This video talks about the depths of depression and how some may have spent time overcoming the unbearable, crafting their own wings to fly high.
I was watching a documentary about Chestor Bennington, suicide, the lead singer of a famous band Linkin Park. It gave me a shock on how much he described his condition prior to his suicide heavily resemblances some of the words I have explained in my articles. Some of them are:
"All my relationships are struggling, like everything was struggling, I was burnt out because I was like fuck the world, not like I need a break, but honestly like, fuck all of you, like everybody in everything and I don't doing anything anymore like nothing makes me happy."
[...]
"I know that for me when I'm inside myself when I'm in my own head, this place right here, the skull between my ears, that is a bad neighbourhood and I should not go walking alone."
"I even told one of my therapists at one point I said, I just don't want to feel anything, and she's like "You mean you don't want to be a human being?" and I was like Yep, that's what I want.
These are reasons why I'm deeply philosophical when it comes to digging in the nature of human emotions. I was at a terrible and lonely place when I had the similar sensation and the worst part is I was drilled down to my skull thinking that I am of something less. Something of a defect, unable to be "normal". The people that I trust that I ended up opening with alienated me. Telling me that I should get a grip, telling me to grow up and face my problems but I DON'T KNOW HOW. Telling me to carry my emotional baggage alone.
It is somewhat true in a metaphorical sense that I have "Fallen." I was not the same person I used to be. As I quote an anonymous from youtube comment section of "Kurt Cobain talks about depression, suicide and the what the future holds for NIRVANA."
Depressed people will say and feel things one moment, and feel a completely different way a few hours later or days later, and then go back again. So for him to have said something like this one moment is not necessarily proof that he didn't kill himself. I love Kurt but I really do feel he really did kill himself. Believe me I've been depressed so i know all too well about conflicting feelings and ups and downs.
That's how I feel, I feel completely different at times. The whole process of writing and the immortalization of thoughts through writing all of these articles is just out of my best effort to immortalise the "good things" or rather ideas that I sometimes look back and see the things I used to believe in. Because I'm a stranger even to myself at times.
Through severe alienation by the other, I convinced myself that maybe it is true no one cares about my depression, maybe there are no ears to lend, the only ears that I know will always be there to lend is of the ones from the suicide prevention hotline. Believe me, as much as I know some of my friends really cared and want to prevent my suicide from happening if there's an episode that I'm going through and as much as they would think it's absurd that I look like a perfectly healthy individual that I ideate suicide, I just think sometimes from their reactions of frustration, anger, and sadness from the inability to find the right words, or even sometimes worse, the accidental alienation where they quite unintentionally thought they can compare themselves to me for the sake of solving my rotting emotions. I know they didn't mean any harm, but it's just sad for me to know to be compared with someone that is just simply not me. Sometimes I just want to be listened to. But due to circumstances and differences, sometimes even through good intentions, it may be harmful to just jump the gun and say "get a grip bozo. I don't know how you come to fall but I believe I have been in similar circumstances, so why can't you get a grip and walk on?"
Unfortunately, those were the circumstances I've been in, and what I thought was right that I need to overcome this alone. I grow within the confines of my solitude while sometimes occasional call to the suicide prevention hotline. What I just happen to realize is that when I was talking to the suicide prevention hotline, they always try to understand the background of my suffering, the source of my emotions, the source of the suicide ideation, it's almost as if, they are helping me to think and helping me understand myself, as a human being.
I admire people who I thought have overcome their depression because I know, at least speaking for myself, "How can it be that there is greater suffering in life than the suffering that pushes one to end its own life?" In which many have spent dealing with depression and spent it killing themselves. Through the archives of their thoughts, we can maybe learn something from it.
Some have bent their depression and through confession that there are indeed moments in their life when they were intensely depressed. The stories of confession that come to surface in the world because they are known for something else than their depression. Story like Hideaki Anno, "is a Japanese animator, filmmaker and actor. His most celebrated creation, the Evangelion franchise, has had a significant influence on the anime television industry and Japanese popular culture. The Evangelion franchise has achieved record sales in Japanese markets and strong sales in overseas markets, with related goods selling over ¥150 billion by 2007 and Evangelion pachinko machines generating ¥700 billion (4.957 Billion USD) by 2015."
