"The work will teach you how to do it." – "Le travail va vous apprendre à le faire." 09-23-18 ….. I am temporarily on hiatus, attending to matters of health and well being. I will return as soon as possible.
HAPPY 420 4/20 FREE THE LEAF LEGALIZE WEED NOW!!!
Post Created by Jennifer Kiley Created on Sunday 20th April 2014 [420 – 4/20] Posted on Sunday 4/20 402 20th April [4/2014] FREE THE WEED DAY 420 – 4/20
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
I ❤ WEED
I ❤ CANNABIS
I ❤ HASH
I ❤ MARIJUANA
I ❤ MEDICAL MARIJUANA
MMJ ❤ ❤ ❤
Much improved from what I smoked pre-college, during college, and after college. I was self-medicating without self-awareness that it was what I was doing. Everything was fine. Then I stopped smoking Weed. WHY? Haven’t a real clue on that one.
I then started being given prescriptions for any new anti-depressant which would cost a fortune. So for over a decade I consumed anti-depressants without mood stabilizers. [Mood Stabilizers are a must with Anti-Depressants or they can set off Bipolar Moods such as Depression or Mania, which eventually lead you to crashing from your manic high and falling into the pit of Hell with the Darkest Depression and the Heightened Mood of Feeling Suicidal.] It was bad enough the anti-depressants caused me to be depressed but I was feeling suicidal almost constantly.
They also forgot to tell me I had this brain misfiring problem called Bipolar, probably since I was a young kid. All the Bipolar evidence presented itself when I was a young child. I can see them all written in gold now. I was given my mental health chart by my psychotherapist. I asked her if I could see it. [I didn’t know I could see my MH Chart any time]. The woman I am seeing now. We discovered together what my shrinks had been trying to hide from me all those many years of feeling suicidal & almost succeeding on several occasions.
The day I recieved the truth was on 4/20 three years ago exactly TODAY 4/20/14. And I started smoking MMJ on the 20th of December 2013. That would be 32 months from the day I discovered my diagnosis until I was able to light up my first bowl of Pure Sativa Afghan Kush Medical Marijuana LEGALLY. Prior to that evening, to LEGALLY PURCHASE Medical Marijuana that same day but in the later afternoon.
That evening was the first time I felt good in forever. Before I inhaled the MMJ, I felt awful. I had four surgeries in less than a year in 2013. I was sick to my stomach. I was in pain. I hadn’t been able to eat in a very long time. I had no appetite. Would forget to eat. I just didn’t think of food. The thought of food made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t sleep. I was losing weight way too fast. I felt like I was dying & I do not exaggerate when I make that statement. “Miracle” Marijuana/Weed has saved my life.
I still have set backs & forget to smoke before I go to the kitchen. Entering our kitchen makes me feel extremely nauseous anytime I enter it unless I have smoked some MMJ. It is amazing what MMJ is doing for me. If you can’t smoke it, there are many ways to ingest the MMJ. Just ask your Doctor or contact your state government offices. Find out whether your location has access to Medical Marijuana that is LEGALLY okay to possess and smoke. Be sure to find out how much MMJ you are allowed to have in your possession at any given time & where you are permitted to smoke it. Right now the laws are pretty strict.
Hopefully, the laws will loosen up once Marijuana is closer to being completely LEGALIZED!!! —Jkm 2014 on 420 4/20
FREE THE LEAF – LEGALIZE MARIJUANA NOW!!! – CANNABIS WAS GIVEN TO US FREE IN NATURE TO HELP US HEAL!!!
“In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter
that is the day when I first met you,
Appear the words, ‘Here begins a new life’.”
― Dante Alighieri, Vita Nuova
“The mind which is created quick to love,
is responsive to everything that is pleasing,
soon as by pleasure it is awakened into activity.
Your apprehensive faculty draws an impression from a real object,
and unfolds it within you, so that it makes the mind turn thereto.
And if, being turned, it inclines towards it, that inclination is love;
that is nature, which through pleasure is bound anew within you.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“The more a thing is perfect,
the more if feels pleasure and pain.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“I found myself within a forest dark,
for the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! How hard a thing is to say,
what was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more…”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“There is no greater sorrow
than to recall happiness in times of misery.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“When any of our faculties retains a strong impression of delight or pain,
the soul will wholly concentrate on that, neglecting any other power it has;
and thus, when something seen or heard secures the soul in stringent grip,
time moves and yet we do not notice it.” ― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“Those ancients who in poetry presented the golden age,
who sang its happy state, perhaps, in their Parnassus,
dreamt this place. Here, mankind’s root was innocent;
and here were every fruit and never-ending spring;
these streams–the nectar of which poets sing.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Eight Essential Steps To Freedom From Bipolar Disorder
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Video Available Through Bipolar Advantage
Post Created June 9th 2013
Posted June 27th 2013
WARNING: This post is long. I have written an honest understanding what someone with Bipolar is living through. Definitely, listen to the video at the end of the page. What Tom Wooten has to say with the limited amount of time he has to speak is very enlightening. Tom Wooten speech on the Eight Essential Steps To Freedom From Bipolar Disorder on the video. This video was made in early in June of 2013. Posted by Jk 6.27.13 on the secret keeper
Newest video from Bipolar Advantage. The Speaker is the author of the book “Bipolar In Order” Tom Wooton and creator of Bipolar Advantage. To go to their web site click on highlighted text. Bipolar Advantagecreated the video Eight Essential Steps To Freedom From Bipolar Disorder. Please share your family if you are Bipolar. Friends. Therapist. Doctor. Significant Other. Yourself if you are bipolar. Or if you are just interested in understanding something about bipolar. This shows an alternative to the traditional methods of working with Bipolar. For some it may be just the right method that will work for you. I am not presenting this as an alternative to your present treatment. If you are on meds and working with a therapist and doctor and want to continue on that path, that is your choice.
I do not take Psych Meds which I had taken an assortment of since 1990 and began being given psych meds from the time was a young kid. I wonder why. I told my psychiatrist that I wanted to stop. I had it with them. They weren’t working. Some made me have seizures, others made me Faint dead to the Floor with little of no warning. Others made me feel like I had lost my ability to think. Still others put me into a coma for two days. The best part (actually one of the worse parts) was to make me gain an exorbitant amount of weight since 1990 and keep in mind I am not a binge eater or someone who eats often enough and I don’t really like sweets that often. The medication was suppose to help with my depression. I felt more depressed on them and suicidal. It all had to stop. I wanted my life back. After stopping, a few years ago, I have been able to think clearly, most of the time, except when I felt delusional. But that has since gotten under control from working with an exceptional therapist. Mostly, the delusional behavior was triggered by the traumatic experiences from my childhood and even into my adult past.
I have become more and more creative and I am driven to create and not in just one area. I get excited again. I find these make me feel what it really feels like to feel. I cried for the first time while working on writing and editing a post to the book I am publishing once a week on my blog “the secret keeper.” I told my therapist that I cried and she looked at me in joy. “Did you hear what you said? You cried. You cried.” She was so excited for me. Crying was destroyed for me by the abuse I suffered through the person I now call The Shadow Mother. Talking about her will come at some future time.
I lost any feelings I had left with those drugs that I now call poison. I felt like I had been set free. The best part about stopping is that I have lost a tremendous amount of weight without doing anything except not take my psych meds. I am getting closer to my ideal weight, the one my doctor has set for me. I may, eventually, even go under that weight. My cloths drop off of me. Need a whole new wardrobe. Slowly, I am adding a few things at a time. I look in the mirror and the face looking back is thin. I don’t always recognize her. She looks pretty fucking good to me. I was always pretty thin my whole life. I was a stick figure when I was a kid. In my twenties, I didn’t eat and I actually weighed 113 pounds. I am 5′ 10 1/2″ tall with large bones. I was way under weight and I didn’t think I was thin enough. But that is another issue, also, that I will write about when I can get my head around it.
Now, I will need to get into better shape. Losing weight tends not to take care of the tightening of the skin or building up the muscles. But I am having a complete health and physical make-over that will help with all the damage the pills and the weight caused. It gave me diabetes. I am sure it is partially responsible for my short term memory lose problems and the bipolar probably contributes to that, too. This is what getting off that poison has done for me. I started reading every book on Bipolar when those who cared for my psychological well-being finally announced to me that I did have Bipolar. That actually came from my new therapist. I asked if I could see my psych records. We were both amazed that Bipolar had been in my records almost forever but no one felt that I should know. A psychiatrist who was prescribing my meds in the early 90s gave me a prescription for Risperidone. I was having racing thoughts when I tried to sleep. It was suppose to help. It is, also, used to treat Bipolar. Why I never asked to see my records before two years ago, who knows. I certainly do not lack curiosity. I am part cat.
