Together till the gallows
With steel in our eyes and iron in our hands
We will worship the sun
Till sundown and the end of the hallowed world
With every bone shattered
Even then, we will gaze toward the horizon
With blood-tears on our cheeks
Grieving for the death of life and the life of death
This, our flag and song
Carried by word and drum, in hearts of children
Remnant hope nourished
By the toil of dreamers and the whispers of lovers
By strife known since the dawn
Of diurnal blood-letting and the ravage of freedom
By men kept by night
Blind by darkness and the falseness of might
But even so, a little light
In the sun-kissed and the hardened wardens of liberty
Here, standing, dauntless
With steel and iron—together till the gallows
M.M. — 26-Nov-2015
26 November 2015
25 November 2015
Threnody
Now I look out into dark, bewildering night, searching for you. I hope to find you there, enshrouded by night and cast in the shadow of memory. And I think, and I remember. The sound of your voice, its lilt. I can almost hear it, carried along by the deadened wind. What we did, in that life, lingers here still; as it does in me. Through the cries of war and in blood-rain we somehow found each other. In the firestorms and the wails of diminished men and women, we had each other. I remember the smell of your hair still, and the rubble and dirt that made it even more beautiful. You were my right hand, my sabre and my pen. You were the reason, the sole reason. We fought against the cataclysm side-by-side. Maybe it was for love. Maybe we did those things—those brazen things—for love. Or maybe it was all just to bring a little feeble light into a world eclipsed. My right hand; my spear. My heart; my will. Doomed from the beginning; death-marked at our nascency. And now you're gone. A whisper in the breeze of winter, that waits for peace in the sun of spring. My heart and my soul. You were the reason, my only reason.
M.M. — 25-Nov-2015
M.M. — 25-Nov-2015
21 November 2015
My Depression: An Open Letter
I have depression.
I am depressed.
It feels a little weird to put it into words, let alone to say it out loud to myself. But these are words that I have been waiting to say for so long. What is written here is an open letter that I have contemplated about writing for some time now. Certain recent changes and events in my life have finally spurred me to put pen to paper, as it were.
In February this year I was formally diagnosed with mild-to-moderate clinical depression. I want to emphasise the word "formally" because I have known for many, many years that I have had a problem. It definitely was there, in me, in high school; whether I was like this before then is a mystery. Now, this "problem" had been very difficult to describe or to put into a box. There have been, and still are, many things that are not quite right with me, with the way I think and feel. And for years I had thought that maybe it was just something that was a part of my personality (and theoretically speaking maybe it is, but that's a topic for another day), and because of that I thought that I simply needed to "get on with it". The years of battling with my mental ill health—because now at last I know that this is what it is—of fighting and struggling with what I call the Darkness... it still surprises me that I still remain on top, that despite all the utter shit my war has made me stronger as a person. But, of course, just because it has helped in whetting my mind and my willpower does not mean that it has been an enjoyable experience. Very much the opposite.
It took the trials and tribulations of a PhD, and the especial stress that it placed on me, to make me finally seek professional help. I still remember the days before I made the decision. I still remember the mood swings. I still remember the psychosomatic exhaustion. I still remember the despair. I still remember finally hitting rock-bottom, hitting the bottom of the pit. And I remember making that very conscious and determined decision that I could no longer do this on my own. Waiting to see my GP in the waiting room of my surgery and then telling her about everything that was going on, that had been going on for years, felt like a lifetime. I remember that morning all so well, the levels of anxiety I was going through, the fear of actually talking about my pain to another person, a stranger. But what I remember most of all is the relief—god, the relief! I remember that feeling when I finally opened up and just let it all surge out of me. It was supremely cathartic, and I keep those sorts of moments (there have been several since seeing my GP) as a reminder of what disclosure can do for me.
