When you look back on your teenage years, you usually have the memories of parties, being social with friends, planning future career ideas, finding your way through puberty…
I remember illness.
I was forced to grow up quickly, at a young age.
While my friends were having their birthday parties, I was at home on the floor; crouched in a ball with my mum trying to feed me Parachoc through my wails.
While everyone began working their first jobs, I was in an Adolescent Clinic for sufferers of Eating Disorders.
During Graduation, I had Glandular Fever and was bedridden.
My first year of university had many absences, as I was diagnosed with Grade II Reflux Oesophagitis.
Depression was, inevitable.
What If depression was shown on the outside?
Would we still try to fight it alone?
Copyright Paul M. Falcone
Hello All!
I’ve been slacking with the posts lately on here as I was finishing up school work but now the semester is finally out. The next week or so is going to be spent reworking and (possibly?) remodeling the blog.
Be sure to come back and check it out as I work on it, and if you visit during the next week and wonder why links go nowhere or things look incomplete, that is why.
See you all soon!
Paul
I’ve come this far with a different map in each of my hands.
They’re drawn completely from memory.
One takes me home, one takes me nowhere in particular.
I always seem to pick the path with all the shortcuts open
And the lines and the circles more steadily drawn.
Let me start by saying that I am incredibly thankful for everyone who has followed or checked out the blog so far. It’s been a little while since I last checked in with a non-creative post, so here we go.
Decided to start a photography project that deals with mental illness called “Consumed”. Many know and relate to the idea of being consumed by it. Unedited preview of a larger work to come! Find future editions here.
© Paul M. Falcone
I lie awake in bed staring at the ceiling tiles that seem to float above me. First at each individually, and then back as a whole. Noticing every dot and curve in the cheap design used in this college dorm. But as cheap as it appears, I can still find some uniqueness in each.
My eyes signal out some pieces of one section, crafting each small fragment into a picture. I let my imagination work, seeing ancient civilizations at war, groups of Christmas trees, and machinery transforming into wildlife before my eyes.
The gears turn into vines that breathe life into the sky and for a moment I can sense a feeling of tranquility spread through my body. In my head I feel alive. But even the bed that grasps me from beneath is questionable in my reality.
But in the darkness as I try to fall asleep as the only living thing is this room I feel a sense of dread. A pressing sense creeps upon me, a sense that tells me that these pictures on the ceiling won’t always stay here. I fear that in the morning, after an hour of sleep. I won’t remember this.
I fear I won’t remember me.
“I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad…
…or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.”
![Bell jar[1]](https://wemustbebroken.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/bell-jar1.jpeg)
Sylvia Plath was someone who I instantly identified with when we read The Bell Jar my senior year in high school. The thoughts that went through her head and the way she saw and perceived the world were both relatable to me in so many ways. While so many people who read the book in class couldn’t understand her descent into madness, I understood perfectly.
I am surrounded by friends. I am alone.
I am confident. I am insecure.
I am complete. I am broken.
I am healthy. I am sick.
I am one. I am two.
I am not the same as you.
I am two. But I am one.
I am sick. But I am strong.
I am broken. But I am rebuilding.
I am insecure. But I am moving forward.
I am alone. But I have found comfort in knowing,
We are all the same.
Trigger Warning For Suicide Discussion:
–
This is it.
It would be this easy to end it.
It would be this easy to take a life.
He stood against the cold metal looking straight ahead into the scarce clouds that dotted the city skyline. The sounds of engines combusting gasoline and turning pistons filled in the gaps behind him that reflected the back of his eyes with imagery. But this what just background noise.
Feedback.
Static.
Just like his mind on a constant basis.
He slowly looked down to the waters below. It was so far down. Is this what I truly want? He fought back to look in his mind for any reason not to step forward the six inches between life and death. But he found none. He heard footsteps of people walking down the sidewalk on the side of the bridge. But no one stopped. No one asked.
No one cared.
His eyes began to water as the breeze from the river brushed into his reaming emotions. How did it come to this? How did it come to the point where he wanted to die? Where each day he went to sleep hoping he wouldn’t wake up?
Dear Hope 