I had insomnia most of my life from the time I was a child. I was put on Valium then. Red flags that I didn’t understand. When my new therapist gave me the diagnosis, I was stunned. She was, too. She had felt I was bipolar but until she saw it in writing she wasn’t able professionally to say anything. I had other diagnoses that clouded my judgement so I never really studied anything about Bipolar. Also, curiously enough, I believe it was intentionally being kept from me, and still is being denied by certain psych care givers. They even have gone so far as to ask my present therapist to remove certain additions she made to my therapy records that mentioned Bipolar. I think they are afraid of a law suit. They were improperly treating me with the meds they prescribed. It was the combination. They forgot about administering mood stabilizers. That was a major cause in my suicidal ideations that were almost constant for a very long time. In clearer words for some, I felt suicidal almost all the time.
From the day I learned about my diagnosis, I have kept up on anything related to bipolar. I started out by reading and collecting Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison’s books. The first one I started with is: “Touched With Fire.” The best, I felt for me. It was all about the creative artist who suffered from Manic Depression, now called Bipolar. It clarified so many aspects of my mind and my life. I may have the symptoms of bipolar since I was rather young, somewhere in my teens and maybe even younger but it manifested itself in states of continual depressions and insomnia from a very young age.
Here are some of my symptoms that have been around for a long time: Racing Thoughts. Fast Talking. High Creative Energy and in many areas of creativity from writing, playing music, composing songs and lyrics, a profession performing musician and singer which unfortunately gave me intense stage fright and I needed to be stoned to perform, theatre, orchestra as a student and adult, art, painting, choirs. In High School I excelled at painting. I started painting as an adult but stopped all of my creativity abruptly after I started seeing a particular therapist. He buried my soul. Gullibility. Staying Awake Far Beyond a Recommended Level for Anyone’s Body. In my early twenties, I worked but I, also, would party all night, doing bar hopping, dancing all night, drinking, doing drugs, anything that was around that would get me high. The drugs and alcohol actually started when I was a teenager. Alcohol, I would go to the bars when I was 16 with my fucked up oldest brother and his friends and I would keep up with them. My favorite game was to see who could down a whole pitcher of beer without coming up for air. I won every time. Illegal drugs, pot especially, I started using when I was 19. It was the enlightenment for me. Therapy came shortly after that.
The symptoms continue: Forgetting to Eat. I ate one meal a day in my 20s and was bulimic and anorexic. I didn’t and couldn’t keep the food in my body. It made me feel sick and uncomfortable so I got rid of it. Irritability. Delusions. Minimal Amount of Sleep and I Think I Can Do It All. Working on More Than “Prescribed” Number of Projects at a Time. (This is my therapist idea that I should work on only three projects at a time.)
When I follow the three projects at a time treatment plan, I do okay. But the projects can get away from me sometimes and I find I am out of control and trying to do more than I want my therapist to know. In college, I was committed to doing way beyond someones limits. I was a student assistant for three academic departments. I tutored students where English was their second language. I tutored students who were in High School on how to improve on taking their SATs. I worked my way up the College Newspaper’s totem pole until I became the Editor-in-chief. I took on an insurmountable number of projects. I became the student liaison to the Academic committee. I was doing honours seminars plus taking my other classes. I lived with my psychology professor (whom I was in love with), her husband and 11 year old son, whom I loved, also, and took care of him like he was my own. I spent more time with him than his parents were able.
I was an active member of the Philosophy Club. I worked for my Philosophy Professor so I was the liaison for co-coordinating activities. It was an extremely active club. We had regular (famous) speakers every week, where we would all have dinner before the meeting and speech. College was exciting. I was stoned half of the time. I, also, discovered through my first love affair with a woman that I was a lesbian. At first, that was very exciting but two weeks later after the first time we made love, she moved out of the state and transferred to another college, abandoning me. I pretty much lost it. I tried to date other male friends from the college paper but I couldn’t let them touch me.
That’s when I decided for the unknown number of times I tried, that I wanted and planned on committing suicide. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that, another symptom of Bipolar/Manic Depression. My first suicide attempt was when I was a teenager, just out of High School. I wanted to kill myself because the only person I loved had left me for a man and got married. I took the whole bottle of pills. I wrote my suicide notes. One to my friend and one to my mother. I lay myself down at the wrong end of the bed. Just as the pills starting to take effect and I was starting to drift off, I realized I would never have consciousness again. Did I really want this to be the last moment of my life? My answer, through the fog in my head, was NO. I forced myself get up and head to the bathroom. On the way, I passed my parents’ open bedroom door. I tried to call out for help but I was stopped. Maybe by fear or I didn’t want them to know. I just couldn’t call out for her.
I entered that bathroom alone and made myself get the pills out of my stomach. When I felt there wasn’t anything left, I returned to my room and tore up the suicide notes. To this day, I have no knowledge of what I may have written. I lay down under the covers and put some music on softly and tried to go to sleep. The next morning, I had the worse buzzing in my head. I couldn’t hear anything. I asked my mother to call the library where I worked on Saturday and tell them I was sick. My boss didn’t believe her. She knew my friend was in town and that I was faking being ill. I did not know my friend was in town until she called me later. She wanted to see me. I did go to her parents house. The buzzing full blast inside my head. And I spent the afternoon with her without saying a word about what I had done the night before. But that wasn’t unusual for me. I never told anyone how I felt. She never knew her marriage and leaving the area made me suicidal and abandoned.
Back to the present and my reality of today. I, sometimes, will find I am working on an excess of five to ten things at a time. And I do get into trouble if I do this. Today that happened. It wasn’t intentional. I thought I could work all night and not worry about getting to sleep at my usual time of 5 to 6 am, sometimes later. I had the day to sleep in. But I suddenly had a call from one of my doctor’s offices that I could see this Doctor, I needed to see for pain, that same day. In approximately four hours I would need to get ready for that appt. I accepted the appt. time. Got off the phone and proceeded to continue finishing the editing job I was working on. I figured I could finish it in 15 minutes and I would get at least 4 hours of sleep. I do power naps well. That 15 minutes turned into over an hour. I just couldn’t stop. It’s a Bipolar thing. When you start something, it is impossible to put it down until you have accomplished what you set out to complete. I managed to get about 3 hours of sleep. I felt okay. Went to my appt. Came home, let my bird out and we made a power shake together and shared it.
From that point on I lost what happened next. I was on overtime, feeling exhausted, had the chills and it was in the high 70s. I still opened my laptop to try and work. Instead I watched Roger Federer lose in the second round at Wimbledon. He is my favorite tennis player ever. Lost everything after that. Do remember my partner bringing me dinner. Couldn’t even sit up to eat it and she brought me some chocolate. I did share my zucchini dinner with my parrot. My partner and I decided to put in “The Hobbit” but I became obsessed with finding this non-existent post I thought I lost. I couldn’t believe I lost a day and mixing up the dates of my posts. This was a mistake on my part going to that doctor’s appt. But I felt it was important and making a bad decision happened for awhile now. Going to the Doctor’s was important. I am preparing for another surgery in a short time. But I should have known I didn’t have enough sleep already from the night before and this just added to its lack.
Advise is to follow your therapist’s treatment plan and to get enough sleep. I thought I would be able to catch up but there is no such thing as catch-up with Bipolar. You get behind and you stay there. A practical lesson to learn which I thought I had under control. There was no post I hadn’t published with the date I was looking for. Because I was so out of it by then I did not realize the date I was looking for was that day. I had already published that post. It took me hours and wasted energy and time to figure that out. I felt so stupid but also why didn’t my partner tell me. Of course, she had no idea what it was I was looking for but because I was losing it and was becoming so irritated, I had to release the pressure. But for some reason, I tried not to vent on her. At least I stopped that and I solved the problem of the non-existent post.
Missed the whole movie of “The Hobbit” by crashing. When I woke I felt like someone crushed my body. I felt ill and over-heated. I had two blankets over me and a hoodie sweatshirt with hood up while I slept. I stripped everything off me, which seemed like it couldn’t happen fast enough. I got up to go use the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. This is the fucked up moments of a Bipolar, which I actually do not have that often, at least not recently, thank the Goddess and many more people.