So, after a brief bout of online CBT (it just wasn't for me), I have been taking anti-depressants, specifically SSRIs, since April. I won't go into the details of what it was like to start taking them (the initial side-effects were oh so fun...) but I will say that taking them is something that I knew was right for me. As a neuroscientist and a psychologist it would be fair to say that I have a great deal of familiarity of what therapies may or may not work for major depression. And I knew especially that I could not be treated with a talking therapy. The pharmacological alternative was, and continues to be, right for me. I know that for some people psychotropic drugs would be a last result, and I know that they receive bad press (some of it deserved, but some of it not). But for me, personally speaking, they have been a godsend—and I do not use that term lightly. They have given me the necessary degree of help to allow me to take control of my mental well-being. And I want to be explicit in saying that I am by no means "cured", because that word is not appropriate for this sort of case, it makes no (biological) sense. Rather, I would say that my mental health has been bolstered; I am better able to cope. The Darkness is still there mind you, and it still takes over every now and then. But compared to some of the episodes I have had in the past, to some of the moments of feeling like I should just give up—what I may go through now is a thousand times better, and I never want to go back. For instance, I have yet to have an episode of inconsolable crying in the dead of night. And let me tell you, that alone is worth undergoing pharmacotherapy.
So why am I writing this, an open letter addressed to no one in particular? Three reasons. The first is semi-therapeutic. By letting the world know (well, the Facebook world, anyway) about my depression it begins to lose one of its most powerful weapons: its ostensible invisibility. Depression, like many mental disorders, is a hidden illness. You would be surprised at how easy it is to hide it. I have very masterly managed to keep the truth to myself for years. And trust me, whether you know so or not, you know people who are clinically depressed, or who suffer or have suffered from any other given mental illness. Speaking personally, since accepting my illness I have come to realise just how many people I know fight the same mental health battles that I do on a daily basis. I have taken their own accounts closely to heart and have decided that I will no longer remain silent about my depression. And I have chosen as my first formal step in achieving this an open letter on Facebook because I want to do something that in the past I would have feared so greatly doing. (This is on top of it just being an easy medium to exploit). To my close friends who already know about all this, I want to give you my sincerest thanks. You have formed a very significant part in my getting to this stage, so thank you from the whole of my soul.
Second, my writing this comes at a somewhat pivotal time in my development as an individual. My depression constitutes are very integral part of who I have been and who I am since as far back as I first remember feeling that something was different about me. Although it has been by no means the sole component of my psyche throughout my formative and more mature years, this Darkness that I carry has definitely had a highly significant impact. It makes no sense to talk about cause-and-effect and correlation with regards to some of my idiosyncrasies and my depression. But I will say that for all that it has given me, and especially for all that it has taken away from me or prevented me from having, I refuse to allow this Darkness of mine to continue to hold sway over my life and my well-being. This letter is but one mechanism by which I am truly endeavouring to, finally, come out of the shadows.
But make no mistake: I am not naïve. I know all too well that I am never going to be completely rid of the dark things in me. I know that what I have is more than likely going to stay with me for the remainder of my days. I know that; I accept that. But what I do not accept is that I must remain a slave to this illness. Accepting that would go against all the values that I have shaped for myself from the dirt up over the years. No, I do not want to feel like what I have to vie with for the welfare of my being, every fucking day, will always get the better of me. I say "No!" to this. This letter, therefore, is a statement—a proclamation—of what I intend upon. From henceforth, I, to the very best of my ability and with full prospect of what I desire my future to be, will no longer permit myself to hurt in the dark. I will no longer believe that I must be confined to the void in my head, where it is darkest. For if I am in the light, in the face of the imperial sun, the Darkness can hold no substantive power. I say this: I have depression and it is mine. I want to own up to who I am and to what is in me. Whether I am ill or just on a different part of the spectrum makes very little difference to me. I care not about what I am according to a diagnostic manual. I care not about what box I will get placed in because the society I live in deems that the depressed are somehow deserving of having their own little category. Fuck that. My depression is mine and what it means and does to me will be quite different to what another's depression means and does to them. My struggles are mine and I will never let them dictate who I am meant to be.
