"when i feel into that blackness, my mom gave me a picture of a little black dog..."
so what does your blackness mean to you?


l'chaim. this is a page to the "Fabulous Tenth." the 10%. the minority. the people whose minds and realities work against them: the depressed, the trapped, the hurt, and the alone...



it's ok. i've been there. way there, in all ten circles of it. and i'm still there. chances are, you are or have been there or known someone else who has.

i'm talking about clinical depression. dejection. suicide. emptiness. cutting. burning. breaking. being broken. losing hope. giving up.
breaking up. losing friends. losing faith, in yourself, in your god, and in this world. losing out on everything beautiful. losing, according to yourself or according to those you listen to.
isolation. sleeping in. hiding. overdosing on drug martinis. getting wasted to punish yourself. getting wasted to get away. getting high to get out of the world that you're in.
recklessness. confusion. denial. losing control. digging holes, deep ones, and not knowing how to stop or that you can.
ideation of dying. nightmares. ptsd. bpd. bipolar. unipolar. dysthymia. treatment-resistant. ect. psychosis. alienation. not trusting. and not being able to trust even yourself.
hospitals. psychiatrists. many psychiatrists. many dumb psychiatrists. many drugs with many side effects. nausea. bad sleep. no sleep. no concentration. trembling. weight loss. weight gain. no appetite. insatiable hunger or thirst. maddening withdrawals.
what brought you here. dopamine, norepinephrine, seratonin. rejection, neglect, abuse, violence. the stigma. your silence. chosen silence. enforced silence. imprisonment, because either you're not allowed to express it or you're too afraid to.
friends. family. who've attempted, or almost, or are gone.


regardless of how you identify it, some part of those words above touch some part of you. otherwise, you wouldn't be reading. but despite the morbidity and hopelessness that's present, this list carries something else:
there is meaning in it, and there is a future for those who carry it.

strange, isn't it? but meaning in the meaningless we all feel can exist, if we allow it. a future in light of hopelessness is possible, if we let it happen. it's something i've come to learn in the past four years or so: whatever leads people there that's beyond their control, it's up to themselves to choose what path to take.


it is a scary crazy world. you're in it as much as i am. i know all too well how dangerous it is out there, and in here. i know what it's like to never get a vacation from the ordinary drain of living. to have to fight for everything, from money to buy soap to the right to visit my own sisters. i know what it's like to be misunderstood, to have doctors distrust my honesty, to be medicated for the wrong things, for friends to push me to "get out of it," for boyfriends to get tired of a girl that just can't smile, even for the people i once could trust to turn their backs, lock their doors, and close their lives to me.

but i'm still here. i'm a been-there-still-there, fresh from the hospital after six nights of patient waiting for release. and i'm going to stay here regardless of odds, bets or the weather.
whenever i'm headed down, i remember that life is not linear but rather multi-dimensional, like the famous Escher print where any direction is possible. my fall doesn't, and won't, describe my life--that would be impossibly boring.

a friend once told me of her one-time depression; she described it as a little black dog that was gnawing at her heels, dragging her down in life, incapacitating her until a hospital stay and a great set of parents managed to kill off the dog.
it's a metaphor that works for me. others can understand it better, because in reality they have their own little black dogs too. and when i can feel a connection with another, for example my depression with his alcoholic father, we're both less alone, and less scared of one another.

so little black dogs...those little bastards...

don't let them conquer. they're just small punks with raging hormones and superiority complexes. no, you can't shake 'em off. no, they won't go away easily. treat them as they are: little bullies that are just trying to throw stones. don't let them win; just keep walking, hoping.

don't let little bully terriers rule your world. only suckers do that...