Getting back to other symptoms I do experience: Finding Creative Ideas That Seem To Come from Nowhere. This I believe comes from the help of my Muse. Losing My Temper for What Appears to Be No Reason. Pressure builds up suddenly and quickly. Needing to Be Heard Right Away or I will forget my thoughts. Grandiosity is one that I don’t get too carried away with, at least I don’t think I do. And More That Are Not Coming To Me at the Moment. Getting Confused. I would put on the list Losing Track of Time. But Being Bipolar I Already Came Up With A New Idea to Replace It. I think being Bipolar makes one Extremely Sensitive to One’s Environment and We Notice Everything. We register Good Ideas All the Time. If You are an Artist, You Just Somehow Know What Would Make A Creative Project to Put Together. You work piece by piece as it Develops. Most Times Bipolars Are Usually Right, so we think. But We Are Not Infallible. Our irritability can cause us to get into heated discussions but just as quickly we lose track of why we got into the out of proportion discussion and let it disappear as if it didn’t happen. I do have a tendency to Pout. I am working on a post called “The Bipolar Pout.” It’s like having a tantrum then totally shutting down and won’t talk or move.
Being Creative is the Greatest Rush of Bipolar. I feel in the Flow and my mind is sharp as anything. Pieces fall into place like I psychically knew what came next and let my mind be led to that step by step until all was finished, checked and rechecked for accuracy and the littlest of details. Editing is a huge part of the creative writing process.
It is good to read about Bipolar, as many great books as you can find. Have a great therapist and people close to you who understand and you can talk to. It is important not to isolate. I discovered Bipolar Advantage and Bipolar IN Order not long into finding out my diagnosis. I, also, became friends with someone on Facebook and WordPress who gave me great reading material about what the psych meds were doing to me. They can kill some people by poisoning the organs in your body. Shutting down the kidneys. Damaging your heart so that it will fail. They are harsh to the liver, the pancreas, the brain most of all and other parts of your body.
I may have pain for other reasons in my body but I am, also, taking care of the pain. But giving up psych meds has made me feel alive again. I still am working on getting our government to legalize the use of medicinal cannabis to treat the illnesses of the body and to also treat Bipolar. I would have some lesser issues that are hard to deal with on occasion. If I had the proper cannabis, that does not get you high, to treat my depression when it happens or the other symptoms that I mentioned above. It would be very helpful.
Also, those who do need regular medication would be able to use medicinal cannabis and get off of the pharma poisons. I have a friend who is going through withdrawal right now from the psych meds. She is feeling amazed at how good it feels. She is getting her joy for life back. The withdrawal isn’t easy but once you are through to the other side, you just need to find better ways to cope with your symptoms.
Practicing the program of Bipolar IN Order also helps. It makes the symptoms more manageable. It teaches you to bring down the levels of control of your symptoms so they do not get out of control. You learn to better judge when you are going beyond the safe limits, so you know when to bring those symptoms under better control by simply identifying when you need to refocus what you are doing. Being depressed may be the most difficult part of bipolar to work with and the hypo-manic or manic states that take you out of control.
But for the moment I want to concentrate on depression. I have learned to live with my depression. Lately, I haven’t had many episodes and the ones I’ve had were related to when I woke up. I’d feel the urge to pull the covers back over my head but eventually I would push myself out of bed and once I was functioning the depression slipped away. In the past, and maybe in the future, I may feel the depth of depressions and the dark hole one goes to. But now I allow myself to experience what goes on in my mind and body. When I feel suicidal (and I haven’t for awhile now-a miracle for me,) but I let the feelings exist. It is like flowing with creativity. One of my methods of working with the depression is to create. More specifically for me, I write. It can be a poem or thoughts or I work on a post for my blog or I write to the brother that I trust.
He is the only brother that I trust and he listens to everything I write to him and I am really open up with him about everything. He is very encouraging when he writes back. He wishes me to feel better and he accepts that I have had a traumatizing life which started in my childhood. When I told him some of the things that happened, you know abusers are very good at keeping their secrets and they don’t let anyone else know or witness what they are doing, my brother was so shocked that I experienced what I did. He had no idea. This was something just recently. I didn’t tell anyone. There is so much hidden inside my psyche and after all the therapy I have had since I was a teenager, no one really knows most of what happened. I do write some of it on my blog but it is like the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, the majority of it is under the surface and still secretly and quietly fucking with my mind without even my awareness.
I meant it when I said I have finally found the right combination of people, activities, and conditions in my life that make it work. I, also, have finally found a therapist who actually gets me. I would say she is the best therapist I have ever had and I make sure she knows that on a regular basis. This past week, she bought my partner and I a pizza. It was for letting her come to our house after I had some major surgery recently and I couldn’t go out to therapy. Who is that thoughtful, kind and generous. I should add, she is the first person that has been in my home that I know for almost twenty years. (Now that is quite a long story but partially has something to do with my agoraphobia.) Cable people come all the time but that is different. Comcast and I have a strange relationship.
I, also, have some of the best people in my life that help me to find my confidence and make me feel good about myself. My partner has even in her own special way given me so much support through our time together, and now I think she even sees me in a different and better light. My bipolar does drive her a bit crazy. If I looked from her perspective I can see what she endures and I do understand. I am working really hard on it and all my other psych issues. This list you will find in the latest DSM-V, which has grown. (That was a joke. Not about the DSM-V – that really is a real joke and fucking dangerous. It is about to make every one appear to be mentally ill. I prefer Mentally Creative.)
There is, also, a very special friend that found me and I found her. She gives me something so special that I never had in my life before. It is so special that it can not be described in simple language. She knows who she is and I love her, with the good kind of love, that she has been teaching and giving to me. It fills you up, that kind of love. My life has turned around just knowing her. What she gives, you just don’t find anywhere. I am so honoured that we are friends.
There is something important that I learned, it is very important to let those you care about and love, know how you feel about them. I try to do that everyday. That really helps with the healing and the love you feel is more times amazing than anything else you can experience.
I realize this is long. Part of being Bipolar, but, also, relevant to write about for my recovery and it might just help if read in small sections, those who deal with Bipolar on a regular basis and for those who have no idea what Bipolar really is and what it really does to those who live with Bipolar. Those who are bipolar and those who live with us in their lives. I refrain from using the word suffer. I know it can cause suffering but I would rather focus on the incredible gift it can give to someone. The Creative Element alone to me is worth having this genetically imposed state of being. The rest just sucks and hopefully listening to the following video and hearing some of what I wrote will help with that aspect. But I think and feel Creative and that gets me through. Written by Jennifer Kiley
Now for what is on this Video on the Eight Essential Steps to Freedom from Bipolar.
Bipolar Disorder: Crisis, Managed. Recovery.
Bipolar In Order: Freedom. Stability. Self-Mastery
The Eight Essential Steps Explained in the Video are:
(1) Functionality:
(2) Freedom Stage Loop:
(3) Recognizing Our State:
(4) Behaviour Inventory:
(5) Disordered Reactions:
(6) Accounting For Time:
(7) Introspection:
(8) IN Ordered Responses:
When these steps are working then you will be able to Expand Zones and achieve Self Mastery.
Expand Zones:
Self-Mastery:
These all may fluctuate but living with Bipolar IN Order is a better way of managing your life than feeling like you are never going to know when you will go into Crisis or Lose Control. Self-Mastery and Expanding the Zones of what you can handle is a Life giving force rather than going along with the doom and gloom of the way the Psychiatric Community would rather have you living with Bipolar Disorder and loaded up on the poison of psych drugs. (ONLY MY OPINION)
All of the Eight Essential Steps are explained in the video as much as is possible with the restraint of time that is allowed but they are clearly explained enough to understand them. Going further into the program of Bipolar IN Order with Bipolar Advantage will give you a more in depth understanding.
I am in no way suggesting that anyone taking psych medications should stop their drugs and turn to Bipolar IN Order. This is just something to listen to and think about and to discuss with those who are helping you manage to keep you Bipolar under control.
Now it is time to listen to the video: Eight Essential Steps To Freedom From Bipolar Disorder.