He is, I would debate, a great human being, and some may call him a "successful human being" out of his ability to create such "successful" art. (He also created Godzilla btw).
There was an interview when he was asked, "Do you like the anime you make?" In which he said "Like.. well, I like some, but hate others." "What parts don't you like?" "The parts where I see myself.
The evangelion is a fucking dope art, I will quote for a brief introduction of it written by a credible journalist on "culturedvultures.com"[1]:
Evangelion’s creative mastermind, Hideaki Anno, has a history of clinical depression which has fed into his work more than once.
Anime as a whole is ripe with metaphors and analogy but no-one seems to have gotten under viewers skin quite so much as Hideaki Anno and Neon Genesis Evangelion is still unmatched in its scope, whether that scope was borne from mental collapse or not. Evangelion’s protagonist, Shinji Ikari, is as representative of its creator as any creation can get: gifted, unstable and self-hating, but a central figure without whom the show simply could not function.
The final episode of the TV show is less of a closing chapter and more of a metaphysical journey through the human psyche as Shinji is put on a psychologist’s couch of sorts, questioning his very existence and confronting his darkest neuroses. He becomes an avatar-by-proxy for anyone who has given themselves a hard time over giving themselves a hard time, and I found myself relating to him a hell of a lot more than, say, Luke Skywalker.
The TV show finished on a relatively upbeat note, as Shinji decides, in a roundabout way, to start loving himself, thereby saving all of humanity in the process (or at least, that’s how I deciphered it, it’s a cryptic ending by anyone’s standards). The End Of Evangelion winds down in a manner that is darker, weirder and a lot less satisfying as the hero witnesses a surrealistic apocalypse that ties in with his nervous breakdown. The world is coming down around Shinji’s ears, and one can almost hear Anno screaming: “I can’t do this anymore!
Hideaki Anno is truly one of my greatest heroes in life. The admiration and respect from my understanding the fact that he was able to distil his emotions through creative works, even if it means an alter-ego persona that lived in his arts that many come to find relatability within. The story of his art and how it came to be really meaningful to me and by many others. "He's just like me..."
As much as depression can be well suited by others of a phenomena that someone has "Fallen" from the "Standard Human" in which the standard is "Be happy, don't be too sad, don't kill yourself, that is abnormal, hey don't be too sad, hey what are you doing with that, hey don't kill yourself hey!!! Are you out of your mind? What are you?! You've fallen! You are no longer the person I know anymore!" A "Fall" is just a mere description on how far a person can be from the standard that most people deem "The Standard" to be the standardly good. Well as much as the stranger from a suicide prevention hotline has told me after I explained her one of my strongest suicide ideation episodes, she promised me that if I'm able to get through that day, I will come back as a stronger person, and it's obviously in my best interest to believe that she is right. The strongest judge above everyone else is only myself.
Until the fall, one grows weary and confused, oftentimes depersonalised to themselves. Some may realise the fall has given them a reason to grow their own wings. To ascent with grace and to be in love with the opportunity to live and fall.
To all the heroes that have shown me that it is possible to live and overcome my depression. You have given me the greatest gift that I could ever receive in life. That is to believe that I maybe can be like one of you.
To become a useful human being as much as I possibly could.
To the heroes that have spent their time creating arts that I find meaning. To the heroes that confessed that they have felt what I feel and made me feel less alone bearing my differences.
To the heroes that made me understand that there can be something of beauty out of sheer and ever seamlessly meaningless suffering, one is pushed to a tipping point just to think of something not to kill themselves.
To the heroes that have fallen and choose to craft their own wings and fly with grace.
Even if you fall again, I still love you for trying, we are only mere humans to begin with. Born without wings.
To George E Atwood, Hideaki Anno, Albert Camus, Thom Yorke, Kurt Cobain, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, Osamu Dazai, Gerard Way, Billy Corgan, Chester Bennington, and many more humans that I have gotten the pleasure of knowing your arts and wings.
And obviously to all the friends that supported me in the craft of my wings.
I will always be forever grateful for your existence and kindness that you've given me.
Refrences:
[1]. https://culturedvultures.com/evangelion-depression-hideaki-anno-lars-von-trier-anime/