hi....whenever i feel down or agitated i pull this passage out and read it....how is it that something so dark makes me feel better??? maybe the old "misery loves company" thing?? can't seem to figure out this new DSL trap i'm in so i have to post the last part in a reply...sorry....

just curious if anyone else can relate to this....it was written by a musician from a band called type o negative...i suspect he wrestled w/ the same demons i do....
Quietly Going Insane

Everyone is struggling to conceal their own personal terrors. I wear my terror on the outside. I wear it on my face, in my walk, on my breath. It can be heard in my every word, seen in my every destination. I am terror itself in that I am terrified of everything. I have lived with it so long - slept with it, woke with it, ate with it, f@*%#d with it - that it has transformed me into a reflection of itself.

People walk through life pretending to be in control. They rarely question the ground beneath their feet or the delicate balance within themselves, but all the time their world lies at the edge of their own desolation, waiting for that next curve that shatters the illusion and leaves everything stiff and raw as an open wound. I know this place well. I spend most of my time here, rummaging for something I’d lost somewhere along the line. Something that escaped me long before I knew enough to keep it. Something I can no longer define.

(part 2 to follow)
PPP~~~

here goes...part 2....

This world is trying to kill me. It has wanted me dead from the start. Chip away at the spirit first and the body will follow. That is the plan. We are fools in thinking this world is a playground. We grope through each colorless day and find things only to feel there is still something missing, something unknown, something unknowable and the days go on with one empty action after another, pretending there’s purpose to each unfulfilling goal and the faith comes bright and angelic and moments later falls into bleak winter, and up and down and up and down. I’m so sick of the struggle, the uncertainty, the endless believing and non-believing and the only question is when do I give up. When comes the breaking point. When comes the point when exhaustion is the only truth that means anything at all.

this just so clearly states my thoughts....how can a stranger know my mind so well??
PPP~~~

the first part didn't really do much for me but these lines really hit home:

"This world is trying to kill me. It has wanted me dead from the start. Chip away at the spirit first and the body will follow. That is the plan."

and:

"the only question is when do I give up."

I think that morose prose or poetry or music sometimes makes you feel better because you feel like someone, somewhere understands your pain. and can express it rather more eloquently than you can. I don't think its the words that make you feel better, it s feeling a connection with another human being. it can be quite invigorating.

I gave a friend ("normal") a book written by a manic depressive comic Spike Milligan. I had always found this book uplifting because his descriptions of his moods are so, absolutely spot on. It always makes me feel better to read about his pain because it is so like mine.
My normal friend took weeks to read it, she had to force herself to get through it and found it a huge struggle. It upset her and disturbed her.

I think my friend found it so hard to read a book that I fly through because she simply didn't connect. (lucky her eh?)

I dont know if that excerpt was from world comming down 13 13. I hope not because that was the only disc of theirs that I had to give away before I burned it. I have been a kinda hard core fan since bloody kisses and slow deep and hard. October rust was the best. (my opinion). I know what you mean though about Pete Steels voice it is beautifull and haunting. The dark moodiness is somthing I think a lot of us can relate to. I find music to be theraputic I love pantera and silverchair. I also like dark drum and bass.

Nice lyrics. I'm sure many of us here can relate to the words. If a "normal" were to read it, they would just a negative dark view. But we get it.........

I like to walk around where the homeless heroin addicts hang out on the street when I am depressed.

It always makes one feel better about oneself to see others who have it worse. (not to berate, but just for perspective)