A comment I want to make is something my new therapist has said to me and reminds me often when I tell her I don’t understand what is wrong with me. Her response is, “You have lived one of the most fucked up lives. You were traumatized and abused in every way possible when you were a kid by people who were supposed to care for you and love you. You lived in hell then and the abuse followed you when you became an adult. You kept getting re-abused your whole life. Even by therapists you thought you could trust and you should have been able to trust. You have experienced traumatizing lose beyond anything anyone can imagine. And you wonder why you have been and can be so fucked up. Give your self a break. You are actually getting better. I can see the changes in you since we started working together. You needed understanding and unconditional acceptance. You found that once a long time ago from someone special. She dies and leaves you alone and abandoned to those who torture you. The good thing, now you are finding that again. You have people who believe in you and give you confidence and acceptance.” She always laughed before she would tell me all of this. I don’t always get it or remember it when I ask the question, “What the hell is wrong with me?” In such an incredulous way, I ask that question.
So the Bipolar isn’t so bad compared to the nightmare I lived in as a child. I escaped through dissociating. A wonderfully, brilliant invention of the mind to help one escape. Thank you. Jennifer Kiley Jk the secret keeper
Whimsical Serendipity
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Videos Created by Jennifer Kiley
Created May 31st & June 1st 2013
Posted June 1st 2013
Dedicated To Shawn: EARLY BIRTHDAY PRESENT—HAPPY BIRTHDAY on JUNE 3rd
carter the lion—HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY MOM SHAWN—JUNE 3rd
“As I look out at all of you gathered here, I want to say that I don’t see a room full of Parisians in top hats and diamonds and silk dresses. I don’t see bankers and housewives and store clerks. No. I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.” ― Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
“Flowers lead to books, which lead to thinking and not thinking and then more flowers and music, music. Then many more flowers and many more books.” ― Maira Kalman
“These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination.” ― Rabindranath Tagore
“Do you know a better time than the present for igniting your dreams?” ― Carolyn Tody, Author and Artist, A Whimsical Holiday for Children
“Vital lives are about action. You can’t feel warmth unless you create it, can’t feel delight until you play,can’t know serendipity unless you risk.” ― Joan Erickson
“Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked.” ― Elizabeth Berg, The Year of Pleasures
“But in Friendship, being free of all that, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting—any of these chances might have kept us apart… — C.S. Lewis
“In the abstract, it might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations – that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted… Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes.” ― Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
“It’s a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn’t even know you were aiming for.” ― Lois McMaster Bujold
“Even Nothing Cannot Last Forever”
Quote by Neil Gaiman
Post Created Jk the secret keeper
Illustrated by j. kiley
Post Created on May 18th 2013
Posted May 18th 2013
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.” ― Dr. Seuss
“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” ― Lloyd Alexander
“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” ― Terry Pratchett
“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
“When I was your age, television was called books.” ― William Goldman, The Princess Bride
“It’s so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it’s taking forever to come. Then it happens and it’s over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.” ― Lauren Oliver, Delirium
“Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” ― Albert Einstein
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” ― Dr. Seuss
Genius or Madness?
“Up/Down” Bipolar Disorder Documentary
Post Created by Jk the SK
Illustrated by j. kiley
Created May 12th 2013
Posted May 13th 2013
Original Transcript
6 November 2012
Genius or Madness?
Professor Glenn Wilson
“Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide” (John Dryden, 1681).
“There is no great genius without a tincture of madness” (Seneca, 1st Century A.D.).
dali spider of the evening
Many great artists and scientists appear to have gone slightly mad following their lofty achievements. Isaac Newton was arguably the greatest physicist of all time, introducing the concept of gravity and making major advances in optics, mechanics and mathematics. He was also intensely suspicious and distrustful of others and in later life dabbled in alchemy and sought hidden messages in the Bible. Of course, alchemy was not thought a mad pursuit in Newton’s day and he could have been afflicted with mercury poisoning as a result of his experiments.
dali the disintegration of the persistance of memory
Beethoven and Van Gogh are also said to have gone progressively mad, though the reasons are equally debatable. Beethoven’s mania may have been due to alcoholism, syphilis, or lead poisoning (apart from his profound deafness, which would distress anyone, let alone a musician). There are theories that Van Gogh’s mood swings were caused by porphyria rather than bipolar disorder, that he lost his ear in a duel with Gauguin (claiming self-injury to maintain his friendship) and that his “suicide” was an accidental shooting by two boys playing cowboys (whom he also protected).
van gogh starry night on the rhone
For others, the genius and madness appear in parallel. Nikola Tesla was a brilliant applied scientist whose inventions rivaled those of Edison. He obtained around 300 patents in radio and electricity technologies, pioneering alternating current and hydroelectric power. However, he claimed to be in communication with other planets, to have invented “death rays” and suffered from bizarre compulsions.
van gogh bridge
John Nash, the Nobel-winning mathematician who developed “game theory” for the social sciences also suffered paranoid delusions throughout his career. He was hospitalised involuntarily and had to feign sanity to be released. He still heard the voices but learned how to live with them and not to talk about them. “I wouldn’t have had such good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally” he said.
van gogh starry night
Sometimes it is a matter of chance or social milieu that determines whether an individual is deemed brilliant or crazy. To the Counter-Reformation Church leaders, Galileo was not necessarily mad (probably just heretical) but they clearly failed to appreciate his genius and subjected him to a lifetime of house arrest. In other times and places Picasso and Einstein might have been committed to an insane asylum rather than revered for their original thinking.
moby dick – jackson pollock
Many lists of creative achievers throughout history have been compiled along with mental health symptoms and diagnostic categories retrospectively assigned to them. Unfortunately, these are mostly anecdotal, speculative and lacking in proper controls for comparison. Some have argued that the connection between genius and madness has been over-egged because of a few high-profile cases such as those described above.
virginia woolf by george charles beresford 1902
The best evidence in support of the genius-madness link comes from behaviour genetics. The close relatives of creative people are more likely to be schizophrenic and vice versa (psychotics having more creative relatives). Einstein, for example, had a son who was schizophrenic, while Bertrand Russell had many schizophrenic relatives. According to Simonton (1999), “creative hits and crazy misses” are mixed within many illustrious family pedigrees, including the Darwins, Galtons and Huxleys.
virginia woolf
The first degree relatives of creative people are actually more prone to mental disorders than creatives themselves. This is because actual illness (as opposed to its genetic predisposition) is likely to impede a creative career. The exception seems to be writers, who themselves show high rates of many behavioural disorders, including psychoses, mood disorders, substance abuse and suicide.Could the environment also be involved? Traumatic events in childhood and orphan status seem more common in those who make outstanding contributions to art and science. In a study of 700 high achievers, found that three-quarters had troubled childhoods, especially loss of a parent. The “school of hard knocks” could provide motivation and inspiration (Dickens and Chaplin come to mind here) while at the same time generating psychological disorder. However, this idea is opposite to the common-sense view that parental support and encouragement is beneficial to achievement, rather than maltreatment and deprivation. Indeed, the Goetzels found that wealth was more common in the backgrounds of famous people than poverty. And of course, pathology in the parents may be genetically transmitted to their children, thus accounting for some of the associations reported.
Virginia Woolf
Similar thought processes, such as unusual and grandiose ideas, together with a determination to promote them, seem to link genius and psychosis. Certain neurotransmitters and gene loci have been cited as common to both, including the male sex hormone testosterone, a gene relating to a growth factor involved in neural development and plasticity called neuregulin 1 (NRG1 and genes modulating dopamine transmission in the brain, e.g., DARPP-32.
virginia woolf painting
Unconventional thinking is characteristic of a constitutional personality trait called Psychoticism (P). This has many facets, including tough-mindedness, lack of empathy, impulsiveness, risk-taking, adventure-seeking, bizarre thinking, and a refusal to adhere to social norms. High levels of P predispose to psychopathy and clinical psychosis, as well as to creativity, thus accounting for the overlap between them. A good deal of research over recent decades has supported this theory. A related trait is called schizotypy. An optimum number of indicators for this relates to creative achievement, rather than full-blown schizophrenia.
kurt cobain
Dopamine function (or dysfunction?) may account for the link between genius and madness. Dopamine is the chemical messenger in the meso-limbic and cortical areas of the brain concerned with approach, reward, positive mood and achievement-seeking. Genes that modulate dopamine levels are reported to affect novelty-seeking behaviour and to relate to Impulsivity and Psychoticism. Recreational drugs that are addictive and sometimes lead to delusions and hallucinations (e.g., amphetamine psychosis) tend to raise levels of dopamine in the brain. By contrast, anti-psychotic medications are usually dopamine antagonists (this being one of the reasons why compliance is difficult). Untreated schizophrenics have more D2 receptors in the striatum and lower D2 binding in the thalamus.