The final reason: You. This letter is in part for you, the person who is fighting their own war with mental illness; fighting it in the dark; fighting it in their head; fighting it alone. I know what it feels like. I know because I have contended with my own personal nightmare-faced demons in the voids of my mind. I know because every night, as I struggle to fall asleep, I go through the paces of conversing with my amorphous pain, trying to fruitlessly find ways to just make myself feel fecking happy about my life for a change. And what makes it worse is that there is no obvious reason or solution for the pain. This is my nightly rite of combat. And, like you, my pain never really leaves me. Sure, it abates at times, maybe even for a lengthy period if I'm lucky (those are good days); but it's always there, that weariness. It may hide for a while but it's always with me, recoiling from the light. My friend, I know. And so I write this for you. To tell you that you are not alone (I realise how superficial that sounds but it is genuine). For me, the very worst thing about depression is the utter loneliness that it engenders or sustains. Keeping all that pain in your mind, keeping it to yourself... it is the fucking worst. And it does not help that I am, by nature, a very private and introverted person. Having a disorder that compounds the loneliness that I would normally feel anyway is like having twice as much extra weight being pressed down on my heart. For those of you who know what I mean, this letter is for you. It's for all my fellow soldiers, in the trenches of the dark, waging your own personal wars. This is to say that your fight, although your own, does not need to be fought under the vault of your night. Try, to whatever degree you think fit, to step into the sunlight—it is quite nice and warm out here.
I want to end by saying that, even after having written this, I still fight; and I will continue to fight the Darkness because, as I said, it will quite likely be with me for a long time yet. But that's just it: I still fight; I'm still here. I am not going to give up, never going to relent in my pursuit to be the best person I can be, to take care and sustain my mental health. The only difference is that I am no longer afraid of my depression, of my Darkness. For it is mine. Mine to fight, mine to war with and mine to triumph over. I am not of it; it is of me. I do not belong to it; it belongs to me. And by that deduction, by remembering it, I cannot be defeated.
Not dead yet.
Bloodied yet unbowed.
Yours,
Mark
I am depressed.
It feels a little weird to put it into words, let alone to say it out loud to myself. But these are words that I have been waiting to say for so long. What is written here is an open letter that I have contemplated about writing for some time now. Certain recent changes and events in my life have finally spurred me to put pen to paper, as it were.
In February this year I was formally diagnosed with mild-to-moderate clinical depression. I want to emphasise the word "formally" because I have known for many, many years that I have had a problem. It definitely was there, in me, in high school; whether I was like this before then is a mystery. Now, this "problem" had been very difficult to describe or to put into a box. There have been, and still are, many things that are not quite right with me, with the way I think and feel. And for years I had thought that maybe it was just something that was a part of my personality (and theoretically speaking maybe it is, but that's a topic for another day), and because of that I thought that I simply needed to "get on with it". The years of battling with my mental ill health—because now at last I know that this is what it is—of fighting and struggling with what I call the Darkness... it still surprises me that I still remain on top, that despite all the utter shit my war has made me stronger as a person. But, of course, just because it has helped in whetting my mind and my willpower does not mean that it has been an enjoyable experience. Very much the opposite.
It took the trials and tribulations of a PhD, and the especial stress that it placed on me, to make me finally seek professional help. I still remember the days before I made the decision. I still remember the mood swings. I still remember the psychosomatic exhaustion. I still remember the despair. I still remember finally hitting rock-bottom, hitting the bottom of the pit. And I remember making that very conscious and determined decision that I could no longer do this on my own. Waiting to see my GP in the waiting room of my surgery and then telling her about everything that was going on, that had been going on for years, felt like a lifetime. I remember that morning all so well, the levels of anxiety I was going through, the fear of actually talking about my pain to another person, a stranger. But what I remember most of all is the relief—god, the relief! I remember that feeling when I finally opened up and just let it all surge out of me. It was supremely cathartic, and I keep those sorts of moments (there have been several since seeing my GP) as a reminder of what disclosure can do for me.
