21
" In its severe forms, depression paralyzes all of the otherwise vital forces that make us human, leaving instead a bleak, despairing, desperate, and deadened state. . .Life is bloodless, pulseless, and yet present enough to allow a suffocating horror and pain. All bearings are lost; all things are dark and drained of feeling. The slippage into futility is first gradual, then utter. Thought, which is as pervasively affected by depression as mood, is morbid, confused, and stuporous. It is also vacillating, ruminative, indecisive, and self-castigating. The body is bone-weary; there is no will; nothing is that is not an effort, and nothing at all seems worth it. Sleep is fragmented, elusive, or all-consuming. Like an unstable, gas, an irritable exhaustion seeps into every crevice of thought and action. "
― Kay Redfield Jamison
25
" I used to think grief was grey and spacious and insubstantial, like a damp fog that surrounds you on every side, one that you can't get away from because it colours the air, and you breathe it in and out, and it has its own earthy smell that seeps into your ores. I thought of grief as a fleeting thing like fog, like a damp that eventually disperses. One day the greyness is slightly lighter; after a few weeks the damp no longer collects on your skin, the musty smell diminishes, somewhere in the distance a pale sun flashes from between tatters of mist, and the grief dissolves into melancholy and then memory.
Never, not for a moment, did I think that grief could be as hard as a dagger, sharp and unrelenting. That it could strike again and again, always unexpected, hard, straight between my ribs, bright lights in my eyes, black and violet and pain so big that I gasp and stagger. I forget the dagger sometimes for a few moments, perhaps an hour, and that's the very worst--the stroke of the blade takes me by surprise, still just as hard, cruel, painful. "
― Johanna Sinisalo , Enkelten verta
30
" Act, think, do, according to your truth, according to who you are, and who you want to be. Congruency matters. How can you escape when you betray your heart, your passion, your needs and your mind? There is no hiding. It will eat you alive. Even if it is difficult, even if it may seem impossible, stay true to yourself. No one can live this life but you. If you live your life solely for others but never for yourself, you will impair your ability to truly help others. Whatever is within us always seeps out through our words, actions and behaviour. If we sabotage ourselves by doing what we may think we are supposed to, according to others but not according to our own hearts, what will our children and loved ones think? What are we showing the world when we betray our very nature? Will others think this is an act of love or self-love? Worse still if others then attempt to mimic it and do the same. Would you want your child deeply unhappy because they were following what they thought they had to, what was expected? If you wouldn't wish that for your child, then don't wish it for yourself either. Be just as loving and caring to yourself as you would be to those you love the most. Learn to love yourself enough to allow yourself to dream, explore, follow your passions, and even risk failure. Follow the truths that are carried within the heart of your soul. "