kurt cobain – bipolar
Genius and psychotic are both inclined to loose associations (i.e., “thinking outside the box”). This can be observed as unusual responses on a word association test or in some of Salvador Dali’s surreal images (e.g., the Lobster-Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa). Such flexibility of thought seems to be increased by dopamine.
beethoven – bipolar
Another description of the schizophrenic thinking style is that it tends to be over-inclusive, with the boundaries of relevance being set more broadly. To most people, an apple falling off a tree and the movement of planets in the solar system would appear to have nothing in common, but Newton was insightful enough to connect them under the grand unifying concept of “gravity.” Of course, not all such generalisations turn out to be that useful but many great scientific theories depend upon the ability to perceive improbable connections.
carrie fisher – bipolar
Exactly how loose associations or over-inclusive thinking promote genius is unclear. If enough crazy ideas are generated, one or two might hit the target by chance alone. This approach is deliberately harnessed in “brainstorming” sessions which use random “flashcards” as a means of generating fresh ideas. Certainly, it is difficult to be creative operating within received wisdom and some of the greatest artists and composers were the “rebels” least shackled by the traditional rules of their art. However, the “shotgun” theory smacks slightly of “monkeys on typewriters”. (It would take a long time for them come up with the complete works of Shakespeare). Outstanding advances in science, like the theories of evolution and relativity, and great works of art, such as Wagner’s Ring Cycle, cannot be generated by chance alone. Profound imagination and high-level spatial intelligence is usually required in addition.
bipolar behaviour
Application to the point of “work addiction” is also often involved. Edison reckoned that genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.Most creative people are also the most productive. There is a positive correlation between quality and quantity of output, implying that each masterpiece is likely to be interspersed with much that is mediocre. (I do not ne)cessarily agree with this statement.)
marilyn monroe – bipolar
The human tendency to apophenia may be implicated in both creativity and madness. This refers to seeing meaningful patterns where they do not exist and it underlies superstition and hallucinations (e.g., seeing ghosts and hearing “voices”). This perceptual style has survival value because failing to spot a predator in the forest is a bigger (potentially fatal) mistake than seeing one where it does not exist. Exaggerated apophenia is characteristic of schizotypal individuals and is enhanced by dopamine.
ernest hemingway – bipolar
Another mental “illness” linked with creativity is bipolar mood disorder (previously called “manic-depressive psychosis”). This is characterised by extreme mood swings, occurring over a period of months, and it seems particularly to afflict artists, writers, musicians and comedians. Among highly talented people who appear to have suffered mood disorder are Peter Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann, Vincent Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Spike Milligan, Paul Merton and Stephen Fry (who presented a TV documentary on bipolar disorder detailing his experiences).
winston churchill – bipolar
Genetic analysis shows links between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Sufferers are often tortured souls, particularly when the “Black Dog” afflicts them, and their feelings may be tapped to give greater depth and sensitivity to their art. On the other hand, the “flight of ideas” experienced in the “manic” phase of the mood cycle can result in exceptional productivity. As with the trade-off between schizophrenia and genius, bipolar disorder balances troughs with peaks in a way that might account for its evolutionary survival. Treatments are available for bipolar disorder but there is a danger that, by smoothing mood, they could impede the creative forces.
bipolar wheel
Then there are the autistic spectrum disorders (such as Asperger’s syndrome) in which a deficiency in social communication is sometimes accompanied by “savant” skills in fields like music, mathematics and spatial intelligence. In the film Rain Man (1988), Dustin Hoffman plays Raymond Babbitt an autistic whose exceptional memory is exploited by his brother to count cards in Las Vegas casinos. (This was loosely based on a real-life savant called Kim Peek, who may in fact have had a chromosome disorder). The artist Louis Wain, who became famous for his surrealistic cat paintings was hospitalised for schizophrenia, but others have argued he was actually autistic.
marilyn monroe poster
These various “disorders” can all contribute to extraordinary contributions to art and science. Some tendency to psychotic traits seems to be beneficial (thus accounting for the maintenance of such genes) but too much makes the individual disorganised and is hence detrimental. It is notable that creative artists and writers have profiles similar to those of psychotic patients on clinical scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) but are less extreme – in fact, roughly half-way between normal controls and full-blown schizophrenics.
mel gibson – bipolar
What is the mechanism whereby schizophrenic genes promote survival? The clue may be in the behaviour of bower birds, the males of which make colourful and elaborate constructions in order to attract a female (the Taj Mahals of the bird world). Creativity has also been shown to promote mating success in men, as measured by number of sex partners. Since there is no such connection for women, it is not surprising that men’s productivity in art and science exceeds that of women by around ten times.(I don’t believe this statement about men exceed women by around ten times in productivity in art and science—more like opportunity and the continued imbalance in availability and acknowledgment).
medical cannabis for bipolar treatment
Obviously, it does not do to be totally and permanently “away with the fairies”; some measure of control needs to be maintained. Consider James Joyce and his daughter Lucia, who was being treated by Carl Jung for schizophrenia in 1934. Joyce doubted she could be schizophrenic because her thought patterns were so similar to his own. Jung disagreed, comparing father and daughter to two people who had arrived at the bottom of a river. According to Jung, James had dived there, whereas Lucia had fallen in.
“Up/Down” Bipolar Disorder Documentary FULL MOVIE (2011)This is a brilliantly made Documentary. Everyone who is Bipolar or knows someone who is or those in the Psychiatric profession and do counseling with anyone who is bipolar or anyone interested in bipolar and everyone who wants to have a knowledge of bipolar and find out what it is from what the myths are or how much people are misinformed about bipolar. A MUST SEE VIDEO. STOP THE STIGMA OF BIPOLAR AND ANY FORM OF MENTAL “ILLNESS” CREATIVITY.
“There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.” ― Oscar Levant
“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.” ― Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays
“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” ― Aristotle
“I’m a misunderstood genius.”
“What’s misunderstood?”
“Nobody thinks I’m a genius.”
― Bill Watterson
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” ― E.F. Schumacher
“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde
“The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia
QUOTATIONS on MADNESS:
“Sanity is a madness put to good uses.” ― George Santayana, Essential Santayana, The: Selected Writings
“So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there’s always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.” ― Alan Moore, Batman: The Killing Joke
“Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form.” ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
“I don’t possess these thoughts I have — they possess me. I don’t possess these feelings I have — They obsess me.” ― Ashly Lorenzana
“The thoughts written on the walls of madhouses by their inmates might be worth publicizing.” ― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“Men have called me mad; but the question is not settled whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence — whether much that is glorious — whether all that is profound — does not spring from disease of thought — from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who only dream by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the ‘light ineffable’.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora
QUOTATIONS on BIPOLAR:
“I’m the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible…” ― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you’re high it’s tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one’s marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends’ faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against– you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.” ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it, an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide.” ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Compared to bipolar’s magic, reality seems a raw deal. It’s not just the boredom that makes recovery so difficult, it’s the slow dawning pain that comes with sanity – the realization of illnesss, the humiliating scenes, the blown money and friendships and confidence. Depression seems almost inevitable. The pendulum swings back from transcendence in shards, a bloody, dangerous mess. Crazy high is better than crazy low. So we gamble, dump the pills, and stick it to the control freaks and doctors. They don’t understand, we say. They just don’t get it. They’ll never be artists.” ― David Lovelace, Scattershot: My Bipolar Family
“Depression is a painfully slow, crashing death. Mania is the other extreme, a wild roller coaster run off its tracks, an eight ball of coke cut with speed. It’s fun and it’s frightening as hell. Some patients – bipolar type I – experience both extremes; other – bipolar type II – suffer depression almost exclusively. But the “mixed state,” the mercurial churning of both high and low, is the most dangerous, the most deadly. Suicide too often results from the impulsive nature and physical speed of psychotic mania coupled with depression’s paranoid self-loathing.” ― David Lovelace, Scattershot: My Bipolar Family
“Absurdity and anti—absurdity are the two poles of creative energy.” ― Karl Lagerfeld
“Except you cannot outrun insanity, anymore than you can outrun your own shadow.” ― Alyssa Reyans, Letters from a Bipolar Mother
“Clear your energy, honor your rhythm, live your vision ” ― George Denslow, Living Out of Darkness: A Personal Journey of Embracing the Bipolar Opportunity
Happy 4/20 Legalize It!
