The sense that, when you’re at the lowest you can possibly go, it’s kind of freeing, because the very worst thing that could possibly happen has happened. So what is there left to be afraid of? You won’t be happy forever, but you won’t be sad forever either. You know, it’s like a tipping point.
+ low + rock bottom + depression + eating disorder + anxiety + death + freedom + lose + nothing + afraid + happy + sad + forever + tipping point
Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular. But the realism is merely a mask for depression’s actual essence, which is an overwhelming estrangement from humanity. The more persuaded you are of your unique access to the rottenness, the more afraid you become of engaging with the world; and the less you engage with the world, the more perfidiously happy-faced the rest of humanity seems for continuing to engage with it.
+ jonathan franzen + alone + how to be alone + depression + rotten + world + realism + life + mask + essence + estrangement + humanity + uniqueness + afraid + talking + relationships + happy + retreat + isolate + lonely
I was hit head-on by a brutal loneliness. I felt dark and hollow. Abandoned, unnoticed, forgotten, I stood on the sidewalk, a nothing, a gatherer of dust. People hurried past me. And everyone who walked by was happier than I. I felt the old envy. I would have given anything to be one of them.
+ loneliness + depression + hollow + dark + empty + abandoned + forgotten + nothing + happy + envy
Emotions are regarded as troublesome or frightening. Anger is to be avoided, sadness eliminated as soon as possible. In order to survive in this world, she must deny or downplay them. She quickly learns that in order to please others around her, she must present a pleasant, happy face and hide any other feelings. She feels like she is just going through the motions. There is a certain emptiness in her life an emptiness she tries to fill with food.
+ eating in the light of the moon + eating disorder + please + people + emotions + feelings + deny + suppress + happy + hide + empty + food + anger + sadness
How most people carry on is a mystery. What they talk about at supper. How they can stand to sit in front of a TV from eight until Leno every night. How they can think bowling is fun. How they choose their neckties. How they bear the weight of everyday life without screaming. How a person can go through a whole life and never once contemplate suicide, like people who have never once wanted to be a movie star. How life goes in bad directions when your heart is asleep. It’s a mystery and there is no answer. (95)
+ Robert Goolrick + people + life + mystery + suicide + depression + answer + screaming + happy
What did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think. I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.
Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular. But the realism is merely a mask for depression’s actual essence, which is an overwhelming estrangement from humanity. The more persuaded you are of your unique access to the rottenness, the more afraid you become of engaging with the world; and the less you engage with the world, the more perfidiously happy-faced the rest of humanity seems for continuing to engage with it.
+ Jonathan Franzen + alone + depression + isolated + alienated + estranged + mask + worth + humanity + people + happy
Happy,” I muttered, trying to pin the word down. But it is one of those words, like Love, that I have never quite understood. Most people who deal in words don’t have much faith in them and I am no exception – especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they’re scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence.
You don’t ask people with knives in their stomachs what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It’s all about survival; it’s all about whether you pull the knife out and bleed to death or keep it in…
+ Nick Hornby + survival + pain + depression + suicide + bleed + death + eating disorder + miserable + happy
Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on?… I don’t know the answer, I know only that I can’t. I don’t want any more vicissitudes, I don’t want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I’ve had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.
+ Elizabeth Wurtzel + prozac nation + depression + hypocrisy + happy + sorrow + vicissitudes + exhausted + twenty + try + tired + done
