"Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters"

I was reading this book called "An Unquiet Mind" (by Kay Redfield Jamison) and i came across plenty of parts of the book that sorta made a blink blink in my gray matter (like those MRI scan thing). I could have copied every excerpt for you to read but i think i would have died reading, having to contantly pause and type out those stuff. So i'm selfish, okay. But nevermind, i will lend you the book! hehe...
Anyway, this book was getting a little phony in the middle and it was getting a little on my nerves there. But such books, like Prozac Nation, have a way of redeeming themselves at the end of it all, which pretty exemplifies how we rememeber things aye? Like cognitive psychology...what's that term called? yes...recency effect....hehe...
O well, to get to the point before you say bosy! "Get on wit the POgram"(said in mariane way)...hehe..
I think i've heard a million times of how people describe what depression is like..but they all sound "phony"...
there's a reason why, when someone seems to think they had had depression or something like that, i always asked them if it was because of some factors like death of family members, breakups, alot of troubles add together, etc, they usually thought "yeahh...".
Not saying that they have no rights to sadness, but its not really depression like in psych. And because of all the hype about "depression" but most people dont really read into it except for the iceberg layer of it all, they think they suffered the worst. It's not right to compare sadness, but people often think they've got the worst shit ever and they have a certain pride for it because of that. it's like those kids who have an ironic pride of being the last in class or school.
Also, knowing about depression or any forms of madness just by mere symptomatic understanding does not, in my opinion, qualify as KNOWING. I still believe there's a psyche part of us. Although, freud is a weird guy, he makes some sense in having came up with psychoanalytic thinking. Nor that he should bear all credit for that, but well, he's sort of one of the fathers of it.
So being philosophical and poetic is a pretty part of psychology too, i think.

Okay,anyway, finally, to show you the excerpt, this is it.

From "An Unquiet Mind" by Kay Redfield Jamsion:
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I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no--- and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work fro me, and therefore i suppose I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated. Depression is awful beyond words or sounds or images; I would not go through an extended one again. It bleeds relationships through suspicion, lack of confidence and self-respect, the inability to enjoy life, to walk or talk or think normally, the exhaustion, the night terrors, the day terrors. There is nothing good to be said for it except that it gives you the experience of how it must be to be old, to be old and sick, to be dying; to be slow of mind; to be lacking in grace, polish, and coordination; to be ugly; to have no belief in the possibilities of life, the pleasure of sex, the exquisiteness of music, or the ability to make yourself and others laugh.

Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you're irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You're frightened, and you're frightening, and you're "not at all like yourself but will soon be," but you know you won't.

So why would I want anything to do with this illness? Because I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters; worn death "as close as dungarees," appreciated it--- and life---and more; seen the finest and the most terrible in people, and slowly learned values of caring, loyalty, and seeing things through. I have seen the breadth and depth and width of my mind and heart and seen how frail they both are, and how ultimately unknowable they both are. Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But, normal or manic, I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know. And I think much of this is related to my illness--- the intensity it gives to things and the perspective it force on me. I think it has made me test the limits of my mind (which, while wanting, is holding) and the limits of my upbringing, family, education, and friends.

The countless hypomanias, and mania itself, all have brought into my life a different level of sensing and feeling and thinking. Even when I have been most psychotic--- delusional,, hallucinating, frenzied--- I have been aware of finding new corners in my mind and heart. Some of those corners are incredible and beautiful and tool my breadth away and made me feel as though I could die right then and the images would sustain me. Some of them were grotesque and ugly and I never wanted to know they were there or to see them again. But, always, there were those new corners and--- when feeling my normal self, beholden for that self to medicine and love--- I cannot imagine becoming jaded to life, because I know of those limitless corners, with their limitless views.
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We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadness of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this--- through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication--- we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. One of the most difficult problems is to construct these barriers of such a height and strength that one has a true harbor, a sanctuary away from crippling turmoil and pain, but yet low enough, and permeable enough, to let in fresh sea-water that will fend off the inevitable inclination toward brackishness. For someone with my cast of mind and mood, mdeication is an integral element of this wall: without it, I would be constantly beholden to the crushing movements of a mental sea; I would, unquestionable, be dead or insane.

But love is, to me, the ultimately more extraordinary part of the breakwater wall: it helps to shut out the terror and awfulness, while, at the same time, allowing in life and beauty and vitality.................
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After each seeming death within my mind or heart, love has returned to re-create hope and to restore life. It has, at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest. It has, inexplicably and savingly, provided not only a cloak but lantern for the darker seasons and grimmer weather.


I long ago abandoned the notion of life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrolable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until,, as Lowell puts it, the watch is taken off from the wrist. It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one's life, change the nature and direction of one's work, and give final meaning and color to one's loves and friendships.


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That's all, Bosy.
Hope it's not too long and dreary!!!! hehe