FREE MEDICINAL CANNABIS / MARIJUANA TREATMENTS
Created by jk the secret keeper
Created & 04/20/2013
California Time Posted 4/20/13
EDT Posted 4.21.13
“Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.” ― Bob Marley
“When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.” ― Bob Marley
“Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.” Thomas Jefferson
“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?” ― Bill Hicks
“We all need something to help us unwind at the end of the day. You might have a glass of wine, or a joint, or a big delicious blob of heroin to silence your silly brainbox of its witterings but there has to be some form of punctuation, or life just seems utterly relentless.” ― Russell Brand, My Booky Wook
“Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use.” — Richard M. Nixon
Dark Night of the Soul
By Jennifer Kiley
Inspired By Reading
Abstract Digital Art j. kiley
Written 04.18.14
dark night of the soul — abstract digital art
Dark Night of the Soul
By Jennifer Kiley
Inspired By Reading
Written 04.18.14
Those of you who have heard of the dark night of the soul know the kind of pain and confusion it can bring. It used to be used to describe a spiritual crisis. Now it describes a psychological darkness. Here is a description of a major symptom to describe what it is: to feel one no longer has a grasp or sense of the realness of the ground beneath one’s feet. It doesn’t feel solid, nor does it feel like it has a strong basis in reality.
Something in one’s present day happens and causes it to trigger thoughts from the unconscious that draws the dark night into “the light.” Carl Jung thought the psyche was causing this to happen. That the symbols or images or flashes that were coming from the unconscious were being brought to the surface in order to help an individual grow. A direct form of Enlightenment would occur which is when the unconscious becomes conscious. The dark night, though appearing to be a negative force is actually aiding in this occurrence.
“Creative suffering burns clean; neurotic suffering creates more soot.” The Jungian analyst Marion Woodman wrote this. Her meaning is that repeating pain in a non-productive way does not create one’s healing or move one forward. One needs to go deep within the source of the center to that power where the emotions are hiding and/ or existing. Doing this should bring to one a self-understanding and with a great deal of work, it should lead eventually to liberation of the self. But one needs to first do the difficult work of fighting with one’s demons and angels. They will bring with them the healing that one will be needing. It’s a difficult fight and it is a spiritual and psychological fight. When one is looking for one’s spiritual reality, it is a necessary fight to find one’s meaning.
Dark nights are meant to happen in order to tear apart the ways in which we deal with reality and our own growing. We must be forced to let go of our illusions and/or our delusions that have been controlling our thinking, our way of behaving and how we are able to express our feelings. This is essential in order to regain control of our self and the way that we behave in our life.
It enables us to find our real self and release our great need for control. The most difficult part is our needing to tear down how we learned to deal when we were children. We need to release all of the built up anxiety and our sense of overwhelming vulnerability that kept us from functioning then and keeps us from functioning now. We must always remain connected to our self while we construct our new way of being in our new lives, where we are going to be more real. And most importantly we must give up the need to always be in control. That is an important one. The bonus that comes with doing all of this is that we will be getting into an upgrade of an automatic elevator to a higher level of consciousness.
So you see, sometimes we have to enter into hell to find our way out of it. And gradually we will lose the negative aspects of our lives and find in their place courage, strength and self-love. And most importantly finding freedom and get on into growing. We will start feeling a more secure sense of well-being that will keep expanding. This may feel like just words and a dream but it can happen.
When one’s life begins in such a dark atmosphere and one is alone in that darkness, all that is felt is fear and dread, so what is left to remember is shaped into a memory overflowing with fear.
It’s time to let that fear and that past go and to reawaken the child who is buried deep inside, who wants her freedom to begin to live again, to cry again, to laugh again, to stop feeling overwhelmed by the positive feelings of life like love, caring, joy, belonging and more, to allow her to have healthy relationships that are not messed up with demons of the past filling her mind with senseless fears of abandonment, punishment and abuse. It really is time to let all of it go and just leave it back there in the past, in that time which should no longer exist now.
“If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom, and find the blessing in every curse.” ― Anthon St. Maarten
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” ― Terry Pratchett
“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” ― Anne Frank
“I do not speak as I think, I do not think as I should, and so it all goes on in helpless darkness.” ― Franz Kafka
“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly.” ― Patrick Overton
“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm – yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.” ― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View
“Darkness does not leave us easily as we would hope.” ― Margaret Stohl
“When you’re lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you’ve just wandered off the path, that you’ll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it’s time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don’t even know from which direction the sun rises anymore.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert
The Non-Sense: Part 1
at the beginning of time there was total blackness if you follow the creation story and on one of the days it was said: “let there be light & there was light.” now i know that in the bible they are technically speaking about actual light. you know, turning on a switch which then turns on the light, providing someone paid the electric bill. But then I don’t think there were corporations way back then. Or did they pay off those in High Command so they would eventually be able to announce that they have actually been controlling the single universe since the beginning of their designated recording of the beginning of time. this is what you call black humour. don’t be too sensitive about it. I really believe that I am trying to be funny. How can you be serious about the creationist theory and believe that man walked with dinosaurs only 6000 years ago. Now that is funny to really take those figures seriously. The world is filled with two much blackness for having only been around for such a short period of time. None of the things that happened in the Universe could have happened that rapidly. Let’s get serious. The Devil was kicked out of Heaven and descended to Earth. He went by the name of Lucifer. He wasn’t such a bad guy. After all it was god’s best friend. They had a fight and Lucifer supposedly lost so Earth was his interim designation. All Hell broke loss. What was going on in Heaven? Why were people’s hearts filled with such torment & blackness. What the hell did they do to deserve such wrath. Why create animosity & strife developing into wars and killing and bloodshed.
The Garden of Eden. Now that must have been one cool suppressed group of people. They didn’t have knowledge. Does that mean no wisdom? Do they go together. What about Lilith? Did she lead Eve astray or was it the snake taking the fall. His legs were stolen. Who took them? That wasn’t very funny. Now by now there are probably some who are taking offense to the story I am writing. But it is just my way of creating an alternative to all the other alternatives about the creation of the world , the universe, god, the big bang theory. You probably wondered when I would get to that. The Universe exploded out of nothingness into something. Logically, as Spock would say, “that is improbable and totally impossible.” And what about the edges of the Universe or the possibilities that there are multiverses spread out all over the place into infinite space. How far does that go? How can anything be infinite? It expands and expands like a balloon that never explodes. But if there really was a Big Bang, then something did explode. I am in total control of my faculties but find that non-sense is necessary to find any common sense to explain any of what this universe is or was or will be. Otherwise, it would make us all mad just like the hatter & wonderland would seem like a real place and earth totally made up. This has been a display of true non-sense that has some sense but not enough sense to make sense. Trying to understand the dimensions of Stephen Hawking’s brain or Einstein’s theory of relativity is enough to make the world inversely implode and then there would remain no-sense for making any sense out of anything at all. When you see the world in darkness, it feels like all is lost and gravity is pulling us to the center of the universe. Is the universe shaped in such a way that there actually is the possibility that it even has a center. If it did would there be a chocolate covered cherry waiting for everyone that exists in the entire universe to enjoy as a treat.
Niamh Clune’s poem makes sense.(Under — Comment #6 1st line: “It is easy to believe…”) What I have written makes no sense but I needed to release these words from my brain for it to go back into making some semblance of sense in the near future. How does anyone decipher reality from it’s opposite? And what is realities opposite? That is a $300 billion trillion dollar question. I am asking if there is an answer out there for anything except that matter is vibration, frequency & energy(that you Nikola Tesla) but I do not think the last word is the right word but I found it and corrected it. Matter is actually vibration at a certain acceleration which gives it form & we all live within the hallucination of the imagination of someone sitting out in space having one hell of a nightmare with fringes of pleasant fun & loving thoughts. When they sneeze it causes for the symptoms of climate change. When they cry in their sleep, it rains & it may cause tornadoes or hurricanes or tsunamis. We all live in someone else’s imagination who is in a coma from being in a crash with a star in the outer galaxy of the alternate universe parallel to the one we do not exist in now. So all of this that I have written has no baring on madness or fantasy or reality. It just is what it is and nothing more.