So, after a brief bout of online CBT (it just wasn't for me), I have been taking anti-depressants, specifically SSRIs, since April. I won't go into the details of what it was like to start taking them (the initial side-effects were oh so fun...) but I will say that taking them is something that I knew was right for me. As a neuroscientist and a psychologist it would be fair to say that I have a great deal of familiarity of what therapies may or may not work for major depression. And I knew especially that I could not be treated with a talking therapy. The pharmacological alternative was, and continues to be, right for me. I know that for some people psychotropic drugs would be a last result, and I know that they receive bad press (some of it deserved, but some of it not). But for me, personally speaking, they have been a godsend—and I do not use that term lightly. They have given me the necessary degree of help to allow me to take control of my mental well-being. And I want to be explicit in saying that I am by no means "cured", because that word is not appropriate for this sort of case, it makes no (biological) sense. Rather, I would say that my mental health has been bolstered; I am better able to cope. The Darkness is still there mind you, and it still takes over every now and then. But compared to some of the episodes I have had in the past, to some of the moments of feeling like I should just give up—what I may go through now is a thousand times better, and I never want to go back. For instance, I have yet to have an episode of inconsolable crying in the dead of night. And let me tell you, that alone is worth undergoing pharmacotherapy.
So why am I writing this, an open letter addressed to no one in particular? Three reasons. The first is semi-therapeutic. By letting the world know (well, the Facebook world, anyway) about my depression it begins to lose one of its most powerful weapons: its ostensible invisibility. Depression, like many mental disorders, is a hidden illness. You would be surprised at how easy it is to hide it. I have very masterly managed to keep the truth to myself for years. And trust me, whether you know so or not, you know people who are clinically depressed, or who suffer or have suffered from any other given mental illness. Speaking personally, since accepting my illness I have come to realise just how many people I know fight the same mental health battles that I do on a daily basis. I have taken their own accounts closely to heart and have decided that I will no longer remain silent about my depression. And I have chosen as my first formal step in achieving this an open letter on Facebook because I want to do something that in the past I would have feared so greatly doing. (This is on top of it just being an easy medium to exploit). To my close friends who already know about all this, I want to give you my sincerest thanks. You have formed a very significant part in my getting to this stage, so thank you from the whole of my soul.
Second, my writing this comes at a somewhat pivotal time in my development as an individual. My depression constitutes are very integral part of who I have been and who I am since as far back as I first remember feeling that something was different about me. Although it has been by no means the sole component of my psyche throughout my formative and more mature years, this Darkness that I carry has definitely had a highly significant impact. It makes no sense to talk about cause-and-effect and correlation with regards to some of my idiosyncrasies and my depression. But I will say that for all that it has given me, and especially for all that it has taken away from me or prevented me from having, I refuse to allow this Darkness of mine to continue to hold sway over my life and my well-being. This letter is but one mechanism by which I am truly endeavouring to, finally, come out of the shadows.
But make no mistake: I am not naïve. I know all too well that I am never going to be completely rid of the dark things in me. I know that what I have is more than likely going to stay with me for the remainder of my days. I know that; I accept that. But what I do not accept is that I must remain a slave to this illness. Accepting that would go against all the values that I have shaped for myself from the dirt up over the years. No, I do not want to feel like what I have to vie with for the welfare of my being, every fucking day, will always get the better of me. I say "No!" to this. This letter, therefore, is a statement—a proclamation—of what I intend upon. From henceforth, I, to the very best of my ability and with full prospect of what I desire my future to be, will no longer permit myself to hurt in the dark. I will no longer believe that I must be confined to the void in my head, where it is darkest. For if I am in the light, in the face of the imperial sun, the Darkness can hold no substantive power. I say this: I have depression and it is mine. I want to own up to who I am and to what is in me. Whether I am ill or just on a different part of the spectrum makes very little difference to me. I care not about what I am according to a diagnostic manual. I care not about what box I will get placed in because the society I live in deems that the depressed are somehow deserving of having their own little category. Fuck that. My depression is mine and what it means and does to me will be quite different to what another's depression means and does to them. My struggles are mine and I will never let them dictate who I am meant to be.
