinkspeakstress)

via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1fWWkKk