@-;– jk the secret keeper
Now seriously, in response to Niamh Clune’s poem. It is quite serious and poses some extremely important points. To believe that there was light that came out of the darkness of the Universe before the Big Bang Theory is an unfathomable thought until you look around at now and see that there is light. But there is also blackness that intrudes upon most of our lives. It causes us pain and wonder as to why we all must feel such pain. Niamh has a way in her writing to explore and to reach the center of thought or idea. In this instance, she explores the vulnerability of our heart. The ease in which it can be broken. The struggles we must pass through to make it through this life we have been given. She is so brilliant in her expression of the places between living and dying. I want to ask why death? If we are given the gift of life why steal it away from us with something so unknown and fearful as Death. It seems a cruel joke.
Life seems at times to be a cruel joke. There is so much violence. I don’t mind the mystery of life but why the punishment. We are given Will, Purpose, Power and Love but it all gets rather jumbled up as we live those lives that we are given. Art is a way to sort out that jumbled up mess so that we are able to make an attempt to sort it all out. The points in Niamh’s poem first sets off the non-sense reaction in me b/c it makes me aware of the difficulty that life really is and then I find the seriousness & try to respond to her poem’s point on that & it all seems like we have had a majorly sadistic joke played on all of us. We just must hope that we find people who we are able to love and who will love us and will get our sense of humour and get us being somewhat fucked up at times. We do need friends to make it through. We may need our privacy and the wish that someday having reality tv fail once and for all and be gone with it.
We need Will, Purpose, Power and Love. The Will to live. To find a Purpose to want to stay alive. The Power to survive and actually live out our lives. And Love, which I feel is the most important of all in the Universe. And To have Love and give Love is the greatest gift of all. jk ps. I have total respect for Niamh Clune’s writing. Why it set off the need in me to let loose with a tirade of unfiltered goofing is probably due to the intense seriousness of the subject of her poem. It is so good that my nervous system needed a release before I could get to the core of the seriousness in myself in response to the seriousness of the words and thoughts she expresses in her poem. I do hope that she will understand what I was doing. It was to show the non-sense of most of what life can be & also what seriousness there is throughout life that we need relief from it at times. It is a need to find relief. jk the secret keeper @>-;–
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
Hannah Harrington
“He took his pain and turned it into something beautiful. Into something that people connect to. And that’s what good music does. It speaks to you. It changes you.”
― Hannah Harrington, Saving June
“A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat a chop. Unless he gets his facts right, his imagination will lead him into all kinds of nonsense, and the facts he is most likely to get right are the facts of his own experience.” ― W. Somerset Maugham
“Artists exist to show us the world. So do windows. ” ― Jarod Kintz
“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”
― C.G. Jung
“What do you think an artist is? …he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”
― Pablo Picasso
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” — Dr. Seuss
Flannery O’Connor
“Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.”
― Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.” — Dr. Seuss
“You’re mind is working at its best when you’re being paranoid.
You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation
at high speed with total clarity.” ― Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss
“Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.”
― Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss
“An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” — Dr. Seuss
“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.”
― Alice Walker
“If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good!”
— Dr. Seuss
“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.”
― Pablo Picasso
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
— Dr. Seuss
“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
― Vincent van Gogh
Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So. . . get on your way.
— Dr. Seuss
“Art without emotion its like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.” ― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” — Dr. Seuss
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.
An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.”
— Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches the Egg
“When I was a child my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll be the pope.’ Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.”
― Pablo Picasso
“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
— Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who
“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go….”
— Dr. Seuss, Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
“A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.”
― Dylan Thomas
“Step with care and great tact
And remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
— Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go
Leonardo da Vinci
“The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
“Young cat, if you keep your eyes open enough, oh, the stuff you would learn! The most wonderful stuff!” — Dr. Seuss, Seuss-isms
Yann Martel
“If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi
“I am the Lorax, and I’ll yell and I’ll shout for the fine things on earth that are on their way out!” — Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
― John Keats, Letters of John Keats
“I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” — Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”
― Albert Einstein
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” — Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
The Hours: Depression. Suicide. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway – a thread throughout the entire film. An intense film can draw you out of yourself. I, so, love Virginia Woolf that the mere presence of her in the film carries me back in time. It causes me to feel such intense feelings for what she must have experienced. I connect to her pain & awkwardness & complete sense of feeling madness taking over her mind. She doesn’t want to burden her husband Leonard any longer or her family, that she decides to place heavy rocks in the pockets of her coat and walks into the river Ouse & drowns so that all the pain will be washed away. Suicide is a theme in this film & failing relationships. It is attractive to me when I am depressed for I feel a oneness with several of the characters & it makes me feel more connected with my own self through their lives.
What Dreams May Come: Death. Finding Your Loved One In Hell. Going through the many level of death, trying to get your loved one to remember you. Once done you both are brought to Paradise. Illusions in film are sometimes beautiful & often horrible but the thought of being reunited with the person you most love is well worth the journey. Most would go to the ends of the Universe to find their love but to the basement of Hell that is one long perilous journey.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Losing Your Memories of Ever Knowing the Person You Love. You ask for your memory to be wiped. I am rooting for the two main characters in this film that they will find a common ground in which to make their relationship work but it seems they always end up wiping their memories clean & once again play out their destiny to meet & repeat their love affair all over again. It is serious & amusing at the same time. So there are laughs but there is a sadness & desperation of wanting the two to actually work out their love relationship. It is the romantic in me to believe that there are soul mates out there and that love can& does in some cases last forever throughout eternity as it was for the Browning’s, Elizabeth Barrett & Robert.
Lord of the Rings Trilogy: Fellowship of the Ring. The Two Towers & Return of the King. Escape. Fantasy. Lofty. Good triumphs over evil. Appeal to noble instincts against the worst sort of odds. Coming together of people from all magical dimensions to fight the good fight and be triumphant. The struggle to carry out the journey only one can achieve, of course, with the help of his best companion & being waylaid by evil all along the quest.
Harry Potter: (all eight in series) These films grew in maturity & I love Daniel Radcliffe & Emma Watson. I loved the fact that practically every top rated British actor did a role in these films. Once again Fantasy, it always hits in a good place for me. It takes you into a world that is impossible to have experienced until you either read the books or watched these films. It was a tradition in our household that S would receive as a present every hardcover book of Harry Potter as soon as released, usually around her birthday. And the best collection of each film would follow around Christmas to show up under the imaginary or potted tree for a present for S. I love Harry & Hermione the most. Ron was a good sidekick but I really wanted to Hermione & Harry to end up together but I suppose it did all work out. There were several gasps when certain characters died that you did not expect. Especially, a certain rather short fellow that you got attached to. Time for a Harry Potter marathon. S does LOTR marathons all the time. I usually get into Twin Peaks marathons. I am due a Lost marathon. I missed all of year 6 b/c of being extremely ill. I literally Lost that year of my life. There is no recall of anything that happened that year.
Somewhere In Time: A Love Story where the two lovers are separated by Time, torn apart & the only way they can be rejoined is for one to travel back in time in order to meet. An unfortunate thing happens with a penny from his present. Its presence in the past cause him to be jerked back to his present. He is too weak so is unable to return. He must die to be reunited with his beloved. The music & the love story is the most beautiful, sad & love story ever. I cry every time I see it. I listen to the music from it quite often.
The Sound of Music: Favorite film of all time & most watched film, also. Love. Family. Romance. Shyness. Finding a mother who loves you. Falling in love. Beautiful music. Longing glances. Escaping the Nazis with success but leaving their old life behind. The only life that they knew, Facing an unknown future. Beautiful music & scenery & love growing throughout.
Ruling Class: It is about Insanity, in part. Peter O’Toole opens the film as Jesus Christ & his father erotically hangs himself by accident while trying to achieve sexual satisfaction. JC inherits the fortune. It’s a comedy. Really. Interesting transformation. The family are all nuts. In the family’s efforts to lead him off the cross they haphazardly turn him into Jack the Ripper. He goes from the God of Love to the God of Vengeance. There is singing, dancing, lewd jokes & murder. It is quite funny. Makes you forget about the fact that you are feeling so depressed.
V for Vendetta: Evey is an ordinary girl capable of overcoming her fear and being a part of a revolution. This is an empowering film. The hero V blows up the root of Power – The House of Parliament. After living under the oppressive rule of a Talking Head tyrannical government. First, V starts with a list of people who are high up in the group of Talking Heads & one at a time starts methodically killing in a manner that fit each one’s past transgressions. Great Explosive Ending. The People’s Revolution a total success. Very Uplifting.