The final reason: You. This letter is in part for you, the person who is fighting their own war with mental illness; fighting it in the dark; fighting it in their head; fighting it alone. I know what it feels like. I know because I have contended with my own personal nightmare-faced demons in the voids of my mind. I know because every night, as I struggle to fall asleep, I go through the paces of conversing with my amorphous pain, trying to fruitlessly find ways to just make myself feel fecking happy about my life for a change. And what makes it worse is that there is no obvious reason or solution for the pain. This is my nightly rite of combat. And, like you, my pain never really leaves me. Sure, it abates at times, maybe even for a lengthy period if I'm lucky (those are good days); but it's always there, that weariness. It may hide for a while but it's always with me, recoiling from the light. My friend, I know. And so I write this for you. To tell you that you are not alone (I realise how superficial that sounds but it is genuine). For me, the very worst thing about depression is the utter loneliness that it engenders or sustains. Keeping all that pain in your mind, keeping it to yourself... it is the fucking worst. And it does not help that I am, by nature, a very private and introverted person. Having a disorder that compounds the loneliness that I would normally feel anyway is like having twice as much extra weight being pressed down on my heart. For those of you who know what I mean, this letter is for you. It's for all my fellow soldiers, in the trenches of the dark, waging your own personal wars. This is to say that your fight, although your own, does not need to be fought under the vault of your night. Try, to whatever degree you think fit, to step into the sunlight—it is quite nice and warm out here.
I want to end by saying that, even after having written this, I still fight; and I will continue to fight the Darkness because, as I said, it will quite likely be with me for a long time yet. But that's just it: I still fight; I'm still here. I am not going to give up, never going to relent in my pursuit to be the best person I can be, to take care and sustain my mental health. The only difference is that I am no longer afraid of my depression, of my Darkness. For it is mine. Mine to fight, mine to war with and mine to triumph over. I am not of it; it is of me. I do not belong to it; it belongs to me. And by that deduction, by remembering it, I cannot be defeated.
Not dead yet.
Bloodied yet unbowed.
Yours,
Mark
18 November 2015
"woke up"
woke up in the dark of night
sodden with sweat in the dark of the night
heaving and stricken by fear
a half-memory of a half-dream
the outline and sight of her face
and the thundering of the heart
this night like every night before
woke up to the garish light of morning
half-dead and sluggish - half of a man
that weariness behind the eyes awakening too
just trying to survive
just trying to make it through alive
a hardened heart and a perpetual burden
carrying around shattered-face titans in the mind
time and time again
M. M. — 18-Nov-2015
sodden with sweat in the dark of the night
heaving and stricken by fear
a half-memory of a half-dream
the outline and sight of her face
and the thundering of the heart
this night like every night before
woke up to the garish light of morning
half-dead and sluggish - half of a man
that weariness behind the eyes awakening too
just trying to survive
just trying to make it through alive
a hardened heart and a perpetual burden
carrying around shattered-face titans in the mind
time and time again
M. M. — 18-Nov-2015
10 November 2015
Meaning and Purpose
All individuals—whether they are considered good or evil, selfish or altruistic, wise or ignorant—share at least one common aspiration: to seek meaning and purpose to their existence. The person with the simplest of lives will have sought some kind of meaning for their continued presence in this reality. The person with the most convoluted of philosophies will be just the same. Even those who deem that existence has no purpose, seek purpose: The very postulation that life is meaningless implies that these individuals have had to reach such a conclusion by purposeful and directed seeking. The denial of purpose is purpose in itself; the refutation of meaning is meaning in itself. Thus, all individuals are bonded together insofar as they possess Will to search for meaning and purpose. What the end of such a pursuit or what the derivation of moulding together life experiences into a philosophy comprise are irrelevant. Only worth consideration here is that there is Will for them. This then becomes the first principal of being: to attribute meaning to existence.