Except for great mysteries, the category of films that Girl Interrupted is in, I would say that I love most films that take place in mental hospitals or that have psychotherapists and patients as main characters. I’ve been drawn to psychological films since I was a child when I first saw David & Lisa. Psychology has fascinated me with my first contact with the subject. Understanding how the mind works. Why we feel the way we do. How our lives are affected/effected by merely living it. All the traumas of the world that we have or come in contact with during the course of living. There are predators out there that fuck you up. There are chemical imbalances that fuck up our brains or so they say. I like to watch people with questionable mental creativeness interact. The ability to not block your ego from letting everything out. Feeling your inhibitions unblocked or so it seems. What is insanity after all? Does it really exist or are some people just too sensitive for this world?
There is a long list of films in this category that I have seen & would recommend when depressed. First film after David & Lisa and Girl Interrupted are the following: Suddenly, Last Summer. Lilith. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Prince of Tides. Spellbound. Freud. A Dangerous Method. Good Will Hunting. Sybill. Mr. Jones. Primal Fear. Nuts. Marnie. Beyond Therapy. (All excellent films & dramas except Beyond Therapy, which is a Robert Altman comedy of errors. If you are an Altman fan you will find this film hysterically funny & it will lift almost any ones depression at least during the time while you watch this film.) Another film S reminded me of which she absolutely hates but knows I absolutely love. I had a therapist that use to tease me jokingly about this film & said please don’t ever do that to me. The film is called: What About Bob? This is the ultimate OCD film comedy of all times. Bob gets a new psychotherapist who is about to go on vacation, He sees Bob once & recommends another psychotherapist he can see during the summer during his vacation. Well, Bob has bonded extremely intensely with his new therapist & goes to extremes to follow him to where he is on his summer vacation. Every psychotherapist’s nightmare. His family absolutely adore Bob. It is extremely funny & frustrating. Good for any depression, I think. The psychological film list of greats: As Good As It Gets. Three Faces of Eve. Persona. Shutter Island. A Beautiful Mind. Harvey. Twelve Monkeys. All of them excellent. Forgot The Sixth Sense: “I see dead people.” An amazing film that will take you out of yourself. You will be so amazed at the twists & turns of this film. By now everyone knows the ending but just in case I am not revealing it here. I do in my dreams what this kid does in his waking hours.
The film list continues with just a few more suggestions…
Donnie Darko: Destiny. Who expects something to fall out of the sky & crash through your bedroom roof & kill you while you are asleep. That is not the film. The film is what happens before the Big Event. It’s a quirky, time distortion, strange story about a kid who seems to be living in another time zone from the rest of the world around him. Great film.
Proof: Shows the growth of a loving relationship between a daughter, who is a touch questionably balanced, & her father who was losing his mental faculties. Both brilliant mathematicians who are trying to solve an extremely important & complicated math problem. At least, important to them. Then enters the sister from Hell who after their father dies, tries to sell the family home & bring her sister back with her to live in the city, after spending her entire life in that house. It’s a brilliant film. Very moving but pisses you off b/c the sister just doesn’t get it.
Inception: This film will blow your fucking mind. It takes you on a trip through the corridors of time & space so that you cannot tell where or when you are in reality or inside of a dream. The world around you keeps caving in. Might be a great distraction for someone depressed. The world in the film seems a hell of lot worse than the delusions you might be experiencing in the reality you are presently in. I still haven’t figured out the ending. Totally disagree with S even though we have played the last scenes over and over again.
My favorite films with Julie Andrews, who I adore & she can help me through some of my many mood changes. Good love stories & musicals, sad or happy: Tamarind Seed. The Americanization of Emily. Thoroughly Modern Millie. Victor/Victoria. Princess Diaries I. Mary Poppins. I mentioned The Sound of Music earlier. Just having them on in the background helps.
Musicals on the stage & on film. Those over the years that have helped with depression are: West Side Story. All That Jazz. Showboat. Funny Girl. The Pirates of Penzance. Hair. Hello Dolly. Chicago. Moulin Rouge (with Nicole Kidman & Ewan McGregor). Musicals help me to get in touch with what I am feeling but those feelings are usually good or real, not bad. Feelings are never bad.
jk the secret keeper
This is the end of part 1–part 2 follows next post When Bipolar: Experiencing Depression
Virginia Woolf: “If I were thinking clearly, Leonard, I would tell you that I wrestle alone in the dark, in the deep dark, and that only I can know. Only I can understand my condition. You live with the threat, you tell me you live with the threat of my extinction. Leonard, I live with it too.” — “The Hours”
Virginia Woolf: “You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard.” — “The Hours”
Virginia Woolf: “Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.” — “The Hours”
Virginia Woolf: “A woman’s whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life.” — “The Hours”
Virginia Woolf: “Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It’s contrast.”
— “The Hours”
Angelica Bell: “What happens when we die?” Virginia Woolf: “What happens?”
[pause] Virginia Woolf: “We return to the place that we came from.” Angelica Bell: “I don’t remember where I came from.” Virginia Woolf: “Nor do I.”
— “The Hours”
Clarissa Vaughn: “I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn’t the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.” — “The Hours”
Leonard Woolf: “Do you think it’s possible that bad writing actually attracts a higher incidence of error?”
— “The Hours”
Virginia Woolf: “Did it matter, then, she asked herself, walking toward Bond Street. Did it matter that she must inevitably cease, completely. All this must go on without her. Did she resent it? Or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? It is possible to die. It is possible to die.”
— “The Hours”
Virginia Woolf: “I was going to kill my heroine. But I’ve changed my mind. I fear I may have to kill someone else, instead.”
— “The Hours”
Virginia Woolf: “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel I can’t go through another one of these terrible times and I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices and can’t concentrate so I am doing what seems to be the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I know that I am spoiling your life and without me you could work and you will, I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. What I want to say is that I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. Everything is gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been. Virginia”
— “The Hours”
Galadriel: “The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of men, who, above all else, desire power. But they were, all of them, deceived, for another Ring was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret a master Ring, to control all others. And into this Ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One Ring to rule them all.” — LOTR “The Fellowship of the Rings”
Galadriel: ” And the ring of power has a will of its own. …some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge. …Darkness crept back into the forests of the world. Rumor grew of a shadow in the East, whispers of a nameless fear, and the Ring of Power perceived. Its time had now come. …something happened that the Ring did not intend. It was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable. A hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, of the Shire. For the time will soon come when hobbits will shape the fortunes of all…”
— LOTR “The Fellowship of the Rings”
Frodo: “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.” — LOTR “The Fellowship of the Rings”
Elise McKenna: “The man of my dreams has almost faded now. The one I have created in my mind. The sort of man each woman dreams of, in the deepest and most secret reaches of her heart. I can almost see him now before me. What would I say to him if he were really here? “Forgive me. I have never known this feeling. I have lived without it all my life. Is it any wonder, then, I failed to recognise you? You, who brought it to me for the first time. Is there any way that I can tell you how my life has changed? Any way at all to let you know what sweetness you have given me? There is so much to say. I cannot find the words. Except for these: I love you”. Such would I say to him if he were really here.” — “Somewhere In Time”
V: “…words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning…where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission… He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent… More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives… if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you…allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.”
— “V for Vendetta”
Cobb: “Dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.”
— “Inception”
Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. Madison: “War isn’t hell at all. It’s man at his best; the highest morality he’s capable of. It’s not war that’s insane, you see. It’s the morality of it. It’s not greed or ambition that makes war: it’s goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons: for liberation or manifest destiny. Always against tyranny and always in the interest of humanity. So far this war, we’ve managed to butcher some ten million humans in the interest of humanity. Next war it seems we’ll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity. It’s not war that’s unnatural to us, it’s virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers. So, I preach cowardice. Through cowardice, we shall all be saved.”
— “The Americanization of Emily”
Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. Madison: “I don’t want to know what’s good, or bad, or true. I let God worry about the truth. I just want to know the momentary fact about things. Life isn’t good, or bad, or true. It’s merely factual, it’s sensual, it’s alive. My idea of living sensual facts are you, a home, a country, a world, a universe. In that order. I want to know what I am, not what I should be.”
— “The Americanization of Emily”
the secret keeper 
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