M.M.
M.M.
08 November 2015
To Jupiter, Past Mars
The wild spinning I thrust myself into
Threw me into orbit as madly as those that dare stare at the Sun.
I ascended into the atmosphere and stared at all the spheres
That I once dwelt in, that I once knelt aggrievedly before oft.
A star far-flung and diminished, pulled down by gravity
And bound by bonds and terrestrial weights.
But I at long length—at will—propelled myself at my escape velocity,
Up into the celestial realms of light and void,
To Jupiter, past Mars, to the furthest reaches of what is known and unknown.
I spun and accelerated and careered—away from what once was:
The past, the past me, the past world, the history of primordial life.
I grew restless of all of it, grew too old and bold—
A protean child in perpetually unchanging space.
So I created my own orbit, freed myself from the Earth's hold,
And sought my rest out in distant, eternal, cold space.
M.M. — 08-Nov-15
Threw me into orbit as madly as those that dare stare at the Sun.
I ascended into the atmosphere and stared at all the spheres
That I once dwelt in, that I once knelt aggrievedly before oft.
A star far-flung and diminished, pulled down by gravity
And bound by bonds and terrestrial weights.
But I at long length—at will—propelled myself at my escape velocity,
Up into the celestial realms of light and void,
To Jupiter, past Mars, to the furthest reaches of what is known and unknown.
I spun and accelerated and careered—away from what once was:
The past, the past me, the past world, the history of primordial life.
I grew restless of all of it, grew too old and bold—
A protean child in perpetually unchanging space.
So I created my own orbit, freed myself from the Earth's hold,
And sought my rest out in distant, eternal, cold space.
M.M. — 08-Nov-15
06 November 2015
The terminality of dying
I went through a first aid course today. Nothing really worth mentioning to say the least. But at some point during the course I started to think about dying. Not death per se - the cessation of life - but the ending of life. Since I was a child I have always had this entrenched fear of dying, but in recent years I would this that it has become more palpable. I think the reasons are several, including being at a mature enough age to think about what consequences death has on those you love and care about, and of course on yourself. I also think that because this age - 20-30s - one begins to realise that the plans one sets out for the rest of your life (or the initial plans) always have the threat of dissolution due to the death and dying. The fear that grips me at the thought of it is anxiety-inducing. But perhaps in the face out such bleakness I should feel a renewed sense of living, an appreciation of all that I have and all that I have had? In part, yes, I did feel that earlier today. But what I felt more was the realisation that death and dying are topics that should be discussed more openly - at least I so thought today. I thought that perhaps if dying were made less...enigmatic...it would lose it's debilitating grip? I thought perhaps that if my own fear of dying were no longer a fear but an acceptance it would not scare me so? I do not know for sure. The terminality that dying engenders - not simply the terminality of life but of hope, ambition, joy, desires, perhaps love too -is maybe what makes it far more terrifying than the end result: the cessation of life.
M.M.
M.M.
05 November 2015
The inescapable necessity of love
There are certain needs that every human being cannot live without: food, water, shelter and so forth. Lately I have been thinking about the need of love and attachment. It has recently been made quite clear to me that the human need for love and attachment is paramount. If it is threatened by loss or if one struggles to attain it, the reverberations on the soul are cataclysmic. I cannot count the number of times I have attempted to lie to myself that I could pour myself into work or dedicate myself to the pursuit of my ambitions in order to avoid the hollowness of the lack of love. And that's what it is to try to stave off the need of love: a heinous deception of the grandest kind. For love is an inescapable necessity of wholesome human being, and that is an incontrovertible truth. Love, therefore, constitutes one of the essential components of conation, development and living.
M.M.
M.M.
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